Tuesday 26 March 2024

Butterfly Painting.......

 Its a real pot pourri of different, recently painted figures tonight, the butterfly that often affects my purchasing decisions, has now manifested itself in my painting, too!



First up, for the sake of completeness, it's the last pair of 1st Corps Fallschirmjaegers



Next, the first of the 28mm Spanish Civil War figures from Templar Miniatures - these are Republican Assault Guards


The Cuerpo de Seguridad y Asalto (English: Security and Assault Corps) was the heavy reserve force of the blue-uniformed urban police force of Spain under the Spanish Second Republic. The Assault Guards were special paramilitary units created by the Spanish Republic in 1931 to deal with urban and political violence. Most of the recruits in the Assault Guards were ex-military personnel, many of whom were veterans. They would later on be reformed and utilized in the Spanish Civil War as army infantry divisions.

At the onset of the Spanish Civil War there were 18,000 Assault Guards. About 12,600 stayed loyal to the Republican government, while another 5,400 joined the rebel faction. Many of its units fought against the Franco supporting armies and their allies. Their siding with the former Spanish Republic's government brought about the disbandment of the corps at the end of the Civil War. The members of the Guardia de Asalto who had survived the war and the ensuing Francoist purges were made part of the Policía Armada, the corps that replaced it.



Of all the reserve forces that had remained in the government zone, the Assault Guards were the most highly regarded by most of the population. This made a large number of serving soldiers decide to join this body; to avoid the misgivings and suspicions that military affiliation had created among the workers' militias. This fact reached the point that the President of the Ministry of War, Largo Caballero, had to prohibit Army officers from joining the Assault Guard without authorization from the Ministry of War. The Assault Guards distinguished themselves as a reliable and shock infantry to which the Republic always entrusted its most delicate operations, such as the battles of Madrid and Guadalajara, the securing of Belchite, and the suppression of the events in Barcelona during May. Later in the war, the Assault Corps became the elite of the Spanish Republican Army. The writer George Orwell reflected on it in one of his most outstanding works:

"They were splendid troops, much the best I had seen in Spain [...]. I was used to the ragged, scarcely armed militia on the Aragón front, and I had not known that the Republic possessed troops like these. It was not only that they were picked men physically, but it was also their weapons that most astonished me..."



The Carabineros (frontier guards) and the Assault Guards were the Spanish police and paramilitary corps where the 1936 coup found the least support. When the Civil War began, over 70% of the Assault Guards stayed loyal to the Spanish Republic. On the other hand, in the Guardia Civil the breakup of loyalists and rebels was distributed evenly at around 50%, although the highest authority of the corps, Inspector General Sebastián Pozas, remained loyal to the republican government.





Next, some characters for Pulp games or civilian bystanders for 1930 or 1940 era games ie SCW or WWII - these are from the excellent Brigade Games Mob Wars range.



And finally, the first four Renegade Woodland Indians have also had some warpaint applied - although I decided not to do actual facial warpaint on this batch - that may change on some of the future batches of these figures.






I hope you have enjoyed the variety of figures on offer tonight - not sure what will be up next, but I should get in one more post before the end of March!

Sunday 24 March 2024

Sunday Game - Russian Civil War with Perfect Captains "Red Actions"

 Today we had a very enjoyable game of RCW/ Back of Beyond with Chris, Julian and I playing the forces of enlightenment and proletarian liberation, whilst Rick, Barry and Paul were the lackeys of Imperialist oppression (including those well-known enemies of free peoples everywhere - The Poles!)

The rules are a kind of IGO/UGO but with a variation - each player on one side activates and does an action with one unit, then the other side does the same, and you continue like this until all units on both sides have done something. You cannot "pass" when it's your sides turn - so you can't "save up" your turns until later (like Iron Cross or 1914 by Great Escape Games)

The QRF for the rules is shown below, for anyone who is interested.

Each force has a number of cards, with all the stats for the various units. For example, if you look at my Naval Infantry card, they can move 5 inches, fire 18 inches effective range (double for long), when firing, they add up all the bases in the unit and multiply it by 5 to see which column they are looking at for the result of firing, if they have to do a Fear test, they must score 7 or less on 2 D6, likewise for Serious event or Rally test.


View down the length of the table - Reds to the left (appropriately!) the others to the right, with Poles right off down in the far top left corner


Джулия Большой Рот (Julia Big Mouth) - delivering an inspiring speech to the Bolshevik forces defending a vital railway station.


The initial deployment of my force


Paul's Polish force (Julians figures, all by Siberia Miniatures out of....well...Siberia!)


Barrys Back of Beyond Chinese forces



Ricks White Russian forces (even though some were Czechs and a few even Anarchists!)


Chris had an all-cavalry command - Buddenys  1st Cavalry Army (Russian: Первая конная армия,  Pervaya konnaya armiya) perhaps??


Julian in the centre with infantry, holding the railway station and adjacent village.



Кэтрин бессердечная (Katherine Heartless), the Cheka Commissar, keeps a steely eye out for any hesitation or signs of cowardice!


A couple of views from the window of Barry's gaming bunker



The path down from the front of the house to the bunker door


A view inside of the layout, from the entry door.

The action continues, with Ricks force plastering the cavalry with artillery and HMG fire!



Ricks very nice figure of the Anarchist leader, Batko Nestor Makhno.


Whites advancing in the centre.


My armoured car moves up.


As does the Polish counterpart, with cavalry in support. White markers indicate the unit has taken an action this turn.


Polish cavalry galloping forwards.



The Polish C in C.


The centre of the table with Barrys advance being held back by Bolshevik fire power.


But on our right flank, Chris was being sorely handled by Rick, who had more than his fair share of support weapons and was slowly (and sometimes not so slowly) whittling down the Red cavalry.


View down the table around the mid point of the game


The Chinese continue to advance, despite losing a number of their support weapons to Red fire.




One of my high points, my artillery scores a direct hit on Barrys FT17 - the only tank on the table!



Red Banners!




To be fair, I had to reprise the photographic evidence when Barrys mortar got a double 6 on my armoured car!



A Chekist infantry unit, complete with Leon Trotsky in the lead!


The Red Airforce finally arrives .....


..... and Barrys AA MG truck rolled a double 6 and destroyed it! 



Julian insisted I take a ground level image with the AAA and the burning plane both in it!


The much-reduced Bolshevik cavalry are still playing their part, pinning Ricks forces in position.


A nasty surprise for the Whites, 2 HMG's concealed in the village building shown below.



By this stage, the Polish cavalry had overrun and killed one of my gun crews and had a very lucky escape when my sailors HMG only needed 5 or better on 2 D6 to wipe them out - and rolled 4!


The Bolshevik left flank (me) repositioned to meet the Polish threat. Note the absence of my second field gun, which had now also succumbed to a Polish cavalry charge!



Three Polish HMG deployed in the woods, plus the armoured car on the road, destroyed or suppressed most of my support weapons.


And Julian was getting hammered in the centre, too (don't mention how the cavalry were fairing against an armoured car, two artillery pieces and four HMG's!)


The "lucky" Polish cavalry unit (above) that charged and destroyed both my field guns, and (mostly) lived to tell the tale!



We called the game at this point - I was down to 2 suppressed HMG plus the largely intact infantry, Julian had no support weapons at all, and the cavalry was basically gone .... time for the Chekist Кэтрин бессердечная to jump in her staff car and reposition herself - and everyone else to betray the revolution and abandon the defence of the railway - feels like some decimation might be in the offing!


The Polish infantry, who did no more than march all day, will be buying their cavalry mates a few drinks tonight, no doubt!

Well, that was all a lot of fun and it was great to get a portion of my RCW collection out on the table again, even if the result was an ignominious defeat and the loss of the strategic railway station! Hope you have enjoyed reading about it half as much as we enjoyed playing it!