Flavion: Breakout from the Meuse - France ´40

From SC France ´40 The Ghost Division

It´s been awhile now, but Magnus and I have finally played the third scenario in the France´40 campaign. The reason for the hiatus is that the scenario involved quite a lot of tanks, that neither of us had since before. Magnus even painted up a great looking unit of motorcycle mounted troops.

Background

Seeing the danger in the German bridgehead the French ordered General Bruneau´s 1st armored division to counter the threat from the bridgehead. During the movements the fuel trucks was separated from the armor. The french tanks waited at Flavion to get re-fueled, and as that was in progress the German 7th panzer division descended upon them.

Bottleneck at Onhaye - France ´40

From SC: France ´40: The ghost division

This weekend we played the second game in France ´40 . the Ghost Division. For this scenario Magnus had painted some lovely armor for his german, Panzer II and Panzer 38(t) and I had tried to do a french 47 cm AT gun, a model that no one does in 1:56 scale.

As the tanks started to come across the Meuse at the small bridgehead elements of the 7th infantry regiment was tasked with clearing a way for the german panzer through the difficult terrain at Onhaye. A miscommunication between Rommel and the regiment leader colonel Bismarck, lead to Rommel committing 30 tanks to the engagement at Onhaye. The french forces of 5th infantry division just had to hold their ground for a short while until the 1st armoured division would be available.

Dragoons at Haut le Wastia - France ´40

From Skirmish Campaigns: France ´40 The Ghost division

A couple of weeks ago Magnus and I started to play a skirmish campaign that we been planning and
collecting models for awhile. Magnus been collecting and painting germans and I the mighty army of France. There are four books in the Skirmish campaign series that lets you to replay Fall Gelb. We started with France ´40 - the Ghost Division, with the intention to try and play all the mission and in the future all the four books. Some of the scenarios have alot of tanks, and our intention is to scale them down to half the amount.

The first scenario is called "Dragoons at Haut le Wastia" and recounts the fighting around the village Haut le Wastia, close to the Meuse river. On the 13th of May the French planed a major counter attack at the german bridgehead at Houx, but after some delays it amounted to nothing more than some probing actions. In the morning of the 14th, the french troops tried again to attack the german forces that had set up defences in the village. As the germans hadnt got anything across the Meuse in the form heavy support or tanks it came down to some motorcycle troops to hold Haut le Wastia and the bridgehead.

Gothcon 2014

Gothcon XXVIII

This year at Gothcon (an annual gaming convention in Gothenburg) I teamed up with a friend of mine, Magnus, to do a Bolt action scenario. At the time when we started to plan the scenario we were both commited to painting the units for a campaign from the skirmish Campaign series: Monty´s EPSOM, so it felt natural to use that book as inspiration.

After some discussion we decided to use the scenario "Royal tanks". It´s different than many other of the scenarios in the series as it is a meeting engagment, so neither side is defending. This we thought would make a great scenario as an introduction to Bolt action. It pits parts of the 15th Scottish Division against elements of Kampfgruppe Weidinger  somewhere between Caen and Villers Bocage.

Bolt action - Maximum attrition

Innan Magnus och jag involverade oss djupare i Skirmishcampaigns så kom vi överens om att köra ett par
"normala" Bolt Action, främst för att få bättre flyt på reglerna. Efter att samlat ihop ett bord med 28 mm terräng på Studiefrämjandet slog vi fram scenariot: Maximum Attrition. Inget börjar på slagfältet utan kommer in i början av första rundan, man kan sätta enheter i reserv och dessa kan då flanka, ingen av oss använde detta alternativet. Själva uppdraget går ut på att slå ut så mycket av motståndarens enheter utan att förlora sina egna. En poäng för varje enhet och man måste få två poäng mer en motståndaren.

Argyll advance - Normandy ´44- Monty´s EPSOM

Date: 29 june 1944, 0800 hours

Location: Sligthly south of the bridges across the Odon River, north of Gavrus, Normandy.

On the morning of 29 June, B-company of 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, 15th Scottish division, was selected to probe south to Gavrus with the task of occupying the the town, Magnus took the role as commander of these forces to try to achieve that:

• 2x Patrol teams - 6 man each
• 1x Infantry squad - 10 man strong
• 1x Reinforced Infantry squad - 10 man strong w. PIAT
• 1x 6lb Anti-tank gun
• 1x 2" mortar

Occupying the outskirts of Gavrus, was elements of 12th SS panzer division, commanding these was Johan:

• 1x SdKfz 234/2
• 2x Panzer grenadiers teams – 4 man strong w. MG-42
• 1x MMG team
• 1x Panzer grenadier team – 6 man strong