Some Corner of the Six Day War

I bought really quite a lot of sprues in Warlord's half price sale last year in a grandiose plan to add to my Chain of Command collection. That went nowhere. This year, having written Some Corner of a Foreign Field, I tried to think of ways to adapt those models to a post-war environment. Only having to paint up a squad instead of a platoon to get a game going is a great incentive to paint in my book. If you want a battle report, go here or here! 

Thanks to an accidental peruse of the WI issue going over Battlefront's Six Day War releases, I noticed that a lot of the kit used in that conflict was ex-WWII – crucially, surplus British and American equipment, which was exactly what I needed to use up. A little bit of digging around and some conversions later, I had three squads ready to go – Israeli leg infantry (a bit too dark), Israeli Paratroopers, and a squad of Jordanian leg infantry.  

That led me to investigate Suez too, and soon I will be morphing my Jordanians as Egyptians to fight against British, French and Israeli paratroopers of the time.

In all, I used Warlord Games' British and American bodies, heads & weapons, TAG FN FALs, Wargames Factory Uzis & WWII German arms/weapons (Israeli paratroopers had three Mauser 98ks per squad).

I'm actually very happy with how my lezard camouflage came out, especially since I rarely attempt such awkward uniforms. Luckily, French post-war camouflage tended almost exclusively toward horizontal stripes, so I didn't need to get clever with my brush strokes. I may go back over the models to highlight their skin at some point, but it seems that Middle Eastern flesh looks much better under a wash than European skin does.

The main mistake I made was not putting a bipod on those FALs chosen to be the heavy-barrelled version, but I noticed too late and I don't really mind. They are still easy to tell apart as they are the only kneeling models with that particular weapon. I also gave the Jordanians Lee-Enfields instead of M1 Garands because I was clipping sprues on autopilot – but really, that just makes it easier to morph them as Suez-era Egyptians.

I hope you enjoy these cheap examples of 28mm models for an under-covered conflict.

Jordanian Infantry Squad

Jordanian Infantry Squad

Israeli Paratroopers

Israeli Paratroopers in more natural light.

Israeli Infantry

Israeli Infantry "Samal"

Israeli Paratrooper "Samal"

Jordanian Infantry corporal

Painting Scheme

GW Khemri Brown – Israeli uniforms

Foundry 12C Drab – Jordanian uniforms

Vallejo Brown Olive – Jordanian & Israeli helmets, paratrooper fatigues, grenades

Foundry 46C Cadaverous Green – Paratrooper uniform base

Foundry 98B Denison Green – Paratrooper stripes

Foundry 126C African Flesh – Paratrooper stripes

Foundry 100C British Uniform – Skin

Foundry 9B Boneyard – Paratrooper helmets & boots, Israeli webbing

Foundry 121A Dark African Flesh – Boots & gunmetal, Israeli helmet straps, hair

Foundry 90C British Equipment Canvas – Jordanian webbing & gaiters

Foundry 45A Deep Brown Leather – woodwork, cigars

Nottingham Young Wargamers - Victory with Honour

As Tom has already mentioned, the Nottingham Young Gamers event took place a week or two ago, and I was fortunate enough to be one of the half dozen adults showing the youngsters the non-GW side of wargaming.

I was responsible for GMing a "Hadrian's Wall" skirmish game between Romans and Celts, and like any GM, I took four players at a time - two per team. Both rounds lasted about an hour, so the children had the chance to take part in more than one activity.

The game was played using my own quickplay ruleset Victory With Honour, which uses two scales for victory: tactical victory and Glory. The simple addition of a secondary victory mechanic sends most players nuts (in a good way) - especially children - and gets them fighting like their ancestors, with one eye on victory and the other on their reputation.

One round was a minor victory to the Celts and a moral victory to the Romans, and the other was a glorious Celtic victory. Watching the children scheme and pick their targets was great fun, as was hearing an eight year old say very seriously to his friend: "William, we have to start killing people now."

Anyhoo, here are lots of pictures of Mr Morris' lovely sub-Roman fortifications and the models he did up for his old school wargaming club.

Club Dredd!

Tonight was my second night playing Dredd at the club, and the first time I've gotten round to writing about it. The Mongoose/Warlord rules are eminently playable and presented in a lovely book - and the models aren't half bad either!

Despite that, we mostly played with 3rd party stuff tonight; Foundry, Eureka and some Mongoose in there for flavour.

In our first game, Brit-Cit's finest, Detective Judges Mortimer, Menace and Strange, had to stop an evil Warlock (see below) from detonating a gigantic stockpile of Meat Virus, part of a foreign exchange with Mega City one.

See, an evil warlock.

The Meat Virus stockpile, virulently yellow.

The DJs advanced quickly and dispensed arrests, but not quickly enough! A winged, lightning-lashing demon appeared from above and swooped down on Detective Strange. Ignoring the doughty Brit's immense willpower, it ate him. Spluch, rip, chew.

Detective Strange stands firm against the demon!

Detective Strange dies squidgily against the demon...

Meanwhile Mortimer and Menace were arresting felons left, right and centre - even those who dared shoot at the law's duly appointed officers.

Menace subdues a train of cultists.

Unfortunately, that pesky bloodstained demon was still about, and despite Menace's stalwart attempts to punch the inter-dimensional terror in the face...

Face punching not a 100% problem-solver.

Is it? No. Grind, chew, spit.

...it ate him too.

Mortimer, the team leader, held on as long as she could, taking potshots at the crazed wizard who was still programming Judgement Day into the explosive device. Until the demon ate her. Phloo. Hair got caught. BWAHAHAHAHAHA.

So, yes. Despite arresting/knocking out all but one of the cultists, Brit Cit was doomed to a double whammy plague/demon invasion. Ho hum.

In our second, pictureless game, our brave heroes took on three crooked American judges, and beat them senseless - or in the case of their psychic, Executioned them to blammy death.

It's a fun game, it doesn't need too many models, and the scenery is easily morphed to any other near-future urban locale - perfect for 28mm gaming!

South East Asian Hooches

With the unscheduled offer of a Vietnam game on Sunday, I had to get some extra scenery together. Here is a quick guide to super-cheap 15mm hooches.

1. Collect a heap of pill boxes (poundstore drugs are excellent for this).
2. Wrap them solid with masking tape.
3. Add ends from thick cardboard, cork or foamboard. I used leftover scraps of foamboard this time, but will use cork is future. These will support the roof, so cut them to your preferred angle. I like to make hooches with very wide angled roofs to suggest a lack of sophistication.
4. Wrap the whole thing in masking tape again.
5. OPTIONAL STEP: Glue buildings to bases. I used gorilla glue and then put wood filler around the edge to simulate earth.
6. Cut roofs from thin card, allowing a small amount of gable on every side. PVA them on. If you tie them on with elastic bands (make sure this is from gable to gable!), they will begin to sag realistically.
7. Give the walls a quick coat of textured paint – alternatively, you could use thinned grouting.
8. Add half-matchsticks above the doors, and quartered matchsticks below any windows.
9. Cut a cheap hand towel or microfibre car rag (my favourite) to a size slightly larger than the roof. Glue on with PVA. As the glue starts to go tacky, pour more PVA on top and stroke the loops downwards to simulate thatch
10. When it is all dry, paint everything dark brown.
11. When that is dry, drybrush the walls brown-grey or drab, and the roofs your favourite thatch colour. Add doors and windows as wanted.

All told, these probably took about four-five hours of attention, tops. They also cost all of sweet nothing to produce. The most expensive element was probably the plasticard for the bases. The important thing is to let them dry properly (over and over again). I definitely recommend this simple method for anyone who wants to increase their South-East Asian terrain collection. Painted a little differently and with varying angles of roof they could make peasant buildings from almost anywhere across Eurasia.

Next time I add to the village, I will use cocktail sticks to break up the outsides of the buildings, and use cork for the gables, as mentioned above. I will also try my hand at making some elevated buildings too. Nothing says Vietnam so much as harried men looking for weapons caches under the porch of a hooch on stilts.

As for Sunday's game, the outnumbered Americans and their claymore mines showed the value of superior training, annihilating the NVA who tried to seize their bridge. The captain's platoon were destroyed in the open due to an unlucky movement roll, and the others were worn away as they tenaciously held on under heavy fire - even driving away two casevac choppers with a mix of RPG and machine gun fire. The final result was a military draw, but a massive political victory for the Free World, with a 17-52 split in points. 

The set up, around Tu Hah.

Another view.

The two Tu Hah bridges.

NVA platoon 3 springs an ambush as it approaches the District Chief's mansion

Heavy opening NVA casualties as claymores and M60s open up.

The human wave! falls a little short of its objective.

Brave Communist martyrs mine the bridge under heavy fire.

The remnants of the captain's platoon after a round of US fire...

1 Platoon fall back, shattered.

The enormous US base of fire between the bridges.

Lieutenant Truc Ngoi sacrifices himself to blow the bridge.

The company's weapons platoon ambushes the casevac detail!

Cheated of a helicopter, the RPG blows up the mansion instead!

Lieutenant Sweeney's platoon protect the LZ.

The defenders of the injured.