War Is Hell

I’m not sure who will be reading this and when, but as I write this we are about a week into Vladimir Putin’s atrocious invasion of Ukraine in 2022. I’ve been meaning to write something the last couple of days but found it hard to collect my thoughts. So I will just briefly jot something down, perhaps mainly as a way to clear my head.

I’ve been watching and reading about the horrors unfolding in Ukraine for the last few days; the endless sorrow of lives lost, the senseless destruction.

If you’ve been reading this blog you know it is about gaming out the Cold War going hot in Europe. One reason that has been my interest and fascination is that we never saw a hot super power confrontation. Turning these hypothetical scenarios into a hobby didn’t have the same baggage as other conflicts for me since this war never really took place (whether that is hypocritical or self deluding of me I’ll leave unsaid.) I started primary school just as the Berlin wall came down, and the notion of a full scale war across Europe has felt like a ridiculous proposition to me my whole life. Until now.

Enormous sacrifices are being made at this moment. By those who defend their homes, family, friends and neighbors. By those who leave everything behind to flee into uncertainty. By those who stand up and say ‘no’ regardless of risk to personal safety, whether in front of a tank in Kharkiv or riot police in Moscow. By teenage conscripts issued criminal orders and left to die cold and alone for an egotistical despot’s delusions.

This Sunday Vladimir Putin announced he put Russia’s nuclear forces on a high alert. This came after the Russian state department had threatened my home country and others militarily. In the night I hugged my four year old daughter as she slept and was struck by the thought that I might wake to a flash and everything would be over. That this might be the last time. To face such thoughts in 2022 feels surreal and horrifying.

I hope that by being confronted by this in the heart of Europe once more we see clearly that war is hell. That its terrible cost is driven home in each and every one of us. That we will not abide those who instigate it.

As always thank you for your time. Take care of yourself and those around you and appreciate what you have.

Please consider donating to the Red Cross.

PS. One final thing. I removed an old post that dealt with the relationship between the US, NATO, Ukraine and Russia after the Cold War. Although it was sourced mainly from War On The Rocks (which hardly can be said to be a Kremlin mouthpiece), I felt that in retrospect (and especially now) the content of the post was a bit too similar to disinformation talking points. The topic should be tackled with nuance and deeper knowledge, not as an aside.

Toy Soldiers off to War

It’s been a long time here, and I’m still somewhat dormant. But I had to share this in any case. I was very glad to get a message from the author of a blog called Toy Soldiers off to War who had been inspired by my hex terrain. I found this very humbling, since their hex terrain looks incredible. It consists of neatly tesselating hexagons with beatiful, hand carved houses and terrain features (created from styrofoam).

You have to check it out if you’re the least bit interested in wargame terrain making, and 6mm scale terrain in particular. You’ll find some sample images below, and the rest at the blog.

Alive

Just wanted to quickly pop in and say that Northern Wedding is still alive. Me and Swordsman played a game the other day, a symmetrical confrontation across the Autobahn. I led a pretty successful flanking offensive on one front, but we sadly didn’t have time to finish the game.

This time we used a custom ruleset I’ve been working on. I’ll hopefully post more on that at some point. All the best in the meantime.

Completed Gas Station

As you might have spotted in the previous post (where we used it as terrain), the gas station is now finished. I actually finished it a week or so back, but couldn’t find the cord for my camera to transfer the images. I’m overall really happy with the result.

I decided to showcase it as a little diorama, with an attack on an American tank column. The fuel drums are part of a bunch of 6mm terrain I bought from Perfect Six Miniatures a while back. Enjoy!

Play it again, SAM

During the week, me and Swordsman played a game of Fireteam. The scenario premise was that NATO forces had pushed back the front line, and a forward US cavalry scout troop had managed to capture an undefended Sa-3 site. The game was to take six turns, and the NATO objective was to hold the SAM site on turn six, and had a bonus objective of eliminating the Warsaw Pact company command squad. NATO reinforcements would arrive at the start of turn 4.

The board in the late game. NATO reinforcements entering through the village at the near end.

The Warsaw Pact objective was simply to dislodge the Americans from the SAM site, while inflicting maximum casaulties. The Warsaw Pact force consisted of a motor rifle platoon mounted in BMP-1s, with an attached section of T-72Bs, as well as the company command squad in a BMP-1.

The objective, an SA-3 SAM site.

The initial NATO force consisted of three M901 ITV TOW carriers, three M113 ACAVs, and three squads of scouts. Reinforcements on turn 4 came in the form of two Bradleys with infantry and a USMC M60A3 with ERA.

I played NATO this time and managed a lot of lucky rolls. Especially the ITVs managed to eliminate a frightening amount of BMPs and T-72s, acting as long range AT-snipers from their position on a forested hillside.

NATO heroes of the game, these two ITVs perched on the hill managed an impressive armour kill list.

In the end however, although I still had a toe-hold on the SAM site, NATO losses proved too great and Swordsman’s Warsaw Pact won with 1 victory point.

Gas Station: Slowly getting there

In my ongoing gas station project I got the idea to cover the cardboard in plaster to give it a nicer texture. I think the result was pretty good. The roof is painted a dark grey and then dry brushed. I used a fine grained wall plaster.

Plastered but unpainted.

Bonus material: Just started a tower block using the same technique.

Work in progress: Gas Station

So I’ve slowly been ramping up the 6mm stuff lately. About a week ago I played a US vs USSR mechanised meeting engagement with Rory Crabb’s Fireteam Modern rules, and during the weekend I’ve been tinkering with some new terrain. I thought I’d share some progress just to get some content up.

A building I’ve wanted to add for quite a while is a gas station. I think it will nicely break up my otherwise quite pastoral board. So yesterday I decided to scratch build one from cardboard. I simply took some measurements and cut up the pacaking for a chocolate bar.

As usual I start by sketching a layout on the plaster covered styrofoam.

I haven’t really based the design on reference images, or even went to any lengths to get the measurements correct scalewise. I just wanted to get going and throw something together. Never the less, I think the results are pretty good thus far.

Then I just started cutting what seemed like a reasonable shape with a pair of scissors and glueing it together with PVA.

A rim around the roof adds a little character. Out of focus in the foreground is the station sign. Matchsticks make for good pillars. I think it’s all starting to come together nicely here.

In space, No-one Can Hear You Blog

So I’ve been pretty quiet lately. All of my more or less strange hobbies come and go for me, in almost predictable cycles. During the fall I was working on a hobby project computer game (the elevator pitch was basically “a mech simulator in Stephen King’s The Mist”). I might show it off here at some point.

And lately I’ve been spending my time in Elite: Dangerous. But although the cold war stuff has been on ice for a while, I’ll get back around to it again soon for sure. Enjoy some images from my space forays in the meantime.

In orbit over a huge crater (the crater rim stretches from top to bottom just in front of the ship).

After touch down inside the crater wall (visible as it goes over the horizon in the upper left corner). Heading off with the rover to inspect a crash site for survivors, flight recorders or salvage (visible as a black smudge in the distance).

All the best, and as always, thank you for your time.

M548

I don’t have that many support and logistics vehicles yet. I guess they generally make more sense if you play on a more abstracted scale than 1:1 (like brigade or division level systems). However, I did pick up a bunch of US M548 carriers. I have a special plan for one of them, and the rest could be used as escort objectives or something I suppose. I think I managed some of my better paintwork on these thus far as well, which is a bit sad as they probably wont spend too much time on the board. Two more images after the break.

Leopards

I’ve started building up a West-German 6mm force, and the first finished unit is a platoon of Leopard 1A4’s. I’ll spare you the historical anecdotes this time, and just leave you with these two fellas. As usual, GHQ quality and detail is great.

The Bundeswehr crosses are hand painted (as you can probably see). I figure they’re on a “good enough”-level for 6mm scale.