Scenario 8 Dead Ground

WTF happened to 2023? One moment it's May, and I'm contemplating playing this scenario over the Victoria Day long weekend, and next thing it's gone Christmas and I've done nothing hobby related other than build an Italeri church. I guess 'real life happened' is the answer, and after a blizzard of house guests, trips to see family, a vacation (3 whole days of camping) and work, work, work, the dust has finally settled. Momentarily, at least.

Those Byzantines have been back from Sri Lanka and all based up since this time last year, so they're ready for the first battle to feature them against the Sassanians. 

Typical Canadian winter terrain welcomes our new arrivals from Sri Lanka

Taking a leaf from the book of Ken Riley, the Yarkshire Gamer, I am making this battle as big as possible, by basically sizing it to use the maximum number of the units I possess. In practice, this leaves only a couple of Byzantine cavalry, some skirmishers and an odd unit of Sassanian archers, off the table.

Part 2: Reinforcements

So I'm just over halfway through Part 1 and, more importantly, have all the figures and terrain I need ready for the rest of the scenarios. So, time to start planning the scenarios for (the much shorter) Part 2. Three great scenarios, the latter two involve nothing too out of the ordinary, but the first of them requires my long-planned inter war militia units, motorcycle and sidecar recce plus a lot of buildings. Not sure how much paint drinking will happen, but plenty of glue-sniffing in my future.

Manufacturers are surprisingly coy about their sets of Syldavian Militia

(Note: Zvezda kits purchased long before February 2022)

Scenario 5 Rear Guard (1)

For a brief moment, this small corner of northwestern Europe seems calm and peaceful. (My motley collection of buildings makes it unclear exactly which corner. A distinctly Italianate railway station, some oddly Russian huts, a very English looking cottage and, of course, a farmhouse that is forever Belgium. These days the quality of terrain you see at shows and online is infinitely superior, with people going to extremes to reproduce the precise architecture of the particular battle or theatre they are recreating. I can’t even get my basing to match the terrain tiles.)

But the year is 1944, and remnants of a defeated army are clogging the roads as they hurry towards the remaining bridges. Shortly afterwards, a hastily assembled kampfgruppe takes up position to act as rearguard and shield the retreat. For not far off is the enemy's light armour, seeking to turn this retreat into a rout.

The WWII armies are the first I have built entirely myself, from scratch, for this project. I started back in July and am feeling quite pleased with myself, with over 80 figures and 25 vehicles completed. For someone as klutzy as this hound, the PSC kits are a joy to put together, and I even survived the more fiddly Italeri and Caesar sets with (what’s left of) my sanity intact.