Battle of Messines Village

I don’t particuarly like Flames of War – or specifically, the WWII variant. I’ve played it before – my interest in the game goes back to buying the v1 Rulebook whilst I was in university – but I’ve kinda lost interest over the years. No idea exactly why, but I think its partially that it got too bloated over the editions. But my interest in the game did help spark my interest in Millitary History. Without Flames of War, I would have never looked up several of the YouTube channels that I regularly watch now.

But the spin-offs to FoW, now those are interesting. Team Yankee is one I’m kinda OK with (see one of my other projects), and Fate of a Nation is one I’ve love to get into, but the lack of opponents in NZ is an issue. But the Great War? I remember picking up the original booklet along with a copy of Wargaming Illustrated, and it caught my attention immediately. Before that, I was one who had a very limited image of WW1, viewing it as a case of static trench warfare, mud, blood and guts. But looking it up after picking up the rules opened my eyes a bit. Even if it did teach me that, during the war, France lost one man dead for every minute the war dragged on…

Luckily, the Bunker in Auckland had a copy of the Great War rulebook, as well as starter sets for each of the factions. So it wasn’t too much of a hassle to pick them all up to eventually get into the game.

But then it occurred to me – there’s probably a lack of opponents here too. “Well, no matter. I can do this a fun little side project, maybe breaking it out every so often for those who are interested…hang on, why not do something for Armistice Day? Probably not the best way to remember, but it is something a gamer can do, right?

So, what should be the first game I aim for? I’d be doing up both sides, but if I work it out ahead of time, it should cut my work down a bit. Still, I’d also need a scenario that I could get people interested in, and that would mean a battle that New Zealanders fought in, since I’m living in New Zealand.

Over time, I’ve written up a bunch of army lists for various historical battles, based on where they were, who fought at them, and a general idea of what the battle entailed. The list currently includes:

• Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneaux
• Battle of Amiens
• Battle of St Quentin Canal
• Battle of Balleau Woods
• Battle of Hamel
• Battle of Soissons
• Battle of LaMalmaison

(By the way, if anyone has a good idea for a historical scenario I could cover, please leave the suggestion in the comments).

But reading through the list of battles that the New Zealand Division participated in, I came across one that was an excellent choice: The Battle of Messines. Not only is it a major battle in the war, but it was the first battle to see the deployment of the Mk IV tank. This got me interested quickly, as it meant I could put several aspects of the game into one scenario, making it interesting for my participants overall.

So, how should I construct the forces? Well, investigations showed that the section of the line I should be interested in had the New Zealand Division vs elements of 7th German Division and 1st Guard Reserve Division, attacking directly towards Messines itself. Given that it was an attack towards entrenchments would suggest a Big Push scenario, but this suited me fine.

The attackers were a fairly straight forward army to put together – a Rifle Company with armoured support. The Defenders were a bit more difficult, as whilst I was thinking a Siegfriedstellung, this was not on the Siegfried line, so it would be more appropriate for an Infanteriekompanie on the line. Additionally, the literature describes Stosstruppen as the immediate reserves to the front line – but the Stosskompanie organisation doesn’t really strike me as a good counter-attack force. But there are the Jagers, which are elite troops, so that formed a decent reserve. I’d also need to include some decent guns to counter the tanks, and I figured that artillery guns were probably more appropriate than AT guns, since both the T-Gewehr and TaK weren’t introduced until 1918.

The final list I came up with was thus:

Attack on Messines Village, Battle of Messines
The Big Push

II ANZAC Corps (New Zealand Division) – Attackers

ANZAC Rifle Company

Company HQ – Webley Pistols = 2 pts
Rifle Platoon = 15 pts
Rifle Platoon = 15 pts
Rifle Platoon = 15 pts
Rifle Platoon = 15 pts
MG Platooon – 3 x MG = 14 pts
Stokes Mortar = 6 pts
Stokes Mortar = 6 pts
Green Male Mk IV Tank = 17 pts (Support)
Green Male Mk IV Tank = 17 pts (Support)

7th German Division and 1st Guard Reserve Division – Defenders

Infanteriekompanie

Kompanie HQ – Mauser Pistols = 2 pts
Infanterie Platoon – M1917 team = 11 pts
Infanterie Platoon – M1917 team = 11 pts
MG Platoon – 3 x MG = 14 pts
MG Platoon – 3 x MG = 14 pts
Minenwerfer = 9 pts
Minenwerfer = 9 pts
Sniper = 4 pts (Support)
+6 Barbed Wire

Reserves
Jager Platoon – Flamethrower team, MP18 team, M1917 team = 25 pts (Support)
7.7cm Field Gun = 9 pts (Support)
7.7cm Field Gun = 9 pts (Support)
Werfer Section – 2 x Gratenwerfer = 6 pts

Unfortunately, the points limits for front-line troops meant that the werfers had to be in reserve, but it kinda worked as it seemed like the Jagers were bringing their own mortars into the counter-attack. Also, the two german MG platoons are probably going to be swapped for MG pillboxes, which would give the tanks somthing to blow up.

Ok – sorted. Now to get the painting underway…

Geez, project #5, and the other four are all on-hold. And this is in between working on DBx stuff, six variants of SAGA, Billion Suns…I’m looking more and more like the wargaming magpie I don’t particularly like…

Geez, its been, what, two months since I started this? Combined with BF’s factory getting shuttered because of the ‘rona, a lockdown in Auckland, a 7-day challenge with my gaming group, and a month-long diversion making two boxed worth of terrain, I got at least some things done…some…at least…

• Jager Platoon x 1
• Infanterie HQ x 1
• Sniper x 1
• Gratenwerfer Section x 1
• Minenwerfer x 3
• Infanterie MG Platoon x 1
• Heavy Gun x 2

Which is pretty much most of the German force – short a couple of Infanterie Platoons, of course. And an MG platoon, but my reasoning is that that platoon would be exchanged for some MG nests on the defense.

Currently I have the Heavy Weapons and a few other things on the table for the Infanterie Platoons, but I’m actually about a dozen riflemen short of finishing those platoons in their entirety. Luckily, I have two blisters inbound from a member of the Great War facebook group, so that should hopefully get things done for me.

Then its onto the Kiwis – and the numbers there are an issue. Another box of Mitchell’s Marauders, maybe? That’d deal with the tank issue as well…

Background noise: SWAT seasons 1-3 (2017-2019)

So, after completing some German weapons, I wanted to do somthing more…relaxing…before beginning on the slog to do the Kiwis

The final result was pretty good, imo, even if the camo splotches are a little bright. Nixie and Sigfried from ATD 2 (since I’ll be using them for the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux eventually), as well as the first Beutepanzer that the Germans will be getting.

But then to complicate things, I got a delivery this morning – of the infanterie platoons I’d gotten off someone from Facebook.

Ugh…

I’ve already undercoated and inked the first Kiwis, so maybe I’ll get those done before going back to finish off the Hun…

So, Remberance Day rolls around and we’re…not done. Not that it would matter – Auckland only just dropped down to lockdown level 3.2, so we won’t be even restarting at our clubs before December. And that sucks…

But still, how far did we get? Well, here is my progress on my (revised 100pt) armies:

As you can see, most of the actual minis are done, just some basing to be completed. Plus the final 50 German riflemen, and the Mk Vs

One thing I should note is that each of the units has a piece of magnetic tape glued to the underside of its base (which is why the tanks have small bases as well). I’m using these so I can store the minis in a set of biscuit tins without risk of being casually jostled around. I manged to find the tape at my local hardware store, dispensed on a standard tape roll – about $15 for 26ft of the stuff. And, sure the tins weren’t cheap, but they weren’t that expensive either, and it was shortbread. And I know I can get more tins in April when the RSA does their ANZAC biscuit drive.

So, was this project a success? Well, in the space of 4 months, I managed to paint nearly all of a pair of infantry-heavy 15mm forces, as well as getting a bunch of terrain sorted out for the proposed game. I’d like to think that if the lockdown wasn’t going on, I would have finished the last riflemen and tanks with time to spare. But with lockdowns (seriously, this most recent one is on week 12 now…everyone is starting to stress out), as well as running out of basing sand (which is why some of the Kiwi bases aren’t done yet), I guess fate kinda took a negative view on my plans.

But, still, its an achievement for me to be able to push out this much this quickly. And I guess there’s always next year to play Great War.

So, what next? Well, I’ll definitely finish what I’ve got left to do on Great War (once my shipment of sand comes in from the US (FU, USPS!)), then I’ve got a few other random things to finalise before I move onto what I’m terming my Summer Project. I’m already receiving deliveries of materials and minis for this, and I’ve been planning it on and off for most of the year.

But for what the project is, and how spectacularly I’ll stuff it up…that’s for next time…

(Let me just say that I’ve got about 200 bases ready to go…BUT NO SAND!!!!)