Deep Fried Lard

Well I have been rather absent in posting anything here of late, and my overriding excuse is working on the house. For the past two months the majority of my time out of work has been spent doing DIY on our house as we finally got our building warrant through. I did manage to sneak in a wee trip over to Musselburgh and Deep Fried Lard, hosted by the Legendary Wee Derek.

It was a fantastic day, and this time I stayed around for the curry which really does make a fine end to the day. Getting to sit around and chat all manner of things, especially wargames, with fellow Lardy Lovers was great fun.

I got to have my first ever shot at Sharp Practice, and a game of CoC in 15mm which was a new experience too. I could go over what games were available and show some dazzling pictures of them but frankly this has been done much better by Jim here and Jeremy has posted fantastic pictures here too. So instead I'll dump some of my pictures here but also give a brief run through of the one of the games I played, and some thoughts on the other! Exciting stuff!

The battlefield perspective from the Garibaldi deployment point

Sharp Practice - Biscotti Wars (Garibaldi)
This was a delightful setup, terrain, figures and configuration of the table! The board itself was setup on a number of packing crates so that the playing surface was raise above the table. This meant there was a lower admin space for off table troops, dice rolls, unit rosters, QRS and biscuits! Those requiring a nibble could express support by selecting garibaldi or bourbon biscuits!

Choose your faction! Vote with your mouth!

The terrain it self was all Grand Manner and painted to an incredible finish, laid out on a Tiny Wargames mat, with a one piece crafted road, cut to size and shape out of a larger piece of rubber or pond liner type material.

Jaw dropping Grand Manner Monastery

So pretty!

The scenario itself was beautifully simple and gave a really good game. Both sides deployed on the same short side of the table (opposite corners) and the objective was to get a unit into the large monastery on the far side of the table and hold it for a turn. This gave both forces an interesting dilemma. Do you make a run for the monastery and try to fend off the other force, hoping you move more quickly, or do you engage early to delay the other force and potentially clear the way for your own to move up to the monastery?

The Leaders and forces available to Garibaldi

As mentioned earlier, I had never played Sharp Practice before this, although I do own the rules and have read them! I decided to play the forces of Garibaldi and would try to disrupt the Bourbon forces as they deployed whilst simultaneously trying to sneak a unit up to the monastery. I hoped to utilise my skirmishers to harass the deploying bourbons enough that they would be distracted enough not to go for the monastery at first.

Things pretty much didn't go to plan almost immediately! I deployed my skirmishers and another unit and looked to move the skirmishers forward to some light cover.

They pretty quickly got hit and some shock from the Bourbon troops with their longer ranged rifles. Bad shots and muskets don't do much to impact a well ordered force at a distance! This ended up sucking in another group to try and absorb some of the firepower.

I did follow part of my plan in setting a small group off to the monastery under the command of a Status 1 leader.

The Bourbon hordes poured onto the table and started marching in column towards the monastery. This force would annihilate my small group heading towards the monastery so some preventative action was needed.

I decided (on earlier advice) that to stand any chance I needed to get my chaps into close combat led by Garibaldi to smash up the less physical (but better drilled) Bourbon forces. I gathered up three units of men and tried to advance towards the bourbons, and picked a gap between two buildings to launch towards.

Sadly it was deemed to be a bit constricted and would impact my ability to charge through, this lead to a bottleneck and basically standing in a group in very close range waiting to get smashed up by the bourbons. Which is exactly what happened.

Rather than let Garibaldi get hit in this bogged down and rather fruitless manouver  I moved him towards another formation and worked on getting them into a position to charge a bourbon unit to the rear, if successful I would potentially be able to attack the bourbons in a flank or rear and relieve my beleaguered troops. Sadly the Bourbons were able to reload and faced the charge head on, I also rolled appallingly which really caused more of the problem! and Garibladi was thrown back with a huge casualty rate.

Now this all was going rather badly, however my sneaky little status 1 leader was making decent progress and by throwing a supplementary leader towards the small group meant I could really get them motoring and remove any shock resulting from the double time marching. The heroic if somewhat pathetic actions at the deployment end of the table had managed to hold the Bourbons back long enough to get within spitting distance of the monastery. All I need was a good run of cards and to survive the long range fire of a solitary bourbon unit.

As luck would have it I got to move my troops to the entrance of the monastery and then only had to endure one instance of bourbon fire before being able to move fully inside in the subsequent turn.

At this point we called it a day, without having to hold the monastery for a turn, and also called it a draw. A fair result I think as although I made it to the monastery, the rest of my forces (90%) were in absolute disarray, and had only survived by being forced back under bourbon fire behind a building which resulted in breaking line of sight and therefore no further morale rolls. And Garibaldi himself had been knocked down and had not yet recovered!

This was cracking good fun! So much so that I now need to sort out a few small forces to give Sharp Practice a go with my erstwhile gaming chum!

The other game was an early war Chain of Command scenario - Going with a bang! I played the Germans, trying to secure a route forward against the defending French who were looking to blow up two culverts before I could seize them.

A brilliant game, where I had my head thoroughly kicked in! I really didn't think losing could be enjoyable but it actually was. It was in 15mm which I hadn't played in before and my goodness it is almost a different game at that scale. I loved it. So much so it has thrown me into confusion over what to do with my collection of 28mm models for a number of future chain of command projects! I suspect I will be unable to part with anything yet so will continue in 28mm but will certainly attempt to build up 15mm too. Easier to strore, cheaper to acquire, and the space on the table is simply glorious!

However as I have most of 28mm para force collected, not to mention some plastic russians, variety of brits, some painted DAK and random FJs,  I think I'll persevere in 28mm for now. All I lack just now is time!

Sssssssssmoking!

Yes - my imaginative title says it all. I have (successfully) smoked some bacon. Huzzah!

My cold smoker cabinet was built from odds and ends of wood I had squirreled away, costing the sum total of £0. A great success to my tight-fisted mentality! I did buy some stainless steel mesh (1mm) to make the smoker part. You can of course go the simple route and buy a cold smoker (ProQ gets good reviews and seems straightforward) but I figure I could probably knock something up that would do the job for less than a third of the price. And I still have two more sheets of mesh for some other purpose!

 

 The cold smoker was a simple design - worked it out on a bit of A4 paper first then set to it on the mesh. Having decent tools would help, I used a small pair of wire snips and it took a fair while to snip each wire individually to create the shape. Not too many cuts in all and a very simple shape, utilising the left over bits from the same sheet to patch in any blank spots.

I tried to create a ramp area where the wood dust would thin out and hence be easier to light, but it didn't really work and I ended up just thinning it out on the other leg and it worked fine.

The smoker ran for a good 12 hours as far as I can reckon. I also left it in the cabinet, full of smoke, over night.

The bacon is back in my fridge and whenever I open it up there is a strong scent of smoke! I like it, not sure TGF is convinced!

Taste test went fine - the cure was better this time compared to my last which was too salty. The smokiness is subtle, surprising given the scent of it, but in my humble opinion does add a little something special to the taste.

On pigs and products

So the last set of pigs, a pair of Tamworths, finished at the end of last year and went to the local abattoir. My dad helped me butcher them which was the first time I had butchered an animal and it was a huge learning process, very interesting. The girlfriend still hasn't forgiven me for that one and refuses to eat any of the pork that has resulted. Rearing pigs for meat was always my goal and it was only on their arrival that she then realised what amazing animals they are!

This year we have started earlier so we aren't having to deal with an abattoir trip in the ice and snow. We got three Tamworth cross Mangalitsa weaners from a farm out near Lochgilpead and have had them for about 6 weeks now (small post here).

The three girls are coming along well and are rooting up their area a treat! I've slightly reduced the supplementary feed as they have had a good amount of vegetation to go at, and this will continue when we increase their enclosure size in a few weeks.

Onto the products part. I still have a good amount of pork in the freezer from the last pair and a slab of pork belly is getting cured for bacon, with a view to testing out (after making) a cold smoker. Also keen to see what flavour I get off smoked bacon compared to cured and air dried.

The curing is a pleasingly simple process which I have done successfully on two prior piece of pork belly. I got the cure recipe from the River Cottage Curing book which a family member gave me, presumably to encourage the development of such culinary delights! It is basically 50% salt 50% brown sugar (pretty much any sort can work I'm using a soft brown sugar rather than demerara although I couldn't tell you the difference!) with some spicing of your choice, mine is simply pepper and a little garlic for this one.

The cure is rubbed into the pork belly all over and ensuring it gets into any nooks and crannies, of which there can be a few as my knife skills are still developing. This repeats ever day for 5 days (or until ready, if you have a thicker bit of pork it would likely take longer)

 The picture above is immediately after the first dose of cure has gone one, it already looks good to me! The pork darkens with the curing and it becomes more firm, just looks more and more delicious really.

And these are the pieces once the curing is complete after 7 days, I let them cure for a few extra days as I was away. I must say I enjoy seeing how dark the meat gets, just looks so good in comparison to store bought stuff, or it does in my eyes. These pieces had the excess cure washed off under cold water from the tap. They are then patted dry and wiped with a cloth doused in distilled vinegar. This is supposed to prevent any growth on the surface in case something inadvertently came into contact with the meat. The pieces are then hung in my Heath Robinson meat cage - cobbled together from part of  a broken polythene shelf for plants, wrapped in hardware cloth / wire mesh and hung up out in a cool outbuilding.

My slight concern is that the temperatures this week are due to be in the 20's (C) which for Scotland is rather warm. I'm hoping the shade and shelter of the stable will maintain a sub 15 Celsius or as close to that as possible. I have a tracking thermometer to keep an eye on it. It will only hang for 48 hrs and then it will be into a cobbled together Heath Robinson cold smoker. There is a definite theme in my construction abilities!

I'll do a separate post on the smoking (construction and the deed itself) the bacon is technically good to use, the air drying and smoking are additional steps.

29 Let's Go - Game 5 - Flanking St Germain Du-Pert

Ah another game in the campaign after a rather long gap. As seems to be the case the ubiquitous "life" manages to get in the way. Actually I blame my opponent as I could have squeezed a game in on a number of occasions but his calendar has been rather packed!

Having squarely placed fault in his court, let's move on to the game. It was a very peculiar game for me, and rather than give anything away at this stage we may as well jump into my ramble of what happened. Again not enough photos and notes but I shall muddle along.

The patrols

German FM starts at 11, US FM starts at 9.

It was a slow start, the past two scenarios are rather straight forward in terms of the patrol phase, this one had us both scratching our heads a little. We placed out the patrol markers to start the phase and then decided to redo that as we discussed how we could each deploy and possible tactics. Because we are both still rather new to the game we tend to discuss each others plans and options at each stage as it helps refresh memories on what we can do!

I'm not at all convinced I got this phase right, but I'm struggling to think of a better way to have approached it. Ideas on the back of a postcard....

Mike, playing the US,  rolled a six for his free patrol moves so got the maximum of four. He moved up on his long edge seeking to probe behind my short line of patrol markers. I quickly managed to shut down that flank by locking down one of mine and two of his patrol markers that were stacked together. I thought that was a good outcome but by doing that he had effectively pinned my defence around that marker as the other could only move 12" from it (24" total by daisy chain if that makes sense) so my other two patrol markers could only really maneuver around that fixed point.

With that anchor I could only really shuffle my markers around a little and after a somewhat lengthy and indecisive patrol phase I eventually managed to get all my markers locked down to end it! The two separate entry points really throws off where you can put JOPs. Mike really only had four "angles" so was a bit limited in where he could place his markers but it left him with two pairs on his two table edges, on the long edge near my defensive quarter he had one sitting out, tantalizingly, in the open.

My options felt more limited. I got one in the rear of the church, and one forward of that behind the fencing. The final one was behind the row of houses on the other side of the road from the church. My fourth "free" JOP I selected to be in the building to the rear as a back up.

German JOPs in red; US JOPs in light blue.

At this stage I felt alright - the patrol phase hadn't gone as I'd expected but then I don't think it gave Mike any significant advantage either. It'll be interesting to play another flanking scenario to give this all another shot.

The assault begins

Mike opened up the main game with a double six. Immediately we discussed the viability of charging a squad towards one of my JOPs, the one behind the houses, as his JOP lying out in the open would give him a short dash to get there. My JOP was right on the edge of my defences so a full 24" from his JOP on the table edge. So deploying 6" would take that down to 18" to run, 14" to get into closing down territory. He was sorely tempted to try it but decided against the "rush of blood to the head" approach. The chance of rolling low and leaving a squad in the open to be hit by an MG42 just did not appeal to him thankfully!

What he did end up doing was the start of a very comprehensive attack. He brought on one of his Shermans and set the guns on overwatch, his FOO came on and contacted the battery for support, and the first of his senior leaders came on close by to ensure that support would arrive rapidly!

His second phase saw the arrival of a single squad on the flank covering their JOP out in the open, the FOO called in a ranging shot on the church and it came in bang on target. That's going to cover two of my JOPs when it hits and I haven't yet had a phase!

On my phase I pulled on a squad to protect my JOP, not wanting to leave it open in case he moved up on the flank, and also wanting to cover any movement his squad would make. It would make any deployment from his JOP in the open a rather  dicey prospect. Seemed like a decent idea at the time.

The Sherman moves up and keeps the MG on overwatch. A Marder deploys for the Germans along with a Panzershrek team into the building on the right flank.

A second Sherman appears, as does a second squad further back. The FOO calls in the barrage and in a rather unlucky roll (or lucky) makes the church unstable.

**We decided to roll for the building despite no squads being present as it made sense to the narrative that the US were targeting the church where they had seen a lot of German activity (2x JOPs)**

The German JL puts the squad on overwatch and the Marder trundles forward cautiously.


The second Sherman moves up as well and maintains overwatch with its MG.

 The Marder moves forwards trying to get closer to the building edge and get a view of the Sherman.

The second tanks moves forward again and fires at the building with the Panzershrek team with no effect, and the second squad moves up slowly using tactical movement.

The Germans call in a second Marder and get the Panzershrek team to get out the building before more HE rounds start winging their way at them.

The US  have the first Sherman move towards the church and maintain overwatch. the squad continues to move tactically.

The second Marder moves up and looks to get an angle up the road should the barrage lift. The panzershrek team navigates its way very slowly over a fence,

Both Shermans are set on overwatch on MG and main gun,

The Germans do nothing.

US achieve the first CoC dice but can't get any units to activate.

The Germans get their first CoC dice and send the panzershrek team to start moving towards the road, in hopes of looping around the barrage and getting a shot at the Shermans from a less dangerous angle.

A bazooka team deploys to the rear with the FOO and platoon sergeant. The panzershrek team continue to move edging their way over a hedge.

US get a double phase and get a squad to cross the hedge and into the plowed field, the Sherman to their rear manoeuvres to maintain sight and cover of the German JOPs. In the second phase the Sherman is returned to both Guns on overwatch and the squad moves tactically in the field, moving towards the church and looking to close down the furthest forward German JOP. The bazooka team moves up behind the Sherman and looks to get sight of the Marder.

The panzershrek team has a change of mind and moves forward towards the house beside the road, hoping to set up in a position to take a shot should the barrage lift. The first Marder reverses slightly to stay out of sight of the bazooka

More shuffling of Shermans and squads to get the US squad closer to the JOP. The Germans move the panzershrek team up to the corner of the house ready to take a shot if it becomes available.

The US get their second CoC die and move the barrage forward a little way to allow the squad to close down the JOP.

Here I swither over whether to try deploy just outside the church to try and damage the US squad. The problem is I'm facing 4 guns on overwatch from the two tanks, and with the rolls Mike has been getting he has managed to activate at least one tank if not two and a squad nearly every turn. So after the overwatch fire, I'd then face about the same in the next phase. I doubt a squad in light cover at best will survive much of that, and decide against deploying. (I also clearly forgot about pictures after this too)

The US waste no time in capitalising on the German hesitance and move the barrage forward again, this time it hits the Marder and the panzershrek team, The Marder shrugs it off but the panzershrek team receives three hits, and these end up as kills. With a team wiped out I convert that into two points dropped on FM (9) with a lovely roll of 6. Typical. The us squad pushes forward a little and makes it over the fence surrounding the church, getting into base contact with the JOP.

A double 6 for the Germans. I suspect this is all but over however I try a bit of a long shot and deploy a squad to the far side of the rearmost building and look to get a squad moving up the table edge to try hit the US squad before they can enter the church and capture another JOP.

In my second phase I reverse the Marder out of the barrage and move the squad on the left across a hedge towards the church.

After a quick discussion on sequence and intent (I explained that if he wanted the turn to end he should do it at the end of my phase and before he rolled the dice) Mike decides to end the turn and keep his barrage going.

His rifles move forward to close down the JOP in the church and the Sherman swings slightly to counter the German Squad moving up the left flank. The turn end resulted in a bad things happen roll for me which I managed to get as another 2 point FM drop (7).

At this point I withdraw. I had allowed myself to get boxed in and the overwhelming firepower I was facing made me feel like if I tried to engage I would end up getting pasted. I was struggling to get dice rolls that would allow significant deployment and when I did I had positioned my JOPs rather poorly and in a way that wouldn't allow me to engage the enemy in anyway near parity. Partly this is due to the barrage removing the church as a viable defensive centre piece.

Post Game Admin

I have been woeful in keeping track of the post game changes however to get it up to speed Col Goode is back to a Concerned outlook having dropped down to trouble and even worried after the first two lost games.

The Germans are actually faring rather well. Both the Men's opinion and the Commanders are sitting at 0. Although the commanders opinion isn't tracked until contact with Isigny is re-established again I have been tracking it to try and remind myself I need to get in the habit of doing it. The Main platoon is down 6 men and I'll need to decide when I bulk them up with some reinforcements. I'm rather tempted to do this for the next game and try avenge this poor performance.

When the Dust had settled.

I've come away from it feeling that I simply did not do enough:

1) I should have taken more risk and been much more aggressive. I was cowed into submission by his Shermans being on near constant overwatch, and his barrage rendering two of my JOPs rather useless. For all that I had two Marders that realistically could have been thrown at the Shermans as I can't take them with me to the next table! I may have lost morale due to them being blown up but that would have been better than the collapse due to the panzershrek team being hit by a mortar and then the loss of a JOP. I was scared to commit troops and that gave an easy victory to my opponent.

2) I also deployed poorly. I should have kept the panzershrek off-table and had it available for an ambush. On table it  was struggling to get a position especially as neither of us were rolling sixes to end the turn and I wasn't getting many fives to generate a CoC dice to end it that way.

3) Ultimately I think I lost because I had no clear plan of what I wanted to achieve and how beyond a vague aim of trying to lower my opponents force morale.

At the time it felt like I had little option but to call the retreat. I could see no way of levering my way into the game at that stage and it felt like Mike was getting all the right dice when he needed them and I was not. I knew he would take a FOO but with no ability to take support options beyond the two Marders I needed some way to counter his FOO and I could not come up with anything,

In reality I gave away the game early on by allowing him to build up control of the area. I could have brought on both Marders and looked to use them in tandem to harass him, I may well have lost one but the quicker they were on the board and being aggressive the less his tanks could have pressured me. With the tanks occupied I would have been more secure in deploying some troops and using the LMGs to try pick off the FOO and Senior Leader sitting at the rear, with two leaders in close proximity with only a bazooka nearby I would have been certain to cause some sort of pressure on his morale, maybe even neutralise the barrage.

Oh well, this is what comes from not being prepared! Five minutes spent at the start of the game thinking about how to tackle the problem would have been time well spent. It has been a very good learning experience and points out yet again how good CoC can be at giving that real command experience. I should correct that, the lesson on planning has clearly been identified. Now we shall see if I can actually make the change and act on it in future!

The start of the Easter Dunsyston Sheep Flock

This weekend marked another first for me, and that is the beginning of a flock of sheep! We selected a black Shetland ewe with her first ewe lamb at foot, and a Ryeland Ewe with a Texel cross lamb at foot, her second.

They've settled in well over the bank holiday weekend although are still keen to sleep in the stables and munch grass around the "garden" rather than out in the fields! I'm sure they will work it out soon that the fields have much more available. Just now the Shetland lamb is not yet two weeks old so I'm happy having them come in at night just in case any foxes managed to get to her. With the horses living out and the pigs nearby I doubt any fox would be brave enough but not keen to take that chance just yet.

These will all be for breeding some new lambs for next spring. The idea being to keep any new ewe lambs and use the male lambs as meat wethers. We shall see how it goes and whether I get too attached to them!

New Pigs

Got our new pigs two weeks ago/ They've had two weeks inside getting accustomed to us and trained to come running when I shake a bucket of feed!

They got moved outside at the weekend despite a slight breakout on the first attempt they've settled in and have made themselves at home. Some hasty re-fencing sorted that out the escape route - now up to three strands of electric fencing to make sure they don't accidentally jump through!

There was an old massive tree trunk in their area which has been utterly demolished in their search for bugs and grubs! Always amazes and pleases me to see them in action rooting around.

Amera River Terrain Trial

I picked up some Amera terrain off eBay a while back, a decent number of river sections and a moorland pond piece. Before plunging in and trying to get all them done up I thought I would do the sensible thing and do a test piece for the rivers.

First up I primed the piece in cheap auto spray, then slapped on PVA and covered it in sand. Once dry it got another generous coat of neat PVA to seal it all in and then base coated in burnt umber.

I've never painted up a river before so this next bit is rather trial and error. Blue and green paint layered on and blended while wet to try and achieve something vaguely riverine!

It looks really dark. Too dark. But a quick google of "river" and a swift click on the images tab has given me a little bit of confidence and I'm going to stay the course (boom boom). I'm hoping once there is some flock on it and some water effects it should hopefully look the part.

The banks get a quick drybrush in a beige sandy colour and the river is given a coat of varnish. I was hoping the varnish might be enough to make it look a bit more like a river but I can't really say that it does! Perhaps if my river painting skills were better.

After having varnished I felt it was still too dark and needed some colour difference to create a bit of visual interest. I painted some lighter areas over the varnish, and then having read up on rivers in Henry Hyde's fantastic Wargaming Compendium it seems perhaps some more layers of varnish will help the river effect. So I've added another three layers on top of the last paint job, and flocked it up.

The PVA needs to dry fully but I think it is beginning to look decent. Mr Hyde to the rescue! I do think those extra layers of varnish have really helped it, I think I can get away with painting the others in a similar manner now. I may still try some clearfix water effects  as per Luke of LukesAPS but for now the test is a success.