The LRDG II Podcast - Episode 16 - Make Poland Great Again

The LRDGII is back with another three hour epic! 

Episode 16 begins with a beginners guide/ exploration of the Batman Miniatures Game. For this segment, Brad is joined by Liam from the UK's premier Batman podcast "Titan Dose." He talks us through the game, top to bottom and explains how everything works in the midnight clad city of Gotham. 

The rest of the episode is dedicated to our favourite game, Bolt Action. Experienced Polish players, David Xavier and Pat "Muddy Funster" come on to look at one of Bolt Action's lesser seen armies. Poland. The guys take an exhaustive look  at Poland in the game and the bigger picture of history that puts Poland into the context of WW2. 

Come on down and check episode 16 out and learn how to Make Poland Great Again!

You can find this fine episode in the iTunes store or download directly HERE.

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Historicon 2016 Doubles Late War Eastfront Tournament

The Historicon doubles tournament is always a good time between friends.  It is a very light atmosphere, and this year was no different. The theme this year was "Enemies of the Soviets" - a late war eastfront tournament.  I did allow Japanese to be played, but nobody took that challenge.  There were a lot of good combos with Polish, Hungarians, Finns, Romanians represented as well. There were a ton of Soviet lend-lease tanks, which speaks to an interesting list issue - maybe under-costed? Anyway, we had 64 players rolling dice and having a good time.

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Battlefront Soviet Navy Infantry Review

This is a guest post by Anatoli- make sure to check him out at Anatoli's Game Room!

Another unexpected source for "Polish" miniatures is the Soviet Navy range that Battlefront manufactures. First a bit of background information, the Poles did not intend for their navy personnel to fight on land, as such there are no orders of battle for a navy battalion or anything like that in my September Campaign book.

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Forged in Battle French EW HMG Review

This is a guest post by Anatoli- make sure to check him out at Anatoli's Game Room!

Now you may wonder why I'm bothering to review the French HMG teams when all I play is the Poles in Early War. Well, the French look very close to Polish cavalry units save for the leg wrappings. Polish cavalry wore boots and cavalry pants, however the Adrian helmet, greatcoat and other details are almost spot on. So I bought two blisters of French Early War HMG's to use as Polish
HMG's for a cavalry list since Forged in Battle has not announced any cavalry HMG teams for the Poles yet.

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Forged in Battle Polish Cavalry Review

This is a guest post by Anatoli- make sure to check him out at Anatoli's Game Room!

There are a couple of options for those interested in fielding Polish Early War cavalry in Flames of War (and 15mm WW2 in general). Up until now the ones' I've been familiar with were Battlefront and Old Glory/True North. Not that long ago, Forged in Battle released their cavalry adding another alternative to the list.

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On the Pole -- Building a Polish Army, Part Two

“Fathers, our only job is to keep our daughters off the pole.”  - Chris Rock

Yay, horses! Wikipedia.

In my last article, I reviewed the various options for EW Poles, and decided to begin by collecting a Motorized Cavalry Brigade using the Battlefront model range.  (I also insulted the WWPD community and possibly the entire Polish nation, but let's not talk about that...)

Poland only had two such brigades. The famous Black Brigade wore a different uniform, unique in the Polish army.   My choice of model range therefore means that I will be collecting the Warsaw Motorized Cavalry brigade. Anatoli gives this brigade its own list; Blitzkreig lumps the two brigades together, letting the either take 7TPs (which the 10th Brigade didn't have) or fight alongside an armored train (which fought with the 10th Brigade, but not the Warsaw brigade). 

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On the Pole - Building a Polish Army, Part One

 “Fathers, our only job is to keep our daughters off the pole.”  - Chris Rock

Winged Hussars or Winged Hussies? A rather frightening enticement crafted by Weyland.

Steve started off with this thread in the forum: "Help me convince Tom to play EW Poles."  Shortly thereafter, I was deluged with highly sexualized enticements to begin an EW Polish army.  I've featured several of them on this page.

Does the thought of being seduced by the WWPD forum frighten you?  It does me.  Especially because I imagine everyone on the internet is an obese 45-year old man living in his parent's basement, bathed in the amber glow of his ancient monitor.

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Soviet Strelkovy vs Polish Lancers in Fighting Withdrawal

This one's for Anatoli. Scott had a board setup featuring the Strelkovy in Wargames Illustrated attacking some Polish Lancers in a Fighting Withdrawal. The Soviets were insane! And confident Conscripts! Can the Poles hold out against the Crimson Tide? Tom made a deal with the Dice Gods that if he won he'd buy a Polish army. Some fun rules of note: The Soviet tanks have to roll for "sabotage" at the beginning. I forgot to do that for the T-26s at first, so when you see 3 suddenly jump back out of the pack, you'll know why! The Soviet Command teams are Command Komissar teams! That means if I roll the one after Komissarring someone (yes, I made that a verb), they shoot their own command team! Yowza!

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The September Campaign v.2 Orders of Battle book released

While I was not planning for release on September 1st when I started working on the project, it ended up becoming a natural release date for the Orders of Battle book as I finished writing it roughly a week ago and have been proof reading and tinkering with stats and points up until now.

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Polish 10th MCB vs Mittlere Panzerkompanie

Played another Early War vs Patrik down at the club, this time he brought a much more interesting list compared to last week’s Czech Panzerkompanie. This was the first time I got to face a Mittlere Panzerkompanie.

I myself brought the 10th motorized cavalry brigade. The 1500pts lists looked like this.

10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade

Headquarters
Colonel Stanislaw Maczek: 60points
Regiment HQ: 40 points

Combat & Weapons platoons
Zmotoryzowanej company: 2 platoons with 2 HMG’s
Zmotoryzowanej company: 2 platoons with 1 HMG
Zmotoryzowanej AT gun platoon: 3 guns
Zmotoryzowanej AT gun platoon: 3 guns
Reconaissance tank platoon: 5 TKS, (2 with 20mm guns)
Reconaissance tank platoon: 5 TKS, (2 with 20mm guns)

Divisional Support
R-35 tank platoon

Limited Air support Pzl.23 Karas light bomber

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EW Warsaw AMB vs Leichte Panzerkompanie

This was my first battle using the Polish motorized brigade force and the first time my friend Thomas used his Leichte Panzerkompanie so it was really exciting.

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EW Poles vs Slovaks Hold the Line AAR

Guest post by the inimitable Anatoli from Anatoli's Game Room.

Back to the wonderful world of Early War FoW, sold my DAK army and played two battles of Early War the same day. Got to say that it totally revitalized my interest and liking for the game which had been on a decline during the last weeks of Mid-War desert warfare.

I have also started to order and scout miniatures for an expansion into the 10th Motorized Cavalry brigade which will be my next project once I completely finish my Polish-Lithuanian renaissance army.

I've been playing the Polish Infantry battalion for a long time and found it to be rather difficult to build it in a way that works in both defense and attack. So using my experience and ideas from the last Early War tournament I put together something that I think finally works regardless of whether I meet other infantry armies and am forced to attack - or end up defending.

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EW Poles vs German Fallschirmjägers Pincer AAR

Guest post by the inimitable Anatoli from Anatoli's Game Room.


The second Early War battle played last weekend, this battle was fought with the same Polish army that I used against Andreas Slovaks. David, my opponent, was playing German Fallschirmsjägers - another army that is missing from the Blitzkrieg book.

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Poles vs German infantry v.3 EW tournament AAR

Guest post by Anatoli from Anatoli's Game Room
My last game was played on the desert table - for some reason I always play my best on these.
Johan who was my final opponent had a German infantry platoon, the kind that my buddy Thomas often plays. Infantry backed up by a 6 gun mortar platoon, infantry platoons, PzII's, Panzerjäger I's (in ambush) and a battery of 105mm artillery. The scenario was "Fighting withdrawal" and my Polish army ended up being the attacker again. This time I placed my rails in a line towards the enemy deployment zone, I also placed 2 objectives near the railroad.

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Poles vs Czech Panzers v.3 EW tournament AAR

Guest post by Anatoli from Anatoli's Game Room
My second game was against Patrik who arranged the entire tournament. He had a tiny tank army, which I knew would give me a hard time. The scenario was "Surrounded"  and the table we were playing on was extremely ill suited for the force I had. I had to put railway lines across my own deployment and

I faced 1 platoon of PzII's and two platoons of 38(t) tanks backed up by air support and a couple of 88's.

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Poles vs Slovak's v.3 EW tournament AAR

Guest post by Anatoli from Anatoli's Game Room
My first game was against Andreas and his beautiful Slovak army, run as early war "SS infanterie". His army was tiny, and as we both had infantry armies we rolled to see who would end up attacking. Turned out the Poles had to attack. This time around at least I had a few mobile units in my tournament list.

Scenario played was "No Retreat".

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Swedish v.3 Early War tournament pictures

Guest post by Anatoli from Anatoli's Game Room
Another Early War tournament was played this weekend (February 18th). I think it may have been the first tournament to use the version 3 rules. Things worked out rather well, and everyone was happy with most of the new rules. I myself have complained about the new cavalry rules which replaced the 8" charge with 4" and a 4" hussar move in the shooting step on rolls of 4+. As my games played I failed to roll a single hussar move, and would have made great use of a 8" charge range on at least 2 occasions. So there you go.

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Encirclement and breakout

Guest AAR From Anatoli's Game Room
September 16th, 1939(Page 39, the September campaign, last scenario in "Arm Wrestling the giant" operation)


Background:
The Polish counteroffensive started on September 9th  had come to a halt and the tide had turned as the Germans rapidly reinforced the weak spots in their lines. Following the success in the battle of Lowicz the Polish was faced with a strong German counterattack which broke any hopes of turning the tide of the situation in the west.  The battered armies of Poznan and Pomorze under Polish general Kutrzeba engaged in a fighting withdrawal towards Warsaw, hoping to somehow escape the tightening noose of German armies descending upon them from all directions.
>>>>CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE AAR

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German breakthrough the Polish lines 1500

GUEST POST BY ANATOLI FROM ANATOLI'S GAMEROOM

Background
September 3rd, 1939. German forces are pouring in over the Polish border while the Polish border defenses are crumbling fast. The German 4th Panzerdivision is part of the German army group South heading towards Warsaw. Having recently fought against the Polish Volhynian cavalry brigade near Mokra these troops have already had their first taste of battle. While the Polish forces withdrew to their next defense line the 4th Panzer prepared its next move, supporting the army group South in its breakthrough attempt in order to clear the last obstacle between the Germans and the Polish capital.
>>>CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE POST!

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Polish push towards Łowicz, 2000points per side

GUEST AAR BY ANATOLI FROM ANATOLI'S GAME ROOM

Polish push towards Łowicz, 2000points per side.
Page 38 in the "September campaign" book.

This battle is the second scenario in the ”Arm wrestling the giant” operation which itself is about the battle of Bzura. The largest battle of the entire September campaign. What started a well placed Polish counterattack ended up with 2 encircled and destroyed Polish armies, remnants would later make their way to Warsaw and the Modlin fortress to join up with the defenders there.

Since we played this scenario as a”standalone” battle we rolled a die to determine the outcome of the previous battle so that we could apply the special scenario conditions. In this case the player who won the previous battle had 50% of his army in reserve, while the player who lost the previous battle had 50% of his army as Delayed and Scattered reserves. The roll resulted in the Polish ending up with the bad reinforcement deal.

>>>CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE AAR!

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