Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht

Plenty to do, no space to do it in...

"Man plans, and God laughs"

I see that I kept a public queue of my 2013 projects! I thought it might be fun to go through those and see what has happened to them over the last twelve years...

D-Day AAR

D-Day Game, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

So this is a very late game report, but we did actually manage to run our first big D-Day game! This was 2,375 points of Americans run by two players, and 1,345 points of Germans run by me. This still was not a lot of Germans, and I felt fairly thin across my front. However, I probably would have put up a much better fight had my artillery not gotten pinned down in the preliminary bombardment, and refused to unpin for six turns in a row!!

SITREP: D-Day

D-Day, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Got the German 10.5cm battery done. That was, I think, the worst painting experience from any Flames of War figures I've done! It came with nicely sculpted resin bases, with recesses for the crew. That sounds like a good idea, as hiding figure bases is always an issue. However, getting the gun AND the crew onto a base is a bit of an art. The recesses actually messed with that. I wasn't free to locate the figures in such a way that I could get the gun back on the base after I had completely finished painting and flocking it. So, I had to paint the figure bases separately, trim their bases so they actually fit in the recesses, glue them onto the base with the gun now in the way of everything, then go back and try to fill in and hide the gaps around the figure bases. It actually tacked on a couple of nights to the entire process and started to really irritate me.

One step forward, one step back.

P-47, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

I am getting stuff painted for my D-Day game, but I don't actually seem to be getting any closer to running it! But I had a good weekend otherwise...

SITREP: D-Day

D-Day layout, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Things are coming along well for my D-Day beach landing game. I finished painting up the water and sand, and I think they look pretty good. Here it is set up on the short (five foot) end of my table-- the grass mat is rolled up on the other end, giving me room to work with my sons. There's a few more inches of water depth hanging off the end. It didn't seem necessary until I put the LCT out there!

I sat down and started reviewing the scenario and the rules, thinking about putting everything on the table. In doing so, I ran across the Overwhelming Force special rule-- "The Allied force has 75% more troops than the Axis Force." Whoops!! That's a bit of a bummer as my Germans can be used for anything, so I have lots of them. But it's the American forces that will limit the size of this game...

SITREP: D-Day

Laying out D-Day, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

After I finish painting up the Infinity figures I'm working on, I want to finish preparing for a D-Day game. My goal for the year was to run two D-Day games, and it's getting late in the year. I grabbed some beach and water colored fabrics on my way home from work tonight and proceeded to lay it all out on the table, so to speak, and take stock of my situation. Here is what I found:

Workbench of a Madman

2012-06-25 22.26.35, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

It has been a whirlwind summer so far. The wife and kids left for Germany even before school was out-- but no rest for the wicked, as days later, I was off to Las Vegas for a work-related convention.

Stoumont Flames of War

Battle of Stoumont, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

I haven't been posting, but I haven't quite been idle, either, fortunately. Here are the photos of us trying out the 3rd edition Flames of War with the Battle of Stoumont scenario from WWPD. I personally didn't notice any huge change in 3rd edition. It's more of an evolution than a revolution, fortunately. And it's not like we play it enough to hit the weird edge cases which we're probably playing wrong anyway!

Historicon 2011

Corner Kick!, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Historicon 2011 was a lot of fun. The drive was very long, ten hours, but the facilities were nicer than the usual Lancaster Host (usual for me-- I missed last year, so this is my first HMGS East con away from the Host in ten years). I played in several great Piquet games, which have been spotlighted on Blunders on the Danube, as well as a game of Fireball Forward, which I'm looking forward to seeing published. I also finally made time to sit down for Bob Wiltrout's soccer game Corner Kick!. Ed: AND former local Brian met me for a midnight Blood Bowl 1-1 mauling of my Skaven by his Ogres, leaving 3 of my 4 Gutter Runners missing the next game-- one of which had to be retired-- and killing one of my players! All the games were really fun, and here you see my Number One Son (wearing his Germany jersey) back at home stomping my Argentinians in a game of Corner Kick! with his Subbuteo figures. I had two definite vendor purchases in mind-- D-Day bunkers from Armaments in Miniature and more Primaeval Designs prehistorics from Acheson Creations. Neither was there!! Naturally, I didn't let that stop me from blowing the budget in the vendor hall...

This Great and Noble Undertaking

15mm Landing Craft, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

And the landing craft are begun! I have six LCVPs by Battlefront and a Mk.5 LCT (still under construction) by Lindberg. The Lindberg model scale is given as 1:125 which is pretty spot on for 15mm, and you see I can fit the standard payload of five Battlefront Shermans in just fine. Strangely, the molded display that comes in the box refers to it as an LSU, which apparently was what they were renamed post-WW2. All I've read indicates the LCTs at D-Day were Mk.6 models, with extra armor and an extended ramp to provide more cover. However, all the beach landing orders I've found show a complement of five tanks on the LCTs, whereas the Mk.6 only apparently had room for three after modifications-- or so I read somewhere (ed: I think I'm conflating Mk.6s with LCT(A)s here). I can't find any pictures of a loaded Mk.6 clear enough to tell for sure. Anyway, I'm not going to worry and bother with trying to convert it just to end up wrong in the end (and, judging by the profiles in the attached picture from Spearheading D-Day, it's probably beyond my ability anyway), and will paint this up as is; i.e., a Mk.5.

Sixth--FINAL-- 29th ID section done!

29th Infantry Division
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

Cue Fanfare for the Common Man. Imagine the slow motion scene of me applying the last bit of Gryphonne Sepia to the beach bases, exhaling, and slowly moving the brush to the paint water. Wearily, I shake the brush, wipe it, lick it to a point, and place it back into the brush stand. Slowly, I collapse back into my painting chair and gaze satisfied upon what I have completed.

Total War

FoW: Total War
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

We've put together a few Flames of War games since our primary driver has moved on. One thing that was irritating me was how much support stuff I was putting on the table to fill out points. Eventually, I started to think about using multiple companies per side, to consume points with company level troops and using fewer points for support. Then I bought Das Book, and found the rules for Total War, which are essentially that.

5th 29th ID section done!

29th Infantry Division
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

Fifth section of 29th Infantry Division completed! I actually had these guys mostly completed last weekend, and was pretty stoked to be well ahead of my slow "two weeks per section" norm lately. I had visions of having the sixth finished this weekend and was ready for it! Then, life happens as it tends to. School functions, neighbor functions, etc... Plus, mid-week I came home for lunch, and just browsed by my painting table to gaze upon them momentarily, and I found the whole table standing in water!! Somebody had dumped my paint cup over on my painting table!!!!!!

4th 29th ID section done!

29th Infantry Division
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

Fourth section of 29th Infantry Division completed! I keep churning these guys out...the fifth one is primed and ready to start painting, and the sixth, unfortunately, is still back ordered (although I got a shipping notice recently, so I should get it soon). I've settled down to about two weeks per section, which isn't too bad, I suppose. I am only painting 2-3 nights a week or so, around family and work stuff. I'm mostly glad that despite a pretty strong pull towards Blood Bowl lately, I haven't given up on painting these guys! Next up, I need to order some paint for my LCVPs...

3rd 29th ID section done!

29th Infantry Division
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

Third section done (the one on the left)! The weather has cleared up, so no more snow days, no more holidays, the kids are back in school and their functions have started back up, and I'm back into the swing at work, all of which means less time to paint and a bit slower productivity on my painting. Still, I'm not going to complain much about 103 (if I'm counting correctly) figures in the month of January!

Second 29th ID section done!

29th Infantry Division
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

Thanks to some snow days and the MLK holiday, I got the second section of 29th Infantry Division with the other optional machine gun finished! That gives me a legally playable force now, although of less than 350 points! Still, I'm making progess...that's just more than half of the boxed set, and just more than a third of what I'm planning on painting.

First 29th ID section done!

29th Infantry Division
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

I finished up my first batch of 29th Infantry Division troops. On the right, you have a full assault section. On the left, you have an optional machine gun stand, the company commander and 2IC, and then General Cota in front.

29th ID Under Way

29th ID Under Way
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

Got some painting time this weekend and started cranking out my Christmas present of Flames of War 29th Infantry Division Assault Company. They are nice little figs, and I'm taking a little bit more time on these than I have on my previous FoW figures. Which means, across the entire weekend, I only got most of one section done. I had intended to crank out the remaining command stand, company commander and 2IC, and General Cota tonight, but I have a head ache, a cold and I spilled my beer so I thinking...29, Let's Go...To Bed! I ordered two more sections and another LCVP box, so I will have a full six sections when I'm done. At the current rate, that could be mid-February, but the current rate is pretty unrealistic!

On the Road to Sainte-Mère-Église

FoW Objective Vandervoort
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

I finally got my Vandervoort objective finished up and photographed. I'm not much of a scratch builder, so I'm pretty pleased with how my creation came out. Here we see Lt. Colonel Vandervoort being hauled down a side road after injuring his leg upon landing during the 82nd's D-Day drop. He's passing a sign post showing that he's headed for Sainte-Mère-Église, one of the 505th PIR's objectives, and-- well, would you look at that! I misspelled Eglise!!!!!!!!!!! Argh!!!! I quit this stupid hobby!!!

Roadblock on Hell's Highway

Roadblock!
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

We had a fun Flames of War game on Friday. We almost didn't, though! As we were determining the specifics of the scenario, I turned to the player that I had thought was bringing the Germans and asked, "How many platoons do you have?" At which point, he said, "I thought you said you had everything!" Well, that was a bit of a surprise, to say the least! Rather than punt to a board game, though, I whipped up as much as I could of my Gepanzerte Panzergrenadiers, and we had a 2,500 point game. That's not much less than the 3,000 point game I was expecting, so the evening turned out fine, despite the organizational hiccup.