Showing posts with label late war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label late war. Show all posts
Friday, November 2, 2012
D-Day AAR
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!!
Monday, September 24, 2012
D-Day Maps and Groundscale Questions
Monday, September 17, 2012
SITREP: D-Day
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.
Monday, September 10, 2012
One step forward, one step back.
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...
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
SITREP: D-Day
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...
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Family Time and D-Day Beaches
It's been quite the family hobby time lately. Number One Son has taken some real interest in things since getting his Spinosaurus at Historicon, and I've had the gaming table covered up with his stuff lately as much as mine. And to keep Number Two Son, four, involved as well, I picked up some chubby plaster statues for kids for him to paint right alongside us. It has frankly been a blast, as they both have their own little projects to work on, and I can even work on my own stuff a bit. A little bit. The Mumak is now in, and our last two evening have been spent gluing that behemoth together. It's a pretty sweet kit, simple for its size, and pretty accessible to an eleven year old.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Form a Queue
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Ranger, lead the way!
Yeah...I had been sitting on some birthday money and it is now away, for a couple of Ranger platoons and two Armaments in Miniature LCAs.
Monday, August 20, 2012
SITREP: D-Day
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:
Monday, June 25, 2012
Workbench of a Madman
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.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Check Your 6! Bombers!
Here are the photos from a recent Check Your Six! game by Bob Bryant. There aren't even all the B-17's he has, but they were a lot of them. The scenario was weighted a little more heavily to the Germans to try out some bomber simplification rules Bob had cooked up, and once those big gunned German fighters got in among the American bombers, it got real ugly real quick...
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Stoumont Flames of War
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!
Thursday, January 5, 2012
For Auld Lang Syne 2012
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Fireball Forward Brecourt Manor
You may or may not have heard, but the upcoming ruleset Fireball Forward! has released a limited set of playtest rules and initial scenario. It appears the initial book will have a few scenarios following Easy Company, which is just up my alley with my FoW Airborne. So, I've set up the game and we're playing it this Friday. I played FF! at Fall-In! last year and Historicon this year, and I like it. There's really no reason not to play it given I already have the figures. One thing I like about FF! is the relatively small figure requirement-- here you see I only have nine and twelve stands per side. That ought to let you get into a period you have only minor interest in without too much effort and money invested. The "official" basing doesn't quite match FoW but isn't strict-- I'm using FoW command stands for individual leaders, medium bases for teams, and medium bases with larger sabots for full squads.
Friday, July 22, 2011
The Decompression Chamber
That's the new name for my "man cave." After five weeks of inactivity when the wife and kids were gone, they have been back now for a week. And in that week, I've finished an entire Flames of War M2A1 105mm artillery battery with staff team and spotter, as well as three Old Glory US paratrooper command teams I was lacking and most of a staff team! I love my family, but after a full day at work and then another five hours with the wife and three kids, I am definitely ready for a break. For whatever reason, I find retreating to the painting table very relaxing. That and my general lack of direction reminds me of "tinkerers" who work in the garage with no real purpose, just tinkering for the sake of relaxation. I tinker with miniatures.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Landing Craft Done
The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry... With the wife and kids shipped out Thursday, I took Friday and Monday off work and had visions of one wonderfully productive four day weekend. Friday went pretty well, and I ran a game of Empire Builder Friday night. I noticed my allergies were acting up, so I stocked up on allergy meds and sudafed ahead of time, only it didn't seem to be doing much good, and by the time I got to bed, I realized it wasn't allergies at all but a debilitating summer cold that took me out the rest of the weekend. I spent Saturday and Sunday camped out on the couch wandering my Netflix queue-- of note were two small budget Sci-Fi films I really enjoyed, Hunter Prey and Monsters. Mosters cost $500k to make and grossed $4.5M? Wow. Anyway, I started feeling somewhat better on Monday, and managed to put the finishing touches on my landing craft. The LCT really needs to be detailed somewhat, but it should mostly be sea blue so I'm pretty much done with it regardless. I'm not sure if the decks should be sea blue or navy blue, if I ever figure that out, I can go back over that. And I figure those LCVP crew load stands took at least an hour per stand, even with my Slop-and-go painting of them. I need to be a bit sloppier, I suppose-- I still detailed the faces and hands.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Circling, Waiting for H+1
All six LCVPs are finished. I initially wasn't going to bother painting the loaded troops. They're totally unnecessary, more stuff to paint, yada yada yada. Yet as I looked over my LCVPs and LCT, I just decided they were too cool not to go all the way on. So, I've got the first two boat loads finished. They're sloppy but effective. The rear one still has wet glue, but has since dried and been painted.
Monday, May 23, 2011
This Great and Noble Undertaking
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.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
US Parachute mortar platoon finished
Back into WW2 then, with the effort to get more "lower level" units on the table. Here is my US Parachute mortar platoon. That gives me an absolutely full company with both battalion support options-- the mortar platoon and a machine gun platoon. Thinking about it, though...it's not far from here to a second company. I have three squads of three stands each. If I'm reading my TO&Es correctly, a company was intended to have two twelve man squads, so I'm heavy as is. I have twenty seven stands. If I put six (two squads of three stands) per platoon, I only need eighteen for a three platoon company. So, another nine stands, plus a single officer stand and 60mm mortar stand, and I have two paper strength companies. I already have an Old Glory pack of officers and support weapons. Huh. Also, I just bought a few 82nd memoirs covering Sicily, as well as the Skirmish Campaigns Skirmish Elite: Combat Jump Sicily book. I figure I ought to be able to get some games out of those as well. My focus is actually D-Day right now...I have the LCVPs out and ready to get started on. I just need to put in a paint order, and am having an anxiety attack over ordering paint based on inaccurate web swatches!
Friday, March 11, 2011
Sixth--FINAL-- 29th ID section done!
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.
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