Just a quick posting for some of my latest touch ups; mainly the infantry. Used a nut brown wash over the original paint work, and then picked out 'bright' equipment, highlight of jackets and flesh highlight. Then the usual rebasing technique.
Personal favourites are the 250/1 German halftracks (dinky) and the American Greyhound armoured car (busy). Might do some German support weapons next and some more vehicles (still got a lot to choose from, haven't even thought about the Russians yet!).
Some photos of today's show, as ever, pretty random. Well done to all those who took the time and effort to put on a game; without your initiative and determination shows would not shine.
Ed picked up his Kickstarter copy of Open Combat from the author. So we decided to have a go with his game. We all quite liked the simplcity covering some hidden game mechanic depths, as described by the author. Definitely an opportunity to get out the smaller figure collections, as you can design your warband in what ever way you want.
Finally, here's today's haul. Mostly resupplying modeling materials, but did buy some British anti tank guns to supplement more Christmas bargains. Now time to get the bricks and mortar out to build those 4ground walls!
Some more of the Chinese woodland arrived today, so here are a few piccies of their place on the table. I used some spray mount glue, flock and spray gloss varnish just to bulk out the foliage.
I also have been doing some tidying up in the shed and found an unwanted, unloved base of trees. So, remove the trees, turn base into scrubland, and reflock and rebase the removed trees; well the Stug seemed to like it.
Finally, I used some of the new trees to add to some redundant, rotating hits counters from Warbases. I can use these as points of interest on the table, providing objectives and their values.
That's it for now, let's see what the Hammerhead show turns up tomorrow.
I've often pondered how to create orchards on the table, tried a few times to make them (one memorable 1 1/2 foot square of trees which I couldn't store) and have still been left unsatisfied. I want something that is flexible but still meets the visual need. Here we go, version XXVIII...
First, some cheap trees from E-Bay; great value, sturdy and all the way from China! Here's the build:
Trying how to decide to place the trees on the 10cm bases was the trickiest part, as you want figures to fit on, and the trees to look suitable when arranged differently. Quite pleased with the result; hoping that I don't decide to go for yet another new, improved version...but you never can tell!
The model that I have weathered in this posting comes with a lot of love. When I first discovered the suitability of railway buildings for my WWII gaming, this church came as part of a Faller village box set; it was my first purchase and was discovered in a local railway shop. Once built, the church felt 'cute' but also of a good size to put onto the table.
Going back fifiteen odd years, my weathering techniques were okay, but did not use weathering powders. Now, with dust in the air, I'm looking at a long list of buildings to get a 'second fix'. Here's a short picture diary of what I have spent the last hour of my time doing...
I'm really happy with the outcome, and look forward to the church sitting on many of my future set-ups.
Tonight's game included the use of American artillery in combination with tanks and better quality infantry. German defences consisted of front line troops, a Marder and an anti-tank gun. The Germans were deployed under concealment to provide some mystery for the Sherman troop. The first few rounds saw the Marder kill all three Shermans from an overwatch position (see later comments); a little too affective. After some adjustments the attack became more affective with combined artillery, mortar, tank and infantry fire crumbling the first line of German defence. Panzers checks proved deadly against infantry in buildings, pushing sections out of a toe hold of a building.
The game was interspersed with a lot of discussion and thoughtful head scratching...
Here are some of the main thoughts from the evening:
- Tried artillery and seemed to work well. Quite liked halving of the dice for the outer ring of the fire zone. We decided to tone down the number of attack dice (80mm mortars were rolling twelve dice which was too much).
- Decided that leaders could combine units who each had the same order in the same square, not just sections with a fire order.
- Had a real problem with tanks firing at each other. We were using the principal of a firefight, where opposing tanks had an opportunity to fire at each other. Currently I have defined the effectiveness of the gun to varying quality of dice, like for infantry combat. The key problem with this is that for infantry, the colour of the dice decide the order of firing. For vehicles, this lead to the problem of the better quality guns firing first, which takes no account of the quality of the crew. An initial remedy was the introduction of a crew quality dice.
- We also had problems with the overwatch process of over watchers firing first in a fire fight, which seemed a little too much in favour of the overwatcher. We seemed to come full circle by re-introducing overwatchers firing first, along side a crew quality dice roll. To give open topped vehicles a slight advantage for better visibility, we improved their crew quality by one grade. Ed came up with the novel concept that if both vehicles fire at the same time, the smaller calibre gun fires first due to it's slightly quicker loading speed of the gun.
Tonight's intriguing thought; just how effective is artillery against open topped vehicles? How frequent did shells directly enter the cabin space of a vehicle? Instead, were the crew slightly more susceptible to suppression than a fully closed fighting vehicle?
Had another ' bright idea' but wasn't certain how it was going to work...spray glue and felt. I was unsure as to whether the spray glue would 'chew up' the felt and remain sticky when completed. A quick try of spray glue and flock on an off cutting seemed hopeful, so here are three fields...
Really quite happy with the results. They provide another tone to the play mat and add a little variety. Let's see how they perform tonight.
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