Time To Mix'n'Match On The Wargames Front?

After the end of play yesterday, a package arrived with one of the French WWII aircraft contained therein, that I'd ordered as part of my current plans for a Fall Rot French force. Trying to find aircraft in suitable scales to go with my 10mm figures is always tricky, especially if you are going outside the standard ones such as the Spitfire, the Me-109 etc. 

This got me to thinking of how over the years I've changed my attitude with regards to aircraft, but also to buildings. When I first got back into historical wargaming, everything had to be in 15mm/1:100, as that's what was standard at the club back then, or ditto with 28mm skirmish level games. The latter was always a bit of a challenge, as the buildings had to be huge to accomodate even just a section of figures!

As I moved heavily towards 10mm/1:150th (or 1:144th depending upon manufacturer), I stick with the same scale for the buildings are aircraft too, as that's what I was used to. But then I saw my friend Keith's SYW games (and others online), where he went a scale down for his buildings, so 1:72nd with his 28mm figures, and they just worked. Thus began my journey to do the same, using 6mm/1:300th buildings, which worked a treat. No more cases of just a few buildings representing a town or a village, but in the same footprint I could probably double their number and get that right visual look.

As I began to look at my airforces for my BKCII games, I slowly went in the opposite direction, moving a scale up, generally trying to go with 15mm/1:100 scale planes, which worked a treat. I worked on the assumption that of course they would be closer to us with our God's eye view and so would give the impression of being at height over the games table. 

Availability of models is somewhat limited as mentioned above, so I've had to generally go with what I can find, this I have 1:144th Zvezda kits, 1:100 diecast planes and lately a couple of 1:72nd ones too. There is of course the issue of storage for these, as whilst a 1:44th scale bomber is still pretty big, at least I can store it easily, but a 1:100 or even 1:72nd would be a challenge!

But mixing scales on the games table certainly works for the sort of games I play, and that trompe l'oeil effect that it creates does add greater depth and dare I say it, a more realistic look to the game?

My latest purchase on the right, a 1:72nd MS. 406 French fighter, next to some 1:100th diecast aircraft. Seen like this the scale difference is marked.

But when on the games table, the trompe l'oeil effect really kicks in, with the different scales not really noticeable, but the illusion of depth is created.

What Next?

Well with the Met Office forecast for at least another month of wet weather, there will be precious little time spend outside, unless it warms up a bit, that's for sure! The games room has been cleared up so with luck, some painting might kick off later today. It's also the annual Pendraken painting competition, so I might try my hand at an entry of two, but i'm not pressurising myself to do this, unlike in previous years. It is after all a hobby!

Thanks for reading and hopefully this might have given some of you food for thought? As always thoughts and comments greatly appreciated!

TTFN.

Buildings, Big Bertha and Bogs

Well, with Day 40 of rain here in the West Country, I thought I'd do a bit of an update of what's been going on on the gaming front. Certainly no gaming, that's for sure, but at least I've been busy doing more terrain, which can be seen below.

Another 6mm Battlescale farmhouse or 'the Big House' as part of my 'French' buildings for BKCII.

A joy to paint once again, but it took me some time to finally get these finished.

Another 6mm Battlescale building, which is a shop or cafe, I'm not sure which to be honest. I set it back slightly from the road to give the impression that you could have some chairs and tables outside if it was a cafe. 

I added some enamel advertising signs to the sides of the buildings. A little too large, but they have the right visual impact once on the table.

For years I've always wanted to make some freestanding advertising hoardings to decorate the table. The bases are 1" wide to give you an idea of size.

A WWI memorial, again purely for decoration in the BUA's. The base is 1/2" square.

Some very old school metal trees that I was gifted by David Crook, that I based and added flock to the sculpted leaves on the originals, to give them a cohesive look with my other trees.

'Big Bertha', an Austrian WWI Skoda 30.5cm Morser M11, for use in my AVBCW games, mainly as an objective in a campaign setting.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the colours are too dark for my liking, but given how much time it will spend on the table, I'm not that fussed!

A few 10mm MDF fences from Pendraken. I have some 6mm ones too. Having a gate in a couple of them is a nice touch.

I hadn't been entirely happy with some of my fields and as such, they rarely got put out on the table. So having everything set up in the games room, I pimped a few of them to make them into sort of allotments or fields belonging to a small holding.

As with the above, but wanting to make them more like rough terrain or bogs/marsh. The bogs/marsh (right hand side) didn't work quite as I'd have imagined, but I can always make some more in the future

What Next?

I've still got plenty of miniatures primed for painting, but the awful weather we've had all year so far has meant it's hard to get motivated to paint anything, hence the focus on the terrain. However now I've reached a natural halt on the terrain front, I want to get the new 'toys' onto the table and some small games to get back into the swing of things.

As mentioned before, I have plenty of ideas whirling away, especially for campaigns, but to start with I think some one off games are the order of the day. A mix of periods and scales of action would be nice, but let's wait and see what grabs me first.

Alongside this, the Ark is coming along nicely, and will probably be in action soon given the weather forecast for the next few weeks😒.

As always, thanks for reading and any comments greatly appreciated. Any sunshine and dry weather than you can send this way will be gratefully received😉!

TTFN.

It's All A Question Of Bridges

Having finished off the French buildings and in a bit of a terrain groove, I decided to finish off a bridge I'd had basecoated for ages. All told it only took about an hour to finish, but longer given the time taken for the glue to dry for each stage of flocking. A nice and easy win for once. 

For years I didn't bother with bridges, just using my roads and having the river sections run either side of it, which worked OK, but lacked that visual punch that an actual bridge brings. So I bought one from Leven Miniatures, then scratch built one, as for many scenarios from Grant & Asquith et al, you need more than one. Last year I added to the collection with one from Battlescale. These can all be seen below:

All of my current bridges.

The latest one from Battlescale and 6mm (I think). I had to raise this up by about 2mm so that it could sit astride the Pendraken river sections, as otherwise it just sat on the banks floating in space.

This bridge is wider than the Leven Miniatures one, so tanks can generally sit quite comfortably on it. They do a cobbled version which in hindsight I wish that I'd bought, as blending the colours into my road sections was tricky, but sort of works.

My 'old' Leven Miniatures bridge, that I cut into my existing river sections as this was pretty much the only way to get it to work. Not as flexible as the freestanding ones, but visually much nicer.

The bridge is much narrower and so any tanks, or even 1" wide infantry bases sit on the bridge sides rather than the bridge itself. Still, it's a lovely piece and probably looks better for earlier periods.

A really simple scratch build to give me a wooden style bridge, with foam ramps covered in grit, with an MDF central section covered with matchsticks. Quick and very effective.

Perfect for the Eastern Front or hastily assembled bridges by engineers in say the 18thC & 19thC.

The one thing I would takeway from all of these would be to buy the bridges you like first, so that you can check what size river sections would fit underneath, without it being a tight squeeze. It saves a lot of hassle later as I know from experience!

What Next?

Possibly some more simple terrain tweaks or upgrades whilst I'm in the mood. It would be nice to get a game in of something or the other, but nothing floats my boat at present. Of course painting more AFV's is an option that is staring at me from across the painting desk.

As always, thanks for reading and any comments are very welcome.

TTFN.

Some New French Buildings

For the next part in my French-Canadians in Normandy campaign, I wanted to add some more buildings, specifically that ones that has a more 'French' feel to them. These have been a WIP for some time now, so after finishing a batch of PzIV's, I decided to plough on with these and at least get a decent number finished. All of the following are from the Battlescale 6mm range and are based upon 3" x 3" bases.

A cottage with some Pendraken 6mm MDF fencing for some detailing.

A bit of a vegetable garden at the back, that I might add some colour to to represent tomatoes, strawberries etc. Also the red will make the green look more intense.

A farm or stable yard, with a cobbled forecourt. The walls are MDF offcuts coated with a mix of PVA glue and Fine Surface Polyfilla.

The walls have some lovely raised details of stones or bricks sticking out that I chose to pick out to and some visual detail.

One of my newly painted 10mm PzIV's to give an idea of scale.

A house with some additional wings added.

The walls are made from cork and again coated with PVA glue and Fine Surface Polyfilla.

I have a few more in the queue and a church too, that I'd like to get finished before the next campaign game, but let's see if the Muse stays with me or moves back to painting some AFV's. I also need to add some figures to a mix of AFV's for command vehicles etc, for use in my BKCII games. This might be a priority as we have some decent weather forecast these next few days, so I can get some priming done.

Thanks for reading and as always, any comments greatly appreciated!

TTFN.

Closing The Ruhr Pocket, Beringhausen, 28th March, 1945

Sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men go somewhat awry, and this was the case on Tuesday. I was due to meet up with friends to play a game of Keith Flint's Startline rules, but the night before my wife luckily spotted a nail in our car's tyre, which was only a week old! I was able to get it to the garage to pick up on Tuesday morning, but would not be able to make it for the start of the game, which was a real shame. However I did arrive just before Midday as Turn 2 was nearing its conclusion. With the game in full swing, I chose to observe rather than take part, as I wasn't up to speed and didn't want to slow things down. This was fine as it was interesting see the game unfold and how the playtesting was helping Keith refine things.

So rather than an AAR, there are just photos of the game with some notes that might help give an idea of how the game progressed before I had to leave.

A Combat Command of the 3rd US Armoured Division is advacning from the left towards the village of Beringhausen, which is defended by a German Kampfgruppe.

Germand infantry dug-in and supported by Stug III's.

Loads of US tanks, with the infantry following on behind, some way back it must be said.

A mix of Shermans and Pershings.

I'm not sure what took out these Pz IV's as they were already brewing up when I arrived.

All the toys were from the collection of Roy Boss, with some bits from Keith I believe.

German reserves or reinforcements that would arrive from Turn 4 on a die roll of 4+, then 3+ etc.

German AA half-tracks, which did sterling work driving off most of the US air attacks!

They arrived and then flew off due to the heavy flak.

A mortar strike KO's a US tank destroyer.

US tanks begin to overun the German positions, but they stubbornly refused to die or surrender despite being heavily outnumbered.

Sod's Law and the King Tigers and Panthers arrived on Turn 4, just in time for the Germans but a real blow to the Americans.

The half-tracks arrived the next Turn too.

US tanks try to flank the German positions.

The Germans still hold on.

They didn't even fear the Pershings!

A view along the German defensive lines.

The Panzergrenadiers debus.

The Americans still struggle to get round the German flank and take hold of the important objective markers.

The Panthers move to meet the American threat to their right flank.

Despite being rather menacing, their shooting was shocking at this point!

Infantry move up to try and KO the German infantry and to seize the objective markers.

End Of The Game

Well by the time I had to leave, the game was still being played, with things nicely in the balance. In the end Keith declared it a minor German victory and the Americans could not gain control of enough objective markers for an outright victory.

A few thoughts in no particular order:

• It was great to meet up with the chaps and have a great time watching them play and exchange plenty of good natured banter. Let's hope next time I can make if for the start!
• I'd suggested we meet up at the Big Battles centre in Cirencester rather than Keith's house, so that we didn't impinge upon Jane, plus we would have plenty of space to play, which we had in spades. However it was the coldest day of the Autumn with frost on the cars and was rather cold inside. What was I thinking! Next time only play in late Spring to early Autumn;).
• I think the game proved useful for Keith to clarify some points, to consider others etc. Certainly playing very late War was of course a different kettle of fish to say Poland 1939, plus we all had slightly differnet views on some points or were in agreements on others. Having this variety of opinion is what a playtest is all about.
• It did highlight the importance of playing with rules you know and are comfortable with, as it soon became apparent that the German decision to dig-in in front of the BUA's was maybe not the best choice. I think it was a bit of a steep learning curve for all of us and with hindsight, the deployments would have been rather different.
• Getting the Germans out of the BUA was a real challenge and hadn't been completed by the time I'd left. This has always been a challenge for me whilst playing BKCII, as you want a balance between game play and historical accuracy and so far I've not found an easy answer. 
• It's been mentioned before, but the WRG rules that Startline are based upon, made infantry somewhat superfluous to the game, given their very slow movement rates compared to the tanks. I know even in BKCII, it can be hard to make the infantry keep up and be part of the game, but you need them to secure an objective, which armour can't. How you solve this for Startline/WRG I'm not sure. Maybe giving them increased movements rates, having the in half-track or as tank riders or making them the only units able to contest an objective might help?

Eye Candy

Next to our table the Big Battles chaps looked like they had a table set for a game, and very nice it was too. The buildings looked to be a mix of scratch built and shopt bought MDF ones. So here are some shots for your delectation!

I hope you enjoyed this post and as always, any comments greatly appreciated!

TTFN.