Utah Beach Flames of War

Finally participated in a game of Flames of War. This was a what if situation for Utah Beach, where the 12ss Panzer Division was committed early at Utah Beach. So far only three turns have been played and the game is set to resume in the later part of April. At this point the Americans have taken out several of the bunkers and other beach defenses and will be landing additional troops. The 101st Airborne has secured the two inland towns and only a platoon of PZIV's has shown up from the 12th SS. The Americans had one bit of good luck when their airstrike took out three of the four German 105 guns in the center of the table.
The game is being hosted by Greg and the groups website is
http://www.meetup.com/South-Bay-War-Games/

Roman City and Village

I put together a Roman City and a rural village with fields using the Roman Seas buildings. These are only available in 1/300 scale. http://www.romanseas.com/

The towers are from the large set and the walls are from the short set.   Designed for figures on 40mm bases.  12 inch square base for city.

Breitenfeld 30 Years War

initial deployment. Swedes and Saxons on the left. Imperialists on the right

Initial deployment. Imperialists on left. Swedes and Saxons on right.

Swedish right wing cavalry and infantry advance on Imperialist left as the Imperialist cavalry fall back behind the Tercios.

Imperialist right wing advances on Saxons.

View from behind imperialist center.

The Imperialists were able to drive off the Saxons, but due to time and turn limits could not engage the Swedes. The game was declared an Imperialists tactical victory. Action in the center consisted mainly of artillery bombardment as the Tercios slowly advanced.

The game was fought on a five by twelve foot area and after reviewing the game, I realized that I should have started the armies closer together due to artillery ranges and movement rates. The game was umpired by Manny Granillo and used his "Repent or Die" rules. Although there is a scenario for Breitenfeld in the book I used the order of battle and ratings from GMT games "Lion of the North" Ken Mackie commanded the Imperialists and I commanded the Swedes and Saxons.

The forested hills near the Imperialist center used the trees from Everest Models. I bought packs of the 32mm and 38mm trees. I would recommend getting slightly taller trees though as several millimeters of height are lost when the trees are placed in the foam core.

We built this city

Over the past couple of months I have been assembling several sets of the micro scale Paperterrain buildings.The first picture is the Mediterranean village set with the Monastery set in the background.  The second one has parts of the European Town and Village sets.  I still have quite a few European buildings to assemble.  The third one is the North Russian village set and the final one is the North African set.    These are on modular sections and can be re-arranged in several different ways or each section can be used on its own.  The buildings can also be removed to expose the ruined interior.

Each set takes several hours to cut and assemble.   After determining how I wanted the building arranged, I glued some paper roads in place on some artist matt board (a thick paper material than can be purchased in different colors for a few dollars) for the Mediterranean and European sets.  Next, I glued the ruins and walls in place, glued Woodland Scenics ground foam for the grass and poked holes for the trees.  A brown marker was used to make the roads for the Russian and North African villages.

Paperterrain make quite a few different sets in scales from 6mm to 28mm.   The website is http://www.paperterrain.com/

The trees are from Everest Models, a dealer on EBAY.  They are available in various sizes and can be purchased in small or large lots for an inexpensive amount.   I'll have some photos in the next post of them being used to create a forested area for a re-fight of the 30 Years Wars battle of Breitenfeld.

South Bay Game Club

Lately I have been going to the monthly meetings of the South Bay Game Club. http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/southbaygameclub/  This is a very active group with several games being played at each meeting.  The following are some pictures from the February meeting where seven different games were being played.

These include two different naval games, FOGR, Camerone, and Valle Verde from the American Civil War