Normandy 44 - New buildings

I am enjoying cracking on with bits for my 15mm Normandy collection, and its time for some more terrain items

Today’s terrain contribution is a set of resin buildings made by Tiger Terrain. They are wonderfully designed and executed. Great clean, crisp casting work which makes them an absolute joy to paint.

So first up "L'elgise St Martin" .a classic Norman church . The roof and the tower all comes apart for ease of access to the inside and swapping out the tower for a damaged version - it’s had small magnets added to hold it together.. I have added a scratch made weather vane to the full tower piece made from piano wire and piece of tape cut to shape and hardened with PVA.

Next are the farmhouse and barn , with damaged versions as well 

i really enjoyed painting these  - it now of course means I really need to put some work in to uplift the existing 4ground ones with some more weathering and detailing.

Normandy 44 - Playing with matches.. game report - pic heavy

We had another of our day games today - this time we were back to Normandy with a large table in a new venue James has found (see Martins post) . We were doing a full British battalion attack using the full 12 foot size of the table. There was a railway embankment to cross with all the usual nastiness ahead - minefields, nebelwerfers , and not knowing where the Germans actually are we had to flush them out.

Classic Normandy wheat field advance..

period wheat field shot!

Martin picked the Battalion orders - I had the best part of two infantry companies , 3 inch mortar section a Churchill Crocodile squadron and AVRE with Petard.

main table view Brits attacking toward the villages , over the railway embankment 

We discussed getting some more matting to make bigger wheat fields for our larger games as we have a few shades competing with each other here

my forces ready to go... 

infantry over the embankment are hit by Moaning Minnies but don't lose too much strength
they then deal with a couple of PAK40s 

Crocs advance over an easier gradient part of the embankment 

infantry gather in the ditch real to cross the wheat field to my target village

German armour is spotted and blinded with smoke for a key turn 

medics and aid post ready for casualties

The Crocs knock out a couple of PzIVs and then advance with the infantry 

One platoon pulled a lucky event causing them to get into the orchard and muller a German mortar unit freeing the way into the village

pushing on 

small arms fire from the buildings attracts the ire of the Crocs

right then.. pass the matches ... 5 deadly dice per unit... saw the boche bugging out...

The village is burning , but its in British hands 

meanwhile to my left Ian is pummelling the farm complex , but the Germans are dug in deeper than ticks and are repulsing every infantry assault. 

Armour waits the clearance of a minefield along the road off advance 

Brit tanks crest the crossing point , having cleared the mines.. who awaits.. 

88s are found firing down the road .. they attract several artillery barrages!

on my far left Martin platoons advance

oops..as Martins armour has yet to get across the embankment he will need his PIATS!

the village burns from artillery and mortars 

Phew - Martin and I manage to capture our target villages - Ian is finally advancing past the farm complex - casualties in the infantry have been high in places .. the inevitable counterattack is awaited!

altogether a great game it felt very representative of the hard Normandy battles - and it looked right too.. 

our new occasional venue is good - we can get at least another 3 table in to make a 16 foot x 6 table..

Wings of Glory WW2 - Blenheim bombers and Schwalbe ME262s

 With the start of the 1940 Wings of Glory campaign game I needed to complete a couple of Bristol Blenheim bombers.  I have most of the WWII aircraft produced for the game, however they don’t make a Blenheim and there is an early scenario in the campaign that calls for 2 Bristol Blenheim bombers - fortunately Zvesda do one in the same 1/200th scale So I have cracked on to complete the two required last week. It is a nice little kit to put together and looks good. I will get some proper propeller spinners sorted once I get all the aircraft  i have in the to"to do pile" done.

I also picked up a couple of resin ME262s from Armaments in Miniature in the US to add to the late war collection in an attempt to give my allied bomber fleet some more opposition. The game system doesn't have these released officially but a few guys in the Wings of Glory forum have produced stats and movement cards etc. I have made up some magnetic gimble mounts for attaching these to the flight stands - as it nice see these banking as they turn and swoop like the "Schwalbe" (Swallow) they are named for!

i have some more items on order from AIM, some Dornier Do17 , Boulton Paul Defiants and Fairey Battles that will be needed for the later games in the Battle of Britain campaign 

Wings of Glory WW2 - Battle of Britain campaign games 1 & 2

One of the aims this year is to get more gaming in. Today saw the start of a regular Monday gaming session with Pete, to play through the Battle of Britain campaign ladder for Wings of Glory WW2. I have acquired a fair collection of WW2 aircraft for this including some of the “unofficial” ones - more in another post coming up.  Is there will be a series of posts coming up to record what happens . We used my large 6x4 aerial mat and used a bit of clear masking tape to show the game map limits.

Game 1 - End of the phoney war 

Opening Scenario , End of the phoney war - 2  Me109 versus 1 Hurricane and 1 Dewotine - German victory . 
Flying Officer Thompson heads home early for tea and biscuits after rudder damaged, lands safely.
Lt Harinordiquay, shot down after battling two Me109s after being abandoned by the British pilot , baled out landed with friendly forces

Happy gamer Pete..

Game 2 - Bombing the Meuse bridges

Scenario 2 - Bomb the bridges - 2 Me109 versus 2 Hurricanes and 2 Blenheim bombers - British Victory . 

Pilot Officer Thompson (Hurricane) damages an Me109 , makes it home no damage, becomes experienced pilot, 

Pilot Officer Wallace (Hurricane) , damages an ME109 , wounding the pilot . Makes it home with smoke and rudder damage for AA fire.

Pilot Officer Kelly and crew . (Blenheim) . Bombs dropped - missed target , made it safely home with rudder and both engines damaged, - now a “lucky “ crew

Pilot Officer Crump (Blenheim) and crew, dropped bombs on target , lightly damaging the bridge. FO Crump shot and damaged an Me109 in the engine before being shot down by combined anti aircraft and Me109 fire. crew baled out.
F.O Crump seriously wounded in the chest with impressive scars. Awarded a medal while in captivity
Observer Smith .Injured. Captured
Wireless operator/ gunner Jones bailed out successfully not injured , Captured

One ME109 written off in a crash landing on return to base , both pilots survive and are now experienced.

A couple of good games played - as we got to grips with the various rules.

I am working on some magnetic boards in lieu of the more complex and expensive control console available. I also need to do more colour coding of the card decks for when playing with multiple aircraft - I will get these done for our games next month.

Normandy 44 - US Airforce P47s and blast markers

Another bit of progress for my 15mm Normandy 44 project. This time the introduction of air power for my US forces. - well JamesM needs something for his  Flak Korps  to shoot at other than Shermans

The Jabo's looking for trouble.

These are P47 Thunderbolts made by Battlefront - two of which were fine. One of them had lot of problems with bent wings. Even with the persuasive powers of hot water and the  hair dryer the resin won't fully comply. I have made contact re getting a replacement - but for now its doing flying duties - it can be turned into a terrain piece when its been replaced.

I hand painted the invasion stripes - a fun job! I also want to add some propeller spinners - however I will wait until I have some more aircraft sorted (there are some on the way ) and order them up in a job lot. 

I need to pick up some of the taller flight stands as they flying very low!

I have added a thinned satin varnish to the main panels which gives a very slight shine to the bare metal look . 

I couldn't pass up the chance to make up some blast markers from battery operated flashing tea lights - I got a box of 24 from china for a relative pittance. The casings of the lights were painted black , then I hot glued on some cushion filler and teased it into shape - a couple of sprays of grey and black and they are good to go. They are large markers for 15mm but for bombs I think they will be fine, They will also of course do duty in other games and genres. I have been looking at cutting the light casing down to make smaller markers and this is perfectly do-able so I have add that to the to do list.

Cruel Seas - Targets!

This weeks progress on my cargo vessels for Cruel Seas . Last year I picked up some old skytrex stuff from a bring and buy - they are 1/1200th ,but still reasonable size. They are around 6 inches  long, and are a mix of metal and resin kits. You can still get these from Heroics and Ros . I be also complete a sprue of torpedoes , thanks for sending them over Jason . These have been done with a colour code to help differentiate which boat fired them in case of memory problems . I think we will be changing to adding a torpedo dice into the bag to have them all move together but in a random part of the turn. 

The Warlord games one is at the top for size comparison