New Terrain

Posted on October 24, 2014 by Tom Gall

I’m sure we all go through conundrum as war gamers. Buy or make terrain? There’s lots to be said for putting the time and effort into making hills, or tree lines, bocage, wire and all that. It’s like painting your miniatures, fun to do and the results are certainly rewarding with a great looking game table.

It’s also an investment in time and unfortunately for me, time isn’t something I have lots and lots of. So picking up terrain, specially when it’s great looking terrain, I don’t mind a bit.

To me the best makers of ready to use terrain are Battlefront and Miniature Building Authority.

This time I picked up some of Battlefront’s offerings. The Shattered Battlefield and Large Craters and Ruined house. Both are great and I think worthy additions to your inventory. While they are both targeted towards WWI, I think they have use for any era really. Shattered trees, mud, craters? When aren’t those a welcome addition to your game table.. ok except maybe if you have to march through it.

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Why yes, those are some WWI Scots and yes I do have a piper mounted on the platoon command stand. 🙂

And the box.

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So in the box, you’ll get a large and small area terrain foundation and then 4 sort of tear shaped areas of mud and 4 sort of tear shaped areas of shattered trees. It all looks great and is very well made to hold up to years of gaming.

Now let’s talk about craters.

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So in the Large craters and house box, two large craters and a house. All in the background of this action shot. For WWI and even other periods, large craters this size are most welcome. These are really well done and who knows maybe Battlefront might produce a Big Bertha so you could make craters like this in real time as part of a game.

But until they do, the thing I like best about this picture is just how great those craters look and just how bad it makes my tabletop felt look. I need a better covering! These are good problems to have.

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Oct 18, Flames of War Russian vs Germans/Hungarian

Posted on October 23, 2014 by Tom Gall

I played in a game over at Deaf Ear records in LaCrosse on Oct 18th. Here’s a few pictures of the event. It was a 2200 pt a side game with Chuck pulling out his Russians and then Bill and I each fielding 1100 pts. In my case I choose a German Inf company with a couple of platoons of Heer infantry, a couple of 8cm mortars, an HMG platoon with 4 105s in support and a couple of StuG F assault guns. Bill had a formation of pioneers, more 105s, a platoon of 38t tanks and a platoon of Pz IIIn. He thought about using his Romanians but decided against it due to the variable nature of what the troop quality might have been.

Our task was a to attack and break through Chuck’s lines just on the other side of a river. Here’s a recon shot of the pretty table:

IMG_8827Couple of places to cross on either side either in the shallows or over the bridges. Certainly a fun table and a challenge.

So Bill and I came up with a strategy we would have a holding force on the right and then have the bulk of the attack on the left. We’d go for the object on the left as well but there was a possibility I felt we could shift and reach the objective on the right using the terrain to our advantage and if we could hold the Russians with the artillery or at least keep them busy.

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The initial attack. Bill taking the crossing at the table edge and I over the bridge. Bill bogged quite a bit and afterwards we’re both realizing that was a little less than smart, it should have been infantry over the water, tanks over the bridge. Live and learn.  Note on the right flank there I had moved up my MG platoon thinking I would take a hull down position and harass the Russians. Also note all those big Russian guns in the background. Ouch.

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When shooting came around we dropped smoke as we should and likewise Chuck did as he should to selecting the choke point to use the uber uber template of ultimate destruction with all those 152 guns. Certainly not iron rain, more like iron hail. No iron comets. Bill took his lumps but pressed forward.

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Bill on the assault here with his tanks. The dug in Russians were quite quite difficult to deal with. While they might have been in foxholes they were very effective at defending them. We didn’t get a collective big push mounted tho, that was certainly our fault and should have perhaps approached that better, but I’m not sure it would have changed the result. It did help with the artillery we were able to range in and pin the Russians. Still their rate of fire was enough to keep us back.

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So based on the lumps we were taking I pulled my holding platoon on the right, in hopes we could muster more oomph and break through.

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Seeing that Chuck ordered his Russians on the right flank forward. We had to use our artillery to deal with it and I turned my platoon right around. See that over there on the bridge on the right? No look closer. There’s a number of dead Russians there. The 105s, the StuG, the 38t and mortars left quite a mark. But by taking the attention away from the left, there just wasn’t anything to be gained. So we shifted a bit more and began to focus on the center, attacking for a single turn and then calling it a game as I had to get rolling. Still an obvious result.

The Russian defense was well played and definitely held.

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A last ending picture from the Russian lines. Look at all those guns.

 

 

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First Post

Posted on October 23, 2014 by Tom Gall

This is a blog about the hobby of war gaming and the variety of things associated with it.

I’m located in Mantorville Minnesota and within the Rochester Mn area, the LaCrosse area, and the twin cities you can find I’ll take in a game.

There are two game group I’m involved with. The one in Rochester has been around for a very long time and I think I first gamed with them back around 1994, or 1995 when I was introduced to the crew via Bruce Laue. What an introduction it was, I’d been a gamer since the late 70s and after college when I moved to Rochester I just hadn’t run into anyone that shared the interest of table top miniature gaming.

With the group in Rochester, we play lots of different rule sets depending on the period and scale of the lead we want to use. Command Decision, BAR, Final Argument of Kings, Red Baron, Johnny Reb, Wooden Ships and Iron Men, Warfare in the Age of Reason, Battleground, just to name few.

The LaCrosse crew is pretty much a Flames of War group which I also find very fun.

Up in the twin cities I try and take in ReCon at least once or twice a year and those are all variable games.

So in the blog, expect to see lots of After Action Reports as well as some amount of I just bought X, you might like it too as well as some research kinds of things.

I am also a re-enactor as a fifer with the 21eme a French Napoleonic Group,  as a private with the 25th US a War of 1812 unit and as 1st Sgt of the 3rd Minnesota a US Civil War unit.

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