Got the German 10.5cm battery done. That was, I think, the worst painting experience from any Flames of War figures I've done! It came with nicely sculpted resin bases, with recesses for the crew. That sounds like a good idea, as hiding figure bases is always an issue. However, getting the gun
AND the crew onto a base is a bit of an art. The recesses actually messed with that. I wasn't free to locate the figures in such a way that I could get the gun back on the base after I had completely finished painting and flocking it. So, I had to paint the figure bases separately, trim their bases so they actually fit in the recesses, glue them onto the base with the gun now in the way of everything, then go back and try to fill in and hide the gaps around the figure bases. It actually tacked on a couple of nights to the entire process and started to really irritate me.
But, the firk ding blasted things are done now! And, they look pretty good. I was glad to get figures with the scissor/rabbit binoculars. I was always fascinated by these as a kid, and the wide rangefinders as featured on the box art of the
Tamiya 88 kit.
I also grabbed some scale angle iron and started throwing together some very rough
Czech Hedgehogs to litter the beach. I didn't get time to spray paint them this weekend, and it looks like it will rain all week, so they may stay white a while.
On Sunday, I laid everything out and set up the rest of the table. It looks to me like I really need some non-bocage fields to fill up the table. Looking at D-Day maps, there were no forests, just nothing but fields. That or houses-- looks entirely possible to come off the beach into an urban firefight. It's hard to tell how much real bocage there was, but there was definitely some, as they marked hedges on 1:25,000 maps! So, I will probably shoot for a combination of hedgerows and simpler LOS blocking borders like bushes and such. Besides, fields are a terrain item I have been seriously lacking for a while, it will do my table good to get some on there.
Number One Son and I took a stab at it yesterday! We only had time for 2 1/2 turns, but it was long enough for him to make his first assault on a bunker-- which I was able to repel, barely. It became pretty clear the Germans could make do with some AA, too. We took a picture of a lost LCVP, which my son stacked hedgehogs in front of, as it was delayed all three of his turns!!
It all looka fantastic, you should get some good games out of it
ReplyDeleteian
I'm hoping so!
DeleteYou've probably already seen this site but it has some good modern photos. www.dday04.com
ReplyDeleteCan you link to the overhead photos you're referencing? It would be a nice resource.
Looking at the photos makes it look like you could use your beach with a variety of terrain types coming off the beach - towns, cliffs, bocage, fields.
You're starting me to thinking this my be fun to set up. It would be fun to have two games going on at the same time on the same board - beach landing and a little further inland a para/glider drop. The goal being to have some of the beach landers get to the paras.
Your board looks great - I agree some more fields, shrubs etc would look good.
>You've probably already seen this site but it has some good modern photos. www.dday04.com
DeleteI've haven't seen that yet-- looks great, thanks!!
>Can you link to the overhead photos you're referencing? It would be a nice resource.
Most of the pictures I've seen are just what I've found via Google image search. I'm leaning more towards recreating Utah than Omaha, since Omaha had a lot more height inland and I don't have that on my table.
The maps I'm referencing are from http://www.alangodfreymaps.co.uk/dday.htm. They're nothing essential, but pretty interesting, as you can probably tell from the sample. It includes the mapping of the German defenses.
> It would be fun to have two games going on at the same time on the same board - beach landing and a little further inland a para/glider drop. The goal being to have some of the beach landers get to the paras.
What a great idea! I hadn't considered that, but it is a natural for me! I also have a lot of Airborne, and the way the 8x5 table is set up right now, you can probably see I'm not using 2-3 feet of the length. With a little imagination, that road off the beach could be the road straight from Utah beach to Ste-Mere-Elise...
Maybe not exactly that with FoW, anyway, but when I start looking at some higher scale rules, definitely!!
Looking better and better each time!
ReplyDeleteLooking to get some Hot fields and make some low hedges and tree lines to border them. Bet it looks really good then.
DeleteHotz fields, damn phone!
Delete