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 - 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 - E Boats

The local group has a games day tomorrow so I have been hustling along with some forces for each side. I have completed a couple of vessels for my German forces .

One each of S38 and S100 type. 

I have added some crew figures to these using some spares box Heroics and Ros 1/300th infantry figures,  cutting weapons off advancing figures to have them manning guns, and using a pointing officer figure for the commander on the bridge. I think they really add to the look.

Looking forward to trying the game out tomorrow.

Cruel Seas - a little diversion

One of the Xmas presents to myself was a Cruel Seas starter set. I had been looking to do something like this as last year I picked up a host of metal stuff from a bring and buy for bargain price. They were mostly the old skytrex stuff that is either 1/600 or 1/1200. I had picked up a sea mat from Deepcut  Studios last year  - its a good cold grey colour - just right to my mind for the North Sea.

So - first up the initial British forces - which have also kicked off my first entry in the painting challenge.

3 x Vosper type II

I have drilled through the mast at an angle to add a metal pin stay to support it and it also allows a good place to fly the ensign from.

I have staged the wakes on these with a bit of table salt for the photos - I am tempted to  model proper bases once  I have a had a game  and see how it all works.

 I have added some crew figures to these 3 - which I think really helps - some came with the set so I used them - but I think there will be suitable heroics and ros stuff in the lead pile to re-purpose too

Vopser type I MTB

the start of the merchants - this is the Tanker from the Warlord set I got - its about the size of 4 MTBs , not massive in scale terms , but it does look nice. I did have to add an extra layer of support to base I found the resin was pretty thin and was flexing a lot - I added a cardboard base which seems have done the job.

The scale for the models in Cruel Seas is billed as 1/300th which makes the smaller craft a bit easier to model and use a playing pieces. There will be a bit of scale mix and matching for larger vessels as practically and larger ship is going to need a really large table- even something the size of a liberty ship will be 35cm long .

you can see some of my other merchant ships from last years acquisition on the prep desk .- I have started on the E boats too...as we have a first game planned for the weekend

Normandy 44 - Sealing the pocket game

Today saw the Old Guard weekend meet. A few of us decided to do another WW2 game (Martin and co were doing a large spear chucking game  )  Given the season things have been a bit hectic so the game was not as planned as usual. The scenario we came up with consisted of my US armoured forces strung out along the table having cut off a German battlegroup trying to escape a wider encirclement - how many would escape and what would be the damage.

The play mat, some hedges and a couple of buildings and the deciduous trees are mine and the rest of the terrain is James's  stuff.

the table was 12x5 with US forces strung out - the Germans would randomly arrive  from the right 

Battalion HQ 

Advancing nicely

M7'S deployed at the rear..

Small units of German began arriving along the 12 foot length of table searching for a way through.

German infantry try their luck 

eek!

Battalion HQ tries to work out what is going on!

M10 TD's dealt with a unit of Stugs that attempted to get through on the rail line

A couple of Panthers powered to the central crossroads - causing mayhem. Battalion HQ behind the barn had to bug out  as things were getting a little hairy!. This let a painter and PzIV through and off the board.. 

lead US forces turned back to hit the advancing Germans in the flank - and also running into  some flak and SP artillery which was also quickly death with

The breakthrough attempt was getting costly 

US Anti Tank guns getting set up ready for any more german stragglers. 

US armour advances to seal of the German entry points 

At this point we called it. It had been a good game . James had got some German forces off the board. The US tank destroyers had a good game, and racked up lots of kills - made a change for the German's to be out in the open! 

We will probably re run this one - with some more defined victory conditions as its got good potential 

We then spent some time planning for the larger 16 x 6 table that we might be getting to Partizan in May with beach and para landings. 

Overall a good day out - and we have a holiday games day booked for the 30th too. 

Wings of Glory game and updates

This weekend saw a meet up of the Old Guard group - there were a few games with people chucking sticks at each other , and I took my WW2 Wings of Glory collection.

Over the course of the day we played 5 games , with a few different scenarios - we were using all the standard rules , which everyone was picking up well.

The final game pitted 3 ME109'S and 2 Stukas , against 2 Spitfires and 2 Hurricanes

Fighters lead the way

My Stukas get bounced , and try to evade the RAF... where are my defending fighter!

There was a real swirling dogfight , and a Spitfire went down very early, one of the Hurricane pilots was wounded

Ian (ME109) and James (Hurricanes) plot their moves

Martin pretends to escort my Stukas .. there will trouble back at base tonight!

James with the luckiest Hurricane ever - he kept getting hit , but picked out zero damage chits! but we got him in the very end - just as he downed my Stuka!

One of my Stukas  was shot down - the other limped home with engine trouble and wounded pilot!

Great games - and a few people now in search of their own planes . 

I got hime to find a delivery - a Lancaster and ME110 night fighter! 

I have also picked up a nice beach mat from Deepcut studios and started some work on the D Day stuff with a coupe of gun emplacements. The order for 6 Higgins boats, 3 LCMs, and the assault infantry  has just turned up .. so plenty in the pipeline to keep me busy.