WWII 6mm Painting Progress and Basing

Blasted Basing
Go back and forth 60x30, 40x20, 30x30, 20x20... No one warned about The Hardest Decision in Miniature Gaming. And, I don't even know if I really want to play Samurai. Sounds cool.

But is it?

I cut out 60x30s with heavy card stock. Tried playing a couple moves and shooting steps from Black Powder. Something wasn't quite right.

I make it sound like it's a big deal. But I believe there are bigger issues out there. This is what the news tell me. Anyway...

But in the "progress is cool" camp - #hobbytime today saw me prime the 16 US armored units I assembled last night.

Hobbytime Progress 6mm WWII and Fields

Listened to Ben Curry? Interviewed on Point Hammered (explicit warning). He's from The Bad Dice Podcast in England. He spoke about getting at least 15 minutes in a day on your hobby to make progress.

Glued and assembled more halftracks to round out my 56th AIB. In addition made 3 105mm Priests as 3 batteries of battalion support. (each one represents 6 M7s!). Finally, made 3 105mm M4s to round out support of Armored Battalion.

Also cut more fields for the Schijndel scenario. I think the table is done. One of the pics below shows the soldiers eye view of the "church" in the distance. Shows that it has a grey field of view. In BkCII troops in that building's 2nd floor can see over linear obstacles. Need to firm up my understanding of the CdTob rules.

He also spoke about people tweeting #hobbytime to show the world your progress. Fun way to keep yourself going.

And, a pic of just part of the complete rainbow I saw going to work this morning.

Hills Finished

See a trend here over the past few posts? Again, some pics of the progress.

I started using a straight blade after watching BTB. And I think I like it better than the hot knife.

Preparing a Table for WWII CD an BKCII

I pulled a Scenario from Bob's great website of scenarios. His main focus is WWII for Command Decision. However, he's many others as well. Go check them out and use for whatever rule system you want.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bob_mackenzie/index.html

This is one of the smaller ones that is a German counter attack some US paras in the town of Schijndel.

These pics are of the beginning of the layout. I'm excited to use the new hedges, fields, and town homes.

I know this happens to all of us in this hobby: I swear I bought a church by JR Miniatures...but I can't find it. I'm going to do one more search. This Scenario calls for a church in the middle of town with the best visibility.

Oh well.

I'll add more fields (they are soft and slow down armor in CD) and hedges. I've got all the basics according to his map. But having played so many games on Jerry's tables - I must see more variance.

Again, I would like to try this with my main 2 rules of choice - CDToB and BKCII.

Houses Walls and Bocage Finished

I hope. One turned out ok, the other, not so much but I'm done with painting terrain for awhile. Below are pics of the progress:

This is what I'm shooting for, one of Jerry's homes.

WWII Ships Finished

Finished the labels for the 1:3000 ships. I feel like they're complete finally.

I decided to not print any game stats on the labels so they could be proxies or used for other games.

Now to schedule a game with my local group here to get these into action and to teach them Naval Thunder.

Oh, I used Aleene's Tacky Glue, Clear to glue them onto the bases.

Commands & Colors - Akragas

Finished stickering the game and couldn't resist setting up the first scenario.

This is a battle between Syracusan Tyrants and Carthage. I was soloing this while trying to learn the rules so came up with two different battle plans. The first was with Carthage - I wanted to play them as I've seen a few people, including myself, play this game - rushing my fast units up to do some quick damage and to continue doing this the whole game.

For the Romans I was going to play more conservative. With the emphasis of my first few turns being to get those slow moving heavy units into the battle - and then rushing my fast movers to the rear while the heavies pounded them up front.

Result

Carthage Heavy Chariot Prepares to Charge Light Cav

Carthage moved up those heavy Chariots on the flanks and took a banner fairly quickly on the Syracuse left.  The pic shows the Heavy Chariot before it's charge of the Light Cav.  The bow units and Auxilla sitting to the right of the Light Cav avenge their brothers' destruction. 

Perhaps this was a good strategy.

But it would not last.  A couple later took out the other heavy on the Syracuse right.

A few turns later these Heavy Chariots will disappear

The Syracusans were patient and then at the right time drew a line command card - Holy Roman Empire that is one powerful card. But I'd heard about this card which is why I made every effort to get all my units in a line, led by the heavies. The third picture is right after they moved...

Then the next pic is the result in the main area. And the last is the end result and end game as this light cavalry unit is essentially surrounded and forced to retreat. They have to retreat 4 hexes! They were down to 2 stands, retreated to the back of the board, 2 hexes, and then eliminated 2 stands for each hex they couldn't move back.

5th banner and the game.

All the units have moved into position...

There are so many more choices in this game than Memoir and Battlecry. The unit variation is nice as well as all the nuanced actions the leader has.

And the end result of the massive line advance.

And, I come into this game with little Ancient experience so I'm not clouded by liberties taken to fulfill abstraction requirements. If I remember that C&C is an abstract war game I do a lot better.

I can totally see Dave making 6mm for this with big hexes. You could actually play this board with 6mm figs. The little drawings are about 6-10mm tall.

The last banner of the game, the light retreats off the field

Command & Colors Ancients Mini-blocks Progress

Broke down and bought GMT's Command & Colors Ancients during Geekway to the West 2012.

It requires you to sticker 300 miniature wooden blocks. It's kin of like modeling, sort of.

Finished the Carthaginians tonight and the Roman heavy units.

Speaking of Ancients and the demise of Warhammer Historicals, I really wish I could find a copy of Warmaster Ancients. Why oh why won't they sell it via PDF?

Warhammer Historical - Done

Perhaps I missed the buzz around this because I was immersed in Geekway stuff.

Seemed like most of their historicals weren't that popular w the exception of WAB. Their WWII set was beginning to build up some blog post hits. I hope the authors of the rules have some latitude to continue developing their respective sets.

Stick to the Plan - Fighting Formations Pt 2

Game start - all those hidden Soviets - where oh where are you?

Midgame - not looking good for the Germans

Endgame - Could the Germans have won if they'd stuck to the plan?

Second play through of GMT's Fighting Formations - this one was much more of a slugfest. Perhaps it  helped that I remembered this: in response to fire, only one (1) unit may return fire, not an unlimited number of units like OpFire. OpFire allows an "unlimited" number of units to respond with fire at each expenditure of MP.

Also, I was more diligent to count the initiative used when a unit responded with OpFire or Return Fire.

This is a lesson learned for minis and board gaming - the importance of sticking to a plan. My plan was for the Germans to concentrate on their left. (That would be the right of the above pics.) However, as soon as the bullets/shells began flying, I was somewhat distracted by the beauty of the fight. Prying those Soviets out of buildings and fortifications is tough and it requires a concentration of power.

Now that I look at it, I wonder if perhaps the German right may be a better play...

Regardless, I split my forces and as both sides stalled I was somewhat committed and also lost track of the time track, playing it as though I had 2 more turns that I had. The Germans were awarded one extra turn via the Sudden Death roll, however, to little effect.  It was too little too late.

Not quite as giddy as the first game, because this slows down significantly when they get in close. Lots of return fires to keep track of. Lots of things can go on as the units close.

I should also note that I've played both games with the event pulls at the end of each turn. I love that random event chit pull. It's a great option that I will always play with.

Geekway is in three days and I just finished up some more detail work on it. One of the organizers said I should bring a couple of my wargames. I will. However, they're all Planoed and in notebooks OCDville and it makes them tough to travel. Also, there aren't many wargamers there, however, maybe these will appeal to them.

Fighting Formations

Played this Chad Jensen boardgame, Fighting Formations. I've had this exactly one year before I played it. (With my work with Geekway to the West, I should just claim May as Boardgame Month.)

GMT and Chad and Kai and John have done it again. Tremendous.
Nice components
Clear rules (don't interpret - just read them as they read.)
Nice graphics
Smooth mechanics
Very few rule look ups, even after a couple solo plays
Rules and Scenarios posted as pdfs online!!!!
Well tested scenarios

There were times while playing it that I literally laughed out loud and was giddy. So smooth and fun mechanics. There are so many reviews and videos that I don't need to do something here.

The pics below are my from my first game - intro scenario 0 - German crushing victory. I did many things wrong that aided in this rollover. My next playing  - see a later post.

This has also done something that I'm not happy about - I'm tempted to play some early/mid war Germany v Russian in miniature. (Don't do it.)

At set up Russians lined up to take some villages. Tanks should be in "Column" as they go through  town.

Overview of map at start and the order matrix.

The middle town that gets all the attention during the game as the Germans begin to move in.

Midgame

Not quite endgame - didn't finish 'cause it was a clear German victory.

 

Endgame

Here are several Board Game Geek links:
Fighting Formations Review 1
Fighting Formations Review 2
Fighting Formations Review 3
Video review of Fighting Formations 1
One more video review of Fighting Formations 2
and finally, this is the first of eight video walk-throughs of Fighting Formations

The link to GMT page of Fighting Formations

How I Label My Troops-WWII-6MM

New subscriber, Alan, asked how I mark my troops:
The first picture is of the German Pz Grens (Yellow background, black writing) Marked with the Company number: in this case, 2nd. And then a dot to say which platoon/unit. In this case you can see that 3rd platoon, 2nd CO is flanking from the tanks right. The 1st platoon, 2nd Company is attacking the front. And, Weapons platoon (4 dots) flanking from the left. 

This second photo is similar. Except, I use letters because the US used letters to designate the companies. The unit at the top and by the tanks is an engineer platoon (gray with black writing).

Punch & Play for Geekway 2012

Today is the annual punch & play event as we are 2 weeks out from the 2012 Geekway to the West boardgame con.

http://www.geekway2west.com/

This is where we get the games ready , punched, bagged, stickered and inventoried for the "play and win" table. We also play them to make sure someone is able to teach them.

Geekway to the West's Play and Win table is a highlight of the convention. Many (generally over 50!) games are available to be played and all of them will be given away on the last day of the convention. The more you play, the better your chances of winning! Stay tuned to see what games will be available for 2012!

In addition there are over 600 games in the library to play. Also there are ?? number of games and other giveaways etc.

There's still time to register - go to the Geekway website at http://www.geekway2west.com/

The games I worked on/played:
Last Will - you try to spend all your money an go bankrupt before anyone else so you're rich uncle will inherit everything to you. Brewster's Millions in the Victorian era. Very enjoyable.

Flashpoint - cooperative game where you're trying to save the building and people. Also a good time.

Stickered Commands & Colors Napoleonics.

Ogre Minis to be Remade

They're hitting their goals like crazy over at the Steve Jackson Games Kickstarter.

Usually KS campaigns hit their bigger numbers in the first few days - but it seems to be getting more and more as it nears the close on May 11.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/847271320/ogre-designers-edition

Timmy! Is Selling Some Terrain

Contributor timmy! Is now selling some of his terrain over at Combat Wombat - http://www.combatwombatminiatures.com/tim%27s_terrain.htm

These trash bags, refrigerators, and trash cans are perfect for 15-20mm games.

Disclosure - I don't make anything on these, i'm just supporting his efforts.

Just 8 Days Left to Ogre

This amazing kickstarter ogre project is fun to watch - blowing out their goals everyday.

Go here to support:
http://kck.st/HHM05H