Salute 2010

Salute was a great success. The game was easy to set up and played well despite all the many distractions. I spent a great deal of the game talking to a large portion of the public. I had thought the game would be little more than another medieval and would not attract much interest. Instead I was overwhelmed by the reception it received, in terms of numbers, interest and positive comment. It made all the hard work worth while, and was an added bonus as this was such a personal project. And the Poles finally got a victory as an added bonus!

I was so bus with the game I didn't get a great deal of time to look around, I managed to pick up my ordered from Peter Pig and catch up with Martin, Julie and Nigel. I tried to collect my Bersigaleri box set from Caliver, but battlefront had not delivered it, so Dave was very apologetic and had it shipped and with me by the end of the following week. I also ordered those odd extra bits direct from battlefront. I didn't see anything else from the trade that really excited me, except for the new release from the Smog range, which I just can't afford, but would love to have!

I managed to have a peak at a few games, nothing particularly stuck out for me. The skirmish wargames put on a colonial game that looked really good and was nice to catch up with everyone there. The winner of beat game was Ian and his colleagues with a large scale Kamikaze participation game that looked superb, but I did not have time to play. The rest of the games where the usually incredibly high quality, but nothing stood out from the crowd.

Luke took some pictures of the game which I will add when he send them to me.

Show Game - Last Update

Dear Friends. Been very rubbish, but very busy. On the 16th the club had a practise run through of Tannenburg, and I took the pictures below. The following week I was ill, and also stressing about the poster I had ordered frpm the states that was sitting in an airport in the US waiting for flights to be allowed in the UK again. Fortunately it arrived, Salute and Tannenburg where huge successes and I'll update again soon.

Show Game Update

Luke and I flocked and detailed the boards today. Went really well, even if the we used much more flock and glue than expected and had to get some GW water effect after the Noch stuff really didn't work. I'll let the photos below do the talking, but point out that the white appearance of the water is as the water effect has not yet dried. It goes clear once it has cured. And the buildings and camp is missing from the boards.

Above and below: Two views of the boards

Above: A view from the hill on which the Polish King commanded the battle, below: The same hill viewed from the Polish right
Above: The Marzoka river, below: the marshland

Above: Another view of the boards, below: An aerial view of the whole terrain set-up

Show Game Update and Flames of War Campaign

Luke and I popped up the club to do a quick dry-brush on the boards and then play our next campaign game. The Dry-brush improved the look of the terrain instantly and popped out some of the detail.
Our next campaign game was a cauldron battle with the British as the defenders. Luke set up his Motor Rifle platoon in the small village with a crusader platoon in support. A platoon of Grants were hidden in immediate Ambush. The Italians deployed their Bersaglieri and the Servomentes with artillery in support. Under the bombardment the Beraglieri advanced on the town and a vicious close combat ensued resulting in the British being pushed out, although the supporting attack from the opposite flank by a Carri platoon was stopped dead by the Crusaders.Despite a desperate final counter attack by the British the Italians held on for a minor victory and increased their lead in the campaign. Under an increasing counter attack from the Italian the next mission will be a British Delayed Withdrawal.

Show Game Update

On Easter Monday Luke and I did the next step on the terrain boards. We sprayed them using a citadel spray gun, citadel foundation paints and then added some detail with an airbrush and Vallejo air paints.

Above: Luke sprays the boardAbove: The board fully sprayedAbove: The Marsh Area sprayed with blues and greens using an Iwata airbrush.

Club Night 26th and 27th March

On the Friday I finished off the last few bases, except for their basing and cleaned up the joins of the boards in preparation for a game with Duncan on the Saturday. And then on Saturday we finally play tested the game. We used the full Impetus rules and I was surprised how quickly and easily the game flowed, despite Duncan never having played the rules before.

The Teutons advanced against the Lithuanians and began to push them back and then break them, but in doing so the Germanic Knight began to charge off of their own accord and get scattered. The Poles then committed their centre command to battle and things began to sit on the balance before the Teutons broke the Lithuanians and the Brother Knights began to make their presence felt, and broke the Poles for a Teutonic victory.

I was really please with the way the game played out how smoothly it went. Hopefully it will be playable at shows and still have a good visual impact and look a little unusual. And for the Poles, they need to exploit the impetuous nature of the Teutons more to pull them to positions where they can be surrounded and their superior fighting prowess can be negated.

Firestorm Bagration

On Sunday I joined Luke at his to try out Firestorm Bagration using the Generals wargames rules. We diced for sides and Luke took the Russians and we decided to play the longer 6 turn game.

The initial Russian advances where vicious and the German line broken at several points and two cities isolated. The following turn the pace slowed, before the Germans began to launch a counter attack by winning the initiative on most rolls. With two Heavy Panzer Battalions leading the attack they broke through and restored supply to one city before cutting off the Russian spearhead and destroying it near the Pripet marshes. In the North they were forced to throw Polezei division into the line to prevent another Russian exploitation.

The Russians then renewed their attacks and began to push the Germans back. They valiantly tried to reopen communication with their forward positions, and even managed to cut off and destroy another Russian spearhead, but the line was too weak and had buckled, Minsk was under threat and finally feel. When the last German attacks failed to recapture the forward cities, victory for the Russians was assured.

This was a fantastic little game. Remarkably simple but requiring a lot of thought and forward planning and really felt quite accurate in the way it played out. I hope we are able to convert it for our preferred Desert format without loss of any of the key features that made it so enjoyable.