Monday 10 July 2023

Some ECW painting and WW2 games

Not a lot to post about this week. Over the weekend I decided to get the World War II forces on to the tabletop and have a few games. I was set up the terrain rather randomly, then identified five features on the tabletop the defender was to hold. At the end of the game who ever holds three areas has a marginal victory, four areas is a victory, and five areas is a major victory. 

Tabletop setup with 5 terrain features to be held or captured.

My thinking behind this approach is that I'm considering setting up a mini-campaign and using period-specific maps. I aim to transfer the campaign actions from the maps and onto the tabletop by creating scenarios based on these maps. Each scenario would involve the defender needing to hold 1, 3, or 5 key terrain features, preventing the attacker from gaining control over them. Although there has been some progress, there still needs to be a bit more thinking to be done to make this idea successful. 

An example of the type of maps I am looking at using in a future campaign.

In the meantime, here are a few photographs of the games…

Allied forces enter the town.

Panther tanks positioned on a hill.

AT gun covers the road.

A ground level view.

On a more productive note, I finished painting a base of English Civil War figures using the figures that had arrived the previous week. I still have one more base to complete as I am currently using two bases for  my units. I plan to begin working on the next base this week.

Latest base of ECW infantry.

On the ECW topic, I am considering painting up some single pikemen to place behind the unit as a marker to show when a unit is out of ammunition. At the moment I use single mounted officers to show veteran units as they look nice and reduce the number of tokens.

An officer is used instead of a token to mark veteran unit.

A possible use of some spare pikemen to be used to indicate infantry units out of ammunition.

The ECW will soon return to the tabletop.

15 comments:

  1. Good work on all fronts Peter! Using figures rather than counters to mark units is more aesthetically pleasing but potentially more expensive too - particularly if you were to use casualty figures to mark.....well....units that have suffered casualties!

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    1. With the bigger sized units I will only need a handful of figures to replace the out of ammunition token, but I will still be using tokens for hits. I have seen other wargamers use casualty figures which is most impressive.

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  2. Good to see some WWII action and some nice ideas about a mini-campaign cum linked games, much my preferred option for this period. Nice work on the ECW figures too, but I'm quite happy with labels to delineate differences for units, as they just work for me.

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    1. Getting to a WW2 mini-campaign still has a bit more work and time required. I am mostly happy using tokens, but with the ECW I was getting up to 3 tokens on a unit which was a tad too much for my liking, and as I have up to 7 units per side it is a smallish task to do a few extra figures.

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  3. Good idea on the 5 objective conditions as a 3rd objective will always be a ‘swing’ objective and heavily contested. I’m guessing objectives 4 and 5 will often prove elusive for a full house! Perhaps just having 3 out of 5 for a straight win (no level of victory) might bring more contest and counter-attacking.

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    1. I probably could go with a straight victory. One later thought I did have for the campaign was a minor or major victory would effect the recovery of tanks in a campaign.

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  4. Peter, perhaps a base with a powder barrel or two on it might work for ‘out of ammunition’?

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    1. Yes, that would work and could be easily scratch built.

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  5. Hi Peter- Great to see your WW2 battle- very nice Terrain and your Buildings are beaut. I'd be interested to know the scale of your Figures and Armor - are they 1/76th or 1/72nd? Also, I'd like to know about the Rules your using - are they Home Grown? Thanks. KEV.

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    1. The miniatures are mostly 1/72, but with a few 1/76 where I went with Airfix models. As for the rules I am using Lock ‘n’ Load’s “Tank on Tank” board game rules with with free movement rather than hex with some modifications - see link for a previous game, https://gridbasedwargaming.blogspot.com/2023/03/ww2-scenario-and-game-report.html. The “Tank on Tank” rules are free to download.

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    2. Thanks Peter- I may look up the 'Tank on Tank' Rules- sounds interesting. I've wrote my own WW2 Rules for Infantry and Armor- haven't played a Battle yet- still a long way away yet before a game - presently collecting and assembling 1/72nd tanks and vehicles. Regards. KEV.

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  6. You remain ever-busy on the wagaming front. Your newly recruited troops look terrific. Looking forward to seeing them in action.

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    1. Thanks. I have just undercoated the second lot of figures to make up the second base. The downside of larger units is the extra time to paint.

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  7. Great and inspiring as usual. Love the black and white mood photos for WW2.

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    1. I could not resist doing the black and white photos as a bit of nostalgia.

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