St. Nazaire Raid terrain ready for a game

Last week and this weekend I was able to complete a few units of commandos mainly using Airfix commandos with a few other figures mixed in and scratch build a few ships for a St. Nazaire game.

Commando units

Using wood offcuts HMS Campbeltown and four Motor Launches (which ended up looking more like Motor Torpedo boats) were constructed in a simple block fashion. These were undercoated grey before adding colour with pastel crayons and a bit of paint for details such as portholes.

HMS Campbeltown and four motor launches built and undercoated. In terms of size the ship is 12 inches and launches 6 inches.

HMS Campeltown heads towards the dock.

The ships were them finished using pastels and paint for details before being sealed with PVA glue.

A closer photo of HMS Campeltown.

With terrain, figures, and ships completed it is time to consider some rules for the game.

ECW Campaign Game - Battle of Dunnington - June 1646

In June 1646 Parliament marched with an army on Lincolnshire and were confronted by a Royalist army at Dunninghurst (link to campaign moves and battle setup). The Royalist commander had taken up a strong defensive position around some central buildings and behind a line of hedges.

ECW game in progress

Map of deployment - Royalists are red and Parliament are blue.

The battle began with Parliamentarian forces pushing forward. On their left flank commanded shot moved into the town and were soon faced by Royalist commanded shot who had taken up position in nearby woods. Musket fire was exchanged between the two units.

In the centre the Parliamentarian infantry engaged Royalist infantry position around the centre buildings.

Tabletop setup and ready for the game.

Parliament advances in the centre

With the centre engaged Parliamentarian cavalry pushed forward on the right flank, but were unable to make headway against Royalist infantry defending along the hedges. The attack soon fell into a series of small actions.

On their right flank Parliamentarian cavalry push forward

Parliament cavalry are halted at the hedges

In the centre the pressure was beginning to tell and Royalist reserves moved up to replace losses. In an attempt to reduce the pressure Royalist cavalry charged forward and were met by Parliamentarian cavalry.

Royalist cavalry launch an attack in an attempt to disrupt the Parliamentarian centre attack.

As the battle progressed Parliament was unable to gain any advantage and their attacks began to falter and casualties mounted. Royalist forces held their defensive positions and the Parliamentarian commander decided enough was enough and retired from the battlefield.

Parliament's attack begins to falter.

Battle movements

A marginal victory to Royalists who were able to outlast Parliamentarian forces who failed to gain control of Lincolnshire. The campaign situation in 1646 does not look good for Parliament as they have been unable to increase the regions they control.

St. Nazaire Raid terrain completed

A very brief post as I have a few jobs to do today, but yesterday I painted the docks and made a few pillboxes to complete the terrain for my St. Nazaire Raid game. I now need to add some ships and a few Airfix commandos to my British WW2 forces.

My first game could be in a few weeks once a few units and ships are added

Here are some pictures of the tabletop laid out...

The tabletop for St. Nazaire Raid

The Old Mole and re-embarkment point

The target dock

The winding house and pump house, targets for demolition. If you look closely you can see a few lines drawn on to show the build up areas.

Three bridges completed for St. Nazaire project

During the week I was able to paint up the three bridges I will be using when I setup my St. Nazaire tabletop.

Finished bridges

They were all simply made with MDF board and wood. To complete them I use a combination of paint and pastels. Before finally sealing them with PVA glue. For a very brief moment I did consider cutting out the structure on the bridge sides, but then decided painting was the easier way to go.

Wood and MDF board create the simple forms for these bridges

All painted a grey base coat.

The sides are painted black then the structure painted. I missed a photo of the step where the road is painted on.

A few details are painted on before pastels are applied to give the impression of texture and breakup the block colours. 

All being well I can get the docks for my St. Nazaire project painted and the same approach of block colours and pastels will be used.

Docks to be painted this weekend

St. Nazaire Raid project - more terrain progress

Over the last week a lot of my free time has been spent completing warehouses, cranes, searchlights, and gun emplacements required for the St. Nazaire game. Today I was cutting up some old wardrobe doors to make the docks. All being well they will get painted this coming weekend.

Map of planned St. Nazaire tabletop

To help with repurposing of the wardrobe doors I drafted up a map of the intended tabletop, which is heavily based upon the diagram in chapter 17 from "Battle Notes for Wargamers" by Donald Featherstone. Not having an 8x5 tabletop I have had to focus in a bit more on the three landing areas:

• The dock where most of the targets for demolition are situated
• Old entrance and East Lock gates
• Old Mole the place of re-embarkation

Here are some photos of the last batch of warehouses and other items.

Warehouse and oil tank

Cranes and warehouse 

Warehouse and winding houses for the dock.

Searchlights and gun emplacements.

I am currently painting up three bridges. The remaining items I have to complete are some pillboxes, motor launches and HMS Campbeltown. As you can see from the photos the bridges are very basic and all detail will be painted on.

Simple bridges being constructed

Bridges undercoated and ready for details to be painted on.

Having recently completed ECW game (post to come soon) the tabletop was free and I thought I had better layout all the terrain to make sure it fitted as planned.  It has taken quite a while to get to this point in the preparation and I do remember the words of advice from the book for construction of terrain - "It is not one that can be knocked up in an odd hour before the game starts, because it requires buildings, docks, etc." I do hope the game itself turns out to be worth all this effort.

ACW Campaign Game Report - Afternoon of the 24th Part 2

This is the second game report from the ACW mini-campaign (turn 3) which took place in the afternoon of 24th June 1863 at Redmonds River. This game has Tanner's Confederate division attacking Cope's Union division which has been weakened by combat earlier in the day. Urgent messages were sent by Major General Cope to Union Headquarters and he was relieved to have infantry support from Brown's division (position to the south of him).

Campaign Map of the battle area. The action is being fought at coordinate E3.

Terrain cards were used to determine the 4x4 foot tabletop layout. As the campaign map showed the area to be wooded, two wood cards were set aside from my pack of terrain cards. The remaining cards were shuffled and two more selected off the top. Finally, the two wooded and two selected cards were shuffled (including rotating of individual cards) then laid out.

Terrain cards decided the tabletop terrain.

Tabletop with both forces deployed.

Order of battle:

Cope's Union Division

• 1 x Infantry
• 1 x Cavalry
• 2 x Artillery
• 1 x Infantry re-enforcements due turn 6.

Tanner's Confederate Division

• 3 x Infantry
• 1 x Cavalry
• 1 x Artillery

The plans for both sides were quite straight forward. Union forces wanted to occupy the hill and woods as defensive positions. Then hang on until promised re-enforcements infantry arrived. The Confederate plan was to launch a frontal assault and use their slight edge in numbers (particularly infantry) to decide the action before any Union re-enforcements arrived.

On to the action... 

The initial phase of the action had both sides quickly engaged in combat with Confederate forces trying to dislodge the Union's artillery batteries position on the hill. The artillery were proving very effective with firing rounds or canister into the advancing units.

Union artillery batteries secure the hill in the centre as the Confederate assault begins.

Taking the hill is going to be costly to the Confederates.

Neither side was getting the upper hand on the flanks, although the Union cavalry appeared to be teetering on the edge of routing on then a couple of occasions.  While in the centre it looked like the Confederate assault would be successful at some cost. The promised re-enforcements arrived, but would they be enough to turn the tide of battle in the centre?

The Union centre is in trouble as Confederate infantry get a foothold on the hill.

Union re-enforcements arrive.

In the final phase of this action re-enforcements proved to be sufficient to stabilise the centre. However, both Union flanks gave way and the centre Union position became untenable and their forces withdrew.

The Union's right flank is open after Confederate cavalry finally overcome their opposition.

While the centre is stabilised the woods are lost to Confederate infantry and Union  forces make a withdrawal.

Confederate forces suffered greatly in achieving this marginal victory.

Campaign map after the action.

As early evening arrives on the first day of this battle. The Union attempt to gain a crossing has not gone to plan and they have a real threat on the left flank with Lyon's fresh Confederate division. Both sides have some key decisions to make for the evening campaign turn. Do they:

1. Have their divisions avoid any action and reorganise those units that routed earlier in the day (achieved by 3+ score in a D6)?
2. Launch an evening attack and miss the opportunity to reorganise and regain some of their routed unit for the next day's action (this would apply to the defending force as well)?

A few decisions to make.

St. Nazaire game preparation continues

Over the last week I have completed a few more warehouses for a planned St. Nazaire game. The game will require quite a large portion of the tabletop be covered with buildings. So I decided it was time to get an idea of how much area the ones built so far will cover.

My collection of warehouse buildings is slowly growing.

When on the tabletop the buildings will be placed on a board (painted grey) representing the built up area. They need to be reasonably spread out so my 3x3 and 3x4 inch WW2 unit bases will fit nicely in-between them. This also means fewer buildings to build.

Tomorrow I plan to construct another five buildings from cut up wood as before. This should be sufficient with few simple dock cranes to give the feel of a dockyard.

I have also found a few Airfix Commandos which will be painted up to represent the demolition teams.