Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => The Great War => Topic started by: thejammedgatling on March 10, 2011, 01:09:14 PM
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(http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm278/thejammedgatling/IMG_6937b.jpg)
Captain Gibbs of the 4th Suffolks looked at his pocket watch. The piece of shrapnel that had torn private Hughes hand off had also smashed the glass, but the hands still worked. He had to admire the German engineering. It was three o'clock. Would Jerry try again today or call it off until the morning? He had now been cut off since mid morning with only the two sections of 'C' company left holding a small section of the town. The old man was dead. Only lieutenant Hutchinson and the chaplain remained among the officers. The Royal Scots on his left had retired in the night. The survivors of the Dorsets on the right had struggled into the town two days ago reporting most of their men had been wiped out in the first massive artillery bombardment or in fleeing. At least they had brought a Lewis gun with them. Between him and his own lines lay the enemy. His men were exhausted and down to only a few rounds each. How many assaults had there been now? Eight? Ten? Each time the Germans were pushed back but managed to hold onto a little more of the town. Fortunately for his men many of the men now attacking didn't seem to show much savvy...bunching up too much and not using cover. Troops sent from the Russian front no doubt. Not so the feared Stormtroopers though. They had arrived sometime that morning, Already they had captured the eastern part of town and driven his men out. They were a different kettle of fish altogether.
He was dimly aware of a change in light on his right side. A man was standing in the doorway and had been talking to him, but his shattered eardrum prevented him from hearing what he was saying. He turned his head and got to have a good look at the man. His clothes were torn and his head bandaged and covered in mud.But he recognised his stripe as one of the divisional runners. Somehow in all the confusion he had got through.
Ten minutes later when the man had left to look for what passed as an aid station, Gibbs raised his field glasses and looked out past the town to the west. He could vaguely hear the short report and thump of light artillery and the pitter patter of machine guns, but a low hill kept him from seeing what was happening. Well, if it was a relief party then they had better jolly well hurry it up was all he could think. He called out to Sergeant O'Leary and the solid frame of the Irishman appeared at the window of the grain store. 'Sar!"
"Sergeant, tell the men to stand to. Fix bayonets and finish scavenging for any ammunition they can find. It seems Division think we're worth saving.."
(http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm278/thejammedgatling/IMG_6934b.jpg)
(http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm278/thejammedgatling/IMG_6983b.jpg)
(http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm278/thejammedgatling/IMG_6980b.jpg)
(http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm278/thejammedgatling/IMG_6968b.jpg)
More soon.
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Very Evocative, ooking forward to the rest.
LB
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Outstanding :-* :-*
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That looks bloody brilliant :D :o :-*
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Very very good.
Well done that man. :D
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very nice pictures
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thankyou
I should be getting the rest of the pics off my right hand man Simon next weekend. So in the meantime here's a colour pic to show you how the table looked in the flesh:
(http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm278/thejammedgatling/IMG_6936.jpg)
It's still a 'work in progress' with the sidewalks and various other bits to be done, and walled sections and gardens. But starting to pull together.
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Great report and photos! Thanks for sharing!
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Superb!
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Very atmospheric, nicely done! :-*
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Great write up and lovely pictures too.
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Love it!
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Impressed to the point of being embossed!
Top show old thing.
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Looks great! How did you make the explosions?
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Looks great! How did you make the explosions?
Well apparently there was a tutorial in one of the mags..WI I think about them. I found this out in retrospect...mine are basically just lengths of heavy wire that have been put into a wooden base. I bought some three inch MDF discs from a craft shop then popped some timber cut offs onto them. Then drilled and glued the wire in place, making sure they were coming out at reasonable angles based on the blast point. Different lengths with the longest tending to be directly above the centre. I 'skewered' and PVA glued on chunks of car cleaning sponge I had..the finer nearer the top. Once that had dried I took some woodland scenics fine foliage and pva'd them in place. Pva does not have huge initial grab, so I had to do this in about three stages. You can get away with the larger chunks of foam at the base showing through.
Then a spray with black aerosol then touch up with a mocha coffee colour nearer the tops of the explosions. Ultimately the explosion will mostly be made up of the earth that it is throwing up, so the lighter colour works well.
I saw these on the Great War site some years back and always wanted to make them. Really cheap materials except the flock, which was about $24 a tub and only made four large markers.
Want to try making water ones next...anyone got a tutorial for those?
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Well I never managed to get hold of all the pictures, but here are some that I did tinker with. It's not an ideal battle report as we mainly were testing out the boards and rules (as well as introducing the rules to a few new club members) so the game was not completed.
A few rules we'd written to add to the core set were for snipers and barrages. Basically snipers could elect targets within LOS at the start of the turn and make a shot at a range of up to 48" on the table. This meant that the command figures needed to be mindful of keeping their heads down or in cover. Snipers could be targeted by fire but had a fairly high cover and armour save. Barrages (by both sides) were not in the control of either player. A dice was rolled for four rounds to be fired each turn and scatter dice used to indicate where on the table they landed. This kept everyone on their toes and mindful not to bunch up too much.
(http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm278/thejammedgatling/IMG_6963D.jpg)
Two full companies of Germans were attacking one of British, plus one of the German companies was of Stormtroopers. The German had a tank, three 77mm artillery pieces and a heavy machine gun, in response to which the british had two HMG's, a mortar and quite a few Lewis Guns. So the odds were tipped a little in the Germans favour. The regular infantry swarmed across the open ground outside the town. Meanwhile the Stormtroopers advanced quickly across the town square.
(http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm278/thejammedgatling/IMG_6951D.jpg)
(http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm278/thejammedgatling/IMG_6966D.jpg)
The British made good use of every available building, splitting their force up into three sections. One held the factory, the other the single two story dwelling and the last the shallow trenches ..roughly an L shape.
(http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm278/thejammedgatling/IMG_6960D.jpg)
(http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm278/thejammedgatling/IMG_6955D.jpg)
The Germans had the best of the first turn with the random barrages, with three out of four rounds landing in and around the British positions. One blew the top of the factory off and three men with it. However, the Stormtroopers could not get across the town square fast enough as discipled rifle fire and HMG rounds tore into them. One platoon wiped out and the other at half strength in the first turn!
The German AZ7 ploughed on, getting in range with its machine guns to unleash a barrage onto the end of the factory, where several men from the mortar and HMG team were killed.
(http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm278/thejammedgatling/IMG_6985D.jpg)
A bullet from a sniper eventually took out the last remaining member of the machine gun crew. In the single storey house, artillery rounds from the 77mm's were causing havoc withthe defenders, as men were blown from the upper floor and those below buried or wounded in the resulting rubble. However, the lewis gun teams from theree responded with a stinging hail of fire into the tight packed German ranks, wiping out most of the leading platoon.
(http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm278/thejammedgatling/IMG_6974D.jpg)
Random artillery fire again caused havoc for the British, with one round dropping directly on the command HQ, blowing a sergeant out of the window and stunning the command staff, who were pinned for a turn. At this point the German tank broke down, though fortunately it could still fire. The German HMG which had used it's movement so far to get itself into range started to put down fire on the men in the trenches, pinning the unit. However, the british mortar proved successful again at taking out most of the second platoon of Germans.
The British in the factory had lost half their number but pressed on with their defence, perhaps suspecting that relief was near.
(http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm278/thejammedgatling/IMG_6959D.jpg)
The stormtroopers were a spent force by this time, unable to penetrate the factory in enough numbers to make a decisive battle. However, they did manage to win a combat and cause at least one test by the British! At this point we called the game over, saying that the Tank Corps had arrived to save the day, along with a company of reinforcements. The German had not taken the factory but probably would have taken the western part of town and we would have been left with some pretty brutal house to house fighting, especially when the German second wave had shown up. But we'll leave that until next time...
(http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm278/thejammedgatling/IMG_6980b.jpg)
thanks for reading