Oppy Wood at Partizan

[TWD]

Because taking one game to a Wargames show isn't hard enough work James Morris and I decided we'd take two to Partizan this year.
One in 12mm and one in 54mm.
Oh and some planes as well.
Both games based on the Battle of Oppy Wood on May 3rd 1917 when 3 battalions of Hull Pals from the East Yorkshire regiment attacked a heavily defended wood near the village of Oppy.








People seemed to like it...



Many more pictures and words over on my blog:
http://tomstoysoldiers.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/oppy-wood-at-partizan.html

[SABOT]

Cracking ! Well done!

[Beast of Bukhara]

I particularly liked the terrain cloth for the 12mm game 

[tin shed gamer]

I never got chance to ask how did you represent the rivalry with/ Hatred of the Toffs and the physical stamina of the junior Battalions ?

Mark.

[Ray Rivers]

Well done and congratulations!

Superb looking games!

[TWD]

I never got chance to ask how did you represent the rivalry with/ Hatred of the Toffs and the physical stamina of the junior Battalions ?

Mark.

We didn't.
All three battalions at Oppy were "junior" Pals battalions from Hull, so I'm not sure it ever crossed our minds.
We chose to use the "reservists" statline for the 12th as they'd been mauled relatively recently and so had more new recruits and raw troops in their ranks on the day.

[AlyMorrison]

Congratulations on your prize...

What are we doing for 2018?....

[TWD]

Congratulations on your prize...

What are we doing for 2018?....

The fall of Lydia to Cyrus the Great in 2mm, 6mm, 10mm (not 15mm, 15mm is for wrong 'uns) 1/72 soft plastic, 28mm and 42mm.
 

[AlyMorrison]

You had me on 42mm.... I'm in

[Wirelizard]

The double-layer terrain cloth with the trenches and shell holes cut out of the top layer is brilliant. (er, that is how you did it, right? That's what it looks like!)

10mm or 12mm seems like such a good scale for "big skirmish"/platoon/company level Western Front games. I'm getting dangerously tempted (again) to mosey into WW1 at that scale. Must resist!

[TWD]

The double-layer terrain cloth with the trenches and shell holes cut out of the top layer is brilliant. (er, that is how you did it, right? That's what it looks like!)

Pretty much. It's patches of darker felt glued beneath the holes and trench lines, rather than a complete second layer. All James's idea and hard work.

10mm or 12mm seems like such a good scale for "big skirmish"/platoon/company level Western Front games. I'm getting dangerously tempted (again) to mosey into WW1 at that scale. Must resist!

I think it's great for the scale of the mechanised warfare on the western front. We were using the Square Bashing rules which are designed to be 4 bases equals a battalion, but we'd scaled down to 4bases per company and thus 16 bases per battalion.

[James Morris]

Here's a few more pics from Partizan...

We were going for the look of a WW1 aerial recce photo for the game.
As has been mentioned, the cloth was simply a piece of brown fleece fabric with some extra treatment.  Although I could have made a custom terrain board for the game, the cloth was easier to transport (fits into a carrier bag) and has no join lines between tiles - quite important at this small scale, I feel.





The Red Baron chases a BE2e over the 12mm table (a slightly ahistorical event as Von Richtofen went on leave at the end of April 1917).  1:72 models in this case.


The ruined chateau in Oppy Wood.  Unlike Dave Andrews' masterpiece, this was a quick assembly job over two evenings using a couple of resin ruined house ends and some foam, balsa and sand.  I do like the fact that terrain for 12mm models can be done quickly!


A 1917 recce photo of Oppy Wood.



Although I was surprised to win 'Best Demo Game' (there were some set-ups with seriously good paint jobs and terrain all around us), I think we made a real effort to inform people about the battle and the research that had gone into the game.  I knocked up these display boards to present the information - you can just see the 18 pounder shell from Oppy Wood itself.  We had also used a twig collected at Oppy Wood as a tree on the 54mm game...just to make sure!


Grinning loons on the 54m game...T shirts by Mog (thanks Mog!)

[img width=640 height=480]https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4271/34015572934_6988b9663f_z.jpg[img]
A 54mm German rifleman.  It was great fun to paint a few of these for the game.

[James Morris]

Congratulations on your prize...

What are we doing for 2018?....

Cheers Aly!  And you and Dave as well...

2018: Battle of Crete with Action Men jumping from JU52 drones flying around the hangar.  Maybe.

[AlyMorrison]

Excellent I will hold you to that....

Let me know the size of the table ....

I am sure we can blackmail Dave to knock something up