Brecourt Manor terrain boards for Chain of Command (WIP)

[David H]

I have been working on some terrain for a Chain of Command Brecourt Manor scenario for a while now.

Each board is 2 feet square, and the intention is to represent the guns and trench system at 1:1 scale, so each board is roughly 50 yards wide, which is approximately the distance between the gun pits based on the aerial photos available.

The actual 'trench' was probably no more than the field boundary ditch that had been cleared out and utilised for moving between the guns, but I decided to go for the more enhanced version as depicted in the Band of Brothers TV series. It also means I can use it as a trench system for other games.

Now the trenches are painted and the ground flocked there is only a bit of touching up to do, and a few more trees for the field boundary - I'll need about 14 feet of trees in total but have completed about 9 feet so far.

The only other bits are the camouflage nets for the guns, accessories such as ammo crates etc, and bit and pieces for the command/map room.

Hopefully I'll get all this finished over the summer, and in the meantime I'll be working on the scenario rules and objectives.

[scotty]

That look ssuperb

[PeteW]

Very nice

P

[OSHIROmodels]

Brill 

[CapnJim]

Looks good to me so far!

[Ash]

Superb..!

[Constable Bertrand]

The different trench wall textures look great wicker, wood and slapdash wood. It looks great. 
Cheers
Matt

[bluewillow]

Excellent work

[z1pp132002]

Very impressive pity you dis not show us from start to finished. It would have been nice to ride along.

[David H]

Thanks for the kind comments everyone.

Its been a bit of a long haul to get to this stage. I first started researching the actual action back in May of 2018 and then started working out the board designs, before starting the cutting in Jan 2022. It has been very stop and start which has not been conducive to regular reporting - I've just done bits and pieces as and when I had time/inclination!

There is still a fair bit to do. There are quite a few sheets of corrugated iron in those trenches which need rusting up a bit so they do not look like wood, and will add a little more colour too. I still need to complete the guns and gun crews, and the US assault teams too.

As mentioned previously, this is more or less one to one scale at 25mm so I need to adapt the Chain of Command rules to suit, and I also want to balance the fight to give the German side a chance of winning. This will be done on a points basis, the US side getting points for destroying guns and the Germans points for firing their guns and shooting US Paras.

Casualties in the actual action were fairly low, Chain of Command can be quite brutal, especially in grenade assault actions, and casualties can mount up quickly, so I need to tone this down a bit whilst keeping the essence of the rules intact.

The game should last 2 to 3 hours, but some early trials saw the game over in 30 minutes!! The rule adjustments need to encourage the US player to be quite cautious otherwise they will have no men left before reaching the first gun.

I'll try and post more as I continue the build.

[Tom Dulski]

 Fantastic work. I'm very curious as to what miniatures you are thinking of using to go with these boards.

[David H]

Fantastic work. I'm very curious as to what miniatures you are thinking of using to go with these boards.

Thanks Tom,
I'll be using Warlord 28mm plastics for the US Para's - slightly converted to give them the earlier jump boots. I started these guys back in 2021, so the project has been bubbling along for a while! There's a link to my conversions below.

The Germans will be a motley collection. I usually game early war so have stuff in field grey rather than later camo kit. As most will be gun crews I'm not too worried about that, but there will be a few non gun crew as well as off table MMG's, all of whom will have the job of keeping the Para's away from those guns. There should be approx. 60 Germans, including gun crews and the off table stuff, but I still need to work out actual numbers.

https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=132542.0