The Battlefields of France

So I have come back from visiting France and Belgium on a Canadian War Memorial tour which proved to be a interesting and sobering 10 days. We were in Caen, Juno Beach area (including some of Gold and Pegasus Bridge), Ardennes abbey, Dieppe and then north to numerous WWI sites such as Beaumount-Hamel(the Somme), Vimy Ridge (I found our name on the Vimy Memorial which I knew was their but of course had never seen it) and Ypres. We also saw a V2 site near Calais then on to London seeing Churchill's war room before catching our flight home.

I did not take any pictures of my 28mm Canadian soldier on any of the sites we visited as it did not seem right to do so.

Gaming wise it has been fairly light for obvious reasons but I did get in a few board games with my son. We played War of the Ring by Fantasy Flight Games and we used the Battles of the Third Age expansion for the first time. I really enjoy this game and I think this was the funnest game of it I've yet played with many cinematic moments and it came down to a military victory for Sauron(commanded by my son) with Frodo climbing up of Mount Doom almost within reach of his goal. It could have gone either way right up to the last so even though I lost I really had fun. The other game I played was a couple of scenarios of Dust Tactics which I have played before and though I could see the potential in the game it hadn't really grabbed me with it's lack of depth out of the box but since then I have added a couple of units to the mix and the game was a blast to play, quick and deadly.

I have also managed to get some modelling in building a platoon of 15mm M4's by the Plastic Soldier Company which I will be using for Flames of War and also working on the Napoleonic French fleet which is coming along nicely. I will post some pictures shortly.

Well I guess that's about it for now though as I was looking through my unpainted lead and plastic I realize I've got alot of catching up to do but don't we all!

Plastic Soldier Company M4 Shermans.

The platoon of 5.

A Battlefront miniature in the background.

My first squad for Dust Tactics.