Building the Beach in 15mm, D-Day Prep part 2

Continuing the preparations for our D-Day battles I have started to build a beach in 15mm. I have wanted to do this for awhile so this is just a good reason to get it done. I am building it on 2' by 2' sections to match some of the other boards that I have made. This is a generic beach but aimed with a look for the British and Canadian beaches. I will just show the work in pictures.

I also got the game Forbidden Island for Father's Day and already played a game. I think this will be am excellent game to take camping this summer.

The left board with the general layout in pencil. There is a bluff on the left side and a beach exit in the middle. I later decided not to include the bluff.

The right side penciled in. Here I have a stair on the wall. The material is 5mm MDF.

The 2 boards together.

The beach glued on in 5mm foam and waves using plaster.

The seawall and land in 1" foam.

The exit cut into the foam.

The beach and water painted. I plastered over the beach first. You can see the stairs towards the back of the picture.

Sea view on right side. The paint is still drying here so is a little glossy yet.

And the sea view on the right side.

 

D-Day Preparations in 15mm

Me, my son and a few friends are hoping to log in a few games for the worldwide D-Day campaign being hosted by the WWPD (What Would Patton Do) podcast and supported by Battlefront Miniatures. There has been a delay getting the operation under way due some supply issues with Battlefront getting the new D-Day books to market. So the while campaign kick-off won't take place till the end of June this actually works out well for us as it gives us time to get miniatures and terrain ready as well as getting in a few practice games as we haven't played a lot of Flames of War lately.

I have been building some defenses as well as getting my German and US forces ready. My son is going to use the US though they will be more for the inland battles and not the beach assault as they are an armoured unit.

I am also going to see if I can get a game board built for the beach as well. I only need to build a 4 foot by 2 foot section just for the beach which can then fit up against my existing terrain.

So to get some Flames of War practice in I took command of some German forces fighting on the Eastern Front. Eric came over and we managed to get in 2 battles both were very lopsided with 1 win for each of us.

In the first game I tried a fortified company to get used to the fortification rules but this proved to be a very poor choice against the wall of armour that was heading my way and Eric was able to blow through one flank and capture his objective while taking very few loses.

In the second game I switched up my forces for an armoured panzergrenadier force supported by Panthers and Stugs and was able to destroy his advancing columns with the armour before sending in the panzer grenadiers to capture the objective. Both games played quite smoothly though and were fun to play.

Besides that I played a game of Runewars with Tristan which I lost and two games of StarWars LCG which I won.  

My foam bunker under construction.

Painted. I cut off the bottom to lower the profile a little. It looked a little high before.

My homemade trench lines.

The reverse side.

With defenders behind the works.

Some Germans based...

and primed.

My US force, some basing still needs to be done.

The Armour, a mix of Battlefront Miniatures and Plastic Soldier Company.

My M7 Priests.

My P-47.

The infantry.

The Eastern Front!

End of turn 1. The German infantry stayed in there defensive positions while the Stugs moved up to take onthe Soviet armour.

The Soviet armoured thrust on the flank.

My Stugs are burning and the Soviets have overrun my position capturing the objective.

Game 2. The German have abandoned the fixed defensive positions for Panzer Grenadiers and Panthers.

The armour clash on the flank.

The KV's giving a base of fire.

A T-34 column brought to a halt by the Panthers.

The KV's exchange fire with the Panthers...and not fairing well.

Once the T-34's on the right were taken care of the Panzer Grenadiers push through to the objective.

Mostly WWII and Building a 15mm Bridge Really Quick!

Almost everything I've gamed in the last few weeks has been a WWII theme.

A solo game of Wings of War WWII.

A game of Tide of Iron using the Desert Fox expansion.

A game of Flames of War.

Well on second thought it looks like everything I gamed was WWII.

When I started playing miniature games around grade 7 I gamed almost exclusively WWII using a set of rules called Operation Warboard with two of my pals Gord and Danny. Gord had a 4 by 8 foot board set up in his basement and we played many hours using 1/72 Airfix and Matchbox models and figures. I believe these rules have recently been republished though I still have 3 copies my original books. Since then I have gamed quite a few other periods as well as non-historicals but I have always enjoyed playing WWII games and it is sort of my fall back period. It is also the period I know the most about so it can make the games more interesting having that general knowledge.
 
The first game I played was a solo Wings of War scenario from the Fire From the Sky expansion where I would control a Stuka and ME109 attacking ground defenses on Malta. And it ended pretty quick with the first AA shot on the Stuka being an explosion that destroyed the aircraft followed by ground fire causing 4 points of damage on the ME109 at which point I figured the Germans would probably head for home. 

The planes fly in and the Stuka comes under fire...

and is promptly shot down!

Next I played Tide of Iron against my son. This was the first time I played using the Desert Fox expansion though I've had it for a few years. We played the first scenario from the expansion, Hell Fire Pass, with me playing the Germans and Tristan playing the attacking British. The British had to occupy the two hexes on either side of the pass that held the 2 German 88's by turn 6. Tristan was able to knock out the guns but could not occupy the positions in time. The 88's were able to leave quite a trail of burning and disabled British tanks as he tried to close with them. Another fun game that was quite quick to play.

The setup for the game. Germans on the left, British coming in on the right. The British reserves for turns 1,2 and 3 are at the bottom of the picture.

Next up was the Flames of War game with my friend Chet who traveled a fair distance to play out the game. This was a 1500pt late war match up pitting his Canadians against my armoured panzergrenadiers. It has been quite awhile since either of us played so it was a bit of a learning game but still moved fairly quick though we did get a few things wrong after I read through the rules again after the battle. I took a number of pictures so I will leave the AAR to be told in pictures.

The board setup.

My card buildings got replaced by Chet's Battlefield in a Box buildings and units get placed. I setup with a strong left flank to attack through the town.

The Canadian deployment with enough units to have a strong center and flank facing my attack.

Typhoon's doing what they do best!

Sherman's take out one of my Stug's in the center.

Curse those Typhoons! Chet has stayed in position and weakened my units with fairly good fire.

Finally on turn 3 I hit something, one of the Shermans goes up.(yes it was turn 3 before I actually hit something)

I tried to redirect my Panthers but the Typhoons took care of them, pretty much how it really happened I guess.

Bolstered by my loses the Canadians move up.

The end, Chet's Canadians have their objective on the right.

The destroyed German thrust.

And pretty much what the German's managed to destroy other than almost taking out an infantry platoon in the town.

In retrospect I lost because I positioned my units poorly at the beginning. Having not played in awhile I forgot how much I would be outnumbered and should have put my Panthers in the middle of the board so they could have influenced more of the battlefield and advanced through the more open ground on the right rather than the left. Of course those Typhoons didn't help or my ability to not hit anything till turn 3!

Finally in preparation for the Flames of War game I built a bridge to replace the cardstock one I had been using. I built this in 1 to 2 hours the morning of the game though I will take the time now to add some texture and detail.

Top is the card template. I drew the shape I wanted for 1/2 the bridge on 1 side and then folded the paper in half to make a mirror image when I cut it out. Next piece is the foamcore roadbed with slits cut in it to allow it to curve. Next is the wood sides cut out in wood using the paper pattern.

I used pins to hold the arch at the length required.

Then glued the wood sides to it.

Sprayed it grey...

and done.(except some details and weather)