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Update:
I have finished painting all of my 10mm figures for my game. Yes, finished painting. I feel a bit at a loss, as I want more to paint now. Good news is that I have a few figures I can buy for my game, such as some artillery for anti tank use.
I am also very tempted to buy some French, as I kind of fancy painting something I don’t normally consider fielding on the table.
I am now focusing on making some scenery, and have a lot more to make.
The two ruined buildings are a work in progress, and I am happy how they are tuning out so far.
I will be making some more shell holes and shattered trees, and am working on making some 10mm barbed wire.
The concept of the barbed wire is working: I just need a good glue to hold it all together.
Olive groves
One nice peice of handy terrain for the setting are olive groves.
This photo from the AWM site shows some Australians in Syria, and also helps me a lot with what type of truck I could use for my games.
Digging through my tree collection, I found some I purchased years ago, but had a really fake bright green colour to them:
The shape and size of these trees are idea for making an olive grove.
I now need to re flock and base a lot more trees this way, and then I will base them on strips of three trees to allow for easy storage.
I intend to make some stone walls to place around the edges to give it a look of being an actual plantation. This will also give some cover for the troops.
I have updated my whiteboard for the game.
I shrank the dashboards so that I can fit eight of them on my whiteboard. This allows me to display the full German platoon of five tanks (not that I will always use all of them at once), and three enemy tanks, which was the norm for many Allied nations in early to mid war. The exception to this is the US tank platoons, and the Late war British platoons.
I supect I wont always be at full strength with my platoon, so I can add extra Allied dashboards in placement of German ones, should the need arise.
The red and blue magnets are just used to hold the dashboards in place. The numbers on some of them were from a different game I was using them for, and haven’t cleaned them yet.
I have also started glueing small pieces of foliage clusters to the flocked canvas board to represent hedges:
It will take a while to get this finished off, but it will be a way to relax next week when I get home from my new job.
The mini in the photo is a H&R 6mm Panther, and the house is one of those I found a few days back that has been undercoated, but not painted. The large clump next to the house is foliage cluster waiting to be used, not a big tree.
I went scavaging through my wardrobe lead pile of shame last night and came across these, which I had forgotten about:
I was a bit worried they wouldn’t work for WW2 Eastern Front, as a lot of the buildings on the market seem to be almost all wooden buildings, but I did a quick search and put my fears to rest:
So I am happy I can use these, and have a small village, and a bridge for my Russian Front part of my planned campaign.
The bridge is wide enough to take a German Panther, so I shouldn’t need worry about fitting models on the bridge.
Update: I have started planning the first part of my campaign.
What a Tanker campaign notes
Concept: To form a German tank platoon and play it through the entire Second World War
The Platoon: 5 tanks, as per German Orbats for tank units (non-heavy tanks)
Time Scale: One game equals a week, although if I have time to play extra games, one game will equal
one day during a major battle. For example The Battle of Kursk lasted from 5 July 1943 – 23 August 1943, so each game played represents a day of this battle, rather than a week. This will be an adjusting time scale, so I won’t have to play then entire battle, just extra games if I have time.Attrition: A system for replacements will need to be included when tanks and crews are lost. Maybe one die roll at the end of each game week, with an increasing chance of replacements per subsequent week if a die roll is failed.
Rest and Refit: If during the game the entire platoon has no more tanks, then the unit will be sent to the rear to rest, be re-equipped and build up to full strength again. At this point the unit can be moved to a new area of conflict if I feel like a change – i.e. taken from Russia and sent to Europe.
Starting Point: I will be ambitious with this campaign, and start with the Battle of France (10 May – 25 June 1940). I really hope to get some Tank upgrades, or more importantly, some Aces, before heading in to Russia.
Starting Tanks: I think I will keep it simple, and go with the PZ IV D, mainly because I can’t find any 6mm IV Bs or Cs to buy.
Upgrades: I will try to keep using the IVs until such stage as I can upgrade to something with a lot of teeth, should my tanks be able to upgrade to higher levels.
Enemy: I will try to stick to historical enemy troop/platoon orbats, and create a “Theater of operations” chart to provide random enemy tanks per each game. This will include different tank types, and a chance for opposing Aces to be included. The Aces will depend on the historical situation at the time, thus an Ace for French tanks will be less likely at During the Battle of France, but when Germany is on the defensive/retreat later in the War, there will be a greater chance to encounter them.
Background for my platoon: I will loosely base my platoon as part of the 2nd Panzer Division.
Created as one of the original three German tank divisions in 1935, participated in the campaigns in Poland (1939) and France (1940) before it returned to Poland for occupation duties (1940–1941). It took part in the Balkans campaign (1941) and then transferred to the Eastern Front in September 1941.
The division fought with Army Group Centre in the battles of Moscow (1941) and Kursk (1943). After heavy losses on the Eastern Front it was sent to France for rehabilitation (1944). It fought in Normandy and was almost completely destroyed in the Falaise Pocket (1944). It was rebuilt once more and fought in the Battle of the Bulge (1944) and in the defence of the Rhine (1945), surrendering to US forces at war’s end.
The biggest difficulty for this, is the Balkans campaign, and the enemy tanks I would need for it. I have found some Light Vickers Tanks that were used agains the Germans, but this would be very one sided, as a machine gun won’t do much harm to a Pz IV. I might skip the Balkans part due to ‘sportsmanship’ on my behalf.
To Do:
Buy tanks – I will be using H&R simply because they are cheaper, thus allowing me to buy more tanks, and because they seem to have the biggest range of different tanks available.Make more dashboards – I have enough for four tanks at the moment , so I will need another four minimum to begin with. I might have to have a smaller size printed to get them all on my magnetic white board.
Buy/make scenery – I have some gates and telegraph poles on the way, I will need some houses/farms etc, and make some roads, hedges etc.
Plenty of research for historical dates for battles and theatres. Although the games I will be playing wont actually be that historical, I need the dates and locations to plan the game and have the setting as historical as I can make it.
Find out when the Germans started painting their tanks in camouflage and what styles of camouflage. I can start with my tanks painted grey, but need to know when the colours changed so my upgrades will look the part. (Note – the web page I found the image of the Pz IV above, actually talks about the cammo, which was very helpful.
I have created charts to determine what my Platoon will be upgainst during the Battle of France. It is based on tanks in the rule book, and tanks I can find models of.
It seems I didn’t save my word file for enemy tanks for my campaign, so it was lucky I had a screen shot of it!
I have been tinkering with artist canvas to use as a playing area.
This is a flat one I experimented with, but I am not happy with the permanet roads, so will probably flock over them:
It is 40 cm x 30 cms. Just a bit bigger than my tray, but easier to get hands in to whilst playing.
I have a canvas on a wooden frame that is about the right size (40 cm x 60 cm) for what I want, but now I am starting to head away from the compact idea of the playing set up.
But, this artist box will hold up to a 62cm canvas, so it might be perfect for what I want:
A shop my wife goes to sells these, so I will take a look at one to see if the shelves are deep enough to hold trees and buildings etc.
Very cool. I like your tray. It doesn’t look that small, but maybe the rules require something bigger? I vote German campaign, simply for the variety of opponents. Playing the British you’re only facing Germans and some talians. As Germans you’re lkely facing differnt enemies at each front. I’m guessing 3mm is too small for your preference? Where did you get the tray from? Looks like it’ll be simple to have several for different terrain types and stack them for storage with the minis stored inside.
Thank you 🙂
The size of the tray will be ok for two tanks per side. Three might be ok. I will have to play a game with more tanks to find out.
I actually decided on playing the Germans last night for the very reason you mentioned. I was reading my books on the different German Divisions hoping to find one that saw action against most nations, but I will probably do one that was in France during 1940, then have them slog in to and out of Russia. Further research on my behalf is needed.
I did think of using 3mm. I certanly would have plenty of room in my tray for more tanks, but I want to be able to move the turret as per the rules. It is one I may rethink in the future though.
The idea for the tray began with a much bigger tray that isn’t for wargaming, and I couldn’t find another one the same size, so I went with this tray that I found at a large Home and Hardware company we have here in Australia called Bunnings Wharehouse. The tray was only about $12AUD.
It is 37cm x 28cm on the inside. The original tray I had the inspiration from is 53 cm x 32 cm and has folding legs, so I could sit in bed when i was sick and play (which was actually the situation when I came up with the idea).
Stacking the trays and using them as storage is a great idea too.
I am currently looking at artists wooden boxes to see if they are big enough to do what I want, and be the complete storage and travel package for me
For example, this one I found is 40 cm x 28 cm. I would gut the box and use this type of thing quite happily:
I played a game in the tray yesterday to test how it would work, and I am happy with the results. You can read about the game on my blog: http://shelldrakewargames.blogspot.com.au/2017/12/rio-diablo-28mm-wild-west-campaign.html
Genius!
Thanks!
In reply to your comment on my blog, I have some Copplestone not LOTR 10mm on the way to me in the mail, so I am looking forward to doing a fantasy game in all it’s full scenic glory in 2018.
There is a thread on TWW where I first discussed the Tray Battlefield idea, and it was 10mm that I had in mind for the tray… only I couldn’t make my mind up what period to play on the tray… I guess it will be fantasy
