O Group

While the rules have been out for quite a while, I just purchased them. I am interested in seeing how they work. I am wondering how they would work in concert with IABSM and Chain of Command. It could be interesting to model a battle at three levels.

I am interested in others opinions of these rules. Also how do General D' Armee and Picket's Charge work? I have thought about picking those up as well.

Campaign for Orsha: June 22, 1944 - The set up

With my son's recent acquisition of a Soviet force of his very own, I decided to work on a campaign. I settled on the begining of Operation Bagration with the Soviet attack on the city of Orsha.

I am trying to come up with a creative campaign that will allow him to field his new troops and not involve too much work researching more than the hours I already have. I secured a 1:50,000 scale map of the town that dates to 1937. That should provide a nice basis for the campaign. I have cut away most of the map and made it our campaign area.

With this in mind, I will let him pick an avenue of attack. He will pick his forces and supports based on the map and the terrain shown. I will then pick forces representing the defensive line at that point. If it works out well, we should have some fun games of Chain of Command or possible What a Tanker if he just wants to run with his armor.

Hopefully, I'll get some pictures up of the games.

New Favorite Map Site

I was searching for some maps for June 22, 1944 that correlate to the beginning of Operation Bagration and the Soviet advance on the city of Orsha. I thought this might make a great campaign to play with my son now that he has his very own Soviet force for Chain of Command. (Thank you Jon!)

I stumbled on this site after not being able to get to my normal go to site. https://iu.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=3003eaf8107048aeabd74b74a1481cb4 This has some really cool features and seems to have the most complete collection I have found yet. The files can be downloaded in very large TIF files that you can work with. If you want to look for the City of Orsha, I can tell you that it is in map section N36-049. I picked up the 1:50,000 scale map. Not sure that I could get the smaller 1:25,000 scale map and I am thankful to have found this.

The map dates to 1937 so it is probably not too far off. I can find the rail station. It should be plenty useful to create some scenarios for us. Now to find out some unit histories to flesh the idea out.

Annual Birthday Sale

As we approach October it is time for my annual birthday sale. To take advantage of the sale, simply use the code "Birthday2021" on my Payhip store for 51% off anything in the store. (https://payhip.com/ChrisStoesen) You can take a guess at which birthday it is for me. Readers of this blog get notice of the sale before anyone else. I'll post this elsewhere on October 1st.

Still working on the War of Jenkin's Ear book. Things are going well. Spent time over the weekend to make a large river. It is basically a painted sheet of clear plastic. It was an attempt to wet blend paint to give the appearance of depth. That was largely a failure. There are places where the white paint failed to mix properly with the the Burnt Umber leaving white streaks near the banks. I will likely try to hide that with some terrain or something. Still it should be servicable.

I have prepped two bases for some more trees. I will try to base coat these today. With those two done, that leaves me with four more tree bases left. I found a slightly larger balsa dowel that I like better for the tree trunks. I am using it for the newer tree bases. I find they are easier to drill out than the smaller diameter dowels.

For the naval portion, I finished painting a Galiot. I am having four more of them printed and hope to pick those up this week. I did not put yards on this model. I added the forward canopy with a strip of paper.

I also have several other ships that are being printed that should wrap up the fleets. The only major gap is with 10 gun brigs. The scanrios call for a total of 5 of these vessels. I have one hull completed from a War Artisan kit that I never finished. It is kit 013 for those interested. The kit is nice in that it comes with two color schemes that you can build which gives some differentiation to the models. I printed out some additional models to round that gap out.

I have a few more Indians on the painting table but none are really critical. Three more figures to carry storming ladders and the canoe crews are left. I have other nice to haves out as well. These include six dead British Troops and a gun crew. None are really necessary for the book but ended up in my cart during one of my online shopping trips.

That is it for the day. Enjoy

Editing, Playtests and Ships

I am having several more ships printed for the supplement by a friend with a resin 3D Printer. My printer is still not acting properly. It prints up to the 15% point then decides to stop feeding filament. No idea what is going on. Will reach back out to the Anycubic facebook group later today.

I have most of the ships that I need for the game. What I lack are some 10 gun brigs. Larger ones can be found on-line as STL files, but for the 10 gun variety, War Artisan is the place to shop. I purchased his ship (013) a long time ago. Will be printing out the models on Card stock and making a few more. They are time consuming but don't have to be painted.

I set up the table and had a game with my son. This Indians rushed forward with a lucky run of cards and drew first bloob by killing some civilians. This should give you an indication of how well this went for me.

Anyway, I have been happy with the progress this weekend.

Homeless Woodland Indians no more

The 15mm realator has just shown my tribes of Yemmassee Indians their new homes. They have placed a downpayment on two additional wigwams that are still with the builder.

These are the Acheson Creations buildings I got last week. In all, I am happy with them. I think the Lodge may be a bit small compared to the Wigwam but I am warming to these buildings.

Still have a few Indians for boat crews that are at the 50% stage. Also have another torch bearing one and two running with a ladder from the Blue Moon sets I bought.

For the naval battles, I have some more work to do. I have just paid off a friend with a resin printer to make some more ships for me. I have a 1/300 Galliot on my desk that I have not begun to paint. I also have several more half completed ships that need work on. I have made a checklist for the scenario book and am trying to make sure everything has a checkmark.

I have completed bases for trees that I haven't finished the tree trunks for yet. Who knows? Maybe i will get some more work done this weekend.