Singling

The town is really coming together. I took pictures over the weekend but always have issues with things in the background of my images that make them look bad. I started to mess about with some photo editing tools and produced this.

Definitely better than the shelves and other stuff in the background. This is a view of the school house and building 28 on the right and buildings 8 and 9 on the right. I will add some additional snow to this and see how hard it will be to clean up. Not sure if it will stay on the rooftops. That is left to be seen.

Terrain Complete for Singling

I managed to complete building 12 over the weekend. This is a damaged row house that US troops occupied the attic of and used the holes in the roof to shoot a bazooka down onto the German Armor in the street below. I went with one of the color schemes mentioned for the town with a tile roof. The visible roof frames are cut up sprues from the other MDF pieces of the model. I am not entirely happy with it but it works.

I have the table now set to get some playtesting in on the scenario for the center of the town. I am getting really close to being done with this. Here is an image of the central portion of the table. Visible are buildings 8, 9 and 10. Also the large pile of horse dung in the center of the courtyard. Also visible are the school and building 28 in the upper right hand corner. The courtyard to the left is where there American tanks were located and exchaned shots with German Jadgpanzer IVs after destroying part of the wall. It is not very clear in the image, but there is an elevation change running behing the school across the top portion of the map. Building 28 is on the upper level of this.

Anyway, this is a very promising start. I need to figure out a way to take better pictures and have a backdrop from which to place behind it so my shelves and other hobby stuff is not seen,

Building 12

I have started assembling the buildings that I bought on ebay. There are 8 separate buildings that can be put together and joined. I did a pretty good job of putting these together except when gluing them together in a row, I of course messed up and glued one in backwards. I also put one of the wall facings in backwards on another building. Again, very frustrating. However, I have four of them put together as a rowhouse. I used spare sprue from the parts and made a roof support to create a bombed out version. Then tiled the roof. I need to do some more with the roof but it is coming along much quicker than I thought.

I have taken some cutters and cut holes in the supports where it is not covered by the tiles. I think it is coming together.

I also ordered some paint for my 1/144th aircraft for Algernon Pulls it off. I started painting on the scheme that I wanted for some Nieuport 11s. I realized after starting that the scheme is more appropriate for 1917 than 1916. While disapointed, I still like the scheme. It is an interesting comparison between the 3d prints I received years ago from Shapeways and the modern prints now. The newer resin prints are not paint sponges requiring many coats to paint. The details are clearer and better. It is really interesting to look at.

No pictures of the Nieuport 11 so far. I may take some later once I get the rest of the paints in.

Building 12 has arrived, Scenario Writing and the Summer Scenario Sale

My missing eBay order arrived last night. This is a set of 8 row houses with some sidewalk in front of it. While the buildings are very nice and the parts fit well together, this was not exactly what I was looking for. The scale seems off with my other 15mm buildings. They seem almost better suited for 10mm miniatures rather than the 15mm miniatures that I am using. I need to fully assemble one before making the final determiniation. I was looking for something closer to what I purchased from Sarrissa. I would like to have a ruined roof section on it to allow troops in the roof area to shoot down onto the street below. I am not sure this will be possible with this particular miniature.

I have a stand in that I am currently using. It is an older solid cast structure. Possibly an old JR miniatures model. It just doesn't have the foot print size that I am looking for. Hopefully, once assembled, the new building will work out. If not, I will reach back out to Sarissa and place an order. I think I found a few things that would work but be more expensive.

In my excitement about possible Chain of Command games, I looked at some of my order miniatures and that gave thought to my older scenario books. This led me to look at the Ustilug scenario book. It strikes me that this needs to be redone. First, I have a reference to the TooFatLardies website that is now broken since their website change last year. Since those were a free order of battle sheet that they published, I will end up including some of that data into the scenario book for simplicity. I also want to add some images of some games to it as well. To that end, I have started doing a photo search of the town and the countryside on Google maps and street view. The town is drastically changed from the war. The town was heavily shelled in the opening hours of the war and not many original buildings remain. There are a few. Part of the issue is finding the right names go Google as the town had Polish, German and Ukrainian names for things. All of these may or may not change when going from English as a starting point. But that is half of the fun. I did find a church that seems to be in the right place with a cemetary next to it. It is very well maintained so I am not sure if it is the original Orthodox Church or a replacement from after the war.

The best map I have found is a 1:25,000 scale map from 1938. It is titled Special Edition XII.1940 4538/4. The map appears to be in both German and Polish. It is better than the 1:100,000 scale map that I build the scenarios from but still not as ideal as a 1:10,000 scale one. But I have yet to find it. My old go to source for maps of the Ukraine was wwii-photos-maps.com. The site is gone but he has moved all of his materials to an FTP server. You can get to it with an anonymous loging using something like WinSCP. The site is jccalvin.ddns.net on port 21. Still a great resource for all parts of WWII. It is a treasure trove. He just has very few 1/10,000 scale maps.

Also I just put up a sale on my Payhip Store. Use code SummerSale2025 for 50% off until July 15th 2025.

Chain of Command 2 Playtest 1

I got in my first game on Sunday. I played the Attack and Defend scenario from the main rulebook using my new scenario for Singling. It worked great. I used the historical forces for the US troops as the attacker but a full Panzer Grenadier Platoon for the Germans. That was probably a mistake. The US forces were the historical remnants of two platoons whose combined total was less firepower than a normal single paper strength platoon. The action ended up being a tank engagement as the scenario is designed for Big Chain of Command with each side having an armored unit and an infantry element on the table. I really liked the Final Countdown. I ended up using a shock marker dial for the final countdown. The game had fairly historical results with even fewer casualties. I miscalculated the German support points and short changed them a bit. I really don't think it mattered that much. I plan on running some more games on this table to get a full feel for it before finalizing it. But it was great to finally play a game again.

The primary action was between the armor. The US Infantry came close to the Jadgpanzer IV in the town center spotting it in the smoke. The armor then engaged it ineffectively causing it to retreat. Similar to the historical outcome. The US tanks never made it close to the courtyard with the horse dung. The US infantry siezed the objective marker in the church. One accomplishment that I had was getting to play with completed fencing for Building 28. The fences received a very basic paint job. I made a mistake with the metal work. I should have painted it black. Instead I did a silver and then put a rust wash on it. Not 100% happy with it but it will do.

In looking at it, I am not 100% sastisfied with the chimneys on some of the buildings. The ones where I just went with a black chimney, i need to revisit. I might brick them or at least paint some kind of stone work on them as they look off compared to the rest of the building. I also need to up my jump off point game. Using an unpainted wooded 25mm base just seemed bland. It worked but is bland. Overall, I am pretty happy with how this is turning out.

The last big part of this is the elevations. I am sold on the idea that the excersize mats are the way to go at this point. I have a 6'x 4' matt currently under this. I need two more identical ones that I can do surgury on them to get the look I am going for. The hope is that this will prove to give me flexibility to design multiple hill terrain options. The matts come with an edging piece so you don't have a puzzle piece look on the sides. This edging should be able to be cut as a slope to avoid an oddly stair stepped look under the ground cloth. It is still on the to do list.