Berlin!

Had a doubles (well, 2 on 1) game using the Berlin book for Flames of War.

Rob was Germans, with an eclectic mix.  He had Hitler youth.  He had a King Tiger.  He had fearless fallschirmjager.  And he had old WWI veterans.

Lowell had IS-2's.  Thats it -- just IS-2's.

I had an interesting mix supplied by Rob.  T-34/85 flame tanks.  SU-76's,  Strelk with panzerfausts.  And scouts to lead an infiltration.

The table.  Note the ruined factory / city buildings in one corner

Lowell and I started with a rush up either flank

We rushed up to the city, hiding behind what buildings we could.

The Germans dropped 88's out of ambush -- but the Russian infantry poured foward and assaulted them to oblivion.  (Actually, they managed to snipe one of the 88's before the assault!)

This left an infantry blob close to an objective!

But Tigers appeared from reserve.  The gun fire from the tigers, mortars, and objective defenders wiped out the attacking strelk.  But not the scouts!

On the other flank, the IS-2's and strelk positioned to attack the other objective!

The scouts got into the objective.  The fallschirmjagers counterattacked, but were machine gunned and flame throwered to oblivion, and then assaulted by the scouts.  The Hitler Youth came in -- but they were taken down by the flame thrower tanks.  There was one surviving scout, who had to pass sole survivor, but he assaulted the King tiger and killed it!  Rob failed morale.  A bloodly, messy, victory!

Pacific Fury at Rod's

I was the US Marines, invading an unnamed heavily defended island in the Pacific.  I had tanks, artillery, and air support, and a plethora of heavy weapons.  The task was to take the village in 8 turns.  Opposing was rod, with a hidden deployment of sneaky Japanese.  All in fantastically painted 20mm figures.

The initial troop selection

And the whole board.  The aquarium plant jungle looks really good with 20mm troops!

Rod's garage.  Like all of us, too much stuff!!!!  And not enough space!!!!

The initial advance was slow!

Then Japanese artillery hit the US artillery observer

Some marines hid behind some rocks.  That Japanese bunker was fearsome (and deadly)

Within the first couple of turns, the Japanese foward defences were shot to pieces.  But the Marines were pinned down and slow to move.  The tank was immobilised by the AT rifle, the foward observer for the artillery was killed, and the flame thrower team was pinned down and not coming foward to flame those bunkers!

Finally a team managed to get around to the back of one of the Japanese bunkers ...

But then the US aircraft arrived, and strafed the US troops!!!!

And Japanese reserves arrived.  The bunker was destroyed, but the reserves destroyed the infiltrating troops.  At this point we called it -- the Marines were barely off the beach, and their heavy weapons were mainly neutralized!!!

A fun game using Rod's home made experimental rules.  Pins seemed a bit to vicious - it took forever to recover.  But the board was gorgeous, and the rules were fun.  Rod will make a few tweaks, and we will try it again!

Bolt Action at Nick's

A quick introduction of Rod into Bolt Action using 15mm figures.  Rod was German, vs Nick with US.  Somewhere in Normandy.  The US had a small number of infantry, but all the toys (including a tank).  The Germans had lots of infantry and a PaK 40.

All was going well for Rod until his artillery barrage rolled a '1' and scattered onto his own troops, pinning 5 units.  The US air strikes had no problems with missing, and pounded one infantry unit to oblivion, and damaging another unit.  One German flank collapsed, and the US were able to advance and position themselves for victory, so we called the game.