Flames of War pics - Panzers & photoshop...

Wargaming is an addictive thing as you all know, (and if you don't know maybe you're too far gone already) so in order to make sure we don't "max out" on one game system we put ourselves about a bit - flirting with something new or calling back to old fave on occasion.

Flames of War is one of those games we "maxed out" with and subsequently dropped for years. We even closed down Child's Play our popular 2 day doubles competition  variously held in Bath, Sheffield, Evesham and Westbury, possibly even Preston once?

However, like the tarts we are it's always nice to call back to an old flame when the weekly grind loses some her its shine. So with a series of big and toughly fought Napoleonic General de Brigade battles over we decided to run out some panzers and Russian tanks around the steppe one evening.

The battle pitted Russian and German armoured forces clashing around a series of farms and light industrial units somewhere on the vastness of the eastern front. The game was fun and very low key, here are some atmospheric slightly fuzzy B&W shots to enjoy...    

PAKs deployed near a farmhouse behind mines and barbed wire.
Peter pig 15's, possibly Command Decision guns, Faller plastic farmhouse.   

Mixed force of panzers move out to take on the various Russian tanks.
Battlefront & Command Decision by me for the club's collection.

SU76's leave the road.
Cracking models and crews by Tony.  

Sturmoviks view of the battlefield.

What manner of monster is this?
KV85's batter through a wood, tough cookies indeed.
Battlefront toys painted by me for Rich.

T34's assault German grenadiers in a wood, risky business. 

SU76 tank destroyers nose around a farm.

A Panzer 1V scans the horizon for enemy tanks and sees...

...only this rubbish, nothing to worry about - especially in Soviet hands under FOW rules!

Now these are more like it. Various marks of T34 tearing across the steppe.
Great shot of these tanks by Tony from various manufacturers.  

Soviet infantry advance in support of the tanks.
Shells and rockets fall near German positions, not! 

Rocket launchers and crew.

Those SU's again, this time from the rear, looks like they have brewed a panzer or two on the crest. 

Panzer Grenadiers debus to support these panzers.
Most of this is by me, club infantry mostly based by Chris.

Armoured engineers move into the workshop compound.
Smoke from burning tanks all over the place. 

View from a Stuka.

 Finally a few table wide shots of the whole thing in full technicolor!

Starting positions.

Lots of space and quite a lot of toys much of sadly not in the close up piccies. 

Same shot a little later.

Much later

A very relaxing evenings play, some big moves and no big guns - a fine mid-war bash. In fact we enjoyed this so much we decided on a Normandy game for our Christmas all dayer, photo report to follow. Hope you enjoy this trivial interlude as much as we did.

6mm land

Tony Laughton, my friend and brushman, asked us along to spy on a 6mm game he and his chum Andrew were playing. We Marauders have been contemplating this scale for some time, possibly flogging the 15mm stuff to take something truly vast in proportion if not height! No other bugger could come along so along I went on my own on a rainy Sunday morning. I had really no idea what to expect but was very pleased with what I came across, namely this Franco Prussian War encounter;-  

Prussian Corps artillery reserve comprising six batteries. Loved the limber and caisson teams, one per battery. 

Prussian infantry make their way to the front line through fields past hills and villages, Note the tiny dice on the command stand, smoke denotes firing in the bombardment phase I think.

Close up of Prussian battalions. That farmer needs to get those boulders out of his field.

The terrain is that Kalistra stuff I think. The plan seems to have been to have some kind of hex system in play but Polemos came along instead. Still looks good though, except some hills look pretty steep!

Looking down the line with French troops in the foreground.

Close up of the road and farm with an orchard by the battery which is obscured by smoke. The road is way too wide for me but then these things are always an issue in wargaming and really as long as it looks good I don't really care.

More French heading for the Prussians. Up on the hill are four regiments of French heavy cavalry ready to charge down against Prussian veterans behind a mile long stone wall, suicide?

My time machine takes me back to this Roman Legion complete with scorpions and Auxiliary foot and cavalry. Pretty awesome in 6mm, they had matching Gauls too including very many chariots. Might have been Celts actually - fancy trousered loons either way.

Time machine whips us forward to Napoleonic times; here we have French, 16 battalions with supporting artillery and coffee mug for scale.  

Sans coffee mug.

Davout - a tiny ting marshall.

Most of the battlefield. This was a 6x4 foot and has space for a corps level game plus more. Both sides with reserves on table and space to move, extraordinary really, especially for we 28mm nutters stuck with acres of scenery and nowhere to move about! 

Parting shot of a Prussian Division complete with artillery and organic cavalry. One of my 28mm battalions occupy more space than this and as for the cost! Food for thought...

Thanks to Tony and Andrew for allowing me a glimpse into their gaming world, this kind of thing is always a privilege and is much appreciated gents.

What did I make of it? Frankly it was inspiring. But then much in wargaming is inspiring and the temptation gene in we wargamers is weak and must be resisted. If we venture into 6mm it will be on a vast scale I am sure. Jerry Elliott's forthcoming rules for huge Napoleonic games might suit this scale and my megalomania - who knows? As I didn't play in this game and didn't really pay much attention to the gameplay I can't comment on the Polemos system although Tony an Andrew seemed to enjoy themselves and that's exactly where it's at really isn't it?

More details at their blog;-

memoirsofclaudeandfritz.blogspot.co.uk

Hope you enjoyed this little excursion, more to follow soon including some 15mm WW2 and plenty of 28mm Nappies of course too.