Wednesday 28 January 2009

Minnie and her Flying Pigs

Another game of Iron Ivan’s “Price of Glory”. We had an introductory game two weeks ago. Since then I have been determined to get some terrain made.

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The work allowed me to cover a 4 foot wide, 6 foot long table (see previous). The barbed wire is from Barrule’s workshops and is supplied in 30 foot lengths. I used 3 packs just to provide enough wire entanglements to cover the table-width.

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Being me, I’d done some extra prep and made up some unit sheets. They seemed to speed up deployment. I merely copy/pasted the army lists into a word processor, and if there were 2 units listed in the OOB, then I copied them twice. Print on card and laminate before slicing into strips. Bish, bash, bosh. At which point I find that I’ve not enough riflemen for a 3:1 ratio against the Allies.

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With Tommy Atkins unaware of the offensive (“Great War Miniatures” figure, painted by Hugh), I drop all the off-board artillery that I can reasonably pochle onto their HMG positions. Being me, I had made up ‘character sheets for my guns (additional background information from Landships website). Ideally, I’d like to have the off-board artillery set up on a side-table. I also need a pronunciation guide – if only to stop Carlos from grimacing.

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Small groups of stormtroopers rush forward, supported by two MG08’s and some MG08/15’s. We quickly ... sorry, that should read “I quickly” … noticed that it was difficult to keep track of unit casualties, so started using the ‘Eldritch gems’ markers for losses. yellow means the unit has been activated, red is a morale failure, and so we used green for casualties.

I’ve still got a lot of work to do on the terrain. Especially to put a finish on the trenches. Then to expand out with communications trenches and a proper second line. Strongholds to be modelled, etc etc. From a rules viewpoint, they are great. With the deployment cards, I can think about adding a random element to the set-up, veterans and green units. Neither of us want to do the “rush the guns in daylight”, but it proves that the rules can cope, and a realistic outcome is obtained. Two units of German infantry get near the wire, but the rest are failing morale rolls and heading back to their trenchline.

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Next time, a night raid. I may need to build an OP.

2 comments:

Mac E said...

Do you have to carry all the base boards and your troops to a venue, and do you match your boards up with the enemy's boards? Sounds pretty complicated apart from knowing about realistic tactics and game rules.

AktoMan said...

The terrain is all mine. My oppo, Hugh, felt guilty, but I reckoned it was easier for me to focus on getting an overall look. Very much a work in progress, but enough for a game.

As to transportation - the figures are on magnetic bases, so stick to metal boxes for transportation. As reasonably sized metal boxes are getting few and far between, I might have to resort to sticking a thin metal sheet into a cardboard box-file.