AARs: Show Us Yer Games!

Zippy · Post by **Zippy** » Fri Jul 30, 2010 12:12 am

Good lookin game Mark.

Stuarts verses anything bigger than a small rodent is not going to end well.

Mike

dougeagle · Post by **dougeagle** » Fri Jul 30, 2010 6:51 am

mluther wrote:The second of the Operation Epsom games. The counteattack by Kampfgruppe Frey along the RR cut. The Brits only had a platoon of infantry and a troop of Stuarts to defend with. A bad situation made worde with some really crappy hit rolls.

Hugewally never felt the wrath of the 37mm.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/6mmgaming/ ... 523581546/

Mark

Once again Mark...very well done. I have passed this table idea to my gaming buddy and we are looking into doing the samething.

BattlerBritain · Post by **BattlerBritain** » Fri Jul 30, 2010 4:40 pm

Great writeup Mark.

I love the pictures and the terrain.

For the game I'd have expected the Stuarts to have done something, but the Dice Gods decreed otherwise.

Sorry to see the 3rd Mons getting beat

But I'd have waited until the Germans were a lot closer before opening up if I were the Brits.

mluther · Post by **mluther** » Fri Jul 30, 2010 6:02 pm

BoB,
IABSM rules work out to almost a 1/300 ground scale, so the Germans were close when the Mons opened fire. A PIAT has an 8" range and a Pzfst can fire even further.
These rules give a microarmor gamer a real one to one sense of the table.
M

Mk 1 · Post by **Mk 1** » Sat Jul 31, 2010 1:36 am

Mark:

Once again, a great write-up and great pictures, of a (couple of) well reserched scenario(s)!

I followed your whole sequence, from the tutorial on creating the terrain (much appreciated!) to the first and second game AARs. Great stuff.

A question on the terrain techniques ... how do you get the terrain cloth to stay down, filling-in and around all of the under-cloth elevations?

As I have already mentioned a few times, I am trying to learn your terrain techniques. Getting better, though by no means an advanced practitioner ... yet.

In my last game* I used your guidance on taping down the elevations. That was a great help. My game also had a central feature at below-ground-level (a river bed), so I too had to build up the ground on both sides for an elevated ground level across most of the whole table. But I had trouble getting the cloth to lay down into the gully. I also have persistant troubles getting rid of all the creases -- my battlefields wind up with multiple small ridges that come and go as the game rolls along. Any attempt to resolve the latter issue by pulling the cloth tighter will of course make the first issue even worse.

Here is an example. It looks like a tidal wave is rolling up the riverbed behind the bridge. Makes it hard to even see that the riverbed is at a lower level than the surrounding terrain.

Any advice is much appreciated.

*AAR coming soon, really. As soon as I get my butt in gear to write it up, that is!

opsctr · Post by **opsctr** » Sat Jul 31, 2010 4:08 am

Good double sided Carpet Tape isn't cheap but it is worth the investment and can double for holding down layers of cardboard and the covering you use for the final layer. Will

mluther · Post by **mluther** » Sat Jul 31, 2010 4:47 am

Hi Mk1,
That looks like a neat game. The double sided tape is a good idea. A couple of strips in a few spots should do the trick.
Most of my sheets have so much paint on them from over the years that they lay pretty flat. There also tends to be a lot of terrain features, buildings, trees, etc around to keep things in place.
Thanks for all the comments

Mark

Mk 1 · Post by **Mk 1** » Sat Jul 31, 2010 6:02 am

mluther wrote:Hi Mk1,
That looks like a neat game.

It was. Really.

Italians vs. Russians, September 1941. I managed some pretty good research to put it together.

The game board looked really nice (not hardly holding a candle to yours, but nice vs. my prior games). I spent the whole game making comments about how cool it all was.

The double sided tape is a good idea.

Will has many good ideas!

But alas, I tried some double-sided tape last time, and it was a near disaster. VERY hard to get off of my table. My 4 kids (and wife) were very upset that I put the ping-pong table out of service for a week!

But the type I tried was poster-mounting tape, not carpet tape. Who knows ... that may make all the difference!

mluther · Post by **mluther** » Sat Jul 31, 2010 6:19 am

Mk1,
I've got a good friend who is starting to do research on Italians in Barbarossa for some IABSM scenarios. I'm sure he would be interested in what you found out for your games.
Would you mind me mentioning your efforts?
M

Mk 1 · Post by **Mk 1** » Sat Jul 31, 2010 2:00 pm

mluther wrote:Mk1,
I've got a good friend who is starting to do research on Italians in Barbarossa for some IABSM scenarios. I'm sure he would be interested in what you found out for your games.
Would you mind me mentioning your efforts?

Please do.

Unhappily, most of the detailed source material I found for this particular scenario was in French. So unless he reads French pretty well he will have a tough time with my source. Fortunately I do, but it is still slow going. (Just finished reading an eye-witness account, published in 1949, of Leclerc's capture of Kufra. Wow, that took me a long time to work my way through. What a story! I wonder why no one has made a movie of that battle yet!)

Thought I would might find something on the Comando Supremo sight, but I came up with only the most general information (in English). It did put me on the track of digging around for information on the particular divisions in the CSIR, though, and I was able to come up with some French info on the battle of Petrykivka.

Here is a map I was able to come up with:

With this in hand, and some information on Torino's reports from their advance, it was off to Google Maps.

Unfortunately, the place names on the map are close, but not close enough. The map calls it Petrikovka. But that's a city on the Bug river. The river on THIS map is the Dniepr! Fortunately I had enough of the story to find Dniepropetrovsk, and search my way up the road the 81e Regimmento of the Torino division marched, until I found Petrykivka (the real/current name of the town where they met up with Pasubio division). While examining the road Torino used I found the last available route that the Soviet forces on the Dniepr could have taken to escape encirclement by the CSIR. That route crossed a little marshy wash near the village of Loboikivka (called Loboykovka on the French map). So that's where I placed my game.

Now if I can just get my AAR finished...

mluther · Post by **mluther** » Sat Jul 31, 2010 8:43 pm

Very neat Mk1. I am really looking forward to that AAR.

Mark

Steel Arrows · Post by **Steel Arrows** » Sun Aug 01, 2010 12:00 pm

Greetings All,

Here is a link to my Photo Bucket Album of a game that my long time associated micro armor group played out In July 2010.

Enjoy!

http://s772.photobucket.com/albums/yy3/ ... 007102010/

Sudwind · Post by **Sudwind** » Sun Aug 01, 2010 11:02 pm

Is that in the Santa Clarita area? I think I have played on that sand table before....couldn't make it out last time.

Robert

Steel Arrows · Post by **Steel Arrows** » Mon Aug 02, 2010 12:49 am

Yes Robert. The group is called The Steel Turtles Micro Armor Group. The game was played on a sand table prepared with great creative detail by the host Scott.

Sudwind · Post by **Sudwind** » Mon Aug 02, 2010 1:21 pm

Well then...I hope to see you there sometime!! I really enjoy gaming with micro armor. I wasn't thrilled with the rules they used, but it still was fun. I really like Command Decision II and III for WW2 games and would love to give Combined Arms a try for modern stuff. The GHQ rules also give a nice game.