Test games and arrival times

For those who are attending...

 

I will send out an e-mail regarding arrival times at the hotel over next few days, so that Membly Hall has some idea of those likely to arrive on the Friday night. Also I am planning to have a couple of test games running on Saturday afternoon, from about 2pm onwards. This should help everyone get back into the swing of the rules. We (at the Shed) certainly found playing a couple of test games a useful exercise over the last few weeks. We will have games running throughout the afternoon so whenever you arrive you should be able to participate, should you wish, or just sit back and catch up with old friends.

On the model making front, a few hundred feet of woods edging is in the process of being made, the fields are nearly all completed and about 100ft of main road sections are done. Still plenty to do but the jobs are slowly being ticked off the list. Will publish some pics of the new kit ASAP, I promise.

Test game

A quick note on the current test game we are playing. We have created a scenario where 2 Battalions of US Infantry, back up by some armour are trying to remove some plucky Volks-Grenadier types from a town. The Germans have 1 Battalion of Infantry and three A/T guns. At this point it would be worth saying that Andy (the German player had the chance of getting 3 xPAK 40s and 3 x PAK38, but managed to only get 2 x PAK38's and 1 x PAK 40 (Oh dear, best look after those then..). The game is also giving us a chance to test a couple of ideas with the new terrain.

 

The new fields are a bit of an improvement on the carpet tile and lichen (which in many cases was still damp 5 years after being glued to the carpet tiles). The town sectors seem to work well, the one in the foreground has part of a road network built into it, the one to the top left is a type which is just wholly a BUA (built up area). The will be a rule amendment to use these new BUA's as we are experimenting with allowing all platoons into BUA's. I hope to have some of the new roads made soon as well as the edging for wooded areas. For now we are using roofing felt (which I will use as the base material for both of these new designs), but I will pretty them up over the next couple of weeks, time off permitting.

 

I will post an update on the game and some of the rules ideas that come from it over the next couple of days.

 

View from the American side of the table....Where are those sneaky Krauts?

 

Places left

The current situations is that we have about 31 players for the Ardennes game. As things stand we have.....

3 places left for German commands;


3 places left for American commands.


If you are thinking going and haven't yet let me know...don't hang around!!

OK, I did promise loads...

And I am aware of the maxim 'under-promise, over-deliver', but the pace since my last post has no slackened. In fact there is no real sign of a let up, mostly due to the current 'shooping list' of new bits of scenery needed for the new game....the list as it stands is...

80 Town sector models;

100 Fields, (rebuilding these at the moment);

150 ft of metalled road;

150 ft of secondary road;

60 ft of minor river; (1" wide)

20 ft of Meuse river (4" wide)

6 larger bridges for the Meuse system

200ft of Woods edging.

 

The good news is ...the fields are about 1/3 completed. I will post an article in the next few days on the construction method employed and a pic or two of the finished articles.