20mm WWII: Operation Overlord (Normandy Project) U.S. Forces

Initial Thoughts: 

My current project is to do a skirmish level game for parts of the Normandy Invasion, June 6, 1944.  Initially, I'll do a 5'x8' game table set-up of one of the beaches, Utah or Omaha. However, I'm acquiring enough U.S./German troops, vehicles and terrain to eventually do a 5'x16' beach invasion for a convention.  Longer term goals will be to do some additional terrain and figures to do the British beaches.  

Additional convention ideas include a 3 table setup:  One table (#1) will have the beach landings with any victorious troops moving onto table #3.  Table #2 will have a portion of the airborne landings (82nd and 101st) behind the U.S. beaches. The surviving U.S. forces will continue onto table #3. The final game will be table #3, the attack/capture of Carentan.

Current U.S. Forces:

 7, LCA's on loan from the British Navy. (Resin Kit)

 5, LCVP's ready for the beaches. (Pegasus Plastic Model)

4, LCM's to carry men and vehicles to the beaches. (Forces of Valor, Plastic and die cast model)  I'll make an mdf base for each one, similar in style as the plastic bases supplied with the LCVP's.

One British LCI, to land additional infantry on the beaches once established. (Resin Kit) I've got one more still to be painted.

 Here's what the landing craft look like for relative scale.

I will probably scratch build an LCT-5 and LCT-6 (Landing Craft Tank) purely for looks on the tabletop.

 My lone DUKW.  It's a plastic model and hasn't been painted yet.  However, I may try out a resin model to see what it looks like.

 The DD Sherman's are ready for action.

 3 of the Waterline DD Sherman models ready for the channel waters.

3 of the DD Sherman's ready to assault the German positions from the beach, if they can make it that far.

Some of my extra Sherman's to be brought to the beach.

A collection of Hobart's Funnies. (L-R) 2, Sherman Mine Rollers (Forces of Valor), 1 Sherman Flail tank (resin kit), and 1 Sherman dozer (resin kit).   

Here are 2 of my Sherman tanks with full wading kit.  The tanks are from Armourfast, but the wading kits are my custom additions, simply made out of thin plastic styrene sheet.

Here is the painted Ranger battalion so far. These figures are all metal, mostly from Battlefield, SHQ, Britannia, and others. I've got a box of plastic Rangers (Pegasus Models) yet to be painted up and added to the assault forces.

 The engineers charged with clearing obstacles on the beach.

 Some of the casualties and medical staff.  I need more of each.

 The fighting portion of the Rangers.

 Gotta have some flamethrowers. They're lit and ready to go.

 Gotta have some Bazooka's to take out any potential enemy armor or strong defenses.

Here's a typical squad of men that might make it off of a landing craft.

20mm WWII: BAB- Moscow Campaign: Part II.

Continuing our Moscow campaign using the "Brother Against Brother-WWII Variant", here is part 2 of our 3 part mini-campaign as the German Forces are advancing on Moscow during November-December 1941.

Part II: The Germans are advancing across the frozen rural lands located north-north-west of Moscow.  Following the rail line south, a German recon take up a defensive position in a small Russian Village while waiting for the remainder of the German army to show up.  Unfortunately, it appears that the German support troops are lagging quite a bit, perhaps held up by ice and snow issues. The Russians troops are putting up a spirited, but bloody offense to liberate the village while the Russian Armored Battalion races north, parallel to the railroad line with little resistance or opposition.  

Here's the Russian Front.  The Russian enter along the southern edge (on the left) and the Germans enter along the northern edge (on the right).

 A view of the Russian village. There are a couple of squads of Germans reinforcing and hiding inside the various buildings, setting up effective fields of fire.

 Here comes the Russians.  A two-pronged, massive assault by the Russian infantry.  Group 1 is heading to liberate the German held Russian village.  Group 2 is heading for the copse of trees in the center. The armored car and infantry will be used to 'plug' any holes.

 The Russian infantry assault is not going well.  Heavy casualties have staggered the initial wave with limited German casualties.

 Meanwhile, in the center woods, the advancing Russian infantry has stumbled into some waiting German Infantry, hunkered down at the crest of the wooded hill.

 The Russian armor with tank riders, races across the open snow, unopposed.  Lucky for the Germans that they are ignoring the infantry battles.

The second wave of the Russian Infantry attack tries to scoot to the flank of the town.  They were doing better than the first wave, until the German armor appeared in the town, with machine guns blazing. That could be why the Russian tanks couldn't find any German armor?

Coming soon: Part III, The urban battle.

20mm WWII: BAB- Moscow Campaign: Part I.

Our local gaming group really enjoys playing 20mm WWII skirmish-level battles, with a variety of rules sets including "Fire & Maneuver" and the "Brother Against Brother-WWII Variant". Our recent game is turning into a 3 part mini-campaign as the German Forces are advancing on Moscow during November-December 1941.

Part I: The Germans are advancing across the frozen rural lands located north-north-west of Moscow.  They are following the frozen river, snow covered roads and railroad tracks.  The Russians troops are putting up a spirited defense in order to stall the rapid German advance on Moscow.   

Here is one view of the table top before forces are deployed. The rail line running to the lower left is heading southward towards Moscow.  The Germans will be deployed along the opposite, long edge of the table which is NNW of the Russian Capital.

The Germans will enter the table from the edge containing the rural wood structures, capturing the rural countryside as they advance across the frozen land.  Just to the left of the center copse of trees, the Russians will be trying to retrieve their heavy artillery (a 203mm tracked artillery piece) before it gets captured and falls into enemy hands.

This is what you do when you buy up the discount, snow-covered miniature trees after Christmas each year. You end up with plenty of terrain for a winter Russian offensive. The mostly 'barren' area running through the center of the table is a frozen, snow covered river.  The bridge at the far end of the table is where the road crosses the river.  The rail line is located in the upper right hand corner of the picture. 

The German advance squad crosses the frozen river and the bridge. The road is snow covered, but you can follow it's path by the adjacent telephone poles.

The Germans advance through the rural area.

Looking through the trees and across the railroad tracks, the hidden Russian troops holding the railroad cut spot the advancing Germans coming down the road and across the frozen river. 

The Germans will need to cross the open terrain quickly as the Russian MG's start to pepper the troops with sporadic fire.

German Tank support reinforces the German infantry crossing the open terrain and draws some of the Russian fire.

Trying to protect the withdrawl of the Russian heavy artillery piece, two Russian Infantry squads take heavy fire from German Infantry advancing through the woods and down the snowy slope.

Here, the German infantry (in winter camo) is making steady progress while supported by their German Tank Escorts.  The Tank HMG's are keeping the Russian troops, trying to hold the rail line, pinned down and licking their increasing wounded rate.  The Russians would end up capitulating the rail line and retreating with what troops were remaining.  

Necromunda: The Orlocks

Here some of my additional Necromunda gangs, The Orlocks.  For these, I painted up two gangs of 8 (Red and blue headbands), but also painted their 'loin cloth' the same red and black checkered pattern so that they could fight as a single, 16 man gang as well.

 Here's the 'Red' Orlock Gang.

 Here's some of the 'Red' gangers and a heavy.

Here's some of the other 'Red' gangers. 

 Here's the 'Blue' Orlock Gang.

 Here's some of the 'Blue' gangers and  2 heavies.

Here's some of the other 'Blue' gangers.

...Up next are the Goliaths.  They're only primed and haven't had a paint scheme selected yet.  However, I may paint them in the same fashion as the Orlocks so that they can fight as either two gangs of 8 or a single, unified gang of 16.

Necromunda: The Crimson Van Saar

I do have a limited amount of Necromunda as it is a fun, skirmish, squad level game to play. Here is the primary gang that I use, so aptly named the 'Crimson Van Saar'.

 Here's the whole 'gang'.

 The leader is in the center, flanked by two juvies.

 Here are three gangers.

 Here are two gangers with a rifle.

 Here are three gangers with two weapons.  A few of my figures shoot with two weapons, and do it well.

 You can't go anywhere without a couple of shotguns!

Here's a variety of my heavies.  Heavy Lasgun, Grenade Launcher (A personal favorite), and a Heavy Flamer.

Bloodbowl Project: The 'Other' Teams

I've been compiling a 'small' collection of Bloodbowl teams and figures.  I'm mostly anti-Games Workshop except for a couple of the 'squad' level games such as Bloodbowl and Necromunda.  GW never stayed with them or supported them long since all you needed to play was about a dozen figures and that was it.  Not very good for the GW profit margin, no matter how good the game was. The whole 'only with official GW figures' was another turnoff.  (OK, the GW rant stops there, for now.)

Anyways, I like the game so much that I want teams now before they become too difficult to buy/trade/steal from others. Here's a sampling of what I have and have a lot of painting to do. If I count correctly, I think I have 12 teams under construction with plenty of star players to go around.

 Here is my converted Lizardman team, full of Lizardmen, Skinks, and Kroxigors.  The BB Lizardman team is just too pricey, so I converted a bunch of plastic lizardmen and skinks, metal Kroxigors, and made a couple of star players out of a lizardman and some skink command figures.

 A closeup of the star players on the Lizardman Team.

 Here's the Goblin team with a couple of miniatures I picked up already painted, but most likely will receive a repaint to match the team.

Here's the undead team, under construction.  Again, they are scratch builds using the generic plastic skeleton figures with a couple of metal BB ghast/ghoul players.  I have a few of the free Mantic ghouls that I will be adding to the team. 

 Here are more of my star players.  I picked up a painted Slaan Priest in one of the lots I bought.  I don't know what I'll do with him, but I'll use him for something, maybe a coach?

Human Team #1: Here's another custom team under construction using Bretonnian miniatures. They may get painted in the Steeler's yellow and black scheme?

Human Team #2: Here's the basic human team with some added players. 

 The Elves are accounted for and ready to play.

I have another Dwarven Team using the original 'Dwarven Giant' figures (that was a challenge to get the OOP figures including the proper Death Roller and all the star players), but they will be painted in ACW confederate colors including a rebel flag flying off the back of the Deathroller.  

 Gotta have halflings! I think I have all of the OOP halflings as well as the Treant.  There's a couple of BB Snotlings at the bottom.  I'd like to find some more of the Snotlings too.

 Here's Ork Team #1 with the green skin.

 Here's Ork Team #2.  I think I may paint their skin a reddish color.

I also have an Ork Team #3 in the box that hasn't been fully put together yet. Other options would include blue skin or orange skin for this team.

Also not shown are an assortment of GW and other figures to be put together, primed and painted for use as crowd figures to go in the grandstands when I build a full stadium.  

Lastly, I'd still like to put together a chaos dwarf team and amazon team, just to round out the league.  So if you have one just lying around gathering dust, I won't turn it down if you send it my way.