Coniferous Trees

Early in December, Michaels (a big box craft store) had a sale on some Christmas "village" stuff (50% off). For example, fences, cobblestone street mat, and Christmas trees. I bought the mat and I bought two bags of trees. The trees come in multiple sizes and someone brushed thick white paint on them to make them more Christmas-y. I shall probably keep one bag with the fake snow and white bases. For the other bag, I gave the trees a bit of a trim with scissors to cut off most of the white paint and some green paint to get rid of the rest. Then some paint and flock to finish the base. Here's the after and the before:

Wings of War King of the Sky

Stephen and I faced off against David and John in Wings of War. We started by picking some planes. Those that brought planes chose to use them, which is why I ended up flying a UFAG two seater. It's a surprisingly good plane. All of the other planes were arranged in two rows, one per side.

I was doing quite well popping off with front and back guns and taking relatively little damage in return.

Stephen in the green Fokker triplane "Kempf" shot down one of the allied fighters, John's SE5a. I took one shot from long range and drew the dreaded explosion card.

 I reappeared flying a Pfalz DIII, which is basically a flying brick. John reappeared with a Spad XIII, which is also a flying brick, but also much faster. Meanwhile, Stephen shot down David's Sopwith Tripe. But in doing so, Stephen retired "Kempf" and returned to the fight in a Albatros DV.

 I bagged David with the lucky explosion card. His plane was relatively undamaged to that point. However, John then shot up my Pfalz pretty good. Despite taking some revenge fire from Stephen, John used the Spad's speed to escape.

 I took the hint and retired the Pfalz while it could still fly. I returned as the Baron but my flying was distinctly un-ace like and I got shot up pretty good by both David and John. I beat a hasty retreat with only one damage point remaining.

Good fun all around. 

David's report:

Friday saw Stephen, John and Ian joining me in the skies above Europe for a game of Wings of War/Glory.  We had a line of German planes and one of Allied planes.  Stephen and Ian were the Huns and John and I were the Tommies.  

We started with one plane and if you left the warzone you then put your plane aside and picked the next one in line so we had a continuous stream of planes. I don't remember all the details but my Tripe caused a beautiful explosion on Ian's plane (Pfalz ?) but was then shot down by Stephen who was the big winner with 2 victories for the night before he flew away. with one hit point left .  

My second plane was a Snipe and that suffered a fire and pilot wound and flew off the table just putting out the fire before landing with 1 hit point left.  I then came on with a Camel and retired after suffering a pilot wound.  I then came back on with another camel and Stephen and Ian withdrew while John (who was on his second or third plane) was shot up pretty bad but did a lot of damage to the Huns.  

Inventory page for my 28mm stuff

I decided it would be worthwhile to start documenting the lead/plastic mountain. I've started off with my 28mm stuff because the number of items I have isn't all that daunting.

Link to the inventory

Chain of Command: Debut for my Russians

A couple of weeks ago, David hosted myself and Richard. I brought my Russians and David used his Germans.

For support, Richard and I chose a T34-76, a preliminary bombardment, and a sniper. David, with the Germans elected for an Adjutant, a minefield, and two wires.

The game started off with Richard aggressively sending an entire section moving quickly towards the the enemy JOP on the left. I chose a more conservative route by sending a two man scout team on a circuitous route on the right. My objective for the scouts was to threaten the JOP on the right and force the Germans to deploy a section there to defend the JOP.

It took a couple of phases before David could deploy anything. That Russian bombardment is nasty.
By the time he did, the Russians had overrun the leftmost JOP. This started a firefight in the wheat field.

Because the Germans outgun the Russians, Richard upped the ante and brought on the T34 (disguised as a T34/85) and a sniper to add support to the Russian section. I probably should have brought on my section too but there never seems to be enough 3s.

Eventually, the superior firepower for the Germans routed the Russian section. At this point, David realized he had not put his minefield and wire down, so we put them in place.

To replace the routed section, I brought a section on top of the hill. David ran his damaged section to safety behind the hill. He also managed to deploy another section. He put my section under cover fire while he moved the rest of his section up behind the shelter of the fence.

With its initial target vanished behind a hill, the T34 turned its attention to the new target. This time the Russian shooting was much better and the German casualties began to pile up.

In the climax of the game, David deployed a panzershrek team. Needing only 6 or better on 2D6, he rolls a 5, which caused the tank crew to duck, but nothing else. In retaliation, I deployed my last section to wipe out the panzershrek team. On my far right, the scout team was finally ready to go for the German JOP. But David deployed his final section and wiped out the scout team. However, this left the weakening center section in trouble and David decided to pull back and concede the table.

In hindsight, the Russians should be very aggressive when they have a bombardment happening. If I had coordinated my scouts with Richard's section, we might have overrun two jump off points and really put David in a bind.

Finally, our best wishes go out to Derek's father and we hope that he recovers nicely.

Bonus:
Here's David's account of the affair:

Well, last Friday saw the Germans being attacked by the Ruskies.  While the Reds raced across the table to capture a jumping-off point their artillery barrage kept the Germans off the table for quite a while.  Finally the Germans scored a 5 or 6 and one squad appeared and laid into the Ruskie squad that was in the process of capturing the jump-off point.  Unfortunately they only killed 3 and it turned into a slogging match with a Red tank appearing to take part in it as well.

On the German left flank a Red scouting team stole through the woods to get close to another jump-off point while a second German squad finally arrived in the centre and came under sniper fire then a squad appeared on the hill to fire down on them.  After much shooting the German right flank squad finally broke the Red advanced squad and their 2 survivors ran for the table edge.  The German squad then recaptured the jump-off point and hid behind the hill crest.  They lost only 3 men and are now known as The Immortals.

The centre squad though was hit by the sniper, 2 Red squads and the tank.  The vacated the centre position for safety and ended up with 2 survivors as well but they did not rout.  A German panzershreck team  popped up and suffered from the bad dice luck that plagued the Germans all night.  Needing a roll of 6 on 2 dice to hit the tank they rolled 5 and on the next phase were wiped out.

Meanwhile on the left flank the third German squad finally appeared  and immediately fired  at the scout team.  Again, the hapless Germans' luck was bad and they were able to kill only 1 of the 2 scouts.  The next phase they managed to kill the last 1.  At this point the German commander decided that with 2 full strength squads and a tank closing in the Germans should retire.  The Germans lost about 1/3 their forces and so did the Russians but that tank was getting close.  Good job by Ian and Richard who were the commies.  We were down to 3 players as John and Derek had to cancel at the last moment.

Beer interlude: First Draft by Niagara College

This beer offers a bunch of variations on the theme "a little bit more" compared to the standard lager. It's a little more golden. It's a little more sweet on first taste. It's a little more bitter on the finish.

It's a little more educational too. This is one of the beers brewed by students at Niagara College. While I found the other beers that I sampled a bit on the hoppy bitter side, this one I found more balanced and enjoyable.