Tank battle in Normandy

Games night at John's last night, and Paul brought along part of his collection of 28mm WWII British and Germans. It was a decent size table with plenty of terrain, but somehow we still managed to find plenty of open spaces for our vehicles to get hit and burst into flames.
Each side was around 5000 points in Bolt Action, and initially the games was quite slow on account of everyone taking it in turns to draw order dice for platoons (rather than squads) and having to look up the rules again. At 1 am we finished up, the Germans in the best position in terms of contesting and holding objectives. We think that if we play on this scale again, it would be better to use flames of war as the ruleset, as things will move much more smoothly. It was a lot of fun to play on such a beautiful table with all of these gorgeous models though.

The table with the town which was a German objective, the church which was the British objective, and in the background the two hills which marked the other objectives for both sides.

Some of Paul's gorgeous Tamiya models. 1/48 is a much better scale than 1/56 to go with 28mm figures.

The German forces deployed - all the infantry are in halftracks and Schwimwagens.

British on the right, looking from the German lines.

And on the left.

Capture ze beer!

No stopping for tea - we have an objective to seize!

 

The Church is garrisoned

The rest of this flank approaches the the town.

On the left the Panthers advance over the hill to try to take up positions behind the hedge-rows, but one is hit and immobilised almost immediately!

Panzer IV moves onto the road to scare off the Bren carriers.

While the command PZ IVs exchange long range shots with Shermans.

Germans and Brits begin to contest the town.

Sherman Firefly and friend taking pot shots at the Panthers sitting out in the open.

By the end of the game the German scouts were contesting the far hill, and the German infantry contested the town, while holding both of their objectives securely.

Almost everything on the table is the result of Paul's mania for WWII, and it looked fantastic. I should have got a shot of the typhoon flying high over the table, but I shot it down in the first turn! The Tamiya vehicles are so detailed and paint beautifully, and Paul hasn't actually got around to weathering most of the vehicles here. And as I say, this is just part of his collection. He also has US, Soviet and many more Brits and Germans sitting at home in various stages of completion. Not to mention he has a stock of unmade kits that would put many model shops to shame!
Not too sure what we're playing next time - either SAGA or Flames of War I think.

Nate