Its been a while

Well, the silence indicates that I have not played much Spearhead recently. Gaming activities have been concentrating on In her Majesties name, a set of Victoran science fiction rules that fit nicely with the collection of 28mm figures I've collected over the years.Its a good fun game that doesn't take itself that seriously, and you don't need to have the "right" figures as theres a well thougth out points system.

A British landing party about to have its butt kicked by the Society of righteous and harmonious fists

With all this other work I've also finished the MSH Dutch as well as the 1960's/70's West Germans (pre Marders).  No photos as "Der room" has become somewhat piled up and I'm not sure exactly where they are. maybe the weekend will see me having time to hunt them out.

Game Day

Peter, Paul and Peter (that famous 60's pop group) came north for a large game yesterday. It was nice to see everyone again, abiet with a few more grey hairs. After the usual trash talk it was time for business. The table went up in 7 minutes and we were playing the first turn about 10:30, which surprised me greatly.
The general scenario was a Belgian brigade being attacked by 3 Russian regiments. A US brigade arrived during the game as support.
The initial positions were as follows. 

On table just out of shot on the extreme flank was a US armoured cavalry troop which only contributed M551 aluminum fire starters to the day.
Things got going fast on the Belgian left. Here Peter P consults the rules while Paul waves the magic stick and Luke looks on expectantly.

On the other flank Peter C's battalions slowly bashed their way through the rugged terrain (why you shouldn't let just anyone draw command arrows) laying waste to all before them. Fortunately there wasn't that much in front him and it was a quiet trek along the romantic road. The Belgians did quite well considering they are a bit rubbish. The Russian BTR regiment on the right was fought to a standstill.

The follow up US battalion took up a strong blocking position, securing that flank from further advances. On the other flank 2 regiments had dealt to the Bellgian units, and were about to roll over the US forces on this flank.

At this point after 10 turns we had to call it. Final score was 10 points to 6 for the Russian win.

Finally, how to hide things in plain sight.

This kanone stand survived a long time by hiding under the foliage behind a wood I must do more stands like this. The Russian players kept missing it, and it kept popping up to inflict another suppression. The gap between modules did not look that bad from normal distances, and shows that an 8' by 6' board is probably just a bit big for this system.

Pictures from the front.

Being ex DBM players we have had a few games of L'art de la Geurre (it seems the french aren't just good at wine and cheese). My first thoughts are that it seems to iron out a lot of finicky bits that plagued the DBM system at the end (buttocks of death, anyone?). DBMM was simply a bridge too far for me with all its add ons, and it seems to be only used by 25mm gamers in this country. Not having the finances/painting skills/ requisite strength to lift the army I'm ruled out. The armys and table size are also smaller and the games play out in less than 3 hrs. That doesn't include food breaks.

Feeding the inner man

It has produced several very close games, with a mutual break in the second game. Its got me interested in painting 15mm figures again (which is something I swore I would never do after painting Persian horse armour 20 years ago). However the price of 15mm seems to have gone through the roof while I've been away from the scale so I might investigate 6mm, or even 10mm figures.

Setting the scene

So, with a bit of work, we have 10km by 7km of West germany (well, the hilly foresty bits). Looking across.....

From a higher angle

So, we are all ready to go for the weekend. And for interest, set up and pack away time was 10 minutes each. They stack up quite nicely

Clock is ticking

With this years impending arrival of Dr U-S its time to get on with the terrain.
So over the last week I've been knocking out another 4 terrain squares, which will increase the total area I can do to 8' by  (or 12 boards)

Now I just have to do the woods and roads and I'm there.

More terrain squares

After a month (of and on) of work, I've finished the bases for another 8 terrain squares.

Total cost so far is ~$130 for 8, so not breaking the bank by a long way.
This set will be a bit more open, and I might now consider an autobann set (3 boards) and possibly a river set (3-4 boards) as well.
For other rule sets I'm now trying to come up with a similar system for Napolenics with Volley and Bayonet (also possibly for ACW but that might be a bit too far).

The old and the new

Dr U-S asked for a comparison picture of the old US strip vs the new strip.
Here it is.

The new ones are far better fed than the old models, but are the about the same height (6mm vs 6-6.5 mm). This surprised me so much that I measured them 3 times before I was convinced.