North Africa Practice Game

I was able to get in a quick practice game in this Saturday morning.  I spent most of the week studying the rules and taking notes.  I starting to think I'm getting the hang of it for the most part.  I've invited over some friends and regular players to play Friday night.  Work has been very busy and I'm hoping I won't have to cancel.  We'll see.

We played 1000 point lists, with the British infantry list having two infantry platoons instead of the required three.  Since it was a practice game, I figured it didn't matter.  The game went well;  a little slow, but the emphasis was on learning the rules.  It started to get pretty hot in the garage so we called it draw; it is getting to be that time of year.  I snapped a few pictures below.

The bocage I ordered from Luke at WWPD showed up this week.  Looks great.  See below.

On a side note the England vs Italy game was terrible  We lost on penalties again.

Notes and play aids:

Lucage looks great! (Luke's Bocage):

FOW Rookie Game Report

My anticipation had been building up all week for the game I had planned with my son, Curtis (graduated with a bachelor degree last week--very proud).  I spent a few evenings during the week getting ready and setting up the table.  My wife made pulled pork tacos again -delicious.  The North Africa, mid-war game started off well, but our second game was cursed with a sophomore jinx; we made some glaring rules errors and spent too much time looking up rules.  Too long since our last and first game.  I had placed more terrain on the table this time, bogging the game down somewhat as well as our vehicles.  We were a little shaky on the terrain rules.  The fog of war was thick and so were our heads.  We resigned ourselves to using the game as a much needed training session, therefore no battle report.  We had some good laughs as rules were remembered on my son's turn since I thought more on his turn due to not having to concentrate on moving and shooting.  This was an obvious disadvantage for him.  Plus, my die rolling was on fire.

The great news is we learned a lot and will now be playing on a more regular basis.

Lessons learned:

• Know the rules.  We need to study more.  The obvious good thing about playing is knowing where your rule knowledge is weakest.  I took notes of the questions we had.
• Practice with smaller armies.  Starting off at 1500 points is probably not a good idea.
• This game is fun.  Even with our issues, we still had a good time.  I want a game that's not too complicated and not too simple: this game is right in there.
• Use the turn sequence steps at the beginning of the rule book chapters.  I think I'll type them up and print them out.
• Have the terrain summary handy:  Page 30.  I emailed Battlefront a few months ago requesting this page as a PDF game aid. Hopefully, it will happen.
• Have the 'Concealment Status Summary' on page 89 readily available.  Also understand what 'dig in' and 'go to ground' does.
• Continue to use this great tool: assault phase flowchart.  Great tool for the new player.

The proud family from left to right: my mom, me with my Luke from WWPD mask on. Curtis, my beautiful wife and taco maker, and our favorite professor:

More Reenactment Pictures

I passed the exam of another certification for work so I'm back in FOW mode again.  So happy.  It has been a while.  I spent some time gluing my Russians this last week, mostly 'god of war' artillery.  I'm so far away from being ready for the Eastern Front but I'll keep plugging away.  My son and I plan on playing this Friday, so hopefully a North Africa battle report soon.  I'll generate the lists and then setup the table on Thursday so we can get right to it after dinner, Friday evening.  Can't wait.

In the mean time, here are some more WWII re-enactment pictures (soviet stuff, too!) from the Planes of Fame Airshow, in no particular order: