Craig's War

1914 Battle

2009-07-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pics of a small game fought between 1914 Germans and French. The Germans are a mix of the new HaT early war figures and Emhar Franco-Prussians painted as early WW1. The French are HaT and the zouaves and other figures are Emhar Franco-Prussian war French.

July 1st - Late War Scenario

2009-07-01T14:03:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics of a game I recently played. It was a late war scenario involving a large Canadian attack on a ruined village protected by a line of trenches. Great fun - not so great photography...

The first two pics show the respective initial positions with three Mk IV tanks leading the way.

The next two show the German positions under a heavy initial bombardment that includes gas shells. The vast majority of Canadian troops are HaT 1/72 WW1 figures including my own favourite conversions, 2 units of Cameron highlanders.

The Canadians go over the top and make a dash for it before the German counter fire can range in on them. The casualties quickly mount as they cross No Man's Land and two of five officers are killed before the first line of trenches is reached.

The Canadians reach the front line trenches while the second wave advances. The Germans are a mix of Caesar, Revell and HaT heavy weapons teams as well as artillery.

Part two to follow...

2008-08-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

Here are the trenches after I've begun cutting them out. I used a very sharp hobby knife to carve and gouge out the trenches after marking out how I wanted them on the foam. Once I finished this time consuming task I realized that instead of using 1 sheet of 2 inch foam and carving into it, I should have used two separate 1 inch sheets and cut the trenches out and glued them onto the top of the first sheet. D'oh...

These are not great pics - they get better as the project progresses.

I cut the foam so that the interlock on it overlaps for several of the sections but I now regret this because it makes it harder to swap sections in and out which is the ultimate goal. Many such projects are a fixed terrain that can't ever be changed and I didn't want that.

World War One Trench Project

2008-08-28T14:41:00.000-07:00

This is a project I've always wanted to do but put off for years because I couldn't wrap my mind around how it could be done. Finally, I saw an example of someone's trenches that were cut out of pink styrofoam insulation and cut into sections. It is a lot of work but like anything in the wargame/modelling world, well worth the effort.