Oh WOW!  That only took numerous reboots and goodness knows what else to finally get the photo to load!  So any way....on with the show.

The piece in the rear of the photo represents a bog or marsh type area.  This started as a 30 year old Kibri Model Rail Road accessory that I have carted around for all of that time.  I glued it to a blue piece of foam, added tufts of grass and a coat of artist gloss medium to make the shine of the "water" pop a little more.

The large piece on the bottom left started out as another Model Rail Road accessory that I picked up within the past year.   This represents an impassable patch of rough ground if used for the "That's not on the Map" card or a patch of rough terrain if used as regular terrain.  I glued this one to a thin piece of craft wood and then cut irregular edges to it with a saw.   I then glued rocks, additional grass tufts and misc. to.

The third piece on the right is actually a small pond that I picked but from the Most Honorable Howard Whitehouse some 20 plus years ago at the first or second HMGS Midsouth Wargamers Reunion held in Tennessee.  Here all I did was add tufts of grass, old wood and a fresh coat of gloss medium for the water

The month of July is speeding on by, the good news is that I have started getting back into the hands on portion of the hobby this month.  While I am not yet painting figures I have been working on some other projects.  The only one completed thus far is to upgrade or make new scenery items.  They will work for any period and scale but my main intention is to use them for Maurice as either a regular terrain feature but mainly as markers for the "That's Not on the Map" card terrain features.
I have tried to load a photo of these pieces at least 5 times this morning and every time I get an error telling me the internet explorer has stopped working.   WTF, never been a problem before.  I will post the photo and a brief description later .....I hope.

We had our monthly game this past weekend.  Jim ran a "Check Your Six" WWI airplane game that was very enjoyable.  Jim had set up 3 scenario's of which we were able to run 2 within 4 hours (we decided to break at this point so everyone could handle family obligations).

The year was 1917 during the 3rd Battle of Ypres (July 21st until November 18th)
The first scenario had Mark and I playing allies.  I had 2 Belgian Hanriot HD-1 fighter aircraft and 1 Belgian Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter Observation plane.   Mark had 2 British Sopwith Pups and one 1 British Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter Observation plane.   Our mission was to locate a large French infantry formation that had gotten trapped/lost behind enemy lines.  I don't remember if this was identified as a battalion or anything.   Jim placed 4 random makers on the table to mark the locations our Strutters were to search for this missing Frogs.  Given my usual luck with pilots I rolled for all three of mine to be zero skill, I believe Mark may have had 1 skill level 1 pilot.  The Germans had slightly better pilots over all.  Greg and Jim each commanded 2 Albatross D-III aircraft.  The aircraft Mark and I commanded only had one forward firing machine gun vs. two on the Albatross D-IIIs.  The amount of damage that the German's could inflict with hits was significantly higher as a result.

Below is a photo of one of my Hanriots, nice bright blue target isn't it?

We got off to a fast start, my Strutter found the Frenchmen at the first counter area I searched.  Now the challenge was to get the observer off the board so this information could be relayed to higher command.  So I did something that wasn't very clever I flew my fighters one direction and the spotter the other.  Suddenly it seemed the Sopwith was going to be overwhelmed.

It was about this time that one of Mark's pups went down in flames.   The next photos show that and some general shots of the table.  One of the photos shows two of the Albatross D-IIIs bee lining toward my Sopwith seen in the background.  The final photos in this series shows one of my Hanriots being shot down the next turn by the same pilot (Jim) that had just shot Mark down.

My hero!  Mark saves my bacon by hitting both of the German's who were intent on shooting me down.  While neither were shot down both had critical hits placed on them that forced them both to break off pursuit and allowed my Sopwith to escape and deliver the valuable location of the lost troops.  The last photo shows my lone remaining fighter showing up too late to accomplish anything other than looking pretty in blue.   Both of the damaged German pilots were able to save both aircraft (and themselves).  This would be important in Jim's new WWI air campaign he is running at Gigabytes Café and Games on the third Saturday of the month (I believe).

One win for the Allies.

Second game:  Mark and I took the Germans for the second game.   The allies consisted of two commands each with 2 Hanriots and one Sopwith Strutter.  We did not know their objective and were considered on patrol.   This time I rolled one of my pilots as a plus 2 skill level, of course my other was a zero.  Everyone else had a mixture of skill levels, I seem to remember that both Mark and Jim each had a skill level 2 pilot also.  As the location marker from the first game was still on the table we were brilliant in figuring out that the allied objective must have something to do with it.  Almost immediately the 2 Sopwiths were able to successfully drop supplies to the cut off French.  I was able to hit Jim's Sopwith and put damage on it but not force it down.  Both of the Strutters then turned for a second run to drop more supplies.  The last photos show the general "fur ball" going on and the last photos are of my skill level 2 pilot putting the hurt on one of Greg's.   The second supply drop was half successful.   Greg was able to drop his supplies on target while the damage to Jim's caused to him miss the drop zone and he provided the Germans with the supplies.  Perhaps Cognac?  It was determined that 3 out of 4 successful supply drops gave the allies a second victory on the day.

 

More to follow shortly.

We all enjoyed the games.  The third scenario that we did not run would have been on with the allies making air to ground attacks on German positions to allow the cut off infantry make it back to their lines.  Perhaps that will show up at a later game.   Almost all of the aircraft used were from Shapeways and all were from Jim's and Mark's collections.  Shapeways make a huge range of very nice aircraft for WWI.

The rules were great fun, while not as simple as the basic Wings of War they are still simple enough and have some nice chrome.  I hate to say realistic touches as these are toys but the chrome that is in the game can be rooted in "realism".  Ok, the logic used in the rules makes sense to us!

Our next game will be a 28mm WWII France 1940 game.   The French are actually launching a limited counter attack against the Germans.  These are skirmish type rules where everyone can command at least a platoon or so.  They have been put together by Jim and we have had at least 2 previous games with these rules and we have enjoyed them.  For me that says a lot as I am normally not much on skirmish games.  This game is scheduled at our normal 2nd Saturday of the month for July 13th.

Here is an attempted recap of the game from May.

Our last monthly game here was a success.  We played our second game of Maurice and it went well.  Eight of us were in attendance with 6 playing and Greg and I helping out with the rules.   Realizing that there are limitations with the number of players with the games current edition players 5 and 6 were a flanking force located on one side of a river that split the battlefield into 1/3 and 2/3s.  Players 1,2,3 and 4 deployed on the larger portion of the battlefield.  We had Rob, Jim, and Steve as the generals for the French/Bavarian army and Daniel, Mark and John as the generals for the League of Augsburg/Grand Alliance side.    As we were playing War of Spanish Succession we didn't place many woods and similar disrupting terrain as we were not playing with any light infantry.  Each side placed random hills on the table.   We allocated 8 to 10 infantry, 3 to 4 cavalry and 1 artillery battery per player and then instead of adding extra units to the attacking side (we decided on 2) we had the defenders take off 2 infantry units.  This was done as even using right at 18 feet of the 20 foot table things were still looking a little cramped.   More about that later.   Daniel and Rob faced off as the flanking battle on the other side of the river while Jim went against Mark and Steve against John.

Daniel and Rob pretty much fought to a draw on the river flank.  Jim and Mark had a nip and tuck battle going on in the center with Mark being able to play one of the that's not on the map cards to disrupt Jim's attack which stabilized the center of the League of Augsburg/Grand Alliance side.  Steve was able to attack with the Bavarians and through a combination of good luck and die rolls (Steve) and some poor luck and die rolls (John) was pushing the British contingent back.

We called the game about 3PM due to a few of the players having family commitments later in the day.  At that time both armies only had 3 army morale points left.   The attackers (French/Bavarians) were poised to break through on their left center and may have been able to capture the objective if the game had gone longer, providing the army morale held.  

Our next game will be a WWI aircraft game that Jim will be running.  I will post photos afterwards.
Until next time.  Bill