GWS on Grimsby Telegraph Website

Last Tuesday morning, the 21st September 2010, I emailed some photos I took at the Grimsby Wargames Society to my local paper The Grimsby Telegraph. To date none of them have yet been published in the paper but however have been put on display with other reader’s photos on the Grimsby Telegraph website (see left). It was mainly to see if this approach would work whilst at the same time hoping to raise the club’s profile. After all, someone might see a photo of some games at the club and try to track us down on google.

These 2 photos from a recent Rapid Fire! game will probably be on the website for many weeks as they will move along slowly on the slideshow the more other photos are added to it.

I therefore encourage other Grimsby Wargames Society members to send their wargames photos, with a caption, to the Grimsby Telegraph. For the details on how to do this read the Grimsby Telegraph: Your Pictures page. Those members who do wish to send some photos: Do not resize them! Send them at the original size they were downloaded from your camera.

It is my intention to keep on sending some pics of games at the club every few weeks to the Grimsby Telegraph and we’ll see what happens.

Rapid Fire! game 20th September 2010

Andy Hamilton and Mal Taylor played a Rapid Fire! game. All the figures and vehicles in this game were owned by Mal Taylor who also set the scenario.

The scenario was that the Germans had to keep the road open so that their troops could withdraw down that route. In this game Andy was the Germans. To begin with Andy had a few companies of Germans.

Mal then sent in his paratroopers using those famous gliders of his. Mal’s gliders have been in the Rapid Fire! books as well as having been to many a wargames show such as the shows at Bovington Tank Museum.

As you can see 4 of Mal’s Gliders were in use in this game. Things were not going well for Andy, however, he was allowed reinforcements……

In the form of Panzer Grenadiers which appeared at the top of the road (nearest the wall) before dismounting them to attack the bridge.

Andy was determined to retake the Bridge….

 

 

Andy also had some Recce units come on shortly after the Panzer Grenadiers.

Sadly, as time was getting on, I did not see the final result of the game though it was highly unlikely that Andy won. He certainly put up quite a fight in order to try to achieve his objective.

The Gliders were not the only aircraft in this game. There was the Dakota Bomber (see left) and a Typhoon also in use.

Click on the thumbnails below to see a few more photos of this game.

 

 

 

More Battle of Arracourt photos by Martin Buck

The captions and photos below are all by Grimsby Wargames Society member Martin Buck. Used by kind permission of Martin Buck. These are all from the Battle of Arracourt game at the Grimsby Wargames Society on 18th January 2010. All the photos below will also be turned into a Picasa gallery on the newly revamped website when it is done. Thank you Martin for your contribution.

Early part of game, turn 2 or 3.

American defensive forces

German attack disrupted by American artillery fire

German armour and support weapons reach the large hill on the left side of the table.

Malburians and The Battle of Arracourt, 18th January 2010

On 18th January 2010 the Austrians and British fought it out in a large scale battle on our big table downstairs. The battle was fought in the Malburian period. Funny, you say I thought it was 2010.

Mark Alcock was the English and Andy Hamilton was the Austrians.

A Melee between the Austrians and English.

A view down the Battlefield.

A close up of some of Andy Hamilton's fantastic looking Austrians. I am also using this photo for my blogger profile at the moment.

The English won this game eventually.

A World War 2 game using Blitzkrieg Commander rules using a Rapid Fire! scenario.  The scenario in question was the Battle of Arracourt from the Northwest Europe Rapid Fire! scenario book (the green one).

Playing in it were Dave Tuck, Martin Buck and Tim Mercer.

  The Battle of Arracourt took place in Lorraine, France, during September 18–29, 1944.

Website Update since 2010 AGM

Following the AGM On January 4th 2010, the website has been updated. It was updated on January 5th 2010 with a new photo. The banner at the top of the page was also removed. In addition the link as to "where to find us on grimsby" was changed to a better multimap link.

As you can clearly see it was updated on the 5th January 2010. The type of updates requested were like an update to the gallery or even if it means just changing the front page of the website every month.

The gallery was also removed from the menu so that no one could use it. I decided to remove it for the time being till the galleries could be revamped with more newer content after a comment made at the AGM, which I view as a fair comment, that the galleries on the gallery page were old.



The picasa galleries that were linked to from that page are still accessible so if anyone has any of those galleries on their favourites they can still be viewed.

The previous update was in November 2009, specifically 25th November 2009 as also clearly stated in this blog post: http://grantsgrimsbygames.blogspot.com/2009/11/changed-front-page-at-main-website.html

Main page index.html updated on 25th November 2009.

This is the October 2009 front page update. The photo on it is from one of Paul Robinson's blog posts.

Any changes to the website and all updates will be documented on this blog as I have done in the past. To view past updates etc on this blog click on the link on right or here: http://grantsgrimsbygames.blogspot.com/search/label/Website%20Updates

Each time I have made an update or change to the website in the past I have taken screenshots of them. Screenshots will also be made of changes and updates from this point on. Updates will also be posted on my twitter feed.

Since the AGM I have made changes to our facebook group that I set up a few years ago to promote the club and its members.

At this moment in time the Grimsby Wargames Society Facebook group has 33 members and is open to members and anyone interested in the club. It can be found at: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=24921897419

On the subject of Grimsby Wargames Society members contributing to the website, all I can say is: The website is about the Grimsby Wargames Society and its members. While I am happy to try to get contributions off members, it is only fair that club members must themselves make an effort to contribute also. If you want your pictures on the website, give them to me! If there's only a few you can email them to me at gywar@yahoo.co.uk. If there's a large amount you can burn them to CD or DVD to give to me, or put them on a flash drive or I could let you borrow my flash drive though it is only 1GB. It may also be helpful for all members to provide me with their up to date email addresses which could be useful in notifying members of updates.

Should any member or the club itself wish to advertise for an event or even just a big game in which other gamers and members of the public are able to join in then let me know in plenty of time. It will be advertised on the website as well as this blog. As always I am happy to listen to suggestions, comments and fair and constructive criticism regarding the website.

Finally, I wish to bring this to all the attention of all the Grimsby Wargames Society members. I've been doing the website now FOR 8 YEARS!!! I dont think any of the members have noticed or care. The initial idea for even doing a website for the club was mine to begin with. A proposal was actually typed up by me before being presented to the club. The website in its form then (nothing like it is now) was then ready for just after Christmas 2001 coming online in January 2002. A month later Mark Piper of the 20th Century Wargaming website at http://www.worldoptions.com.au/fourpipers/rapid/ was good enough to link to it. Mark Piper has since had one of his scenarios published in the Rapid Fire! 2nd edition rulebook.

With Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, the yahoo group, this blog and the website, all I have set out to do in those 8 YEARS is do my best - on a voluntary basis - to promote the club, its members and all the other groups who use it and help to keep it running. At the same time I have always hoped the club appreciated those efforts and did not take them for granted.

Wargames at Club 12th October 2009

A couple of nice games last week. Here's my usual rundown with lots of pics this time.
A Renaissance game between the Imperialists and the French. The Imperialists are on the left of the photo.

On the Imperialists side were John Ogden and Mark Alcock while the French were Dave Tuck and Jason Whitfield using Dave's forces.

A melee between the French and Imperialists.

Thats our own Tony Walmsley looking on. A World War 2 game is about to played on this spectacular terrain..

A 15mm Rapid Fire! game is about to be played. The terrain belongs to Andy Hamilton, which he built 15 years ago and which had been in his false roof ever since until recently. Most - but not all - of the buildings on this terrain were scratch-built by Andy Hamilton also. All the figures involved in this game are also Andy Hamilton's, who also umpired this game.

Playing as the Germans were Mal Taylor and Tim while Mike Barnatt was playing as the French.

A view of some of the French defenses.

The Germans begin crossing the canal as the attack begins.

An aerial view of the game. You can see more of the German forces on the other side of the river.

The Germans begin crossing the river in dinghy's.

Close up of the Germans as they begin building a bridge. This photo was cropped and resized from the original.

The French tanks come out to play..

The German forces reach the other side...

The Relief of Vilnius and much more

In returning to the club tonight it is time I reported on my previous monday night visit. The games that night - 29th June 2009 - were WW1 and WW2.

As you can tell by the title of this post a scenario based on the Relief of Vilnius was used for one of the games, specifically the WW2 game on the big table downstairs.

Playing in this game were Dave Tuck, Steve Mercer and Tim. Dave Tuck and Tim were the Germans whilst Steve was the Russians.

That nice chap with the beard watching the game is Martin Buck.

The view from Vilnius. The scenario came from the light blue Russian Front Rapid Fire! book by Richard Marsh however the rules they were using for this game were Blitzkrieg Commander.
The Germans had to relieve Vilnius and go back again. The scenario got harder as time went by as the Russians were also getting reinforcements to fight back.

Mike Barnatt (left) and Ron Skeet (right) prepare to do battle using Blitzkrieg Commander rules. Mike as the Russians with Ron as the Germans.

Ron's Germans on the loose.

Mike Barnatt's newly repainted "Tankettes"

Our fantastic WW1 terrain boards before gameplay.

John Ogden (left) and Andy Hamilton (right) in deep discussion over the rules. In front of Andy are command and control sheets, to be used in conjunction with the Schwerpunkt rules. The command and control sheets for attacker and defender differ slightly.

With Paul Robinson unable to make it and therefore no Americans, the game carried on using just Mark Alcock's Germans. John Ogden using the Germans in the trenches whilst Mark Alcock and Andy Hamilton were the other attacking Germans - standing in for the Americans. All the Germans in this game belonged to Mark Alcock.



German field gun and crew.

Attacking Germans.

More attacking Germans. Photo taken at F12