WW1 Western Front

On August 23rd 2010 Mal Taylor and Andy Hamilton set out the WW1 terrain boards with their figures on so that Mal Johnston could take photos of them for the new Grimsby Wargames Society Official Website at http://grimsbywargamessociety.webs.com. Andy and Mal were good enough to let me take photos of the terrain again which I had not done so for ages.

Below are some of my favourite photos that I took of the terrain. Clicking on any of the photos will enlarge it and take you to the rest of the collection on Flickr.

All German figures and vehicles were owned and painted by Malcolm Taylor. All British figures and vehicles were owned by Andy Hamilton. The terrain was made by both Andy Hamilton and Malcolm Taylor.

Big Bertha!

 

 

 

 

9.2mm Mortar otherwise known as the “Flying pig”

 

 

 

Wargames 8th December 2008

It has been a few weeks since I posted up here again. For over a week now, I have been feeling extremely under the weather. Up until about last thursday I thought I was in the twilight zone. Coughing really hard, sneezing really badly, being sick mainly due to my severe coughing. Having a rough night's sleep every night for best part of a week. I am much better than I was after sending in some Lemsip to try to get some relief. Feeling as I was meant that I didn't eat a lot either because I didn't feel like eating a lot. Makes a change cos I usually feel like eating a horse and I'm a vegetarian. My appetite has slowly returned but even that is not back to full power yet. Heard there's a lot of it about.

Recently also there has been something on my mind. Around this time of year I would normally be preparing to go to see my mum at the Residential Home in Waltham. One thing my mum always looked forward to was my appearance at Christmas. I never disappointed her on that one. I would normally go within a few days of Christmas Eve, which, if she had been alive now, would either have been yesterday or possibly this Tuesday, depending on what I was doing. Sometimes I did go on Xmas Eve itself. This year is the 1st year in over 20 years I will not be visiting her in the home this Christmas as she died on August 13th 2008. I know I am not the only club member who has lost a relative this year so my thoughts are with them also. It is just one thing that has been playing on my mind in the past few weeks .....

Back to more cheerful thoughts. It's Christmas in a few days! Here I am putting my overdue report of the games at the club on 8th December 2008. First up is a War of the Roses game on the big table downstairs.

Playing on the side of the Lancastrians were Mark Alcock, Mike Barnatt and Tony Walmsley. Here Mike (Middle right) is showing Mark the troops available to him.
Here Be the Yorkists! Paul Robinson, John Ogden and Dave Tuck were on the Yorkists side.

Finally some action as the Lancastrians began advancing on the Yorkists..

Looking down the Lancastrian Line..

Some mid-game action on the Lancastrian side.

Mid-game action again. More importantly, Tony has a really big smile on his face. That's Tony, the only face you can see on the right of the photo.

Close up of some Yorkists.

The game as it looked near its end.

Technically there wasn't a WW1 game going on as Mal Taylor and Andy Hamilton were playtesting some rules. These figures are Andy's British.

These are Mal's Germans including Mal's A7V which he scratch built himself.

Andy Hamilton (left) with Mal Taylor (right). Mal appears to be explaining something.

The Germans attacking the British Occupied Village. The building immediately on your right with figures in it is one of Mal's new buildings he made.

The front of one of Mal's new buildings. Advancing German troops in the background.

A close up of some German Infantry.

These are Andy's British figures. The 2 figures on the left are from HQ while the figure with the horse is carrying ammo for...

.....this gun here. This building is also one of Mal and Andy's new buildings.











A close up of Andy Hamilton's British HQ figure with map. Andy said that it was his best painting of a map he had ever done. I think it looks great. So detailed as always.

Wargames 17th Nov 2008

My apologies to everyone. It's been a while since I posted on the blog. The main website also went down for a few days last week. As I have been hosting the website to save both myself and the club money after the club had been good enough to contribute towards its upkeep for the 9 months I provided the invoices for, it means that from time to time it may disappear temporarily. Windows had to be reinstalled and updated with the server put back in to say the least. It went back on Saturday night though it needs a little modification.

Here are the photos I took of games from 17th November 2008. Only 2 games that night:

Mal Taylor as the Germans with Andy Hamilton as the British using some of the WW1 Terrain and buildings that they built.












A BIG game of 25mm Poles v Muscovites. On the left side of the table were John Ogden, Mike Barnatt and Steve Mercer. Their opposites were Dave Tuck, Mark Alcock and Ron Skeet.

There are some more photos below:

Wargames at Club 21st April 2008

On Monday night we had 2 World Wars at once. World War 1 upstairs, World War 2 downstairs on the big table. As per usual, I took photos to document the games.

The World War 1 game used some of our new trench terrain boards. Mark Alcock was the Germans, this time they were attacking. John Ogden and Andy Sharp were the defending British. Schwerpunkt rules were used as normal.

As you can see, 2 "No Man's Land" boards and 2 Trench boards were used. John and Andy had a trench board each with John taking the trench board in the top right of the photo.

Close up of some of Andy Sharp's British in a trench.

Close up of some german figures. All painted by Joe Dunn, our professional figure painter. Mainly drawing your attention to the figures on the left which I was not sure I had seen before. That's right, they're holding a rather large flamethrower between them.

More view of the game action. Believe the white circle above the trench was used for mortaring with a smaller one used for grenades. Mark's germans lost in the middle. However they took the trench where the circle is located in this photo. In the lower end of the battlefield, Mark did manage to make it to the trench which he would have taken. Much of those forces near Andy's trench were pinned down for a while. Mark did lose his mortar before the game was over. The germans won, entering the trench from John's end, slowly working their way down. Mark would have taken Andy's trench. However the germans would not have been able to hold it with so few men. In reality, a British counter-attack would have followed shortly afterwards.

Andy Sharp's Sopwith Camel flying over the Battlefield. Actually it wasn't in the game but it was too good not to take a photo of.

A much better shot of Andy's Sopwith Camel.

A view from one of the British Trenches. The British figures in front are all John's.

A "flat" view from behind the British Trench, looking straight ahead across the battlefield. The British figures in front all belong to John Ogden as does the machine gun at the forefront of the photo.

These German and Italian figures and vehicles all belong to Dave Tuck. It was British v Germans on the Desert terrain again using the Blitzkrieg Commander rules. Ron Skeet was helping out Dave Tuck this time.

Some of Dave Tuck's German Artillery.

German occupied building. Looks a little crowded though.

View of the British Artillery. All British forces by Steve Mercer who was playing, ably assisted by Jase "Devildice" Whitfield.

View of the Battlefield. Apparently it was a draw though the British lost slightly more casualties than the Germans. Close game.

World War 1 Trench Assault - The Trench Boards Christening

Aside from the ACW Naval game going on upstairs, downstairs was a game I had been looking forward to seeing for ages on Monday April 14th 2008. You see for months now I have been following the creation and development of the WW1 Trench Terrain boards from the beginning. Some photos and mini updates had even appeared on this blog for a while. On Monday night those same WW1 Terrain boards finally got christened.

All the Trench Terrain boards have been built by Andy Hamilton and Mal Taylor.

Now for the game:

On the Germans side was Mal Taylor and Mark Alcock. The Allies were made up of Paul Robinson's American "Doughboys" with the British forces of Andy Hamilton and John Ogden. Paul's son James was also helping out with the "Doughboys".

Both sides had near enough set up. Paul's son James is in the top right corner with the tape measure. As you can see there are 2 lines of trenches with what are apparently communication trenches between them.
You can also see craters spread out across the boards and barbed wire fences.

Close up of some of Mal Taylor's germans inside one of the trenches.

One of Mal's german field guns with the secondary trench behind.

The Americans, these commanded by James, begin their advance on the german trenches. The objective of the game was basically for the Allies to attack and take the trenches.

A view of the game. You can see the Allies advancing.

Another close up of Mal's germans defending the first trench. The bunker/pillar box behind was entirely scratch built by Andy Hamilton.

Paul's "Doughboys" under James' command, are the first of the Allies to reach the trenches and attack from above.

Mark's German Artillery with crew. All of Mark's Germans were painted by Joe Dunn, a club member who is also a professional figure painter. You want Joe painting your figures.

As the Allies were attacking Mark was understandably constantly firing his Artillery which didn't always hit. Approximately half way through the game though it blew itself up. Most annoying thing to happen when having your trench invaded by enemy soldiers.

A view down Mark's German's side of the trench. Mark's German's occupied about one half of the trench while Mal's occupied the other.

Andy's British fast approaching Mal's German's.

The Americans not just attack the trench but here they have begun entering it. Some Americans are just visible inside the trench killing Mark's German's.

A huge group of Andy's British advancing on Mal's Germans.

John Ogden's British finally reach the trench. Those are Mal's German's. In the center of the photo you may notice some British dressed differently from the others. They are in special gear and balaclavas. Those are John's "Trench Raiders".

More of John Ogden's British just reach the trench. Andy Hamilton's British are in the background.

The game in total took just over just 2 hours to play. The Allies took the main trench forcing the Germans to retreat into the secondary trench. Overwhelming numbers helped the Allied Victory.

Big thanks to Andy Hamilton and Mal Taylor who have spent several days a week for the past 4 months or more building this fantastic terrain.