Inspiration Modellbau in Mainz: Behind Omaha #1

 These days, I will show you some pictures from the Exhibition Inspiration Modellbau (Inspiration Modelmaking) in Mainz, Germany. We have set up my Demotable to advertise our non-commercial (and german only :-/) ruleset "Behind Omaha".

I won't be able to post a full scale AAR on many of the games, because we were repeatedly "interrupted" by people showing interest and I don't remember all the battles of these two days... Also, when I was not playing, I was shopping or making models most of the time, so I only managed to get a glance of what happened ;)

Lets start off with some pictures from the first Battle: Me(Germans) against Edi(Soviets)

The pic above shows the initial table setup with the soviets on the far side and the germans right in the front.

As you might be able to see, there's a german halftrack burning, having a complete 10 man platoon in its belly. Also the Pz. Kw. IV on the left has taken a hit. In return, I damaged a (hidden) T34 on the left, killed a Jeep in the tablecenter and also killed a T34 standing on the left behind the burning jeep.
My other halftrack is blocking the way through the bocages on the right, reducing the possibilities to break through for the soviets.
Afterwards a harsh butching took place where my tanks got killed by T34s and a soviet AT-Gun, and some T34 went up after a fearless infantry attack with "Haftladungen".

In the end, both armies were kind of immobilized, so we decided this to be a draw.
It was a really good battle which began really bad for the germans, but I managed to turn the table ;)
Above its Edi on the left and me on the right :)

These are the models of Daniel, aka. Kraehensang

A battle between Germans&Romanians vs. US&British troops

"Fredericus Rex" with "Plasticwarrior"

Plasticwarriors Armies for sale :(

Wiking Paintworks (visit his Blog here!) with his girl (she's painting too!) :) As always, he's doing some really fine stuff :)
They were presenting his Irish Guards-Army and their skills...

 Me and Jan-Martin before our small Demo-Battle: 1 Panther against 2 T34, both sides had an equal infantry platoon.

 

Battlefield decoration...

The new setup. We were just using the 2 farmost modules to enable parallel games.

 I managed to immobilize one of his T34s and damage the other, before my Panther was immobilized too and my infantry got fried... ;)
Good job, Jan!

 The next battle was as harsh as the one before. It was me against Blutvogt (visit his Blog here!) I had a setup which I found kind of unfair afterwards: Flamethrower Tank Pz. Kw. III, two Paks, an infantry AT-Team and a Jagdpanzer IV.

 Against 2 Shermans, a Greyhound, a GMC-Truck, a White scout car and a Half-Truck with an infantry squad on each one of them.

 

The Greyhound passed the bridge and was instantly killed by the Jagdpanzer IV which was able to open fire in it's first round, due to superiour range.

The convoi with its soft-targets advances down the road, right into hell, while the Sherman hides behind the wall, watching the debacle begin.

 The Sherman sets across the trench, showing its flank to the Jagdpanzer IV and a Pak-Team, which means certain death...
The other Pak dealt with the White Scout car, which was badly damaged. The Squad managed to get out, and rallied beneath the Bocage.

Next round:

The Pak finishes the White scout car, while the Flame Tank moves out of the bocage and fries the whole squad which managed to emerge from the White scout car.
The Panzerjäger-Infanterie-Squad followed the Flame-Tank and got a glance of the GMC-Truck which obviously tried to get away ("Augen zu und durch" - Shut your eyes and run like hell). But with two Panzerschrecks in his back, he did't get far. The Squad inside was burnt alive... :-/
What's remaining? The Half-Track and a Sherman. I really don't remember what happened to the Half-Track, but the Sherman hid in a bocage-corner and was afraid to get out. I think at this point Blutvogt withdrew from Battle.

As I said before, the setup was pretty unfair, but we just wanted to do a short presentation game for the visitors and it worked. It was pretty short ^^
I hope Blutvogt is not depressed and I guess next time, he will put some more value for his points on the table ;)

That's it for the first post, there are some more to come!

Cheers, Mojo

Behind Omaha Game

Just a quick, last post before my 2 weeks Holidays in Croatia :)
We had a game last week, fictional setup: British and Russian forces against Germans...

I am sorry for the crappy quality of the pictures. Our room is much to dark :(

Here's my Setup:

Eds Russian Setup

British Setup

The whole table:

Forming behind the farm

Placing the Paks and advancing with my Grunts

A Chaffee goes way too far...

The SU at the left end of the table held me up almost all the game.

British advance on the right flank

Late Game: The Chaffee and a Jeep were lit up some time ago. 

Finally I was able to knock that KV-1 beast out. Revenge for my pittyful Panther (who never ever scored in a single game! arrrrr....)

Fighting off the British Tanks and Troop carriers

Late-game overview

Some random pics...

At 3 A.M. I gave up, after my infantry had been utterly crushed by russian mortars and machine guns.

It was a very hard fight, lacking a bit dynamics for my taste ;-)

Enjoy yourselves while I'm away. I hope I don't miss too much of your great Stuff!

Ah, welcome m0e, a Behind Omaha beginner!

His Blog is yet in german, but hey, give him a chance and stop by :)

Cast done

Last night, I have had my first contact ever with resin in liquid state ;)
I finally did the casts of the peripherals for the Houses.
I am amazed about the level of detail. Almost every little bit of the balsa wood pattern is visible!
Even one of the failed doors (right) looks pretty well! I am impressed.
And it's so much easier to work with, compared to plaster... I guess, I like resin.

Here's a quick shot...

Cheers, Mojo

Mould made

Yesterday I made the Mould for the small parts of the Houses. Though most of the results look crispy and clean, the mould has eaten most of my balsa masters. I should be able to use them as some kind of rubble.
Two of three doors were an absolute fail, but its not that bad. I dont need as manyof them ;-)















Last but not least I wish to welcome Alan to my Blog :)
You can find his own blog here! He has produced some beautiful timberframed houses on his own recently! Go check it out! :)

Cheers,
Mojo

Restaurant "Au Boef"

A few weeks ago I headed to Haguenau, Alsace, France with my girlfriend. On the way we passed some history-charged villages like Hatten and Rittershofen (Operation Nordwind, Jan. 1945), but we didn't stop there.
Also, a bigger village called Soufflenheim crossed our way. Soufflenheim is well-known for its traditional pottery-arts. More than a decade ago, my parents took me there, looking for some pottery-bread-pot, and we had a lunch at the local restaurant "Au Boef". This is where I tasted frog legs for the first (and last) time. It hasn't been the bad cook, no. It's just not my thing :)

However, when we were driving through Soufflenheim, I instantly recognized this restaurant. Last friday, while taking a sunbath in the local park, I was planning my gamingtable. I decided to put some outskirts of a small village on it. So a café/bar/restaurant may not be missing. This is where "Au Boef" comes in :)

I started to reconstruct it from the photo that I have taken on our tour:

 

I will not build the whole thing, just the first half of the house.  So here is the first shot of my planning and construction:

Its a bunch of work, but I am sure it will pay off. I started to mark where the windows should be placed, and where the timberframes are. Then I cut balsa-wood into matching pieces and glued them on top.

This is how far I got until now:

 

I really hope you like it :) The space between the frames will be covered with PVA and very fine sand, to create a rendered surface.

Now a few words to my foregoing post, which I published on a most unfortunate time, between Bloggers two downtimes. I asked for some help with motivation, and The Angry Lurker as well as Paul were kindly trying to motivate me. These comments have vanished in the depth of googles Blogger-Databases, but are unforgotten :) Thank you, both! I didn't start off making moulds yet, but will do this week! :)

I hope you guys (and gals) have a good start into your new week!

Cheers, Mojo

20mm Barn

Tonight, I finally finished the first part for the all-mine-gaming-table: A Hay stack:

I'show you what I've done:
Fist: A plan. As always :) Two fronts with a gate on each one are not really useful. I corrected that later ;)
As you can see, I recalculated the models measurements in real measurements (using scale 1:72).

I got me some coffee-mix-sticks at the local 0€ shop ;). These were used as planks. I carved the edges to create a rugged look:

Afterwards, they were glued to the cut-out shape:

Using my all-time-favorite tool, the proxxon scrollsaw, i cut off the excess wood:

Here's the finished sidewall:

This also happend to the other sidewall, the front and the back.

Now I went for the wood-shingled roof. I sanded some really thin polystyrene sheet (0.25mm) and cut it to ~7mm strips, which themselves were gashed with scissors:

I needed quite a lot of these... They are glued overlapping onto the cardboard. Of course you must start from below... This is really a lot of annoying work, if you add some fissures to the ends of the shingles and make them of odd length...

Next up: The gate and the top-window. Again, we need some strips of the sanded polystyrene. This time some more narrow ones (1-2mm):

They are being glued to the thicker, supporting polystyrene back, which already has the final shape of the gate:

Small hint: use only two narrow stripes of glue, right angled to the planks. This will (hopefully) prevent the glue from coming out between the planks. You can see that little desaster above. With the described technique, all went well :)

Again, cut off the excess "wood", but don't be to accurate:

If you are kind of a perfectionist, as I sometimes (only!) turn out to be, you might carve the ends of the plank with your scalpell. Use two different angles to get a nice finish:

Then it looks like this:

Finally, glue some supports to the gate. I had the nice idea of using them as door hinges.

Therefore I bent the strip around the outer side of the door and fixed it.

As this was the work of several days, I decided to make some molds of it. One can always use hay stacks ;)

These are the (goddamn expensive) silicone molds and the first casts:

I hope you like it!

Cheers, Mojo