The Prelude

We are now very close to the first game in the Situation room. In the past three weeks, all the soldiers have arrived and terrain pieces as well. At this point, inspiration is required and this has been provided by Anne. Really just an excuse to put her piccy in again!

The soldiers were painted by Neil Sheardown and just required basing and dry brushing. Whilst doing this we also discovered Matt enamel varnish (as opposed to acrylic) which seems to work as ink in some respects. We discovered this because some tanks that arrived suffered the dreaded "milk" affect where the varnish has moisture in it and "goes off".
Recovery is simple, you paint more varnish on and as you watch the milkiness disappears. As we were using Matt varnishes, I automatically went for an enamel type. The affect is striking. The next two piccies show all the kit on the table, being worked on methodically.

After all the basing was completed, the rest of the terrain arrived at the weekend, lots of rivers, lots of road in addition to over 500 trees that arrived mid-week. As always, help is appreciated and at the weekend Anne's Mum was drafted into work to carefully position some of the trees.

To give an idea of what the terrain looks like, I've selected a close up shot of a small area and then two long shots that include both the tables. For this game, the small back tables aren't being used, one reason being that I've run out of terrain and it isn't actually needed as the table is huge!

Finally, there are two pictures with me in them, the first is a full length shot again to help show perspective. The terrain includes over a dozen hills, 60 feet of road, 60 feet of river and over 500 trees in 20+ woods.

Lastly, I couldn't resist some champagne. Technically, I should have waited but the excitement won through. Its odd having spent a year to get to this position and then to actually play a game. There still remains work to do. One technical issue remains, condensation, but this seems limited to one area and we have a fix if needed. It still surprises me how much water is still evaporating from the timber and the concrete. Then there is the carpeting of the floor and exactly how to do it.

But hopefully by Thursday we will be putting kit on the table. And I nearly forgot, the game!!!!!!

Its a WWII Eastern front 1941 game, based on the crossing of the Dnepr and driving on towards Smolensk. German forces are based on a Panzer Corps of 2 Panzer divisions and a Motorised division. The Russians are based on an ad hoc reserve army comprising 3 infantry divisions and a 2 tank divisions. We'll see how it goes.