★ D-DAY LANDINGS: AMERICAN AIRBORNE ★
THREE (3) CARD DECK PLAY
BREAKTHROUGH DECK
AIR COMBAT DECK
Modified Rules: 11 Medals to win
NEW FLIGHT PLAN rules begin on the 13th turn
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Great stuff as usual. I wish I had the D-Day Landings maps, they look awesome.
Any idea if you can recreate it with a Breakthrough board plus a Terrain Pack (for just 1 beach/landing)?
Some questions about your setup:
Can you tell us a little more about your units? Are they custom made by you, or did you purchase some kit?
How did you get the elevated hex tiles, the grass and field texture bases and other environment pieces? Do they come from the same place you get your units?
Recreating it would be a major headache because you’d need the setup and that does not exist anywhere. You’d have to take a photo of this behemoth and a very detailed photo at that. Perhaps print that and then grab a breakthrough board (beach or countryside), then put a core game map underneath and allow the breakthrough to overlap it, then you need to start covering the medal track with terrain. Ugly, impractical, and a pain in the bum.
My setup:
My units… I’ve procured them from every possible source. Hobby shops from around the world (brick and mortar shops and online shops), ebay, amazon, etc… I bought the entire Zvezda catalog from Russia as it’s dirt cheap there. Approximately USD$2.35 / box. I go to Russia every year and I also order from Russian shops. Some Czech hobby shops also carry amazing models.
My infantry is mostly 1/72. I love Zvezda, Caesar Miniatures, PSC and there is a German manufacturer that makes surreal stuff in 1/72, I’m referring to HaT. I got my camelry and some cavalry from them. Unreal.
I started devouring history books in the first grade, my history teacher was elated but the rest of the class couldn’t understand how and why I had completed the entire reading of our history textbook in the first week of school. Hilarious. Anyway, I love the detail of WORLD TANK MUSEUM when it comes to armour units and I’ve gotten most of my armour from them. Even though the latter come painted, I change the camouflage schemes to my liking, pimp and modify everything.
I build my own barbed wire and I like the Spanish Rider (Frisian Rider) style of wire obstacles, so I have built almost 100 of those. Why so much wire, you might ask? I enjoy putting three Breakthrough boards together and converting overlord battles to what I call Triple Breakthrough. I also add more units and more terrain and my formula is, if I grab an existing battle and I add an infantry unit to the Allies, then I do the same thing for the Axis. I’ve played battles that are absolutely unreal and epic simply by using this formula. I also create my own battle scenarios using my history books.
Most of the elevated hex tiles are manufactured in Teak wood. I gave this commission to a friend and got a lot of about 300 tiles that are just beautiful and add the elevation. They are proper wood, and teak is absolutely beautiful. So ages ago, along with my girlfriend, we began the process of sanding those hexes and then varnishing them. We also did a whole setup of teak hexes painted white and then varnished and then something unexpected happened, years after we did the snow job on those elevated hexes, the wood colour started to pour out through the acrylic paint even though they were varnished and added a sublime effect of realism and earth. I still can’t explain how it happened but I was ecstatic to see it. So as you can see, not everything works out as planned, but there is always a silver lining in everything.
Grass and field texture comes from artificial grasses. Most of it is from a company called WOODLAND SCENICS, I get most from them, but I’ve also found amazing artificial grasses from certain manufacturers in the PRC. One particular grass is called Zhili Grass. To get the grass and scenery right, I would recommend going out onto fields and observing, really observing and you notice the abundant variety in everything. This is how I go about it, variety, so I combine many different types of grasses and flocks and I look for everything I can reuse and recycle. For example, I will be using the super fine netting (packaging) from the garlic we just bought in a project that involves an artillery piece. The netting is white, so I will spray it black matte and then add tones for camouflage. Ingenuity plays a big part but so does observation.
Great stuff!
Lots of interesting models and figures, well painted.
The only thing I noticed is the Hawker Hurricane - it looks like an early model (MK I or II) and doesn’t have the invasion stripes.
But hey, such details are unimportant at the end of the day!
I also use Zvezda (although they have stopped making 1/72 figures, so get them whilce you can), HaT, and Ceasar for figures and artillery, with tanks, etc. from Pendraken (10mm) and tanks, etc. from Heroics and Ros (6mm).