Commission Mission Success: Congo board.

    Sometimes it is nice to make smaller projects. This is one of two Congo boards I was making for a client. They are sized at 3' x 4'  for both of them, but this is just the Savannah one. The only thing that I did not like about these projects is the fact that Kalissa and I cannot play on them. We had picked up a copy of Congo recently at Historicon, but have yet got any of the figures. It just seems to be a shame not to be able to play on it. However, this may push the time table for playing these rules in the near future. Anyway, enjoy the photos of the board for inspiration.

AAR: What A Tanker: Spousal Throw Down In 15mm.

      After a night of playing What A Tanker, Kalissa and I decided to play again at the local Hobbytown, U.S.A. We have not been playing Flames of War in a while and it seems silly to not be playing with our rather large collection of Flames of War armies. Kalissa has roughly eleven companies and I have about twelve. Some people have said that we could sell off some of these, but we do not really sell our miniatures that often. However, 15mm had a good potential for these rules. Plus, we have plenty of tanks based off the companies we have with Flames of War. So we brought out my Germans and Kalissa's Soviets...... that she is not really into. I told her that she should give them a chance, since it was only the Flames of War rules she did not like them in. They had not seen the light of day in so long, we had to explain to one of our friends where they came from.
      We made the decision to run two tanks per side. Part of the hope was to bring other players into the game if needed. After all, the second reason for coming out was to share historical gaming to the public and people we do not know. Unfortunately, no one took that offer despite showing some interest. Kalissa was running SU-100's and T-34/85's. I was running Jagdpanthers and Jagdpanzer IV L70's. Yes, we decided to run some heavy hitters. Throughout this game, I cannot imagine my wife liking the Soviets any more in this game. They mostly died. It took two SU-100's and two T-34/85's to parish in flames before Kalissa's first kill. The Jagdpanther took nine hits before finally being destroyed. It became Kalissa's mini-goal. Most of this came down to some bad rolling and the suggestion that she was letting me win for a change, since I am usually losing games. I won't except that because I might have another year of terrible rolling. Either way, we had some good fun. We might have to play more of this game in 15mm in the future.
 

AAR: What A Tanker: Desert Tank Duels.

     It is not very often that evening games are played at the house, but when friends feel like playing a game and I have a commission board that needs some action on before it leaves, why not play What A Tanker. Kalissa and I had picked up a copy after our friend, Hugh, brought his copy over to play. When you have a game that is simple and fun, it really is a no-brainer to pick them up! We had our friends over: Lori, Wayne, and William. We could not convince Lori to play, but everyone else did. Kalissa and William played as the wiley Canadians. Wayne and I played the Germans. Due to my wife's tank problem, it seemed natural to bring out her Canadian Shermans. There are 14 of them that I am aware of. But then, again I found three more unbuilt Warlord Tanks the other day! I decided to run Panzer III J's. I gave Wayne the Panzer IV F2's.
    For the pictures of this game, I found that I need better lighting for our Gameroom and that I may or may not be that good of a photographer while drinking whiskey. Despite the alcohol amongst the crowd, everyone picked up on the game very well. We were still able to understand the rules and knew what we were doing. The trash talk and the rolling went on well into the early morning hours. When my wife decided to go to sleep, I figured that was going to be the end of the game. However, William happily took over Kalissa's tank to play quite a few more turns. It appears that no one liked the game. Not at all. No one bit. I will post the game we played next in another posting.