So here we begin the journey that my Dad and I started down a few months back to build a WWII themed game board. I have let my father make many of the decisions on this project as it was originally his idea and he is mostly doing it to spend time with me and my hobby. He is not a gamer but loves history so my job is to assist him as much as possible while considering the gaming aspects of the board and help him make decisions that make the board playable while still reflecting history as much as is possible.
As I mentioned in the last post on this topic we will be following 5th Corp on Omaha Beach up the D-3 Exit in Dog Red Sector up to St. Laurent-Sur-Mer (passing Les Moulins). Some progress has been made on the table itself but I will cover that a bit later. Right now I want to talk about the table design. Like I said before there is a lot of conflicting information regarding what was were, not only in regards to units but the defenses as well. When I designed the map we will be using I tried to incorporate as many as the elements of the defense as possible without over crowding the table (mostly I am talking about the bigger elements like bunkers). There is still a lot going on to the table though. Here is the map that inspired my own...
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| The map from the German perspective. The legend is in French and not all the elements could be identified but it gives you an idea of what a daunting task taking the beach was for 5th Corp. |
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| And my version from the American perspective. You can see that there is significantly less to the Resistance Nests here. |
We have already started on creating the bluffs on the table getting the basic shapes and elevations worked out so now its about shaping the edges making them cleaner and working on the roads and pathways that run inland from the beach. The hill on the right in my drawing is WN68 which was positioned on a very steep bluff while the other bluff was more manageable. Apparently the fire from the defenders was so intense the Americans were forced to assault the position at WN66 (on the left) directly up the hill. Finally on to the part you have all been waiting for... the pictures!!!
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| The beach area is on the bottom right and will rise up at to a shale embankment where the seawall will be located. In the background you can see the first section of the bluffs. In all the elevation will raise from sea level up to 40m. |
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| The bluff are nearly complete rising up from 10m to 40m in all. Each elevation change is 10 meters and will be represented by a section of 2" foam. Things are starting to take shape now! |
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| Damn this is going to look sweet when its finished! |
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| A daunting task awaits the American invaders! [pic taken from beach level] |
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| The road to St. Laurent shall be costly for 5th Corp. At least it looks that way from this vantage point. |
Greymatter, this is looking fantastic so far. I am envious of your space and all that lovely foam! Looking forward to the progress!
ReplyDeleteThanks Foss! I must say that my Dad does get a lot of the credit for this. I only tried to help to make sure it was playable and did some design work on it. But, I will pass your comments on to him as well.
ReplyDeleteWow. This totally rocks. Are you constructing multiple battlefields at a time or do you intend to have multiple plays on the same battlefield until its time to move on?
ReplyDeleteWell will be doing the Omaha table and the St. Laurent table at the same time. But will likely finish the Omaha table first before starting on the second one. Then we will play on both since the scenario will be storm the beach and take St. Laurent. In the end there will be two 4x8 tables.
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