COLD WAR GONE HOT 1950s STYLE

Onward to Berlin

This was a massive Clash of Steel game. Call it Team Yankee Light since its only focus is on armor. My memory is there were close to one hundred tanks on the field. The goal was for the US to cross the board in force. I'm not sure what the number for "in force" meant, but by games end there were enough burning wrecks to build an aircraft carrier from the scrap. 

US Forces Enter the Table and Immediately Come Under Attack from a Soviet Flanking Force.  

The US Advancing Force Coming Under Fire. Only One Tank Bailed Out. 

On Turn One, The Flanking Soviets are Already in Control of an Objective. This is Crucial as Objectives are Scored Every Turn. 

The Blocking Force Soviets are Having a Poor Day, but not to Worry. There are Around Fifty More Tanks Backing These Up. 

The US Sends its Second Group to Deal with the Flanking Soviets. A Number of the Soviets are Burning, but Yup, there are Plenty More Soviets on the Way. 

Advancing Up the Road is Slow Because of the Need to Keep Killing Soviets. 

It's Not All Going the US Way as the Soviets Begin Knocking Out Tanks. More Importantly They are Still Controlling a Key Objective and Racking Up Points. 

At Just After the Midway Point in the Game and While the Soviets are Losing Lots of Armor There is Still Plenty Remaining. More Importantly They are Ahead on Victory Points at About a Two-to-One Ration. 

While This Looks Like a Lot of Burning Soviets, it is Still Less than Half. More Importantly What Remains is Their Best Armor. They are Also Keeping the US Away from the Objectives. 

A Few More Dead on Both Sides, but Still the Soviets Hang On to the Objective. The Points are Now Close to Three-to-One in the Soviet Favor. 

At This Point the US Advancing Force has About Had It. The Soviets are Now Advancing to Flank the US Tanks Still Fighting the Original Soviet Flanking Force. 

Game End and While There are Plenty of Burning Soviets There are Plenty More Advancing. Just Before the Game Ended the US Finally Finished Off the Soviets Flanking Force. I Lost Track of the Points, but the Soviets Were Ahead Three or Four to One. 

An overwhelming Soviet victory. It was the group's first time playing the rules, and especially the victory point scoring. The Soviet players did everything right, advancing at the double across the short side of the board to grab a two-point objective, taking loses as they advanced up the center to grab a single point objective, and entering on the flank that both slowed down the US advance, but critically captured another two-point objective. The US for its part only held two one-point objectives, so while the kill ratio was in the US favor the points, and therefore victory, were all on the Soviet side. 

I did enjoy myself as there is something to be said about just fighting tanks, but I do prefer combined arms in all my gaming. That said you can see my massed armor for this game in the first post of the blog, so...

ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH - I'M BACK

 After losing my general miniatures Mk 2 blog nearly a year ago I felt it was finally time to start a new one, thus is born Mk 3. While I have not posted anything outside my Dog Wars Campaign blog, I have not been idle. For the past few years I have been saying, "No new project!", and by that, I mean less than a dozen. OK, so I have a bit of an issue when it comes to miniatures. I have rarely met a miniature I didn't like, or gotten a boardgame that I don't think, you know what would make this better? Miniature. With that said here are pictures of my latest projects over the past months. 

War in the Ohio, 1812. First Nation and United States

Punic War, Hyboria Wars Allied Spear. Warlord Epic

Carthage Sacred Band

Sacred Band Phalanx

Sacred Band Rear. The Side I Mostly See

New Plastic Quar

Quar Crusader Resin Tank and Fidwog Plastic Tank

Plastic 15mm Joan of Arc Spear and Halberds

Joan of Arc French Vs English

Clash of Steel - Cold War Gone Hot US Armor

Soviet Armor

Only four months into the year and already jumped to five projects. I wonder what I could accomplish if I stayed focused?

A little background on the Punic Wars / Hyboria. This is my oldest miniatures project. Begun in my teens when all I played was D&D and boardgames, plus it was a time I still built models. I picked up the February 1978 Battle for Wargamers Magazine. In it were two articles that caught my interest, Stuart Asquith's Battles of the English Civil War for Wargamers, and Tony Bath's Hyboria - The Campaign That Grew. After reading these I was hooked. From this point on I wanted to play with figures in everything. Within a short time, I had picked up Tony's Setting Up a Wargame Campaign and proceeded to start collecting Carthaginians while my key gaming buddy went for the Romans. Needless to say, I made every mistake you can, mostly being way to ambitious and the whole thing fell apart. Over the next forty odd years I have started and stopped this project at least a half dozen time, yet I continue to strive to make this work. More on this as things progress. 

I still own this and all the rest of Battle/Military Modeling they published.