Aftermath....

There's a fair bit of tidying up to do after Omaha, and it's taken me a good hour to get all the figures and bits in the right boxes... Apart from anything else, I have a barrow and a hill to finish for Steel Lard for the weekend, and I need the workspace, so the tiles will have to get tidied away before tomorrow evening.

Should I be worried that while I was clearing up I had at least three thoughts for things that need doing before I next run Bloody Omaha? Since you ask:

• I'm not happy with the two German defensive outposts: they're not historically accurate in a number of ways, not least that the two bunkers should look more across the beach than out to sea, and have blast walls protecting them from bombardment from offshore. Fortunately, the defences are only on three small bits of craft foam.
• I'd really like a backscene along the rear of the board - needs to be low enough to reach over, but something that allows me to take low-angle photos and not get bookcases in the background!
• some means of marking wire as cut that doesn't require removing whole 6" sections.

Stop whimpering, Andy! It's not till 2024!

Ok, not quite the final time....

...as Andy and I decided to see what would happen with Wave 3 of the US landing craft this afternoon.

Answer? Mopping up is really, really hard when the things you're trying to mop up are in hard cover behind barbed wire and they have lots of razor sharp 7.92 mm teeth!

After about three hours, Andy had reduced the Germans to two manned MGs and a pair of 5cm Granatenwerfer. and we called it a day.

A number of interesting takeaways from the game as a whole - most I'll share in the article I've just finished for Lard Magazine, which you'll have to buy :D I was, though, amused to realise I'd been being slightly lenient to the Americans in a couple of rather important places as regards firing at German positions. I don't think it would have affected the outcome of the game, but I think they'd have had to figure out how to concentrate their forces at a weak spot more to get ashore and inlands.

There's more photos for your delectation on my Twitter feed.

For the FINAL time in 2019, Bloody Omaha

Having promised Per and his young lad M that I'd run the game for them, since they missed it at Salute, and likewise AndyM, who's missed every public showing of the game, I arranged to put it on today. Sadly, one other couldn't make it, but I will probabaly arrange another run sometime next year for him and a couple of others. We didn't quite finish - Per had a train to catch - and Andy and I are going to run the arrival of wave 3, seeing if Robert Capa makes it back to Blighty in time for his press deadline and how hard the Germans get clobbered tomorrow afternoon.

I'm not going to write a full battle report, as frankly I'm out of brain after that! (and hopefully Per has many more photos and will write a better one!) Much fun was had, many bizarre dice rolls happened, many photos were taken. For the context of many of them I suggest you check my Twitter feed (man, I have had SO many likes and retweets today), but I'll caption a few in the gallery below. A number have been cropped and adjusted to look like period shots from Robert Capa :D

Huge thanks to Per, M and Andy for playing, and to my wife for... well, not resisting the temptation to bake - those maple apple scones were a) still warm and b) amazing! And as ever to Rich and Nick for the scenario and the rules.

First dice roll of the game on the first activation. Sherman DD fires at bunker. M rolls double 6. Boom.
For an encore a bit later he rolled 5 consecutive 1s on a d6. 

Andy handling disembarkation from a Higgins Boat.... 

Managing the chaos on the beach....

...aka 'this is why all bases are clearly labelled!'

The Butcher of Omaha,

HE pins. Stonks from 4 105mms pin A LOT.

Omaha prep

Fortunately, less of the usual amount of panicked building of extra bits of terrain on Friday, except... I found a pack of Flames of War Czech Hedgehogs kicking around I'd forgotten I'd bought, so they got glued up, given a spray of Halfords black primer and then a quick dusting of rust (AP Fur Brown).

Other than that, I spent an hour and a half setting up the table and not finding four of my very small and easily losable German MG Tobruk gunners (top halves only), which was annoying.

First off, figure out which way round the tables will go. I think it is possible to get an 8'x6' board in the other way, but you'd have to go out one door and in the other to get round it :D 

Next, attempt to remember which way the boards tile. This is NOT as easy as it looks :D

Strew beach with obstacles.
No, more than that :D

Then find all the barbed wire, disentangle it and place,...

Finally, offer silent thanks to the team at the last show for helping put all the figures back in the RIGHT trays. This was SO much easier than it has been previously!

Back to Dux...

...'cause I may actually have a brain today.

Did a bit more tidying on the rules clarifications section, prompted by a question on Twitter. I think that's now done, barring getting Rich to confirm some of my and Derek's interpretations. Basically anything that's come up recently seems to be in the 'that's obvious if you apply the rules logically' category :D

OK - also. I am running Bloody Omaha here at the Mill House on Sat 16 Nov. There is probably room for one or two more players, and I'd give preference to folks who haven't managed to get to play it yet. If you're interested please drop me an email at fleetfootmike @ Gmail.

Battle Report - 18 Aug 2019 - "Bloody Omaha" at The Other Partizan

Loot haul - two blisters from Bad Squiddo Games (which are lovely and will see use soon!)

Spent most of the day (barring a couple of brief diversions) umpiring Bloody Omaha. An excellent day - one young gentlemen stayed pretty much all day and handled the bulk of the American attack.

We never got to wave 3, but by turn 8 the Americans had several breaches in the wire, having come under some pretty serious hammer early on - 2/3 of wave 1 was late, so the Germans had opportunity to concentrate their fire early on. The German artillery wasn't as effective as it could have been - partly Carl and I were swapping umpiring/running the Germans, and there was perhaps a lack of continuity for such things as 'are we walking the fire up the beach?'.

General Cota made it on in wave 2 (yes, I know he should be several beach sectors over, on Dog White, but Robert Mitchum in the rôle is a very iconic image and I couldn't resist :D) He led an advance up the western edge of the beach, almost directly at WN64 which was slow but being quite successful,..

Herewith a gallery with comments (largely me nitpicking, because the camera is unforgiving and it's my game and I can!):

All set up and ready to play. Newly watered marshes front and centre, as well as All The Beach Obstacles and some copious use of Woodland Scenics mid-green lichen. A no-prize if you can tell me what I forget to pack... (There are in fact two things.)

This is probably the one thing that really bugs me about the game that isn't fixable - the board joins. Sadly because of wear and tear and in some cases slightly out of tolerance boards, they can be very visible, even though we hide them with lichen and barbed wire, That said, the original plan was always a modular board (and we do reuse some of the hills in other games), so the square tiles and 'stepped' look are a deliberate design choice. Also, I need to glue the wire on to the barbed wire bases so it sits flatter on the ground.

Flames of War LCV(P) with passengers. I should retouch a couple of helmets but on the whole they've pretty evocative: I would very much like if Battlefront redid the castings when they announce the Higgins boat for the new late war range, as they are a bit scuzzy and a swine to get a brush in the gaps, even more so when you can't easily spot what's what on the casting!

Need to retouch the bases on the mine stakes tp match the shallows rather than the deeper water. Usefully it's AP Army Green, I think, so easy to match... 

An LCV(P) gets hit on its way in... Rob suggested a few floating body markers (and I thought I was obsessive!) :D  It's a good job I have two packs of those explosion markers as as far as I can tell neither of the folks I bought them from still make them! 

I love this shot - taken low over the hills at the back of the table, it almost hides the stepped contours of the board.  

A new addition for this game (in case you missed me rabbiting on about it) was photographer Robert Capa., who appears on wave 1 on one Higgins boat and must leave with one of the empty wave 3 boats. He's very much being portrayed here as the legend, rather than what might be the truth....

...customised from a PSC heavy weapons team guy...

He has a card in the deck. On an activation, he has three actions with which he can move 1d6 each, or use one or two to take a photograph (much like AFV fire in IABSM, a second action means he takes time to compose his shot...) We then roll 1d6, + 3 if aimed, plus 1-3 at the umpire's discretion for choice of subject (the player gets to say what he wants to photograph). Still tuning the numbers, but a total score of 50+ means he gets to keep his job, 100+ means he becomes a legend. -50 for missing the boat back to England (and thus his press deadline).

And just for giggles, we get an iPhone down to board level and 'take' the photo (and crop it and turn it B&W).

So, here's Capa's portfolio for the Magnum agency for Life magazine from The Other Partizan...  

We have the Capa version of this iconic shot on our banner for the game. Part of me is really tempted to have a Higgins boat modelled with its ramp down expressly for Capa... 

This is Capa's original... I also find myself wondering if I can find a small HD spy cam that would fit IN or on a 15mm Higgins boat :D And whether a backdrop behind the boards would look effective...

A BAR team from the Big Red One taking cover in the shallows. The team medic can be seen slightly out of focus right of centre. 

Big Red One rifle sections shelter under a ramp obstacle. 

German artillery plasters the beach - observe the elements of both the Big Red One and the 29th sheltering on the shingle below the sea wall while Capa himself takes cover behind a log ramp.

A mortar section of E company 16th RCT of the Big Red One takes cover behind a 'Czech hedgehog'.  Ahead, engineer elements of E company are attempting to breach the wire protecting the exit from the beach.

So there you go. Thank you to everyone who played, came and said hi, or said nice things, to Carl, Rod and Rob for helping run the game, AndyM (as ever) for scenery, Rich Clarke for the original scenario, and thank you to the Other Partizan folks for inviting us!

And packed....

Everything on yesterday's list done. Car packed. Tea and bed, I think. Probably to lie awake and wonder what I've forgotten :D

Higgins Boat passengers done.

And that's everything. Boards at back, then L-R assault boat sections with player clipboards on top, rest of figures and scenery, box of books, dice, tape measures etc and two pull-up banners at the front.

And it all fits in the car, with room for me and TWO passengers.

Packing for The Other Partizan

I've spent too long staring at code today, so I've put off the last of the painting of bazooka teams until tomorrow. However, this does mean I've had time to pretty much finish sorting and tidying everything else, base a couple of stands of LCVP passengers and actually make some more beach ramps.

Still to do tomorrow: paint the last details, base and label the remaining bazooka teams, paint and base the Higgins Boat passengers, print off the rest of the player handouts, the relevant pages of the original scenario, and a couple of 'boat sections go ashore in THIS order' sheets, find some more D8s (I know I have loads in the Deadzone box), lay the scenery boards out just to check I'm not mussing anything and then stack 'em, find the two pull up banners (one for the game, one club).

This is kind of what Bloody Omaha packs down to (except for the boards which will be in tomorrow's post).

First batch of Higgins Boat passengers. These are purely for the look of the thing, but I found them, so...

Hopefully Anne won't ask why we're short on kebab skewers. I honestly can't remember the last time we had kebabs, so...
Quick couple of minutes with a razor saw and file, superglued at the join, black Halfords primer, heavy zenithal dusting of AP Fur Brown. Lazy but effective.

Top box is all 18 boat sections (minus their bazooka teams), plus the Navy engineer teams, all the American Big Men (and sabot bases), and medics.
Bottom has what feels like several miles of barbed wire and minefield markers.

Reference library, rule book and QRS, big dice, shock and kill micro dice, pin and other markers, tape measures, scatter lichen, dice tray. 

Bottom layer, Higgins Boats (and eventually passengers), bunkers, beach ramp obstacles (15 - possibly need more but we're out of kebab skewers :D), custom activation deck (partly to pack the bunkers in and stop them bending their guns!).
Top layer, explosion markers, beach mine stakes (38 - probably enough now) and hedgehogs (22 - not enough), Sherman DD's.

Germnan mortar teams, small pillboxes, Tobruks and MG34 gunners, US kill markers (basically if a team gets really messily wiped out, their base gets replaced with one of those).
Empty tray for bazooka teams when they're done. (Note to self,. need to free up another 4L box).