Anniversary (Sandtable) WW1 campaign/battle

[Biffa]

This is a belated update to my original announcement in the welcome forum where I mentioned a very ambitious plan where a few of us are doing a sand-table mega trench battle. I'll keep this updated now as things are almost ready.



The idea is that with a huge sand-table combined with the scope that 10mm gives us in scale we could basically 'almost' turn a battle into an actual campaign. The anniversary gives us a great reason to do this now, using this type of table we could also implement creeping trenches and a totally destructible environment. We plan to keep the battle going for at least a year, hopefully longer and I'll post updates after each battle, you'll be able to follow the toos and fros of the fighting and see a gradual destruction of the diorama which will bring in different approaches to our tactics as the game progresses.

The battle area is based loosely around St Laurent Blangy where there is now a large cemetery, the serious fighting around the area didn't really start until later in the war but topography suits what we had planned to do and made for a fairly balanced battle and of course we're starting this in 1914 so from here on in it will evolve as the game progress's, it could all be over in a couple of battles, we really won't know.

Here's some tests and pictures of the British Division (5th) and some examples on our smaller sandtable of how the environment will be used to create trenches etc.



British artillery and start of attack, scots take the town



British artillery set up in captured town - then destruction of the area during counter battery.



Example (on a very small battle field, lol) of how the water line will affect craters and how they will appear on the main table.

Please bookmark this topic and drop in with any views or thoughts you have or just follow this marathon of a wargame and see how it all pans out, it should be fun.

[Biffa]

Saved for updates

[Biffa]

Saved for updates 2

[paulr]

Stunning

[Techno]

Looking rather splendid !!
Cheers - Phil

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Very nice indeed, looking forwards to seeing this develop.

[mollinary]

Brilliant concept!


Mollinary

[Ithoriel]

Takes me back!

Looking forward to more on this.

[fred.]

Nice. Are all the pictures on the same table, in the middle ones the ground seems much darker, which looks better. I think the last few with water are on a different table?

[Womble67]

Very good shall enjoy watching this thread

Take care

Andy

[Steve J]

Very nice indeed .

[toxicpixie]

Cor, now that's a game and a half! Cracking

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Just be careful - the Maus or Challenger surfacing mid game does tend to ruin one sides chances.

IanS

[burnaby64]

Great idea! Fine photos!

[Biffa]

Thanks guys, here's a preview of the main battlefield in development, we aim to add a lot of bits and bobs like sheds, garden walls, road signs plus some extra capture points like the chateau, factory etc and sort the roads and paths out, also looking into sorting out a proper camera/tripod arrangement because camera phones just won't cut it.



Approach to the town from the NW



From the ridge in the NE

Total figure count at the moment is about 3000+ with around half of them painted and based at the moment, we're hoping that the rest of the WW1 10mm range will be available so we can include them for a bit of variety. I'll update with some higher quality pictures once the battlefields are closer to completion and I'll also add some details about rules and units.

Just some table details, the first set of shots were taken on my sand-table which is about 4x7 foot, the second set is just a grill tray which I used for the light and to experiment with flooded craters, this last set here is of the main sand-table from Dingo Hayes' 7x9 foot monster it might be larger I've never measured it. The buildings are mainly scratched built by me but he created all the rest, when I first saw it I was stunned at just how beautiful it was, he did an amazing job...

...and I can't wait to mess it all up.