Preparing the troops for Call to Arms 2018

Wow. Over a year since the last post. This is generally the part of the blog where the author talks about how busy life as been with work and family (and that is all true in this case), but I thought I would skip past that and get straight to the update. Hopefully more regular content to come in the future.

At the beginning of the year my war-gaming buddies and I got stuck into Battlefront's Team Yankee, in which you play the NATO and Warsaw Pact forces squaring off against each other in cold-war-gone-hot 1985. We've had a blast playing it, and its quick pace and dynamic movement has been a refreshing change from our previous experience with Dystopian Wars.

However instead of playing in the default 15mm scale we've dropped it down to 6mm. I feel that the game works better visually at this scale, and there are some lovely cold war 'micro-armour' miniatures at this scale.

This year at Wellington's Call to Arms war-gaming convention we're are putting on a large scale demo game, which is something we have done over the last few years. Day one will feature the US and British forces defending two vital bridges while the USSR and East German forces advance towards them. On day two we will flip things around and the Warsaw Pact forces will defend against a NATO breakthrough.

Although I'm still busily painting up my massive Russian horde, this weekend we ran a trial game of the day two scenario. It went well and it helped test its balance and general enjoyment.

Below are a few random photos that I took. They aren't particularity great, but I'll try take some more painting photos soon. And of course expect a Call to Arms write up in a few weeks.

Here is a view of our beautiful battlefield before deployment

The British forces advance towards to the Warsaw Pact lines

My staunch Motor Rifle Company defends a crashed Hind

The East German dig-in around a strategically important tent