Above and below: XXX Corps included a lot of exciting 'bolt-on goodies' in the shape of specialist armour. The Croc is the Airfix kit with a scratchbuilt (not by me) trailer. The AVRE is my old Matchbox kit.
Nijmegen before the game. Peaceful, isn't it?
A raggedy-arsed collection of Germans deploy to meet XXX Corps.
20mm Brits leaping out of 6mm gliders. It must have been pretty cramped in there...
More Paras inbound near Arnhem.
What the RAF recce didn't see. SS KG Hohenstaufen.
Elements of 82 Abn Div on the outskirts of Nijmegen.
More transports inbound!
Attack of the Giant Hands!
US Paras - 'somewhere in Holland...'
The Wg Cdr's 'Big Wing' of 1/300 Dakotas.
XXX Corps on the move.
Some of the players: Adam, Jerry, Wg Cdr Luddite, Tim.
The horror! John C and Chris W.
If you've read this far you'll be interested to hear that part 2 (of at least 5) of this sorry tale will follow in a few days.
13 comments:
Looks like a great game. I've played through a big game of Op Market Garden using Rapid Fire, would be interesting to see how the two compare if I get a chance to do it with Megablitz....
Cheers,
Pete.
There's a lot to like in these pics, Tim. For one thing, the 1:300 scale aircraft don't look out of place among the 1:76 troops, on account of the ground scale. Odd, but I reckon 1:72 aircraft would look very strange.
I also like the look of 'raggedy arsed' armies.
About 20 tears ago I participated in a multi-player Command Decision version of Market Garden, commanding the Germans at Nijmegen. Can't say my defence was very successful: the garrison's first morale roll was a 10 on a D10 (needing anything but to avoid going 'pinned'). The result was the town was abandoned, and a later counter-attack with a company of PzIVs failed to dislodge the Americans completely from the place.
From memory, though, this refight went pretty close to history, 1st Airborne Div being pretty much knocked about and contained, and the Allies not quite able to force the Arnhem bridge betimes.
cool post, nice mix of kit Tim
Lovely looking game!
More please.
We've done Arnhem three times with Megablitz (Tim ran two of the games) as well as twice with my Panzergruppe rules.
Out of those five games, the Allies have won twice, which probably isn't a bad indication of the actual odds and not the 'doomed from the start' operation it is often portrayed as.
I won't spoil things by saying which of the above this particular game was.
Archduke- you are correct. Large qtys of smaller scale aircraft in a game like this are mush more visually impressive.
That game was so long ago, I was only a Sqn Ldr then !
Pete
With Megablitz we fought the entire operation with modest player numbers in a shortish day.
Archduke Piccolo
20mm toys, 1/300 buildings, aircraft in both 1/300 and 1/144 -what's not to like?
Al
A 'mix'? That's putting it mildly!
Paul Foster
More coming soon!
Martin Rapier
It's certainly an operation which offers plenty of scope!
Wg Cdr Luddite
We certainly managed to squeeze in plenty of aircraft!
"It's certainly an operation which offers plenty of scope!"
Yes, one of the great what-ifs of history and small enough to be relatively easily gameable.
I seem to have spent most of my wargaming career re-fighting it, starting seriously with VGs 'Hells Highway' via the slightly silly diversion of SPIs 'Highway to the Reich'.
Post a Comment