Bolt Action. Prepping for Battle 1. Thursday is D Day!!

Another post, another epic game...well, hopefully. The plan (we have a plan!!?) is to run a BIG Bolt Action D Day invasion scenario this Thursday, the 11th, on an 8x4 table. Now as these things don't organise themselves I've started to do some online research to get an idea of the table layout etc. Hopefully I might figure out how to use this blog to better effect too!

First things first, as we're playing the plucky, stiff upper lipped British and Commonwealth against the fiendish Boche I knew the action would take place on Gold, Sword or Juno beaches so I searched for and found an online image of the invasion map of Queen Beach at Lion-Sur-Mer. A lot of detail there! Too much for our part of the landings

zoom in but still too much 

Zoom in a bit more..much better and usable

...so, after cropping to this size and then rotating the image (wanted to see it from my perspective as an invadee!) I now had something to work with. 

Next, I had to get an idea of what a typical Normandy town of the era looked like and found these...

Top totty when I was a lad

Ooh, I say, will you look at how much knee these beauties are flashing!! By Jingo, if I were a younger man...I mean...ahem, I found these most useful...the photos below, that is

Canadian troops go ashore at Bernieres

Queen Beach 

RAF reconnaissance photos 

With this inspiration to guide me, I drew upon my vast Da Vinci like artistic skills and after an hour, a cup of coco and a nap I came up with this!! Okay, maybe more like an infantile Mondrian than Da Vinci at the height of his powers but for our purposes is should suffice

a possible Turner Prize nominee

Between my two gaming buddies, Richie and Danny, and myself we have enough terrain bits to create a table that looks appealing to the eye...hopefully. Now for a bit of inspiring literature