At the games club last week I had the pleasure of trying out my new Cigar Box Battle Mat, available in Australia from
Campaign Books.
As a farewell to Lawrence as he heads back to Blighty we played a 1000 points game of Battle Group Overlord. Steve and I played a British infantry division battle group with Churchill support, while Lawrence and John took the Germans. Suffice it to say, nothing much went right for us Brits. Well-sighted German artillery gave us a hard time, and our Churchills couldn't make any headway against the Panthers they came up against. Foolishly, I separated the Achilles tank destroyers from the Churchills, so the poor old Churchills didn't have any nice effective firepower to maneuver with. I like Churchills, I really do. But every now and then I forget with Churchill I-IVs that just because they are big, hideously slow and woefully undergunned, that doesn't mean they have thick armour.
Apart from the Germans, the other big winner of the night was the Battle Mat. We just chucked it down over some very dodgy foam hills, and behold! a lovely contoured battlefield. Add some lichen hedges, trees and a building and it looked pretty darn good.
