A Victory Denied III

Turn two saw a determined German response to the Timoshenko attack in the south, with elements of 9th Army and 2nd Panzer Groups cutting into the Soviet troops. An aggressive attack by four divisions of the 3rd Panzer Group west of Krichev has led to a confused situation as the Soviet front line folded back upon itself. The advanced panzer divisions then found themselves in a pocket of sorts, though the forces to their east, in Krichev itself, are not strong.

Here is the board situation at the end of turn 2:

Simple Wings of War in 1/100 scale

My latest project has been for a young lad at our English school, who - after eighteen months of perseverence and three failed attempts - has succeeded in passing a pretty tough national English exam. He is only twelve years old, and after his having dedicated himself so completely to study for so long I thought that I'd try to find something playful that he could enjoy. In one of my classes with him I'd brought out a simplified version of Wings of War and used it for ten minutes or so (I was teaching... prepositions. Yeah, that was why I brought it out. It was to teach prepositions...). This he really enjoyed, so I decided a variant of Dawn of War (the WWII version) could be the way to go.

As it turns out, one of the local hobby shops carries a range of 1/100 pre-painted aircraft which had caught my eye on numerous occasions. I had stoically resisted buying these for my own purposes up to this point, but being a lazy fellow, and with these kits only requiring assembly, I thought these would be perfect. Two pairs of Spitfires and Messerschmitt BF 109s later, we had our beginnings. After a bit of experimentation with methods of mounting the things, I settled on 3mm thick clear plastic bases onto which a piece of matching plastic rod is fixed.

This is a shot of them on their stands (they slip on and off as needed):


1/100 needed everything scaled up, so I made up some movement cards and a measuring stick by hand, and put together a couple of combat results table to allow him to use dice to calculate damage. I also put together some profile cards for each plane (thanks Google images!)and used some cork circles as markers for speed and damage.

Here you can see the kits:

Finally, I found a box that was big enough to fit everything (see below)...

...and gave it to him today. He seemed pretty pleased, so I hope that over the next wee while we'll get to hear a few stories about air combat in his living room to balance out the all-Saturday study.

A Victory Denied II

Pat and I have now played a couple of turns of A Victory Denied. This clickable screenshot shows the situation at the end of turn one. Smolensk has fallen already as the panzers begin to make headway in their drive on Moscow. On a positive note, Timoshenko's counter-attack in the south from Rogachev successfully linked up with elements of 13th Army to retake Mogilev and destroy two Panzer divisions in the process.


The Germans are now firmly in control in the centre, but are being forced to send resources south to prevent a Timoshenko-inspired breakthrough.

Turn two awaits...

A note on map symbols: arrows represent advances made this turn, curved lines show the current position of the fronts, and circles indicate pockets which have been surrounded or bypassed. Black is used for the German forces; rust is used for the Soviets.