Ober Emmels

This picture shows the completed village of Ober Emmels which is held by American  engineers. This is the view of the village that the Germans will have as they arrive on table and begin their advance. To the left of the road are destroyed American vehicles, already largely covered in snow.

The Game is based on German attempts to envelop and capture the important town of St Vith, early in the Ardennes operation. In reality there had been little in the way of snowfall at this time, but I really did want to make this a "snow terrain" game. I also wanted to represent the Fuhrer Begleit Brigade (FBB); a curious formation, based on one of the units responsible for guarding Hitler and repeatedly expanded to a powerful brigade sized armoured formation. One of its main weapons was the Jagdpanzer IV L70(a), a high-sided and relatively rare variant (only 278 were produced) of the Jagdpanzer IV L70 tank destroyer. This "Alkett" version mainly saw service on the Eastern front, but a battalion of them formed part of the FBB's panzer regiment in the Ardennes campaign. Raventhorpe's Ready to Roll range had recently released a lovely model and I fancied painting up a few!

The buildings are made from 2mm plasticard with internal floors and removable roofs. The construction style owes almost everything to that doyen of scratch building, Mick Sewell. The terrain boards are constructed from some old TSS modules that I had from years back (I normally use the much denser blueboard, but it seemed a shame to waste them). These are based on 3mm mdf, with card strips to protect the vulnerable edges, before covering with several coats of textured paint and a layer of artificial snow, which gives a nice "glistening" effect. The roads are powdered Tetrion, suitably weathered and painted.

The next few posts will show some of the figures and vehicles, with more shots of the battlefield as it develops.