Getting ships ready for Saturdays 15mm Galleys, Guns and Glory game

Been filling out crews, adding flags and making counters for Saturdays Galleys, Guns and Glory game at Treefort. These ships have been in the closet for some 5 years now. All handmade 15mm galleys
Should have 9 galleys per side.

Turkish galleys along the coast

On the way to Crete

Venetians spring trap

Turks receive Venetian fire

Bolt Action Russian Tank assault.

Been well over a year since we tried a big Bolt Action game. Last tine was the Pacific, this time somewhere ion the Eastern Front.
4500 points of Soviets run by Mike Steven and John vs 4500 points of Germans run by Glen, Eli and Coach.
Eli's force started at the entrenchment with about 5 feet of wire. Coach started some 30 inches back relaxing in the Russian huts and Glen (who's entire force was mobile) was off table in the R&R section.
All the Germans on the table started with a pin marker,to reflect the sudden Soviet bombardment that preempted the assault.
Soviet mission was to get a tank and infantry squad off the far end of the table, failing that to hold the majority of the table.

The Soviet steam roller got off to a good start panicking the Krauts with some lucky tank shots from the Latvian Rifles and some early assaults on the German emplacements. But old Steiner Eli, sporting his Iron Cross, refused to give an inch! Commissar Steven lead charge after charge while saturating the entrenchments with mg fire. But Old Stiener wouldn't budge. On the left Johnokov lead a wave of fresh recruits decimating Germans and trees alike. But Col Eric coolly formed a line on the ridge and rained all sorts of fire and extremely accurate artillery on those poor Russian farmboys. The Russian right advance to the half way point screened by Cossacks, But Panzer Col Glenn, arrived well ahead of schedule to block any possibility of advance. A well played German victory.
                                                                

Table at the end of the game 

A little Neil Thomas rules Ancients today

Knocked out some 98 Romans these past two weeks, so that I could introduce Steven to the Neil Thomas rules. Easy to learn and play rules, helps keep us motivated to paint figs for the next big Clash of Empires game.
Romans Vs Carthage
Romans: 3 Hastati and 3 Princepes, 1 Triari (subbed with Greek Hoplites), 2 Velites , 1 Latin Cav,
Carthage: 3 African Veterans, 2 Gallic foot, 1 Gallic Cav, 1 Elephant, 1 Numidian Cav, 2 Light infantry

It was a very fun game. My Romans  hammered the middle, but the old adage of newly painted troops performing badly their first time out seems to still be true.  Dismal morale failure on the part of a couple of roman units. Steven almost had the game wrapped up for the Carthaginians , but finally some bad rolls on his part handed ma a very very slim Roman victory.