Well, this was a real treat. Local wargaming luminary, Grady (and his gracious (even if she fought for the wrong side) wife) put on a game of Turning Point Stalingrad for a group of us. TPS is an Avalon Hill area/impulse wargame from 1989, and I have to say it’s one heck of an elegant system, with plenty of interesting and tough choices (even if you’re playing the Russians). I must say that I had a great time commanding the southern front for the Soviets. To top it all off, my side was declared the winner.
I’ll let the pictures of the exquisite 1/285 terrain and miniatures speak for themselves. (I pretty much have to, as I’m posting on lunch break from work)
Grady is going to be running this game at Nashcon, and if you have the opportunity to attend, you should definitely play!
The very definition of monster game!
Nervous German Commanders
The famous grain elevators. The Germans never reached them, in our game.
Custom made (locally) barges ready to cross the Volga
The smoke markers are actually rubble markers, which give great terrain bonuses to defenders.
A vicious fight raged at the Kuibyshev Sawmill for most of the game, thanks to some lucky die rolling by yours truly.
Guards prepare to cross the Volga during the night.
ArkieGamer 
Comments
OMG – so fantastic cool and beautiful looking game!!!
Yes, it was pretty incredible. The terrain, alone, took him two years to do.
Excellent terrain.
Despite all my messing around with terrain mats, I have to say you really can’t beat a nice rigid insulation based terrain board. I was so fixated on the city proper, I didn’t take any pictures of the really cool ravines, streams, and fields on the western half of the board-but they were gorgeous.
That is quite amazing!! I would give my dice-rolling arm to play on a board like that. Sounds like you had a great time!
I did have a great time-definitely a top 5 gaming experience for me. You’d think the quality of the terrain would suffer at some point on a 12×6 board from sheer fatigue, but not in this case.
Fantastic pictures, Tim – I really, really regret missing this.
Thanks, Frank. It really was a great game. Lots of action for all involved!
Simply stunning terrain. Tell your friend he created a true work of art. It reminds me a lot of a (comparatively) simple diorama in the Panorama Museum in Volgograd. To be honest, this one here looks much better. The model even captures the hills around Volgograd (sadly nowadays used as a garbage dump).
Must have been a blast to play on it. Thanky ou for sharing this. I sometimes think to much awesomeness is hidden away in garages and gaming rooms, waiting to be presented to the world.
That’s quite a compliment-I’ll be sure to pass it along to Grady!
The game was tremendous fun, although I kept getting distracted by details in the terrain :) Grady has taken this game to numerous conventions over the years, so it does get out in public a bit. Obviously not as much as a museum diorama.
OK, this is simply AMAZING. The level of detail that has gone into that board, is astounding! Well done. As a serious GHQ fan, this blows me away and I haven’t seen anything like this before!
I know, right? My first words on walking into the garage and seeing the layout were “This is gorgeous!”
Two years of work for the terrain but a memory for a lifetime mate! Great job!!!
Trackbacks
[…] defenses at Monte Cassino, and the particular scenario we played covered the third battle. Click here to look at the previous game I played in, covering Turning Point […]