Crete at Cannon

Top wargaming chum James has been beavering away on a Crete battlefield with assistance from other members of the Lenton Gamers Club Sam and Mike.
He invited me along to help out at the Canon show last weekend and I made a small contribution to the game in the form of some goats and oil barrels.
The whole game looked splendid on a huge table dominated by the valley of the River Tavronitis complete with girder bridge.
The game we played out was a bit of a "what if" scenario based on the defence of Hill 107 - where we allowed the British to attack the Germans earlier than they did in the actual battle.
Rules used were Chain of Command.
We played all day and because it was a (very) quiet show we got a lot of leisurely gaming in and were able to chat to the small number of punters as well. Mike took the Germans, James was overall British commander and I took the New Zealand and RAF rag-tag troops. Sam was sleeping off the after-effects of an actual Greek wedding so gave this one a miss.

There's a lot of pictures to follow, with some minimal commentary.
Models are all 28mm, a mix of Crusader, Artizan, Black Tree Design and one or two others. The flying planes are 1/72 (it works better perspective wise, oddly) the gliders are 1/48 scale plastic kits.
The terrain is mostly the work of James and Sam, the British are I think all James' work with the Germans being provided by Mike and Sam.

The British Commander arrives and takes stock

The New Zealand commander arrives and takes a sniper bullet.

Fallschirmjäger swarm out of the river bed

The Germans had strong air support

The British had a couple of tanks (that performed rather better than their real life counterparts)

The New Zealanders assemble at the wall

The British begin to advance through the olive groves

RAF ground crew were pressed in to servioce (led by Wanklyn Flower. No, really)

The sniper who took out the New Zealand officer

Not sure the AT gun was strictly historically accurate at this stage in the battle

Another Stuka bombing run completed

Lee McColl built the excellent out of service Brewster Buffalo, based on a contemporary picture

The British forces took their time establishing themselves at the edge of the olive groves

The Germans likewise took cover near the tents of the RAF camp

The New Zealanders came under mortar fire

Eventually the tank closed on the Pak.

Driving over them tends to rout the stoutest of chaps

Where's the bloody RAF?!

At about this point the organisers stopped by to award James the best game prize

Emboldened the British break cover

Hopefully this isn't about to lead to a war crime!

The tanks tries to escape from the river bed...

...and the fallschirmjäger take aim...

Look Hans, dinner!

The British storm the groves and attempt to retake the camp

Me109 flies in and strafes...his own side! (Should have stuck with Stukas!)

Fierce fighting about the camp

The British CO encourages from the rear

Partizans look on

In the end the British were unable to take the camp and were thrown back by some late arriving fallschirmjäger.

Victory to the German airborne invaders

A really great day out playing soldiers. Thanks to James and Mike for having me along for the ride.

The game will be at Partizan in May (though it may be a different scenario).