30 January, 2012

Road to Paris, Part 3: Vehicle Paint scheme




Well, I got a BIT of work done, took a bit of artisitic license and made the division symbol a bit bigger than they were, just so I could paint the crosses right. Also, the French Flags are a tad bigger, again for ease of painting and such. I added the Resistance guys and some explosives. Colors were green spray, Brown Violet, Ogryn Flash wash, Brown Violet again, then highlighted with Ghoul Skin Green. Makes for a good objective I think.

The list I have settled on for now, is from Fortress Europe, LW 1500 pts, C/T

HQ: Armored Rifle HQ, no bazooka 25 pts
Armored Rifles full platoon: 240 pts
Armored Rifles full platoon: 240 pts
Shermans x5: 345 points
Stuarts x5: 235 points
HMG platoon, 2 sections, bazookas: 150 pts
M7 Priest, 1 Gun Troop, OP Sherman, 185 points
Cavalry Recon Patrol, 1 M8, 2 jeeps, 70 points.

This gives me 1490. I can add 2x .50 cal's to the halftracks to reach 1500. Its 7 platoons, but I can split the HMG platoon amongst the ARs and stay at 6

Only thing I see that is seriously lacking is heavy AT. Panthers and up I can;t do anything about without relying on Bazookas and Arty. If I take out the Stuarts and HMG, I can pop in 4 x M10s, leaving me at 6 platoons still. Oh well, these are the models I have right now, so what can you do? :)

29 January, 2012

AAR 62, US Para's vs Beute StuG Abteilung

(above) Table set up at the CLGS. The terrain is my new desert scenery, so its out of place for LW but what can you do!

Mike_A and I scheduled up a game at the store, given that we both work nearby, but we had to get in before it filled up with the Malifaux/Infinity guys apparently. The Magic guys were in the other room. They need a Narnia room like up in Petawawa! Mike is running gorgeous US Para's on KK bases, and I am running my all light armor Beute StuG Abteilung, 1500 points practice for Game Summit which is in 3 weeks. We played Free For All.

(above) good thing I brought terrain, because NO JOKE this is what the Infinity ( I think it was that game) was using.. If youre going to use dollar store models, at least paint them!

Next 3 pics of Mike's awesome Para's





My setup on the left flank meant I was going to initially rush forwards, but all game I was trying to take out the 6 x 105mms, and to the end I couldnt get them below 3 guns.


Meanwhile, the real action occured on this hill, where he moved up a unit, I moved up my GPGrens, and in a hideous assault, I pin him, assault, kill 2, he swings back, and I fail 4 of 4 saves, and fall back! He later crushes the rest of them and is now advancing on my LuftWaffe 88's and Panzerwerfers!


I had to move assets over from my left flank to MG and direct fire to whittle them down. Here in this pic you can see my horseshoe-of-doom.


Not much left now, but I had wiped out one small platoon, he pulled back one, and he had one platoon, so it was as draw going in to the final turns.. The platoon in the town there is going to try and bazooka my one remaining StuG 39H and grab a second platoon kill!



Sadly, he only bailed it, and all I had to do was wipe out 4 stands with my entire army for the extra platoon kill.... However, they were wise to bring their own brick walls, as he made every save! Lame that it ended this way, but the game was great, and it was nice to play someone I haven't played before, especially to tune up my list! It was incredible the amount of guys I killed, but only the 1 platoon counts, and he killed all my infantry and only a smattering of vehicles to pull out the draw

My list was:
HQ StuG39h
3 x StuG 39H (Pak40s on Hotchkiss)
3 x StuG 39H
4 x StuH 39H (10.5cm Arty on a Hotchkiss)
3 x L37 15cm SP Arty 'Schleppers'
3 x Panzerwerfers plus crew on Somua's
2 x Luftwaffe 88's no crew
1 GP Grenadiers in french halftracks (unreliable)

Mike, post your list if you read this in the comments below! I know he had roughly engineers, men, men, HMGs, 57mm AT (aka 6pdrs) and his Arty.

Thanks again for the game.

27 January, 2012

Road to Paris Part 2



Super quick update, today I spray primed one infantry unit, that unit's halftracks, and the M7 Priest objective. But more importantly, I figured out my scheme, which is US uniforms with the khaki shirts and brown pants rather than all green (I saw pics of the French guys in these colors) and figured the Croix de Lorraine on their helmets, and they had French flags sewn on the upper sleeves.



This is more for my future reference, but I used a black spray coat. Basing is Charadon Granite (GW), then Khemri Brown (GW), then German Camo Beige (VMC) and any blocks are Astronicon grey (GW)

Guys are Uniform Brown (Reaper) for pants, Kommando Khaki(GW) for shirts, Brown Violet (VMC) for helmets. Ghoul Green (Reaper) (its my go-to highlight for Feldgrau) for webbing and gaitors, Chocolate Brown (VMC) for boots, Tallarn Flesh (GW) for skin tones, Beige Brown (VMC for gun butts and barrels. Hit it with a Ogryn Flesh (GW) wash, the rehighlight the helemts in Violet Brown, and hit the metal gun pieces with Blackened Steel (VMC)



Side shot of sleeve flags.

25 January, 2012

'Road to Paris' Part 1

So I am an idiot. Why am I an idiot? Because I am going to undo about 2 months hard work painting my Late War Brits. When I decided to do my LW Brits in the Italy scheme, It was simply so that I could use already painted models (25 pdrs, 17pdrs, infantry, UC's etc) and simply add a few models, like an AOP, 4 M10s and halftracks to make Motor Platoons.

For some reason though I just cant get into it. I won some Grants a while back at a tourney, and was thinking to myself.. do I really need MORE Brit tanks? I already had 9 shermans, 9 Crusaders, 3 Churchills, 4 M10s, plus an entire EW BAR army. Also, I never seemed to use my Priests. Plus I wanted to run a "minor power" also, like Romanians, or Hungarians or some such. What I realized though, with chatting with Scary Biscuits and others over on the WWPD Forums (he works at BF) is that I could run basically a US force, but not have to paint the stupid allied star (AKA the USA star) if I just limited myself a bit.. namely, not running 8 million bazookas in each Inf squad, not using Radio rule, only 1 76mm Sherman per platoon, and run a characterful army.

I did some research and the more I read about the French 2eme Division Blindee (2nd Arm'd Div), the more I like it. The fact that they can run Priests is great, I have 4. They can run M10s, which I have 4. They can run bone-stock welded hull shermans galore, which I have. Halftracks I have plenty, I just need to add on the MGs that the Brits dont get. Only problem is right now the list isnt "official" as it still references Operation Cobra for Priest and Stuart pricing. Scary B aka Mike Haught says that it will get updated eventually, but for now I'll just run a generic US list from Fortress Europe, so it is official. The other crazy part is, I am going to try and get it ready for game Summit. From landing on Normandy to Liberating Paris, the 2eme Div Blindee took 25 days. I have a bit less than that until Game Summit. I drove to Petawawa today to grab what I couldnt find locally, like the Stuarts, who my good friend Marty says to never NOT use. He says everyone should run 17 of them in fact... so I had to get some..
... (above) I also got a Kepi-wearing CO in Charles de Gaulle (the Somua will be a re-recaptured BeutePanzer, that the german police units used to keep the Resistance in check, plus a blister of Resistance dudes (and chicks) Some of em are wearing turtlenecks, berets, and have guns.. how awesome is that? I'm going to intersperse them in my infantry stands to represent them joining their countrymen to clear the Bosche from their land.

The Free French had some weird units as well, namely a March Company of Chad, which is basically French Colonials from Chad, Senegal, etc that fought in North Africa, Italy, and now in their home country. This means I can paint one of my Armoured Rifle units with black skin. The officers were still white though, since its still the 1940s after all, but I think the unique markings on the vehicles, the Croix de Lorraine on every helmet and vehicle, and the french flag on shoulders and vehicles will make for a different looking US force at the very least.

Unfortunately, below is what needs to hit the simple green....


I got the fancy plastic rubble bases, a rifle co. box set to make Armoured Rifles x2 (hence the halftracks that need repainting in that pic) , so basically, I'll have enough models to run Armoured Rifles, Rifles, or Armoured Div. army.

I'm going to put together a few test stands, paint them up tomorrow, and come up with a list, and tomorrow will assemble all the infantry while the vehicles get Simple Greened. Vive La France! hahahahahaha



UPDATE I guess I had forgotten to post this last night. All day today I spent organizing my dudes into the 2 Armoured Rifle units, plus adding US crew to all my vehicles. That was this morning, this afternoon, I guled them all to the plastic scenic bases. I noticed that half were rubble, half had cobblestones, so I will split my two units using the different basing schemes. Also, like I mentioned, one of the units is Colonial, so will have coloured troops and white officers!!



(above) Re-Captured Somua S35 with Resistance guys in front of it for objective 1, and since I am going from 4 to 3 Priests (Brit org to US org) I figured I'd make an objective out of the spare Priest. I recall seeing in my research a burnt-out vehicle that has "Here lies 3 dead French Soldiers" in an obvious attempt to sway any fence-sitters to rise up against the german occupation of Paris. I will paint that on the side. The Resistance Blister has some dynomite too, so I put those nearby, in case they want to deny this artillery to the germans.

(above) to the left is my CO stand, it is Charles de Gaulle model, another french officer, and some messengers in a sidecar. To the right is my 2IC stand, 3 US-uniformed guys and a casualty model.

(above) Cobblestone Armored Rifle unit, historically, the French had less Bazookas than the US, and I wanted to be able to field this as a reg US force until the Free French list is offical. So I used standing guys and strapped on some 'looted' weaponry to make up the remaining 'Zookas I needed. Hurray PSC Halftrack box! This unit will be my Colonial Unit, the 'Regiment de Marche du Tchad'.



And lastly, this is my second Armored Rifles. Again, 'pre-owned' extra anti-tank weapons so I can run this out of Fortress Europe until such time as the list gets updated. I decided against intermingling my Resistance guys, instead they will remain distinct, or form the extra stands required if I run Rifles instead of Armored, plus Weapons platoon. In the French List they are confident conscripts, 7 stands for 65 points, very nice home obj holders! The black painted stand is my tester stand, which I will paint tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow Afternoon I play a game a the CLGS, and then its terrain frenzy for our 28-man tournament. I like how a year ago we had 7 people show up, now its 28 people!

New post tomorrow, hopefully a painted stand of dudes done!

Hobby Review: Tufts, by GW and Army Painter

(above)The GW tufts on the left, the ArmyPainter ones on the right, on top of a GF9 Large Desert Hill

So a bit of change of pace.. I am finishing off my terrain for the upcoming GameSummit 24 man Flames of War tournament, it might even by 26, so we need terrain. For Christmas you may recall I got a metric tonne of Desert stuff, and the final touches tonite are Tufts. My buddy Rob got me 3 packs of ArmyPainter stuff straight from the factory in Denmark, but while he was there, Games Workshop came out with some, the 'Mordheim' color being the best fit for desert.

I figure why not do a quick side-by-side review.


(above) GW on the left, 16 bucks for the sheet, ArmyPainter on the right, 8 bucks for the sheet. As you can see, you get more than 2x the ArmyPainter stuff, so money wise, it is no contest. Army Painter 6mm tufts are thicker, coarser, and come off the sheet way easier than the GW stuff. However they also have a better color selection as of now. The GW stuff is tougher to get off, has a variety of sizes on the sheet, and the smaller 'scale' lends itself better to FoW bases, where the ArmyPainter stuff would be better on terrain.

Final Verdict would be 8 out of 10 for GW (lose points on color selection) and 7 out of 10 for AP (cost per tuft) but if possible I would get some of each, since more variety never hurts.

Looks good in corners of desert buildings as well, especially the AP ones. Video below (its short)


24 January, 2012

Rise of the Tyranids

(above) 1500 points, Spearhead, vs my buddy Alex who is soon leaving to join the Army.

Shocking that this isn't Flames of War I know! My buddy Alex (In flames of war locally, he was the first to run SS Tigers.. in Mid War!!) is leaving town, going to Basic, etc, so I figure who else to shake the 40k rust loose against than him. It has been 15 months since I last played any 40k, since I even opened up my case! However, I had a good tournament list in my case, all printed out, so I used that.

HQ Tyranid Prime, twin Bone Swords, Regenerate
Tervigon with Catalyst
Tervigon with Catalyst
20 Termagaunts
20 termagaunts
3 units of 2 Hive Guard
2 Tyrannofexes with the only good gun

Alex had

Avatar
Farseer
Dire Avengers, exarch, wave serpent (Farseer goes here)
Dire Avengers, exarch, wave serpent
3 vypers with bright lances
2 fire prisms
1 night spinner

I forgot quite a lot about 40k, especially that he would be going first, and what a Night Spinner does to Tyrannids. My deployment is below.


(above) Turn One and Two he jets stuff into my face, daring me to assault. He also drops a Web template over my hiveguard. TIL that that stuff stays on my models until I move!!!!
(above) he has a crescent of doom around the objective in his quarter.. how am I going to get in there with just troops? (He reminds me that Tyrannofexes can;t claim.. so used to FoW!!)

(above) my Turn 2, my Tyranno's have to kill off the Bright Lance Vypers, who have done 4 wounds to one 'Fex. Somehow I actually hit with my 265 pt beasts and wipe them out!
(above) Turn 3 sees the Avatar & Avengers charge into my Gaunt screen. At this point I realize that my Tervigons have a power to give them FNP and so on. 15 months is a while!!
(above) after my Fexes take out the weapons from the Prism and Night Spinner, the last unit of Gaunts before my Tervigon crapped out rushes to contest his objective..
.. while the Catalyst Termagaunts hold the Avatar in place until the Prime gets in. twin Boneswords means take a leadership test or die if he fails his 3++ save. Needless to say, he rolled a 12 and died!!!
Alex is a sneaky bastard however, using my lack of knowledge, he moves his last 2 models.. gunless skimmers, in to contest mine, and tries to tank shock my Gaunts on his objective, and pray that the game ends (Its turn 6 by now)

Sadly for Alex, the game goes on, and the Prime is able to carve up the gunless Prism, while it takes all my remainig hive guard to actually kill the gunless Serpent on my own objective.

Thanks for the great game man, and good luck at Basic. Remember: "It Ain't Trainin' if it Ain't Rainin'" hahaha

19 January, 2012

Canadian C15TA Armoured Trucks




Matt Varnish likes my Canadian C15TA armoured trucks so much that he asked me to post photos of them. They were issued to Canadian units later in the war and they were all left behind in Europe to equip rebuilding armies like the Dutch and the Danes.



I've posted the four that I use for my Motor platoon that accompanies my armoured squadron. I also have one open topped version and once I get that one painted I'll post a photo.







I hope to buy some Ford Artillery Tractors from him as my guns are still without transport.

Canadian Ram OP Tanks







I don't like to have the same army as everyone else. And I like to use Canadian vehicles and troops. So, instead of using Sherman OP tanks, I wanted some Ram OP tanks, which is historically accurate as they were used by the Canadians from D-Day on. BF doesn't make a Ram kangaroo anymore, so I found some on eBay made by Axis and Allies and I was surprised to find out that they were the same size as FOW. Now Ram kangaroos had their turret removed to make room for infantry, so I had to scratchbuild the turrets. I used pink styrofoam insulation, some plastic card and some extra parts from my BF M10's (hatches and gun barrel/mantlet). I thought of doing the real Ram mantlet, but I'm not that skilled, and I figure the Sherman one will do. I will then paint in all the Ram bolts found on the mantlet. If it still looks bad, I'll just add some camouflage netting.



Here are the completed Ram kangaroos with the scratchbuilt turrets. The only glue that seem to be able to glue plastic and foam together was Uhu, but it takes forever to dry, so you'll have to wait another day for the painted shot of the turrets.



So far, I'm happy with the result. It gives me a unique vehicle that probably no one else out there has.

09 January, 2012

FOW in Aalborg Denmark



Everytime I go to Denmark I drop by the Tinsoldaten club in Aalborg. Well, this is my second visit. http://www.tinsoldaten.dk/ This visit they decided to play a multi player 3000pt FOWbattle. The photo above shows the town square across from the train station at 0900hrs (thats in the morning, not at night) on December 28, which shows you how little daylight there is in northern Europe in the winter.





This isn't the battlefield, its one of the train layouts that they have in every major train station in Denmark.







Here is the battlefield. Germans on the left, Allies on the right.














WW2 Bunkers from the west coast of Denmark.



They didn't tell us the order of battle before the game and I think its more realistic that way. I'm going by memory here:


Allies

Brit para company

mg platoon

mortar platoon

6 pdr platoon

2 17 pdrs

US para company

57mm platoon

mortar platoon

engineer platoon

75mm battery


Germans

Pz Gren company

150mm battery

8 gun Neb battery

Recce platoon

Stug platoon

Panther platoon

It might have been by accident but the three guys with the English sounding first names played the guys with the Danish/German first names. The guys were really great and declared that the game would be played in English. This wasnt a big problem for them as they all spoke and understood English very well. Plus, their rulebooks came in English.

The battle itself is in the video, enjoy



'Weighing' my options: PzIV D/E/F1



Well, despite the Late War 1500 pt tourney being one month away roughly, I am looking ahead to April's 1500 pt Mid War tourney up at the army base. Even though it would appear like Infantry got a boost from v3, I think I'm going to run a DAK panzer list. I have model-wise, 6 PzIVs, 5 PzIIIs, 5 PzIIs, then halftracks and a small Kfz222 Recon unit. My aim is two-fold: get them painted so I don;t have to run my Brits, but more-so to have them be compatible with Early War as well, hence the short-gun version of the PzIV. As you can see from the above pic, I have 1 BF PzIV and 5 PSC plastics. One thing I hate about all-plastic models is their weight.. they just feel so chintzy. Besides that, on a slope, if they are light they will just slide down, where a bit of weight will make the treads dig in a bit more, so I had to come up with a way to weigh them down, and I am sharing this with you now.

I went as cheap as possible, and the only monetary outlay here was a 2 dollar blister of nuts from the hardware store. The spackle you see is also from there, but I had this already bought for infantry basing. On the PSC tanks, I superglued 6 nuts to the underside half of the hull, while spackling the upper hull half. If you want to get heavier, you can glue 1 nut on the upper, but I think 6 is enough. I use the filler to, you guessed it, fill in the empty spaces in and around the nut, and I left a spot for the turret spike. I'm not a turret magnifying guy, but if I were, I would make sure my mag's are in before this step.

Below are both halves to each tank fully spackled. The elapsed time between the 2 pics was 11 minutes, so its very quick, the long part was waiting for the super glue to dry after dropping the nuts in. Easiest thing? Do like I did, superglue the nuts late at night, this morning I put in the spackle, and by the time I come home from work, I should be ready to glue the halves together and finish the platoon.



As for lists, my list I initially went for was the crappier of the 2 possible ones from North Africa, with the earlier MKs:

2 HQ PzIV E

4 PzIV E
5 PzIII J
5 PzII C

then I have 200 points to spare, so Stukas, or a Schutzen platoon, or even 2 smoke Nebs and 1 x 88.

However, these have the crappy guns, though the PzIVs have bombardments.

THe updated list would be
2 PzIVF1
4 PzIVF1
5 PzIIIL
5 PzIIF
3 KfZ222 Recon unit. I might have to cut down on PzIIs to fit the recon in now with the better tanks.

I have to weigh down my Zvezda PzIIs also, and if I can find a spot, the PSC 251 halftracks will be weighed down too. I am thinking where the engine is I can probably fit a nut and spackle in there.

07 January, 2012

FSSF vs Schwere Panzerjagerkompanie; 1500pts LW, No Retreat

Infantry heavy FSSF vs big boy heavy Jagdpanther list.

FSSF
HQ w/ Bazooka
3 Full Strength FSSF w/ Bazooka and Mortar
4 x 105s
4 x 155s
Tiny Pio/HMG platoon
Bofors
FSSF mortars form an 8th platoon with 2iC

Jagdpanthers
HQ Jagd
2 Jagds
Noak Higher Command Panther
3 CT StuGs
3x Nebs
small Gren platoon
Mobile AA Quad

1500pts No Retreat with Germans Attacking with first turn.

Part 1


Part 2...

04 January, 2012

AAR 60, FSJ v Italy LW Brits, Dust Up

First AAR of the new year, at Brett's and I have some of my painted desert stuff so we could make an Italy table.. which would go well with his Casssino FSJs v my Italy campaign Brits. Normally I do just Video Reports, but I'm going to add more pictures for folks who (like me) have youtube blocked at work!

I ran the following:
Motor Company HQ in White cars
Motor Platoon in halftracks x2, PIAT, L Mortar
full 25 pdr battery, 2 OP shermans, AOP
Sherman platoon
M10 Platoon
2 x Recce patrols, 1 with PIAT

FSJ from Cassino
HQ with 2 Knacker, 2 Shreck, 2 Mortars
2 x Full Strength FSJ w/ Knacker
4 StuGs
3 Marder II
2 x LG40
3 Nebs

Deployment below
(above) Brett deploys his infantry in the town near the tracks by the 2 objectives, and I deploy cross-corner by the ruined fort on the hill.


A "small" diversion...

 BATTLTECH! This was my first miniature game. As I mentioned in my last post, Battletech holds a dear place in my hobby heart. I remember do...