Hey gang, what's going on? I've been ultra busy since early December, but FINALLY got some paint onto brush, and more specifically, some Decals to models. I finally managed to finish ultra-highlighting my last unit of Crusaders, and have put on my decals.
Two units of 3, HQ unit of 4 Crusaders
2 x CS Crusaders, 2 x Crusader IIs. My HQ is a converted 'Covenanter' tank.
2 x Crusader II, 1 x Crusader III. I need spare plastic turrets in case I want to run all-Crusader IIs (and in Early War, I will need the older turret model)
Same thing. I have 1 extra Crusader III turret if I want to make these guys my armour-hunters. Spearhead them into a forest closer to the enemy and plink away at 28 inch range, AT-9.
Lots of stowage.
Covenanter hull is an A13 MKIII Cruiser tank, with an old resin Crusader turret w/ 2pdr gun. I've added fuel tanks from the T-34 kit, and lots of stowage.
Found my Desert Rats decal sheets that I bought like 5 years ago!!
Whats kinda sad is that these Crusaders were the first Flames of War models I ever painted. You can see the old paint jobs from 2011 over here: its only fitting that I finish these models, almost exactly 7 years to the day :)
Anyways, nothing too exciting, but my new place is coming along, Coming Soon: A Friday Night Fights at my place!!! I know you guys just can't wait to see my lousy terrain placement :)
"I say, old chap, why would the Jerries make this 8-wheeled claptrap run on Benzine and not Petrol?"
In a flurry of Mid-War games over the holidays, we have another: Free-For-All, 71 points, featuring Chris Caron's Eastern Front germans (Using Afrika Korps list for now) vs Andrew Buchan's new British force (not painted, no worries) Here are some pictures but as usual, the Video at the end of this article does a much better job of describing the action!
Chris ran a Pzr III formation (2HQ + platoon of 3) supported by 3 x Marder's and had a small Grenadier formation supported by quad AA halftracks.
Andrew ran a Honey Sqdn (4 HQ + 2 units of 3 Honeys) and a Motor Company w/ Carriers, Mortars, Vickers and 6lbrs supported by 17/25lbr 'Pheasant' guns plus a bunch of cards, 'Scout' 'Pip Roberts' and 'Captured Tank'
Marder III with wounded on board, last survivors of their unit.
So let's dive in to Game 2, where hopefully I don't botch too many more rules! As always, Video Battle Report at the end! So we rolled up Counter-Attack, with me defending. We used the same lists as Game 1, and we both used Spearhead liberally, as this mission allows good movement. Matt Spearheaded everything into No-Man's Land, deployment is below
Matt and I had another set of Mid War tester games. This is game 1. We played 71 points, as that is what Cdn Nationals will be Sept 2018. Matt is waiting for Eastern Front lists, but is just using the DAK Panzer Ko. for now until that comes out. I went with my trusty Desert Rats, we rolled Breakthrough, with me defending, as I had an Inf. Formation in my Force As always, Video Batrep at the end.
His list:
HQ Panzer III
3 x Panzer IV 'Long'
2 x Panzer IV 'Long' (in Flanking Reserves)
2 x 8 Rads
3 x Marders
My list:
Crusader HQ 2x CS, 2 x Crusader II
Crusader 2 x II, 1 x III (I completely forgot these were IIIs in game!)
Crusader 2 x II, 1 x III (reserves)
Grants x 3 (reserves)
Motor Co HQ
Motor Co
4x 6lbrs
3 x Bren Gun Carriers
2 Hurricanes (reserves)
Deployment, I Spearhead'ed the Carriers and deployed on both objectives
Matt had his airbags go off after hitting a lamp post in a parking lot after a tournament a few years ago in his green jeep. I ofc made an objective for him!
So after a fun time at Canadian Nationals, one thing was clear: we did not have enough practice games with the new rules or our lists. Matt and I decided to start fixing that now, only 51 weeks until next event, so why not get into it with 75 points of MW! I drove up to his new place, we set up a table, and then decided to play identical lists:
75pts DAK Panzer Ko.
Pzr III HQ tank w/ 5cm short: 5pts
Pzr III platoon (4 tanks) w/ 5cm short: 20pts
Pzr IV platoon (4 tanks) w/ 7.5cm short: 24pts
Pzr II platoon (4 tanks): 8 pts
Marder platoon (4 tanks) w/ 7.62cm: 16 pts
8-Rads (2): 2 pts
I wanted to rock a basic mission, but I let myself get co-erced into playing Rearguard. I rolled a 1 to see who would attack, so I got to defend. Video as usual is at the end, enjoy!
After deployment, I am on the left, with Pzr IIIs in Ambush.
Hey guys, here are the final standings for Canadian Nationals 2017.
We played small, middle and large lists (1050, 1405 and 1865 pts) and here were the rounds/missions/list levels:
Small – Hasty Attack
Large - Fallback
Middle – Free For All
Large - Breakthru
Small - Counterattack
Middle – Dust Up
You will see some clever use of Artillery transports in Chuck's list (which will be nerfed shortly by needing to stay near the parent company)and surprisingly, only two of the lists below used more than 1 formation. Enjoy.
#1 Chris Johnson did not submit to Dave (or Dave forgot to send it to me) but we have some intel, here is a pic of his army:
Jack Daniels, Pepsi, and Flames of War, does it get any better, really?
Hey gang, just a quick picture dump of Cdn Nationals 2017. We played 3 different points levels, Late War V4, using the Gen-Con rules for determining Attacker-Defender, AND by unanimous vote to Dave Griffin, we also used the Proposed Win Conditions (designed to reduce draws) from the week-old More Missions from the front. The points levels were 1050, 1405 and 1865, with 2 games at each points lvl over the course of 2 days. I personally wasn't a huge fan of the points lvls, because with the small Warrior book, main V4 rulebook, More Missions, MLFTF, and whatever else you had going on, it was a lot of book keeping during games. Anyways, picture dump for you guys, and I had tried to get as many army shots prior to game one as possible. Enjoy!
My KG Peiper. Can't have the SS without a church and some flames right?
Hey gang, painting up some Pzr IVs that are OVERDUE to be finished, like 6 or 7 years overdue. Step by Step for doing the Dot-Ambush pattern.. which in summary is extra green to hide most of the Dunkelgelb base, and then Dunkegelb on the green and brown. Video at the end, as usual
Had another Cdn Nationals Test game, this time at the 1865 points value, and at the WIP Beachburg Bunker (or so Matt calls his basement) He was running 82nd Airborne with guards tanks support and I was running KG Peiper again. We also used the new Win-Conditions introduced this week by Battlefront in order to cut down on the number of Draws, which are here. We go through the lists and all the discussions in the video which as always, is at the bottom.
A quick Late War match, 1050pt game, a tune-up for Canadian Nationals. I used a K.G Peiper list (fearless trained stuff) vs Rob's Canadian Mech Infantry out of Market Garden. I think Rob was out of his element, as he had no artillery of any kind, which for him is unheard of! The hecklers playing 40k on the next table over decreed we should play Bridgehead. (bonus 40k pics at the end of the post, and as ever, a video as well)
Dug-in Canadians guarding the roadside supply dump objective and wrecked SPG objective.
Hard to see behind the tall trees in the back, but the transport section of Kangaroos are there.
My half-finished Puma's Spearhead to this area of trees, with plans of Fritz-Moving up, shooting at the Kangaroos, then moving back to cover if they pass the Movement Orders.
KG Peiper, when attacking, the Pzr IV platoons can Spearhead, and the King Tiger HQ and KT platoon take advantage of the expanded deployment zone.
I had successfully Blitzed, shot at the Kangaroos, then Shoot N Scoot back, but AT9 vs FA 5 plus range meant I didnt get any shots to count. Rob now rushes his Kangaroos forward, with designs to .50 cal. my Puma's. My armour saves were made however.
The game devolved into a waiting game. I couldn't commit anything until his 4 x Achilles with AT15 came in, but they were in Scattered Reserve. You can see in the background I had Skorzeny jeep trying to block that back quarter from being a viable deployment for his Achilles. Meanwhile, my Pzr IVs had to hide in the crops, as his ambushing 6lbrs had to yet to be sprung.
With no armour to shoot at, these are just very expensive AP3 platforms... which, when needing 6s to hit infantry, were useless apart from I think one kill all game vs his Infantry
Turning point of the game: I had elected to use Skorzeny to block once again the quarter deployment option for the Achilles' reserves, and failed. Since I can not move when Disrupting the enemy, I was challenged by the HMG unit leader, and FAILED the challenge: "Who won the 1941 Stanley Cup? Umm, the NY Mets???" Firing Squad! The Achilles come on and start workign their way up the side of the board, whilst the 6lbr AT11 x 18 shots made short work of my concealed Pzr Platoon.
Rob passes his Blitz move order to see the side armour of my HQ King Tiger. I had to move it up to be within 16 inches of an objective or lose the game. 2 shots, two hit, 2 bails!!!! I rolled a 2 for my remount, and we thought that was it, and I was down to one platoon In Good Spirits and lost the game. Turns out, one of the hits could have been put on the platoon KT, and that the HQ tank can reroll on himself. But still, this is why we are playing test games before Cdn Nationals.
The excitement is palpable in Rob's face as he exults in his Achilles winning him the game :) Great game, and now I know a bit more that I need to keep the thinly armoured Pzr IVs hidden, since being trained and only FA6 means almost everything in LW can hit them easily. Video and bonus 40k footage below.
Tristan and Andrew played V8 40k on Brett's phenomenal Sci-Fi board
Brett started digging out his old Forgeworld army, the Death Korps of Krieg.
My Tiger unit was about as useful as the one I'm sitting on.......
So, depending on the list and the cost of a unit, a game using the new Version 4 rules can go one of two ways. The first is that you flawlessly execute your plan and your opponent suffers as a result. That chance your plan doesn't quite go as you saw it from the beginning however, sometimes rears its ugly head and you get trounced. That's the second possibility.... It's a Thursday night, Tristan and I go for a game of Germans vs Germans in what was a a great back and forth game from the start and later just turned out to be downright brutal for me in the end.
Scroll to the bottom for video of the game!!
Hope you enjoy it and the discussion on the game we had afterwards!
25lbrs doing what they do best: Scaring away tanks????
Its been a whirlwind weekend, with 3 test games of the new Flames of War (gleaned from cell phone snaps of preview books, WWPD compilation and the Team Yankee book where possible)
Brits vs DAK again, but on a different board, with different lists:
We counted the rocky hill as just Rough Going, anything else is obvious, so lots of trees this time.
As ever, the LONG video is at the bottom. We discuss throughout.
"What's the best World of Warcraft Expansion?" "Burning Crusades!"
Right after our first game, where the Germans won 7-2, we swapped teams and played again, so Matt and I with the DAK and Tristan and Andrew playing British. Same board, same lists.
Pzr II's 'Spearheaded' into this tree area, allowing the PaK-38s and PzrIVs to be that much closer to the British lines..
"What do you say, old boy, shall we go kick the Jerries out of Africa?" Monty
Using the WWPD rules compilation, and stats and such from the preview copy of the rulebook that stores have, plus some from the latest WGI, we apply our Team Yankee prowess to run a Test game of Version 4. TO make equivalent lists, I used V3 points for both (1340pts) and the DAK force comes out at 82 pts using V4 points. Video with our opinions at bottom of article.
