Panzer V 'Panther' Tanks with Finishing Touches and Pictures

The nice thing about taking the time to building a small lightbox to take your pictures in, is that they turn out great. The right balance of light and a digital camera make all the difference. The Panther Company I have had sitting incomplete is finally done. You likely saw them in progress this week while I have had some spare time to paint.

We're Still Here!!

There has not been a lot of gaming news to report over the last few weeks. We've missed the month of April and I am personally working on a few things to brighten up the front page with some new and exciting content!

There will be an upcoming article on what's new for Mid-War and where the rest of the new Flames of War rulesets are headed. The weather is getting nice out, but I'm sure there will be a few rainy days to dust off the armies and paintbrushes. I've got a ton of Vietnam stuff to go through and will be unboxing the Panzer IV box I have lying around very shortly!! Thanks for your continued support and look forward to a new podcast in the coming weeks!

Weapons of Choice: Hawker Hurricane IID

There are a few air options for British support in Flames of War. With mostly US Air options being used in Late War source books, I have decided to look at the Hawker Hurricane and its influence on the Mid War time period when it comes to using it in your next Mid War list. With just under 15,000 of these aircraft manufactured for use during WW2, we'll look at its in-game practicality.

'When in Rome...' FOW Italians for EW and MW Part I

"You lookin' at me??" <DeNiro voice>

So from my good friend Andrew/Twinlinked from the podcast, I have finally convinced him to let go of his Italians.  I am a sucker for those weird wacky armies (Free French, 21 Pzr Bathtubs, etc) so why not trade my unbuilt Canadians for these guys.  Most of the were built, but in varying states of disrepair.   I also bought a few more tanks and things, and am still awaiting a Falco biplane.

 

Here is most of them built.. the used stuff was in a tan glossy undercoat which I will have to cover to match the rest.

Aktionstationen!! (Action Stations!)

Last year, I was more prepared! I had already finished my army, had a partner for doubles on Thursday and knew Historicon in 2013 was going to be fun! This year it's a little different.

A'LARM!!!!

If you've never seen Das Boot, then you are missing out. It's all subtitles and it's a long movie, but worth watching for WW2 buffs. It also kind of sums up how things are going for me at the moment. Action stations indeed.....

Finishing Touches

The bottom line is that I am not playing in the doubles event on Thursday, no one in my group wanted to play 9 games of Flames of War in 3 days and thought checking out the rest of the 'con would be worthwhile. I think after some thought, I agree to a certain extent. I'd be more than happy to play in this event again this year, as Eric from I-95 does an excellent job and runs a top notch event. It will however give me time to heckle Chris, Vic, and some of the other new friends I made last year while gaming. I'm sure the favor will be returned once Nationals starts on Friday. Right.....so I got my HMGS membership, I'm going to try and attend at least one more event during the year, that's the plan so far....I did miss the pre-registration though. I've been busy with work and life in general getting some stuff done around here. Up to and including working on getting my Pzr IV H in World of Tanks. Also known as World of Not Painting.....so worth it though!

Supply Truck (Converted Sd. Kfz. 9 'FAMO')

Since when did all the paint on vehicles come out of the same can? I'm ready and able to get some of my new armor on the table, but because I have become a little better at painting, I have also been doing some modelling. Creating from scratch is a lot of fun, it just takes a little more time. In this case, I have models painted already that fit into my list I can't see repainting them simply to make my army look 'uniform'......I've become a better painter and can't help some of my older models looking a little worse for wear. You'll find I am a master at basing, dressing up and adding to my models, so you won't even notice. (I guess you know now.....)

Stage ONE-TWO-THREE

I wanted to create some barbed wire templates and worked hard doing research and using some of my own experience in setting up, crossing or avoiding such obstacles. From top to bottom, it's a rubber mat cut into 8"x2" strips, grass mat glued onto it and desert or brown flock placed on it during step two. Step three is a simple set of posts, low wire, high wire entanglements covered off by two strips of concertina wire. Anyone who over thinks barbed wire has never worked with the stuff. Unless you are a fortified company or a unit that is in a strict defensive roll, this stuff is setup quick and doesn't take much time to do with practice. I find the 'Defensive' missions in FoW are 'hasty' style defensive missions, where you have very little time to react and do your best to place these 'obstacles'. You know they are not going to stop someone outright, but will hopefully slow them down.

A few unfinished teams I used for scale

I feel better now....it's after midnight by the time this post goes live, but all in all there is a little more time and we're seven days away from something I look forward to every year, might even have a chance to share some laughs and some Captain Morgan with some friends I haven't seen since last year. On a side note, you need to head over to YouTube and check out the official trailer for 'Fury', it's a WW2 tank movie, it comes out in November and looks awesome. The production managed to borrow some of the finest tanks out there for the film to add to its authenticity......including a TIGER!

Protection from what?....Ze Germans!?

Danger danger HIGH voltage!

Welcome to the aftermath that was 'May Madness', it was an all armored event held this past weekend at FdB, a well stocked gaming store just a little over 10 minutes from downtown Ottawa. A smaller crowd of seven people showed to play in this event, adding myself to even things out....eight players total to take part in something a little different. Some players don't want to try anything outside the normal points or format. They missed out!!

They came, they saw, they Hetz'd!

Painting.....Circus Style (*update*)

With the 'All-Tank' tournament at a local store next weekend, my paintbrushes have been hard at work getting my Elefants ready for the table in case we have an odd number of players. I love to play in tournament events, but I don't mind sitting on the sideline to run an event either. I have no issues walking around tables, taking in games, having a look at army lists or taking pictures for DiceDevils.com. I'd rather have all my attention on the games at hand and be there for rules questions, which most would admit I know NOTHING about.....but as the tournament organizer, at least having a rulebook in hand will help, should a question or dispute arise.

Fits like a thong on a fat stripper.....

FnF and Tournament Preparations

Dusting off some more Mid-War for this installment of Friday Night Fights. We're back at Brett's place after some lengthy renovations to his home. Moving around keeps from the same person hosting over and over every week. Dennis(MattVarnish) has once again brought his DAK over and we decided to play a game of Dust-Up. It's going to be one of the missions at our tanks only event, 'May Madness' we will be having May 3rd at FdB in Gatineau. The idea was to have an all armored event where there are minimal support platoons containing anything other than tanks. Should be fun and hope you can make it out, or at least read about it once the AAR is done!

Standby.....GO!

This is it, the last of my three part series on Historicon 2013. 'Sitzkreig' is the new thing taking over Flames of War posts far and wide. It seems a lot of people had issues with people taking too much time during their games and now the community is looking for a way to fix it. That subject is for another post, for now I will close out this post with coverage of my games and my own thoughts on how Nationals went from my perspective. My first game was against Russ from CGR and we had a busy and great game! He really pushed with his forces and really put his Panzerspahkompanie German list to my limits, the 82nd really had to fight them off and keep the enemy from capturing their objective. Everything from Infantry, Panzer II's and Marders, this list had it all and was tough to fend off.

Looking back on this game a week later, I think I was luck with my deployment area and it worked out that I could only allow Russ to get to the objective by pressing hard against the dug in Airborne platoon. The Anti-Tank guns were able to suppress the incoming armor, and there was a lot of it! I got a lucky roll early in the game and was able to range in on a column of tanks and blew up three of his Panzer IV's. That was a big boost, as then my Sherman and Firefly platoon that came in on the secondary objective in the Reserve area, only had to deal with one Panzer IV. Russ had no choice but to trade shots with me a few times and we both went to the end, never losing that one Panzer IV to enemy fire. The Sherman and Firefly that were engaging it never hit it to take it out. Back to gunnery school for the guys in the platoon. My other tank platoon did not fair as well, they bogged a few times and got a little bottle necked and Russ was able to capitalize with Marder shots, nearly wiping out my platoon.

These two games were just plain tough! Steve was really patient with me and knew I had my hands full moving across open terrain, the threat of air attack and constant artillery kept me from getting an entire platoon across the board, they assaulted one of his observers and moved into the woods with intention of taking out his Nebelwerfers but we ran out of time. Dave kept me busy with his Canadian list, his use of devastating bombardments time and time again was enough to rattle the fillings out of my teeth! I was aggressively defending two objectives and was able to hold him off the right side of the table. He came at me with everything on the left, Shermans, Archers, Buffalo's, and infantry. We literally went down to time with his platoon commander carrying on the assault all by himself as a last ditch effort to win the game. I held my ground with four remaining stands and came out with a single point in this close loss.

Russ closes in with all the armor he could muster!

Really nicely painted Audie Murphy.

Get off the road!!

Beach landing display board.

I love airfields, this one was excellent!

Hard to taxi through a cratered runway!!

Rob and Dennis plan their next move at the I-95 Doubles

Cool rocket effects!

M-57 Anti-Tank guns cover their 82nd Airborne brothers as the Germans move in!

Now that it's all over for the next little while, we'll likely be looking at heading down to Fall In, being held in Lancaster PA. The ten hour drive was a long one, but worth it for this great event. I'll be busy in the next little while getting some battle reports ready for the Overlord campaign and deciding on whether to prep  an Early War army for next year. I'll likely get some more posts done in the coming week, hope you enjoyed the series!

World of Not Painting and FnF

With some well deserved time off of work, I have been busy painting, reading, and trying to get some things done around the house. With the arrival of my parents from the east coast of Canada, I need to get this all out of the way and finished so I can make my way to Historicon relatively 'guilt' free.
Having time off and having friends living close to downtown, it's easy to get a game in at Boutique FDB's (Freres de Bataille) new store. Obviously with the french name, it's a short trip over the bridge into Gatineau Quebec, where they recently moved into their newer, brighter and roomier space. Dennis and myself were eager to trial our Historicon lists and generally talk about our other passion at the moment, World of Not Painting, also known as World of Tanks to everyone else in the Flames of War, or PC gaming community. If you're not a PC gamer, the Xbox 360 will soon have it as well, I know the July 4th weekend was the BETA for the game and so far has had great reviews. The game however will be hosted on a separate server, so right now Xbox vs. PC for World of Tanks is a no go for Wargaming.net

Most Tank Battles End Up Like This

Friday Night Fights & Project Ultra for WWPD

This week on the virtual battlefield, it was an all Infantry affair as I continued to test Rob's Canadians for the upcoming 2013 Historicon tournament. We rolled up 'No Retreat' as the mission. Seeing as we both field foot footsoldier lists, we had to roll over who would attack. I came up with the higher number after Rob rolled a big fat 1. After choosing which end he would defend, we began deployment and objective placements. Enjoy the video of the game and I happened to take some pics as well covering most of the action.

Looking at the board layout, Rob chose the best side from which to defend. No matter which way I wanted to approach from, there were going to be a lot of slow moving anti-tank guns and bog checks moving 4" at a time in order to get range on those dug in Canadians. I have to say after being bombarded nearly every turn, rocket batteries are the way to go for maximum effect on target.

88's in tow, the Germans make their push!

88 nach unten! PAK 40 VORAUS!!!  (88's down! Pak 40's advance!)

I had a hard time breaking through all the terrain to get my guns going during the game. Rob did a good job of deploying his reserves to prevent my Tigers from over running his rocket battery positions at the rear of the table. His 6 Pdr guns in ambush made quick work of my Tigers, destroying two while they tangled with his Shermans and Fireflys.

Canadian tanks hold off the Tigers from taking any more ground!

I hope you enjoy the video, it was not as shaky as the last one and I captured most of the turns with all the 'key' action. I won't tell you how it ended, but there certainly was a lot of back and forth between both sides during this game. I have also been working on a side project for WWPD that should be made public shortly, I have some things to discuss with Steve, and I look forward to his feedback and going ahead with letting WWPD nation into what's transpiring. I think a lot of other people will be excited about this as I have been putting it all together.

I'm also hoping that those of the WWPD Network affiliate sites have a chance to get together 'post-podcast' at Historicon. I'll be looking into a place where we can maybe get to and have a drink or two and share some war stories and meet others that make the WWPD what is, the best community for Flames of War! I am making significant progress on my US Para troops and all their support elements. Here is a latest pic of on of my LMG stands, just so I have something other than a rifle/mg and command team stands being posted over and over again.

Enjoy the game!

Death From Above!

Never having painted strictly a mass amount of 15mm 'Infantry' figs before, I'm finding myself a bit overwhelmed to get through them all! Back in April I had some time off work to do a few stands and really experiment with colors and techniques in order to get it right the first time. If you missed it, you can find that entry HERE Doing this ahead of time when you have never painted 104 figures before, is the best way of getting the necessary research together. Painting videos, color charts and countless hours of Band of Brothers all helped in my road to victory......at least the uphill battle part of getting them done. The greatest delay of getting through all these is partly because I was working on some armor for a tournament around the same time I started my Paras. Since then, I have been playing my Germans almost every 'Friday Night Fights'.

Three completed stands up front.

Final detailing, washing and basing details are next!

Aside from war gaming, I am an avid WW2 history buff and have always been fascinated by the men and missions that shaped our world. I've been lucky enough to feel the waves of Utah,Omaha, Juno and Dieppe crash against my feet while I made tracks in the sand. I've dug up artifacts the Germans left behind in the 'Falaise Pocket'. I've even lit a candle and had some time to reflect on it all, in the famous church at Sainte-Mere-Eglise. Vimy Ridge, Pegasus Bridge, all the museums of Normandy, and locating Michael Wittman's resting place were all small highlights of my trip in 2007. Though let's be clear, a member of the SS himself, I respect Wittman's abilities as a tank commander, not any of his political or fanatical viewpoints.

For now, I can only look back at pictures and think of all the sights and experience of seeing it all up close as I finish what will likely be my last army for Flames of War for some time to come, that is until I start to assemble the boxes of Battlefront M4A3 76mm Shermans, Plastic Soldier Company M4A1 and Firefly tanks I have lying around!

St-Mere-Eglise

One of the guns of the 'Longues-sur-Mer' Normandy battery. Four 155mm guns made up the battery.

Tournament Day! (Aftermath Version)

(Just a short excerpt from Saturdays action)Taking an early break after Cash ran down my Pak 38's with a swarm of tanks. My German army is finally getting some play time after being away for 8 weeks.With two games down, I am sitting 1-1 with a chance to win my next game after dinner break. I am still messing around to learn a few ways that my new list plays. I am playing a Panzergren Infantry list from Grey Wolf and have added 8cm mortars, 88's, Panzer IV and Marder platoons for armored support. With 4 HMG's being thrown in the mix, it sits at 1500 on the nose. I will post the exact breakdown when i get a chance. END Quick Report

OK! So it's early Sunday and the aftermath of Summer Siege has taken its toll on my army! I learned a ton of info from playing in my second tournament and likely only my 20th game or so of Flames of War. Here's a better breakdown of what I experienced yesterday which ended in a 1-1-1 record. I promised to list what I used during the tournament so here it is, based out of the 'Grey Wolf' source book. It finally gave me a chance to table the bulk of the pre-painted German army I had bought from a friend in Kingston. I added a few Plastic Soldier Company Panzer IV's and a pair of 88's I quickly painted to get ready for this event.

45    Grenadierkompanie HQ
165    Grenadier Platoon
165    Grenadier Platoon
135    Grenadier Machine-gun Platoon
125    Grenadier Mortar Platoon
60    Grenadier Anti-tank Gun Platoon
450    Panzer Platoon
190    Tank-hunter Platoon
165    Heavy Anti-aircraft Gun Platoon
------
1500

My thinking with this list is it has a little bit of everything. I played against three very different Allied lists and the flexibility of the the chosen missions and what I was facing came in handy for each game. All units are Confident Veteran and I was able to make use of the full 1500 points.

Game one I faced Yvon and his US Infantry list with a TON of artillery support. Obviously I need to start keeping track of other armies, or learn what everything is just by looking at it.....but you'll have to put up with my vague descriptions for now. I will have a look and post later if I can find the army lists from the tournament.

 Played out on the 'Airfield' board that was setup with a huge open strip of concrete running down the center. I was able to deploy on this side of board and dig in around the small hill in the center and just in front of the bombed out farm house.

DUG IN!

Achtung! Amerikanische Truppen voran!

I could not do much to stop the advance and my opponent was quickly able to overrun my MG42's, Mortar platoon and threaten my 88's. I killed a few stands of infantry and 105 arty pieces with my Panzers, but was unable to destroy any platoons. The objectives were not live until turn 6 and I was able to hold out long enough for a win.....I'll take it.

Tank terror was not an issue for the Allies, I think I killed two stands but quickly lost the Panzer.

Game two can be summed up like this. ONE: Deploy units. TWO: Shoot and bail out two of three Stuarts. THREE: Lost PAK 38's to Cromwell onslaught. FOUR: AMBUSH!! Pop out 88's and destroy some armor! FIVE: "Wait......what? Nothing within 4" of objective on your turn? Son of a #*&(^!!!.....OK, let's drink! It was over on turn 3 and was left thinking I had chosen the wrong side of 'The Town' to deploy my troops in. I did get some wicked shots and used a few special effects on my new HTC One S!

AOP!

PAK 38's Squished

Old Skool Wartime Pic

Game three was an open affair on a desert table, playing as quickly as possible, I did not have any time to take any pics and it was a slugfest with a mix of tanks going head to head in the desert. I was able to dispatch my opponents Firefly's, Shermans and recovery assets quickly. I did not come away unscathed, I lost 4/5 Panzers in the process as I could not get my crews to remount their bailed out tanks in three straight turns. I stuck around with my IC long enough to protect them from getting side and rear shots for a round or two, but was quickly overrun by my opponents special 'ability' to move and extra distance upon a successful skill check as long as this General was within command distance. A very good allied list and the best sport of the day. Hat's off to you Serge, was a good time without reserves until turn 5 or 6.......we ended on a draw with me gaining an extra point because I was able to dispatch of a platoon of his tanks.

At the end of the tournament we had prizes, a few speeches and I came away with two paint sets courtesy of getting voted best sportsmanship! I appreciate the votes and it makes me aware that I am in it for the fun. I think I am getting better, but realize quickly I need to play test a lot more than ZERO when fielding a new army....but getting it painted was definitely more important to me. The event was a great success for the players involved. Brett and Rob overcame a few last minute curveballs of no-shows to put on a great tournament and the Royal Canadian Legion BRANCH#641 was a great venue and having a bar was a huge plus as Captain Morgan helps with my self morale checks when you lose a game in three turns.

Scotty doesn't condone drinking and tanking......he HIGHLY recommends it.

 

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot

Basically Who The....you get the idea.
Being the new(b) guy on the block has always been the tough place to be in when busting into a new game. I've been lucky enough over the past few weeks to get to know the guys who are associated with this blog and their circle of friends that play Flames of War. I just want to post up and let you know who I am and a bit about me.

As many others before me, I got into gaming during my teenage years. Never having played a lot of miniatures until I got into Battletech in the late 90's. I'm an avid PC and console gaming fan and recently picked up Flames of War after seeing the game being played at J&B Books in Trenton.

I used a donor army of Soviet tanks to learn the very basics of the game and was excited to learn a new version was about to change everything and this was the best time to get into FoW.
Poking around online and reading books, once again borrowed.....I found myself immersed in WW2 stories, strategy and paint schemes. I have always been a WW2 buff, whether family, movies or books, the history and mechanics make Flames a great game to play. Not only does any army on the field of battle have a chance to win, but you also pay for your mistakes as you would in real life should you ever find yourself not spreading out your T-34's for example and come under bombardment from 155's in your first game. Not that it happened to me, it happened to a friend of a friend.

I've been lucky enough to live all over the world in my near 36 years on this planet and I am looking forward to what the future of this game and hobby bring.

See you in the middle.

Me in 2007, Normandy France

 

 

 

 

D-Day to Victory: WWII Website

My friend Stef has been working on a new site.  Thought you might be interested...

http://ddaytovictory.ca/

He says TTT may have provided some of the inspiration to the 3D graphic designers for the 'miniature' images on the site (not in the show)...

from Stef
The intro was inspired by the opening credits to Game of Thrones, and they wanted a real miniature look. So I directed them to my blog and Flickr set for FoW... and more importantly - the Tabletop Tacticians! So let the guys know that they provided some inspiration for our work :)

Take a look around the site, and if you could, please add a few quick words to the Remembering the Heroes section. Thanks!

Gepanzerte Panzergrenadierkompanie Done! Woot!

Part of the reason why I take on painting projects, and I'll go out on a limb to say that the reason why almost everyone takes them on, is because of the incredible sense of accomplishment that comes when you have finished a major milestone in an army's collection.

I have just reached that milestone and finished my 1500pt list for the OMG FoW tournament on

Oct. 16th. So with a full 16 days ahead of schedule I am finished my army and love the way that my Gepanzerte Panzergrendadierkompanie looks. I do have 2 German objective markers to work on but I don't really count them.

So here is how my army composition works:

Really knowing nothing about army composition for FoW or Germans for that fact, I kind of went for something that would feel aggressive and would have a lot of pretty toys to look at. Some troops, some vehicles, tanks and some finesse to the army.

I've loved playtesting the army so far. While sometimes it does feel like it is pretty light (to the point where I consider changing it up for a Lehr list by taking out the Brummbars and a

Panzer IV and replacing them with a Heavy Morter Platoon and some Pak40s for a more static list) it does seem to perform wonderfully.

Getting the camoflage right was a bit of a trick initially. I wasn't really sure how to go about doing to traditional late war German camo scheme for vehicles considering that I didn't have an airbrush, but Dennis had recommended Dirty John's post on WWPD and that changed everything. Thanks John, and Dennis!

It's hard to pick a favourite unit. Right now I think it would be the Panzer IVs, they look totally

awesome, but I love the aggressive nature of the Pumas and they tend to set the tone for my army; busting out of the deployment zone, headed gibbering and slavering for the enemy in a

wild fury (at least in my mind).

So far the Brummbars tend to be either totally incredible or do nothing at all. They are the slow, implacable advance element to my otherwise speedy, bloodthirsty army. My Panzer IVs have a great deal of firepower and the Panzergrenadiers are a very solid component to nearly any army IMHO.

Anyhow, so there we go. All done. Might modify but we'll see how the rest of the playtesting continues.

German Half Tracks

I really had to wrestle with getting down to painting today. Knowing that it was one of the last warm days of summer, I wanted to spend my Sunday outside but I was already 2 days behind on my fairly unforgiving painting schedule.

So instead I set up the table out on the front balcony and went to work. I managed to finish off

the rest of my half tracks belonging to the Gepanzerte Panzergrenadiers that I painted up earlier in the week.

I'm not completely happy with how they turned out. The varnishing process ended up highlighting the drybrushing more than I wanted it to and in a perfect world I'd like the camo effect to look more like what Ca$h did in his post, but that would have required an airbrush which I don't have at

the moment. So all told it worked out fine and they'll look decent enough on the table.

I opted for a darker look, painting them the German Armour Dunkleghelb from the FoW paint line and then giving them a decent wash with Gryphonne Sepia from the GW range to highlight the panel lines and bring in some relief on the detail. I then went over some of those lines again with a felt tip pen, I used Germain Feildgray from Vallejo and some Flat Brown for the other camo colour. I enjoyed the red hue to the Vallejo Flat Brown so opted for that instead

of any other kind of brown. I went over the tracks and wheels with black and then highlighted the tracks with Boltgun Metal from GW and then muddied them with a basic brown (Khaki I think). I did the detail work and then drubrushed the entire model with English Uniform to bring up some more detail.

Next week I get to do it all over again as I'll be painting another platoon of Gepanzerte

Panzergrenadiers and the accompanying half tracks.