FoW Night at the Museum! Part 1

(above) A real Panther! So Adam and I decided to hit up the Canadian War Museum, given that unlike everyone else at TableTopTacticians, we live downtown and not 30 minutes out in a suburb, and Adam had never been. Truth be told, I had only been here once before, and most of this stuff wasn't here, so it was new to me as well. Since other sites do tonnes of pics, I did mostly video of us "discovering" what they had here.

Video at the bottom with a few pics for you all.

This is view of the interior of a T34. Don't know if a hatch cut out of your frontal armor was the best idea ever, but it is surprisingly roomy, especially compared to the BMP-3 we see later on!

Close-up of the T34-85 Turret

(above) so in the immediate foreground, a Sherman, then you can see the turret of a Grant, and lastly, is a Canadian-Pattern 15 CWT truck, sitting on TOP of a Scissor bridge that is on TOP of a Churchill ARVE! Note the "Mickey-Mouse-Ear" pattern black on green camo on the truck. As a brit player, I had to get this shot!

Close-up of a Panzer II. I never knew there were some this light grey. I really like all the hatches that can swing out, providing better view and ventilation when out-of-combat.


Other stuff in the video that I didn't take pics of include: Puppchen, Nebelwerfer, 17 pdr, 25 pdr w/ limber & Canadian Quad, Soviet 122mm heavy artillery piece, Pak36, 6 pdr, even a Goliath! Turns out German 'red-brown' has a lot more red than we thought!

(Below) This is part 1 of 2, here we are in the main Hall, and Part 2 will have us in the interior exhibits, where we are on the hunt for a PanzerFaust. Enjoy

UPDATE: NOW 20 Video AAR's up on the AAR page.

(above) Adam beat me to it, finishing his army yesterday, but I just finished mine also: sdKz 182, aka PanzerVIB, aka Tiger II, completed, finally! I worked a bit on the Monastery I won at Skirmish for Best Painted.. it is pre painted but the rubble looked pretty bad, so I embellished a little.


However, the real announcement is I am slowly working on having ALL of our Flames of War Battle Report Videos on the AAR page (top below title up there), and I also have another 65+ 40k and WFB ones after we are done.

Keep in mind, these are our first ten games of Flames of War ever! Its neat though to look back and see the progress we have made in the past 10 months, with terrain and with models. I will try and put in another 10 this week sometime, but enjoy! UPDATE: all AAR's up to our large multiplayer game at the local Con are now up.



The first 20 can be viewed here:
http://tabletoptacticians.blogspot.com/p/after-action-reports.html

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.

FoW AAR 45: The Longest Day

(above) Adam's G Panzer Grenadiers on the advance, Fighting Withdrawal


A few of us had Monday off, so we decided, what the hell, lets get in a game at Brett's Basement of Doom. We figured we'd have enough time to get in a set of games, but it turns out it was "The Longest Day" with some rules queries, and so on, plus we got to see the end of a Fighting Withdrawal game. We went 8 full turns, even though it ends turn 8.. learning experience! Also, I was painting my Tiger II while they played, and it turns out i was 2/3rds finished when I realized I was doing it all wrong. Luckily I keep all my models in my army case, so I simply started on a different hull.


Adam's Puma's and infantry would stare down a FSJ unit in a trench line all game. I think Adam now knows that shooting vet inf. in Bulletproof cover is futile.


(above) while this would appear to be some PzIV's showing up from reserves, they are actually BEHIND Brett's units. Adam had a very mobile CO and PzIV, and not-so-mobile Brummbars who couldnt pass a Storm move to save their lives, and his second unit of infantry got pinned turn 1 by Neb's, and didn't unpin until turn 8!


(above) some Marders burn in a forest while dug in FSJ look on. They would end up getting completely surrounded, but luckily, the last objective was roughly 2 feet away, so they did their job which was delay units.

We ended up with a rules question for everyone: A tank platoon does an assault, forcing the unit to break off. The rules for "Breakthrough" say they can assault "another platoon" but can they assault the same platoon? We were getting a little fuzzy at the end, we just figured they probably couldn't.

Anyhow, Enjoy the video, it is roughly twice as long as normal given that we didn't have to worry about time or how late it was at night etc.

AAR 44, 21 Panzer vs FallSchirmJager +Rob's Canadians

(Above) Rob aka RKelly and Adam aka Clockwerks go toe to toe: Gepanzertes vs Canadians



Friday Night Fights, at Rob's place again on his gorgeous tables. Pripyat and I played on the Afghanistan/Italy table (video below) while I took some snapshots of their game. Rob has been toiling away at his Canadians, so I just had to post pics.

AAR 41-42-43 Quickshots

(above) Brent looking on as the vaunted Red Army Tankovy's start to go up in smoke...
..thanks to Tristan (Ca$H) Tigers, as he rocks the black gamer shirt look!


So last week, another 3 games got played, and I took some videos and some pics. Video at the end. I have bought a tripod, to hopefully address the "Shakey Cam" syndrome several have mentioned to me. We'll see how the vids turn out, assuming I remember to pack the tripod that is!

Enjoy pics & Vid.

Friday Night Fights AAR 40

(above) Desert Table, we rolled up Cauldron, with Lothlann defending with his 2. SS 'Das Reich' vs my 21. Panzerdivision.


Jeez, has it really been FORTY Flames of War Videos? If I add the old 40k ones I think we are up to 120 video battle reports.

Anyways, another Friday Night Fights, at Brett's (Pripyat's) Basement of Doom, and I square off vs Lothlann's SS. In a first for me, I am sticking with the same list over and over, in the hopes that it improves my game. I also hope that 1 of my 2 unpainted units "shine" to help me decide what to paint next.. Tiger II or 2nd unit of GPGrenadiers..

A first.. I will try and put up lists

21.Panzers
HQ GPGren's with Fausts
2 full units of GPGrens, with Fausts and AT gun halftrack upgrade
3 PanzerWerfers with extra crew
3 L37 15cm Howitzers with command halftrack upgrade
2 x FlaK36's ('88) with extra crew
PanzerVIB, not Panzer VII as Ca$h thinks during the video!! aka TigerII, aka KingTiger.

2. SS Das Reich
Grenadier command, with Schreck's combat attached to..
2 Grenadier units
3 Pak 40's, one each attached to Grenadiers, one Kampfgrupped to make even-number of platoons for reserves
2 x Jagdpanthers
4 x 10.5 Artillery