Hell on Wheels gets its First Outing

Steve's American Armoured Company saw its first action last week.  Work commitments (otherwise known as four days of fishing in Golden Bay) have got in the way of this being posted, so my apologies for it being a little dated.  But last Wednesday Steve was able to put together a 1300 point American Armoured Company known as "Hell on Wheels".

We played "surrounded" with my Fallschirmjargers holding the middle of the table.  I was using a Bridge by Bridge list of Ersatz FJ, with Panthers in support and those rather handy panzerfaust teams that Colonel Von der Heydte comes with.  Here's some pictures:

The FJs in the centre:

The American armour lined up:

 Panthers lie in wait:

The view on the right flank:

The aftermath:

 After some initial gains, the American armour was dealt a heavy blow from the panzerfaust teams in the woods.  We muddled through the rules a little on them, but they hit a hard blow against the Shermans.  The Panthers took care of another platoon on the far side and Steve soon called it a day.  He had taken out two of the pak 40s and a number of infantry teams, but was on the brink of having most of his platoons destroyed.

It was all played in a good spirit and Steve was a good sport despite my panzerfaust guys being a little too strong it seemed...  He has plans for next time, which include a better terrain arrangement.  On that note, the eagle eyed of you will see that there are the new Battlefront buildings there - the corner store, the large house and the Bastogne Church.  All looking good on the table top.  The paint job on the church is a bit average but the others are all very good.

Stripping thunderbolt

That was as raunchy I could make that title sound. As you probably guessed this post is about paint stripping my battlefront P-47 thunderbolt. After multiple attempts of trying to paint the panels white unsuccessfully I finally made the decision to strip the paint and start again. When I made that decision, instead of feeling like I wasted hours it felt good knowing that I had accepted defeat and could start afresh. Unfortunately I did not take photos of my failed paint job so you will just get some pictures of the stripped model.

The first choice I had to make was what to strip it with. I read some pretty mixed thoughts about using nail polish. One forum had some guy saying...

Whens the best time to use nail polish to remove paint? Never! 

So what do I do? Tempt fate and use nail polish on my ?resin P-47 Thunderbolt because I couldn't be bothered getting anything else. Here is the chemical ingredients full of nasty things that may ruin my model.

I believe I read some advice that dipping for short 5 second period then scrubbing with a toothbrush did the trick. So that is what I did. About 10 minuets later this is what I got: 

Not bad. I didn't get some of the paint off, not sure why but it just wouldn't budge. I believe there is some definition missing but nothing noticeable. I guess I would recommend for those who are planning on doing this. Dip the model in nail polish for about 5 seconds, then scrub some paint off the repeat till its all shinny. 

I think I will do a paint scheme along these lines...

Except for with teeth and:

DEATH FROM ABOVE

Quoted of course from Apocalypse Now, brilliant film.

Hell on Wheels objective markers

In preparation for my Hell on Wheels companies first outing this Wednesday I have whipped up a couple of objective markers. I had a spark of creativity, 'I know lets use newspaper to make it look like top secret information'. So I stuck some cardboard together, used a bit of sand and painted the Hells on Wheels patch to get this:

Well I think in the end it looks alright, but just alright. I guess my main concern is it doesn't really fit the theme of the game, unless the ol' man likes his morning news paper. I can't say I knew what I was expecting yet this will do the trick until I make or get some new ones. A advantage of these is I prefer flat objective markers as it stops the confusion of the markers not being terrain pieces. 

Loose Ends

Well it is almost time for take off and I thought I should tie up some loose ends.

The new Airbus and personal assistant Robbie

My wife and I are heading off to Europe for a trip through France, the UK, Italy, and Slovenia (plus a few hours in Croatia). The last few weeks have been busy with moving and working on some last minute tasks so I haven't painted a heck of a lot. However here is what I have done out of my Armoured Rifle Platoon for the Yanks.

Completed so far

Half tracks will have numbers to correspond with the teams they carry

Platoon command section

LMG team and bazooka team

I think they are looking A OK. However my bases are pretty simple, which I like. I think the flock grass has a cleaner look to static grass. When I get back I may add some extra foliage to give them a tad more intrigue.

One key loose end I have been trying to sort out is Wayland. They are in my bad books right now. Four weeks after I have ordered (as mentioned in a previous post here) and they are still trying to get my thunderbolt in stock. They said it should take 3-9 days for this to happen. Grumble. I tried to get them to split the order and send my tanks and priests separately however they flat out refused unless I paid an extra fee (it wasn't really that large to their credit).

I am not sure what to do now. Cancel my order or just the thunderbolt in fear of never getting anything or wait it out. After all I am away 6 weeks, it will probably be sitting in Dan's office (where I send my packages to) when I get home.  Anyhow any ideas on where to go from here or similar experiences? Either way both Dan and I think it is pretty annoying these places can sell you stuff, and take your money for items they don't even have! I think I will start ordering with Caliver books now because at least they don't make any promises.

Well I am off for 6 weeks now. Dan will be master and commander of the blog so keep checking for posts. Hell I may even make a post or two while I am overseas.

A Gaming Manifesto

Flames of War gaming night last night can be summed up as:

Know the feeling?

There was a bit of tension there, which I in part added to (okay was primarily responsible for).  For me, I feel that unless I am "policing" what happens in the other side's turn then I will be taken for a ride - particularly over-measuring which is my personal bug bear.

Perhaps we should leave our weapons at home when we play

The other issue that gets me is the "squidgy shot" that skims the outside of a wood, just fits between two buildings and takes out your tank or something.  I find it impossible to protect against that sort of thing and must confess I think ultimately such shots are somehow against the spirit of the game (which they are not).  I also feel that the game would slow down to a crawl if I had to measure and ask about each potential shot before moving.

Really, I need to chill out a little and enjoy the game and allow such things to happen as part of the game.  What we need is a gaming manifesto for our group to stop things disintegrating.  Something we all buy into, so that I feel like I don't need to "police" things, and also so I don't affect the vibe by being the annoying guy.
Your thoughts on what should be added would be helpful.  Something like:

1. I will trust that the other side is playing within the rules of the game and the spirit of the game.
2. I will not over-measure.
3. I will ask on a clarification about line of sight in my own turn.  If I don't ask, then tough.
4. It is better to lose and have fun that win and be a dick.

Last night wasn't helped by the fact I hadn't played for a while and I have holes in my understanding of the rules.  Steve pointed out later that one of my platoons lost its command (it was an armoured car platoon) and couldn't have taken one of the objectives for instance.  I also get very confused about shooting through friendly teams in the same platoon (another pet hate is the need to carefully arrange teams so that they can all shoot / assault etc).

The scenario we played was not one of the usual missions either, it was a scenario from the FOW website (Recce over the Canal) that was a little confusing to say the least.

Your thoughts on this issue would be good - any additions to the manifesto would be helpful.

Birthday aliens, tanks and drills.

Well its that time of year again where I grow a year older and get some sweet new toys. This year my dad got me a nice Bosch drill! Pretty happy with that, now I just need something to make holes in. I am also getting some tanks, priests, a thunderbolt and M4 mortars for my americans. I ordered (I order my own presents, its easier that way) from caliver books, they came within a week, not bad. However I ordered the rest from Wayland 3 weeks ago, all marked as in stock, and they haven't been posted yet. They sent some response a week back saying

Unfortunately the delivery from our supplier has had a slight delay, I have been informed that it should arrive by the end of next week.

Once this delivery arrives your order will be processed and shipped as soon as possible.

I apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Maybe they meant to say it the packaged got destroyed in transit.

However surely that means what was in stock was not. In the end it isn't a huge biggie as my Wife and I are going to Europe in less than 2 weeks so I would not have been able to paint them up anyhow. When I get back they should be safely posted to Dan's office. I might contact wayland again and give them a hurry up.

The other present I got was the expansion for Eclipse, Rise of the Ancients. It makes the already epic game even better. It adds quite a few elements, most notably however 4 new alien races. The Mallelan which are equivalent to humans and are on the back of their player boards the more specialist races. There are the Exiles a turtling race which specialises in defensive strategies; The Rho Indi Syndicate which are space pirates; and the shinny bug ninjas the Enlightened of Lyra who are a mix of a defensive race who can lash out at the end game effectively. This can increase the game from a 2-6 to 2-9 player game. This is pretty epic as even a 6 player game can take 4-5 hours, luckily they added a fast play variant involving two ridiculously large pawns so two players can take turns simultaneously.

New races

Large simultaneous play markers. 

The expansion box compared to the game box

We played a game last night and added in some of the extra features such as new research, warp sectors and Chris and I played a new race each. I played the Rho Indi Syndicate and Chris the Exiles. I using my superior pirate intellect decided to take over sectors in a straight line down the middle of the map leaving me exposed to, well, everyone... I was winning but everyone quite rightly teamed up and took me down to town, I mean blew me up. Still I came second although we finished on round 8/9 due to time. Humph. I think part of my problem is I don't like being mean and attacking other players first in Eclipse, next game I think I will play the Enlightened of Lyra so I don't need to worry so much about this. All in all I am pleased with the expansion as it adds quite a bit but doesn't change the game play dramatically.

I have organised to play some boardgames with some mates from around town and am hoping to play Arkham Horror and Eclipse on Saturday so will keep you all posted.

Born to Kill Again or M4A1s and the US Company so Far

Woohoo my first 5 M4A1 Sherman's are finished! It is nice to see my US armoured tank company coming together. Anyhow here are quite a few photos:

Here they are, from the left the first three are one platoon and the last two are command. 

A close up of command. I decided to give them both hedgerow cutters. I wasn't sure if that was a good idea as getting them right up into the fighting may be dangerous. However I decided having the versatility of independent teams means I can send them where there needed, especially hedgerows. 

I couldn't resist putting born to kill on the side of my command tank. As you know I put Born to Kill in German on my StuGs (see this link here) and I like having quirks like this in my armies. I felt it was ok as it is almost a trademark now and it is in English not German this time. 

A shot of my company command.

This is the 2IC. I thought I would make his tank with stripy camo. I am planning on making a whole platoon of M4A1s with stripy camo and then the one here with dotty camo.

A shot of the M4A1 platoon. Ideally I will add another tank to this platoon.

A close up of the M4A1 command.

And a shot of the backs (and a front) to show the stowage.

This is a shot of the companies rides so far! I am feeling pretty stoked with these and am looking forward to putting them on the battlefield. Next up is my Armoured Rifle Platoon, already a little way into it. 

Hell comes in threes and the mysterious number 28, M4A1 76mm Shermans

Well my Hell on Wheels army is progressing nicely! Well it could be a Spearhead company depending on if I want confident veteran (Hell on Wheels) or confident trained (Spearhead). I have painted up three of my M4A1 76mm shermans. However I am leaving the last two for later so I can paint up my standard M4A1s to create the company command and core M4A1 platoon. So lets take a look!

Here they are, parked up for sunday mass in France!

Brrrrrreeeeeee. As Scott from Scott's War-gaming and Kapiti FoW Gamers once told us, making noises is MANDATORY!

The guy on the right is the platoon command and the guy on the left is Staff Sergeant Lafayette Pool all the way from Texas! As you can see Lafayette Pool has hedgerow cutters. Which raises a question, if you have a platoon of 3 tanks and half can have hedgerow cutters, do you round down and have one or round up and have 2? I guess it probably is only one.

As you probably know by now I like add a little extra to my forces, so here is my command proudly displaying the number of German tanks his platoon has destroyed! 28 and counting. I was actually thinking of doing this for real, after each game increasing the tally, however I couldn't wait to see how it would look. 

A rear view. The guy in the back is on carrying the spare gas duty! Hopefully a well aimed shot doesn't light the barrels.

Just for comparison, the M4A1 76mm (close) next to the M4A1 (far) to show the difference. The 76mm has a larger turret and gun of course and hard to see but a slightly larger body also.

The classic ridding off into the distance shot. All in all I am happy with these guys. The only complaints would be the difference in shading, the one on the far left is slightly lighter than the other tanks. This is probably because I am a bit of a stinge and water down black paint for my wash rather than use a pre-made wash. I have got my technique down for this now meaning a tad more consistency. The other thing is they are pretty dark, however I think that also helps them look very all American, don't know why but it does! 

Delivery by Recon

As soon as I finished my American armoured division recce platoon Dan came down my stairs (as we are temporary neighbours) with a delivery. My M4A1s and armoured rifle platoon arrived! The minis look pretty good so looking forward to painting them up. Next up I will order another M4A1 platoon, M4 mortar halftracks, priests and a thunderbolt. Anyway enough faf, here are some shots of my newly painted recon platoon.

Here they are, troops mounted, riding off into the sunset.

The whole platoon consists of; M4 halftrack with .50 AA MG and caries the command rifle team and bazooka team; two jeeps with optional AA MGs and a rifle team per jeep. The bazooka team and the extra jeep and rifle recon section are optional.

The bazooka team, if you look closely you can tell the guy at the back right has a distorted face... He was bullied at school and his only duty is to cary explosive ammo.

Here is my recon squad dismounted. I still find it hard to utilise recon, but if there was any use assaulting StuGs from behind would be awesome (it probably is a bad idea but why not)! You probably have also noted that I have given my solders the American cammo uniforms. I like these uniforms because the camo hides any mistakes and the back story. These uniforms were handed out to certain companies including the 2nd Armoured Division (Hell on Wheels), unfortunately they didn't tell any of the other Allies that these were being rolled out. It was at a time where if people were wearing cammo they were generally suspected to be Germans so there was a few to many encounters of friendly fire.

A shot of some troops in the back of a M3 halftrack which I painted up before the recce platoon to show off their cammo and the guy who has an awesome moustache in the centre.

Comparison of the two haftracks, M2 on the right. I think the M3 looks better and I like the stripy cammo. I did the cammo on my M2 with to brighter grey which I didn't like but I put the decal on overtop so didn't want to make it darker later on and have a random brighter spot under the decal.

Just a shot of the back of the jeeps and M2 halftrack.

Thats it. I have some tanks painted up but will wait till I have a whole platoon to show you. Looking forward to using these guys.