FOW free for all AAR part one

Another games club, another Flames of War game. This time I am using the 3rd US armoured division which are confident trained rather than confident veterans. I was doing my research and as the Americans have a lot of firepower they work best as trained. I guess the rational for this is to hit scores are based on your opponents skill rating so it really doesn't mater what your skill rating is. Trained armies win in shoot outs and veterans in assaults. Anyhow here is some photos of the first part of my 3rd US armoured division versus Dans fallschirmjäger army at 1300 points. The scenario is free for all. 

The set up after my first move. I started my armoured rifle platoon out of their halftracks defending the objective. 

I moved my 76mm shermans up with the recon to prevent Dan from ambushing with his cheeky panzerfaust teams which can spring an ambush from area terrain. We are not quite sure what that involves however as Dan was using buildings at one point. If anyone has any clarifications that would be great. 

  I used my command 75mm sherman to shoot smoke to reduce potential harm from Dans pathers. 

My thunderbolt got its first flight however only being strength one I had to reroll my first batch of successes of which I got 100% of my dice rolls only to get 40% on the second roll, hitting on a 2+. 

A mid game drink. Quite a tasty one. Unfortunately there are no records of Dans last turn but it involved some movement but and no successful shots. 

In round two the thunderbolt bombed Dans panther and a pak40, unfortunately the panther saved his armour save but the pak40 couldn't stand the heat!

Afraid for my tanks I moved them all tother up my left flank with recon protecting them from surprise ambushes.

I moved my mortars into position to provide covering fire and smoke. 

Success Pak40s smoked reducing the threat for my shermans in the open. 

 A view after my turn. Once again Dans next turn goes undocumented but it invoved him moving up, sprining a ambush with a panzerfaust team on my armoured mortars and like me rolling miserably scoring 0 hits, oh except that Pac 40 I blew up.

The next turn involved me advancing my shermans shooting some covering smoke, while I was at it destroyed his Pak 40 platoon and foolishly assaulted one of dans fallshirmjager platoons. 

Dan's platoon was still pined from last turn but all his troops had panzefausts and were at 100% strength. No amount of covering smoke could prepare me. He missed all his shots from the teams in the smoke but the three out managed to all hit. One 76mm sherman was destroyed and one bailed. Then in Dans turn he finished them off. 

My armoured rifle platoon did managed to destroy 2/3 of Dans armoured recon teams on the other side of the field however.  

In Dans turn he advanced and took out half my armoured mortar platoon with the rest of his panzerfaust teams. 

Then we called it a night. We are planning to finish this game in a fortnights time. I feel though we destroyed a platoon each I feel Dan is at an advantage as my platoons were more costly and he is in a good position. I guess I jumped the gun with my assault where I should of sat back moving and shooting which Americans are good at. Also I forgot to use my recon to lift gone to ground, doh'. 

For a second run with the US armoured devision I feel I did well and learn some hard mistakes I shan't make again in a hurry, namely destroying my 76mm shermans by assaulting a fully armed platoon. I am looking forward to revising the force and trying again. Plus despite everything we had a great time!

P-47 Thunderbolt

You may recall about a week ago a post about stripping my Flames of War Thunderbolt because I was unhappy with the paint job (you can read the post here). Well now I have finished my second attempt at painting her up. Throughout the paint job I felt unhappy with it as I found the model quite hard to paint. Perhaps it was because there isn't much definition making it hard to paint from dark to light or do an effective wash. I later found out that there are useful ways to do washes for such models like using a pin. However after a paint job which took to long I decided finally to call it complete. After a day the paint job grew on me but I would still say its a pretty shoddy paint job. However warts and all here it is:

The writing below the aeroplane reads DEATH FROM ABOVE which I copied from the film Apocalypse Now, a real classic. Anyhow, as mentioned above I am not 100% happy with this, more like 55% however I got sick and tired of painting it so it was time to move on and call it a day. After all it still will blow up german steel no matter how bad it looks doing it, right? 

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. 

M3 half tracks

Finally after much procrastination I have finished my American armoured rifle platoon. A few weeks back I completed the infantry and now I have completed their rides! Without more to do here are the pictures.

I numbered these to match up with the infantry squads

Now for some close ups.

There are a few more infantry models I need to paint up and glue into place however these are good enough for now. It was a real mission painting up the armoured rifle platoon due to the share size of it but if feels great having it done. Now I am moving on to an armoured mortar platoon with M4 81mm half tracks.

I am taking these suckers out for their first spin on Wednesday with Dan. I can't wait to see how they get along, it will likely end it bullets and explosions.

Armoured rifle platoon infantry finally finished

More than a few months back I began working on my Flames of War American armoured rifle platoon. After a 6 month holiday in Europe, working on some Empire of the Dead bobbies and plenty of procrastination I have finished the infantry. Unfortunately I still have 3 half tracks to go but at least its a big step forward to completing my American Hell on Wheels company.

The different squads are separated out as you can see

Command with the M3 37mm gun which can be swapped for a bazooka team

Rifle squad number 1

Rifle squad number 2

Mortar team

Light machine gun team

I broke this guys base while painting,
now he is limping along side his partner

The backs are labelled by squad to match their half tracks

labelled halftrack 

I quite like this platoon, it is nice have such a large diversity of units in a squad, yet the riflemen with ROF 1 keeps the cost down. It felt like quite a mission painting these guys up as it is a large platoon especially when you include the half tracks, however the most important thing is they will look amazing on the table alongside the rest of the company. 

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.