German Recon Platoon

I have been in a bit of a protracted hobby funk recently.  I have struggled to get motivated to pick up a paint brush, let alone blog about it.  Steve has been carrying the blog for some time now.

I have finally got around to painting up a recon platoon to go with mu Fallschirmjager army.  Mobile recon is helpful with the FJ because they are a pretty static bunch.  A lot of lists for them have infantry scout platoons for recon, which I did not like the look of.  The Ersatz FJ in Bridge by Bridge have the option of a halftrack platoon, with a sdkfz 250/1 as command and 250/9s in support.

Battlefront were out of the 250/9s, so I sourced these guys from Forged in Battle.  They have the built in base which I am not a fan of generally, but the quality of the casting was quite good and there was a lot of detail on the halftracks.  Here are the pictures:

Hopefully it will get me motivated to do some more painting!

Attack Wing: D&D

Thats right folks, Dungeons and Dragons are making a game utilising the FlighPath game system seen in such games as Star Wars X-Wing which I have blogged about now and then. The game will be called Attack Wing: Dungeons & Dragons.

But there are no spaceships in D&D right? Well apparently players will control dragons which they will fly around the table. As far as I am aware like Star Wars X-Wing and Star Trek Fleet Captains they are releasing a starter set with 3 dragons. However unlike Star Wars and Star Trek D&D is planning on introducing ground units like giants and wizards.

Dogfighting dragons huh? I think it sounds like it would be a fun game and adding ground units will make it a more diverse game. However my gripe would be that in the space dogfights the manoeuvre dials which are used to fly can be quite clinical with either basic turns, banks or moving straight forward, this works well for spaceships, I would imagine Dragons to be able to move in a more versatile manor. Who knows what will happen anyhow, I look forward to see what they come up with. Admittedly I probably won't get this game due to already investing in Star Wars X-Wing. 

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? 

First Gaming Table

I'm feeling pretty chuffed. After years of playing games on the kitchen table I now have a dedicated gaming table. We decided a month or two back to get a bed for the spare room which is a king single however a trundler fits perfectly underneath. The trundler not only makes two beds for guests but also raises up to the perfect hight to make the bed into a superior king sized beds for couples. We now have a new flatmate however who had a bed so we set the guest bed up in the second lounge for guests. That was when the idea came to me, if we put the spare mattress under our bed we can put a piece of ply and felt on the guest trundler to pull out for games. One of the great things about the idea is now being able to leave games set up hidden away under the bed. Fortunately my flatmate Zac is a builder so cut the ply into shape and came away with a result.

We initiated the table with a game of 2 player Eclipse. We both played combat focused race. I played Rho Indri Syndicate (effectively space prates) and Zac the Orion. Zac lost and I won my 3rd 2 player game in a row, score. In the photo you can see Zac recounting his points to confirm his defeat. 

In the background you can see some of my board game collection. 

As you can see I still need to get the felt but it is on order. In the end I am pretty stoked about all of this. It is nice to have a dedicated gaming space even if it has to be hidden away, just one step closer to a gaming room... I guess my only complaint is due to the table being a single bed its long and narrow so a odd size but it works. 

Now all I have to do is make some terrain for wargaming. I have some wood to make hedgerows following a method that I got off Big Lees Miniature Adventures here and trees from Scotts Wargaming here. Who knows I may even make some buildings with the left over MDF.