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!

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? 

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.

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.

Fallschirmjager Mortar Platoon Finished

It is fair to say that I have been in a bit of a hobby funk recently.  I have been away on holiday, reading books and the like, and well one's spare time can change some what so instead of picking up that paint brush one finds oneself with a book in one's hand. And a glass of scotch...

Any way I have finished a mortar platoon for my FJ army.  For the eagle eyed you will see the two story house from the FOW subscription.

All quiet on the gaming front as well.  Steve and I are meaning to get some more FOW going, but we are playing board games right now.  Me thinks that Steve too is in something of a hobby funk too.  Snap out of it Steve!  You have a lot of painting to do!

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. 

2014 Briefing

Getting ready for another Flames of War game this week Dan and I stepped into the games room and this is what we found...

The thoughts of finishing last weeks game were crushed as Dans daughter had attempted her own game. It puts a whole new meaning on the phrase 'panzer parking lot'. So we decided the only possible solution was a pint at the pub and plan out 2014.

We discussed three key different gaming activities to be on the cards. Number one of course gaming and more specifically Flames of War. We decided to stress the fact that this was not just gaming, but training as Dan and I want to give competitive FOW a shot.

Board-gaming is number two. There are lots of games out there we want to give a shot. I am hoping to get a copy of Twilight Imperium an epic space game at some point. There are also a few new games on the shelf like Galaxy Trucker and Firefly the group is keen to take for a spin.

A stegosaurs has taken over the galaxy in Firefly

Lastly we want to give RPGs another shot but break away from D&D and it's shoddy combat mechanic (see details of our last adventures here). We have had ideas over the last while of Call of Cthulhu which has more of an emphasis on role-playing and investigation rather that combat. Cut out the bad and in with the new I say.

Happy Gaming for 2014!

Just a small side note. After last weeks Flames of War game I have had inspiration and have got back into painting. I just have been bogged down by my large american armoured rifle platoon so it is taking a while to finish. Photos of at least the infantry by the end of the week... hopefully.