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.

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.

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!