Back into to action!

So I've had a few Christmas presents which were themed towards my painting/modelling/gaming hobby. Firstly some American Artillery to go with my upcoming Kiwi rifles, then an Elefant to go into my Schwerepanzerjager company, some new buildings to put on the board to spruce things up and finally a new Airbrush/compressor setup all pictured on a shiney new camera!

The addictive perils of being an avid gamer (video and model)!

 So there's been at least a few weeks since I posted some of my more recent work, the more astute of you will notice theres a slight correlation between that tardiness and the release of several blockbuster video games. Yes, I admit it, I'm a video gaming addict and am even more prone to this ailment if a game features either (A) multiplayer co-operative and/or competative features or (B) some insanely massive and immersive world. Cue firstly Batman: Arkham City, then Battlefield 3, then Modern Warfare 3, then Skyrim, in the space of about 3 weeks.

 God help me.

 I'm going toa ctually give these games a mini review over the weekend and give my thoughts on them, however I'll tell you now my time is split between BF3 and Skyrim. If my mates are online I'll hammer the living bejesus out of BF3 if not, it's Skyrim.

 Firstly a quick word on MW3, purely on the multiplayer side you understand as the single player campaign was merely tying up ends and more of the same rinse/repeat CoD action Infinity Ward are famour for. Primarily I was left feeling MW3s multiplayer left a LOT to be desired, its interface is nicely polished, more so than ever before, but I can't help but feel they've opened up the maps way to much and made them very busy and messy. Gone are the open views matched with sometimes frustrating choke points from some of MW2 and Black Ops multiplayer maps, I find this a real loss. The maps are so hectic and fast that you'll just find yourself being gunned down or gunning somebody else down from the side or rear frequently even with team members around you. These maps seem smaller overall but packing in more tunnels and passages than ever before, I find this isn't condusive with my style of game play. Don't get me wrong I'm not a camper as such but I, with my team mates, like to be able to hold down a section of the map and know who's coming from where.
  Away from the negative, if you like fast and very furious you won't be let down, also to be noted is that even on "normal" mode (that is to say not hardcore) you are dropped very quickly compared to the CoDs of old which is one of the few things I like as I've always been a Hardcore only player in previous CoD incarnations.

I'll post thoughts of the other games I mentioned too over the next few days, especially BF3 which I have a massive Love/Hate relationship with at the moment, it's full of an insane number of minor and major bugs but I just keep going back to it. Surely that's the sign of a good game under there somewhere?

Long Over Due Battle Report

Hi everyone, as promised here's the AAR for the game which Nate and Stuart played at the Blyth NAG club. The format on this is going to be the what each play did in their turn followed by pictures from the end of that turn. Instead of reading a wall of text about who did what and what went where it'll be short and sweet bullet points. Anyway on with the show!

The scenario rolled for was Breakthrough with Nate playing SS Kampfgruppe Spindler from A Bridge To Far and Stuart playing Guards Armour from Hell's Highway. The game was a timed two and a half hour game with some time added in just in case

Turn 1

Allies

• Infantry digs in on the hill
• Sexton's range in on the PaK 40 on the first attempt with a six
• Only manage to hit one stand of infantry which passes its save

Axis

• Successfully rolls for reinforcements and brings on the StuG and StuH 42
• Sends the trucks for the pioneers to the rear
• Marches his SS panzer crews towards the objectives
• Moves the StuG and StuH 42 towards the front lines
• Attempts to shoot the Shermans with the StuG and StuH but both fail to hit
• Nebelwerfer's range in on the cluster of Sherman tanks, manage to hit two but both passed their armour saves

Turn 2

Allies

• Sexton's observer digs in on the hill
• Sherman platoon A fired on the StuG platoon scoring three hits (two from the normal Sherman's and one from the Firefly)
• Two regular Sherman hits were saved but the Firefly penetrated the armour yet only bailed him
• The Sexton's rain down fiery death onto the already ranged in PaK40 and surrounding infantry but only managed to hit two stands.
• One stand failed its save but the Sexton's fail their fire power check

Axis

• No reinforcements arrive this turn
• The infantry just hit with the artillery unpins
• The StuH 42 crew remained bailed
• The SS Panzer grenadiers fire on the observer on the hill but miss
• The StuG fires on Sherman platoon A and scores a hit, Nate gun tanks the Firefly and passes the test but fails to penetrate the Firefly
• Nebelwerfer's fail to range in on the Sherman's

Turn 3

Allies

• No reserves arrive
• The 2iC and extra Sherman move forward
• Sherman Platoon A fires on the StuG platoon scoring two regular hits and one Firefly hit
• Two regular hits are saved but the Firefly penetrates and kills the StuH42
• The Sexton's bombard the PaK40 again managing to hit two stands of infantry and the PaK 40
• Infantry pass their saved but the PaK fails, Sexton's fail their firepower

Axis

• No reserves
• Infantry and PaK 40 both fail to unpin
• SS Panzer crew moves closer to the objectives
• The King Tiger comes into play and moves over a hedge and passes its bogging check
• The King Tiger lines his sights up on the Sherman's of platoon A but misses
• The Nebelwerfer's range in this time and score three hits on the cluster of Sherman's but they all pass their armour saves
• The lone StuG fires on Sherman platoon A but misses
• The Panzer grenadier's once again try their luck on trying to kill the observer but miss again

Turn 4

Allies

• Reserves arrive and Stuarts come onto the board
• Stuart's move towards the Nebelwerfer's
• Stuart's open fire on the Nebelwerfer's PaK 40 and one of the rocket launchers and scored six hits, one failed gun save on the PaK 40 and three on the rocket launcher. All fire power tests fail
• Sherman platoon A fires on the lone StuG scoring eight hits (poor bugger), the StuG managed to save four normal Sherman hits and one Firefly but two normal hits and the remaining Firefly penetrate and destroy him
• Sexton's continue to shell the PaK 40 and Panzer grenadier positions but one manages to hit one stand of infantry which failed its save but the fire power failed to kill him

Axis

• Reserves arrive again and the Mobelwagen's move into the fight
• Panzer grenadier's, PaK 40 and Nebelwerfer's all unpin
• SS Panzer crews dig in on the objectives
• The Nebelwerfer's PaK fires at the Stuart's but misses
• The mobelwagen's fire on the Stuart's scoring a hit but only managing to bail it.
• Nate forces Stuart to take a motivation check to see if the Stuart's will break off which he fails so they are forced to retreat
• The King Tiger attempts to fire on Sherman platoon A again but misses once more
• The Nebelwerfer's once again range in on the cluster of Sherman's scoring two hits. Both Sherman's failed their armour saves, one fire power test passed and one failed.
• King Tiger Stormtroopers as do the Mobelwagen's

Turn 5

Allies

• Reserves arrive Sherman platoon B
• The bailed Sherman from platoon A fails to get back in as does the bailed Stuart
• Sherman platoon A moves into the cornfield to attack the SS Pioneers
• Sherman platoon B moves towards the Nebelwerfer's
• Sherman platoon A, CiC, 2iC and extra Sherman all fire their machine guns on the SS Pioneers but only manage two hits both infantry stands pass their saves
• Sherman platoon B fires PaK 40 belonging to the Nebelwerfer's with their main guns and machine guns. They scored one hit with the main guns and two with the machine guns.
• The PaK saved the two machine gun hits but failed to save the hit from the main gun. The Sherman passes its fire power test and the PaK is destroyed

Axis

• The SS Panzer crew moves towards the newly arrived Sherman platoon B
• SS Pioneers move into assault range of Sherman platoon A and the Command team
• The SS Pioneers flame thrower team targets the 2iC and shoots lighting him up
• They then roll a six for the firepower test blowing the tank up good and proper before retiring off the board
• The Mobelwagen's attempt to shoot the Stuart's again scoring three hits but fail to do any damage
• The King Tiger aims at Sherman platoon A and fires scoring one hit. The King Tiger passes his fire power test and cooks the Sherman
• The Nebelwerfer's range in on Sherman platoon A and scores one hit on the Firefly which fails its armour check
• Nebelwerfer rocket passes its fire power check and destroys the Firefly
• Infantry fires upon the Sexton's observer sitting on the hill and scores two hits but fails to kill him
• Sherman platoon A is below half strength and takes a motivation test to stay on the board which they pass
• The SS tank crews storm trooper move closer to Sherman platoon B
• The SS pioneers assault what was left of Sherman platoon A and the Command team, they pass their motivation test to assault tanks however they got pinned in defensive fire and lost two stands of infantry

At this point the time was up and the game declared a draw. I hope you enjoyed this AAR and any comments on how they can be improved are welcome.

More painting updates, I've been pretty busy.

With the benefit of hindsight I'd have painted this tank green/dunkelgelb rather than brown/dunkelgelb as the rust pigments just seem to blend in with the brown colouring on the hull on the end pictures. Still it's not totally finished yet theres a few more sections to do, hopefully have this finished tomorrow though.

With the paint chipping I tried to do something a little different and show the "oxide red" primer that German tanks were undercoated with but the colour choices I used were poor so I added black into the red sections I did which as you can see in the final pic tones them down quite a lot. There's still a few stages of varnish to go and some washes to add so they'll be toned down even more hopefully.

Base colours:

Some drybrushing and highlighting to tan areas.

Tracks and stowage/tools base coated and some chipping/wear added:

All metal areas drybrushed in gunmetal then mig rust and dry mud pigments added to various areas:

Jagdpanther and VK4501 updates.

Worked on this guy in between waiting for coats to dry on the VK4501 yesterday, not amazingly detailed but it's what I was going for:

Tidyed up some of the pin wash this morning and glossed over to seal:

VK4501(P) update.

So I got my hands on a lovely Battlefront VK4501(P) thanks to James as mentioned in the previous post. Here's some pics of it's current progress I've snapped in between working on my British stuff.

It's for a late war army I'm constructing which I'll reiterate at the bottom of this post. Gorgeous looking vehicle and you can really see where the Ferdinand/Elefant came from when you look at the drive train on this beast. I'll be painting this in a tri-tone camo that I'm going to be airbrushing on thanks to my brother in law has loaned me his compressor. The camo pattern will be hit and miss as it'll be made up on the fly and I've never used an airbursh with a compressor before only with canned air (which is crappy btw and ends up costing you as much in the long run). Below are two pictures, one of its base coat and one of its current state.

 

The base coat I use is a mix of Tamiya XF-4 Yellow Green and some Vallejo 70882 Middlestone, this is beacause I love how Tamiya paints work through airbrushes but the colour is a little too vivid for my liking. To be honest the image still looks very bright and it doesn't look quite so stark in the flesh, I gave the model three coats of Mig Filter for Tri-Tonal camo to try and draw the shades together. This has then received a gloss varnish and a "pin wash" using Mig Abteilung black oil paint mixed with a small amount of white spirit, this achieves a black lined effect quickly, cleanly and most importantly reversibly. If you're too generous with the pin wash you can take a clean brush with white spirit on it and manipulate the section you've made a mistake on, you can thin it down, wash it off parts you don't want it to hit and even remove it altogether.

  Tomorrow once this wash has dried I'll give the model a thin gloss coat again to seal it in and apply decals then work on the detailing where I'm planning on making this tank look pretty worn and weathered. I plan to use Panzer Grey as the colour with which to pronounce stone chips and scratches as this would've been the original colour underneath the more recently added tri-tone scheme. After all of that I plan to hit it with some super matte varnish to dull down that shine and also some of the shades in the camo very slightly.

EDIT: I think you can see between the two pictures just how much the XF-4/Middlestone base has really toned down with the camo pattern on it and the coats of filter?

Todays Painting

I've got gloss onto almost all of my British armour and a Mig Abteilung oil wash over that. They're starting to look ok but I had to stop proceedings to give the guys a run out, I'd arranged to play at one of my local clubs against a guy who runs Germans. They're all green and recognisable so I was happy to field them as was and he was too, I ended up defending on a No Retreat mission and was really crappy on my re-enforcement rolls 5 dice and I finally got one platoon. Long story short, I lost.

I've unpacked the British again and I'm a good way into the process again, I've also constructed and primed 5 more T-34/85s to go with my existing 5 and my Tiger P which Starmonkee (James on here) gave me from the Mid War Monsters boxed set. The Tiger P is going to be the command tank for my 653 Schwere Panzerjager list which has been constructed from THIS Article and PDF. Flavourful force, probably insanely hard to play (for and against) but it's something else to have around and I love the option you can put into this.

I've got a few ideas in mind for my T-34s, and I'll show you my 653 Schwere Panzerjager force listing below any thoughts welcome:

Guards Tank Company

HQ Section, cupola - 80
Guards Tank Company, cupolas - 635
Guards Tank Company, cupolas - 635
Tank Killer Company, SU-85 - 190
Decoy Tank Company, PIV, StuG + Panther - 210
1750

Elefants

HQ Tiger P, Bergepanther and Bergepanzer Elefant and Bergepanther 2cm - 460

Elefant platoon (2) - 600

Panzer Platoon, 4 x Pz IV - 380

Panzerpioneer platoon, hq faust - 205

Grenadier Platoon, hq faust - 165

Rocket Launcher Battery, 3 launchers - 120

1750

Finishing Cromwells, once and for ALL!

So I've had my Cromwell army for quite literally years, it's been through several incarnations without ever being truly finished. They're all base coated in green and certain vehicles are pretty much finished.

Several weeks back I decided the colours I'd done them weren't what I wanted so I re-sprayed them all using my airbrush with a nice base coat of Russian Uniform and I'm going to be using my oil wash on them all and doing a very basic scheme.

I'm currently split between fully decalling them with full unit markings or to simply mark them with their tactical markings so I can chop and change them with Shermans and Challengers and field them as 7th/11th Armoured or even Guards Recce.

The painting table atm:

Hetzers finished!

So I've finally done with my Hetzers, on looking at the photos there's a few tiny bits I either need to touch up or finish off properly but they're certainly ready for a table top outing.
 I think I'll go back and add some paint chips and weathering to these at some stage but I've got other units to finish for the tournament next week so these will have to go on the back boiler.

King Tiger, almost finished.

After finishing work early today I decided to get some painting done and get my latest list complete. I've yet to finish 3 nebs, my Pioneer Platoon and this KT. The infantry and guns are all at a uniform base colour stage and all are based.

After selling my original "Ambush Pattern" King Tiger (see pic below) some months back I decided to finish the one I've had sat on the painting table for months half painted.

I've almost got her finished, I just need to finish off the stowage, decals and tank commander.

The emphasized wear is a little stylised but I think it gets the message across? Take a look at my latest KT below and let me know what you thin so far?

Battle Reports

How do everyone.

As you might have noticed there has been a distinct lack of battle report from previous games played. I can only blame myself for this as quite frankly if you knew me you'd know how lazy I can be.

However I shall endeavour to get a report done from the next game.

James

Airbrush back up and running!

So, after foolishly dropping part of my airbrush down the sink while cleaning it I've since sourced a replacement part from a good mate who's sent me his old, broken but precisely the same model airbrush as mine spare!

I've also got some more gloss varnish to finish off my 7th Armoureds black oil pin wash to the standard I'd like so I'll be updating pictures on those tomorrow evening but my current work patterns are pretty crappy so it may be Friday before this happens.

hopefully back up to my previous "pre-wedding" speed by the weekend!

Few welcome back games.

So this weekend I've managed to squeeze in 3 games of FoW, purely as a way of getting back into full swing after several weeks off. I played all 3 games against the same opponent but on different boards and different scenarios, ranging from Breakthrough and Hasty Assault to Free for All. Whilst it's not ideal to play the same opponent 3 times I am still polishing the rules out in my head and just want to get more games under my belt.

I won all 3 games pretty well with all of them as 5-2s if my memory serves, but 2 of the battles being pretty bloody. My force in this was my venerable old 7th list I'd often dismissed as just a "fun" list but in reality it's proving to be pretty versatile. I need to try them out against some different forces and ideally a more heavily armoured and armed force but I'm learning to love them again for the sheer number of tanks you can throw at an enemy.

My list is as follows:

HQ - 2 Cromwells
Armoured Platoon
Armoured Platoon
Armoured Platoon
Armoured Platoon
Recce Platoon
CV Inf Platoon

It has no artillery options at all and relies purely on weight of numbers so I'm very doubtful of its versatility, but we'll see. I'm enjoying playing this force much more than my current German offerings, perhaps it's the luxury of being able to lose a few teams and feel like I'm haemorrhaging points.

I'll be updating this week with painting progress once I put brush to model again.

Return

So I'm back after a few weeks and ready to start knocking out some minis. I've got several lists in the works including a T-34/85 horde, finishing my IS-2s, polishing the 7th Armoured and redoing some of my German inf to bring them up to scratch with my latest works.

Delay due to marriage...

Sorry for the slow down in posts recently but I've been slightly busy getting married and I'm off to Mexico tomorrow!

Rest assured that I'll be back with renewed vim and vigour and posting loads of new stuff.

Santas Son:

So we were testing a teeny tiny mini cam while playing a game a week or two back and I ended up getting my mate Stuarts ugly mug in the final frame of a clip.

I swear Santa exists, and he's Stuarts father...

What's the boiling point of urine?

I ask because I've just managed it purely by human means only.

Ok, so I've taken a lot of inspiration from the guys over at WWPD in their love and interest of EW in FoW, it's an entirely "different kettle of fish" to Mid and Late War flavours. I've got a love for Somua tanks and Pz35 and 38s so it seems to be the ideal book for me, I got it on preorder if I recall correctly as I was so looking forward to it. Unfortunately I was at a bit of low point in terms of number of opponents to even think of playing this against so it never took off, I did play one proxy game with James to get the idea of what it's like and it was fun.

So with the WWPD interest injection and James' puppy like enthusiasm I've made a list I'm considering based around a boat load of S-35s with a little support sprinkled in. After handling my Forged in Battle Hetzers all last night and today I think I'll shell on the FiB 4 per box sets of the S-35s to keep my costs slightly lower(when I finally get around to going for it).

So I made my list, which I won't bore you with, but it contains a platoon of 4 25mm SA-34 Hotchkiss guns. So in pricing this stuff up I'm not doing too badly, until I see THIS (link). They ONLY come in 3s, you can ONLY field them in 4s, seriously Battlefront WTF. I've seen this a few times and it is really starting to get to me, I can understand perhaps models, were sculpted and blisters planned way before the book was finalised but this is just plain idiocy and needs to be addressed.

Hetzers!

4 Hetzers for my Feldhernalle force, list is done, thanks to a ncie trade with James for a stack half tracks I'm never going to use he got me these and some Pak43s (hoooo yes!). List is pretty much finished and I'm planning on using it to attempt my first tournament entry, Feldhernalle seems like a strange choice but I just get everything I like.

They're hopefully looking pretty Hungarian about now? These aren't Battlefront as you may expect but "Forged In Battle", overall I'm very, very impressed with the quality. Resin hull, with white metal guns (2 options, ones a 75mm gun and the other looks to me to be a flame thrower) and remote fired MG, all made very nicely with only one issue on one gun, which had a slight cast fault but after 30 seconds with a file it's marginally shorter than the other 3 but barely noticeable.

Below is a single WIP pic I've literally just taken along with my inspiration pics, let me know what you think.