New Terrain and Northern Alberta

For the last few days I've been visiting my grandparents in Athabasca. It's about 2 hours North of Edmonton. For those who are ignorant enough not to know where Edmonton is, it's pretty far north, but not super far north. It's about -22 outside with a shit load of snow. I've been snowmobiling and shooting and freezing my ass off. Just so everyone knows I really like the word "snowmobile" because of the suffix "mobile" that I feel should be added to everything that moves. I mean, what sounds more awesome "hovercraft" or "hovermobile"? Hovermobile. Clearly.

Enough of my crazy rant. I'm writing this post to tell everyone about Game Craft Miniatures. They do 15mm MDF (hardboard) buildings that seem too good to be true. They also do some other shit, but nothing excites me like little buildings (am I a weirdo? probably.)

They require some assembly, but so do most miniatures. I got a factory, a school and a few ruined buildings. The biggest benefit of these things is their price.








The factory you see cost $13. In total I spent $50 to get a full city in 15mm. They're not the best when it comes to detail, and I'm gonna have to spend a bunch of time painting but 50 bucks to fill a city is unbeatable.










I don't know how effective textured sprays are, but if I can find a good grey with a concrete texture that'll be the base. When it comes to WW2 I think it's important for the scenery to be as dreary as possible.

I'll post a thorough review when their in my hands, and maybe a city battle report. I just wanted to post 'cause I'm damn excited.


Lastly, how to you end blog posts? Are you supposed to say goodbye or some shit? 

Late-War German Armour Painting and Plastic Soldier Company Review

In this post I'll go through the steps I use to paint my late-war German 3-colour scheme. I think it produces decent looking soft-edged camo without needing an airbrush or taking too much time. The model in question is a Plastic Soldier Company Panther tank, and as I've got some of their kits I'll also do a short review of their models at the end.

Hunting pals. This picture does not adequately dwarf the Puma...it's more like a hunter's dog beside that.

Königstiger Schwere Panzerkompanie

Recently I purchased enough Königstigers to fill a Company. I still need some support elements But I think my 2000 point Coy will be as follows:

Confident    Veteran	Schwere Panzerkompanie Heavy Tank Company	German Late-War
Tank Company

Platoon	Qty	Unit	Points
Headquarters
Schwere Panzerkompanie HQ  p.71	2	Königstiger (Henschel)	695
Combat Platoons
Schwere Panzer Platoon  p.71	1	Königstiger (Henschel)	345
Schwere Panzer Platoon  p.71	1	Königstiger (Henschel)	345
Weapons Platoons
Panzer Pioneer Platoon  p.74	1 1 2 2	Cmd Pioneer MG team Schwimmwagen Pioneer MG team Opel Maultier	100
Panzer Anti-aircraft Gun Platoon  p.75	3	Wirbelwind (Quad 2cm)	165
Panzer Scout Platoon  p.75	1 2	Cmd Motorcycle MG team Motorcycle MG team	110
Divisional Support Platoons
Armoured Artillery Battery  p.168	1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1	Cmd SMG team Staff team Kfz 15 field car Kfz 68 radio truck Wespe Sd Kfz 9 Observer Rifle team Sd Kfz 250	240
Company Points:			2000

It's not the most competitive list, but it'll look so cool.The idea is that almost everything is armored enough to make the opponents force useless. I'm either gonna mount the pioneers on my Wirbelwinds or my Königstigers. The biggest problem I can foresee is my Wespes are vulnerable to counter battery fire. Those motorcycles can be replaced with Kubelwagons (Jeeps) for free as they have the same rules, so I'll be using captured American Jeeps in my force.

Here are some pictures of the force so far:

These are the Wirbelwinds. They'll get used mostly against Infantry as they'll be guarding my Tigers.

The models are form Forged in Battle. They're a lot cheaper than Flames of War, but they have bases, which is kind lame.

Since I have six King Tigers I can play about 2100 points of Tigers alone. They are an insane 345 points each.

I'll probably borrow some of Molgrimmar's models if I want to play before my pioneers come in. On the other hand, he can borrow a Tiger or two if he wants.

And thanks to www.EasyArmy.com for the list maker.

Steamy T

I recently acquired a new T-shirt. Designed by Sam Logan, creator of my favorite web comic Sam and Fuzzy, it reflects my views on steam power very well. I purchased it at Topotoco and I was very pleased with how quickly it shipped.

I'm wearing it to American Thanksgiving. I know American thanksgiving is an orgy of excess designed by none other than the god of pleasure and us Canadians must resist the urge to debase ourselves in such a way, but I've got family who are American and I feel I must support them in their descent to debauchery. 

Well I'm off, expect some actual Wargaming posts soon.

Warriors, come out to play

I somehow managed to get rides to/from Ottawa with Jake and Jed two weekends in a row. I got in some games but apparently it's too difficult to take enough pictures. Maybe, Darko, if you have a bunch we could put them together.

It seemed like there was a lot of cool new shit all around, and I was pretty jealous. Then I manned up and bought myself a couple boxes of chaos warriors =D.

Marching the cracked, desolate earth of my thesis paper.

 12 warriors and 5 knights. The warriors only come with hand weapons but I gave them the lances from the knights to be halberds. I didn't get the battalion box since I don't need the marauders. I like the marauders but there's so much core for the warriors that 25% fills pretty easy. And instead of hounds I'm going to use these spiders that I've had forever.

Essentially the same stats, and the dogs can have poison for 1pt each anyways.

Anyone need that 40mm base?

So now I'm pretty excited for the holidays, asked for some more of this warhammer stuff for christmas, and hopefully get in plenty of games. Apocalypse is certainly not a bad idea.

I'll be building these guys while not studying, however I'm not done exams until the 16th.
poops.

Some Flames of War and a Halloween Throwback

I finally got my shit together and decided to do some posting again. In the last month I've accomplished very little when it comes to war-gaming. I finally got all my Americans based.

As you can plainly see, I've only done the bases for the infantry and the whitewashing for the tanks but this means that when I field either my infantry company or my tank company it'll look good from a distance.

Below is a picture of LCol Abrams. Not exactly an impressive paint job, but it's a start.

I also ended up purchasing 2 Flames of War started sets for the RMC Wargames Club.

The starter sets contain a German infantry company accompanied by some StuGs and some AT guns.

As well as a British tank company accompanied by some U.S. Paratroopers.

The mini rule-books are nice to have around, but they have a pretty shitty binding. The dice and token sets are nice as well. The tokens are thick cardboard; not the most durable, but pretty good for a starter set.

The terrain the starter set comes with is kinda nifty. Once again it is just thick cardboard, but it is printed very nicely. 

The set comes with more than enough walls, buildings and forests to play the contents of the box, which would be really handy for a new player. 

They also have text on them that describes what each kind of terrain piece does. As I bought these sets to teach new players the game, this comes in really freakin' handy 

Lastly the box comes with a V1 rocket. I guess this is just for show as it is kinda big to use as an objective. I'm probably gonna steal these and turn them into Ork heavy weapons teams. The one thing I find disappointing about the starter set is the lack of bombardment templates and minefield templates. Even though we have been playing for a long time, we still just use one I cut out of clear plastic. I mean, I think I did a pretty good job, I even doodles explosions on it, but, come on, I want a blast template and I don't want to pay full price for it! But I guess I'm just demanding. 

Pictured was only the contents of one of the starter sets. If you want to see what two starter sets looks like copy the pictures yourself; I'm pretty lazy. Finally in Flames of War news: I'm starting a King Tiger company! I found some cheap ones online. I'll post some pictures when I get them.

Last but not least, here was my Halloween costume this year:

Yeap. I went as Commodore 64 Zapp Brannigan! As you can probably guess I knew all the quotes. Let me tell you that skirts are breezy to the extreme, and that it is very difficult to find gloves that go over a man's forearms.

Also, by the end of the night, neither I nor the hotel room looked that good. We had like 15-20 people in there. Shit. Show.

Flames of War Tournament

I went to my first FloW tournament yesterday at "The Gaming Den" in London. There were eight players, three rounds with 1,750pt late war lists and no special characters seemed to be the courtesy. I wanted to bring a fully-painted list (no panthers) and I never seem to pass confident morale checks so I went with a Sperrverband from Grey Wolf. This is a Reluctant Veteran list as a Sperrverband was a blocking force formed of the hardest veterans consigned to hold back the Russians while the rest of the line fell back. These guys get cheap stuff while being veterans, have one platoon of Tank Assault 5 ersatz-pioneers, and count as fearless when assaulting tanks.

My first game was against a scary, confident-veteran American mechanized infantry list I'd played before in Waterloo. The mission was hasty attack so half platoons in reserve and I was defending.  I managed to hold one bridge quite nicely with pioneers in building but the left flank was his main attack.Two PaK40s held that side's bridge, but I put an observer in there and made that point a very smoke-able target. I held off a crazy assault with only one team and my 1st in Command remaining (who proved to be a bad-ass in assualt) and managed to pass my reluctant check there. He scooted past these and my first in command called in a heavy bombardment on his massed half tracks, ranging in on the first try, but he rolled 5 armour saves and lost none. With no reserves by third turn for me, that game was a hard loss.

Next I was up against a confident-trained Canadian tank company playing the dust-up mission (the fair-fight table quarters). His first 3 shots with stuarts managed to take out both my Pak40 AT guns in one go, which was freakish, but I mopped them up quickly with 5 panzer IVs. His shermans dicked about and slowly got popped at long range due to the veterancy of the glass-armoured panzers. Both of our corner-suprise reserves whiffed incredibly: my 3 StuGs missed all their 3+ shots on sherman asses and then bogged/burnt/fled. His M10 tank destroyers got one panzer IV and the remaining four sat and wasted them handily. It was a long and grinding game but my second infantry assault succeeded with two platoons to push him back and I got a narrow victory.

Third game was intense, fast, and fun. Up against 20 T-34/85s and 5 SU-100s (which are god-damn horrifying at AT16 and front armour 9). My pioneers began hopping up a string of central buildings while my PaK40s hid in some hedges. With the help of heavy artillery these guns brought down their 10 T-34/85s and left the road mostly clear for my StuGs to flank up an objective. I was feeling good, his other tank platoon bearing down on the objective needed to pass the pioneers in buildings. Smoked the tanks, noted the Sperr-pioneers' fearlessness in assaulting tanks, and rolled a 2. And repeated next turn down to the same roll, also a 2. As I cursed the uselessness of these supposed 'fearless tank-hunters', he quickly scooted onto the objective a turn before the StuGs could reach theirs and won a fun and narrow game.

That's quite the wall of text...haven't painted much over midterms but some sexy vermacht-vomit-vehiculars are ready for camouflage and detail painting:

Brummbar and some 8-rads. That back bastard needs a highlight.

The turret-men were spare tank commanders given  greenstuff torsos.