SoTR Platoon just got a bit bigger

Well thanks to a lucky spot on evil-bay, my platoon just got that much bigger thanks to these guys

Okay I dont really need another command squad but a 12 man combat squad already assembled and primed is always good. These figures really are a pain to assemble with their seperate heads and weapons. Oh and the price was nice as well, just £12.

Havent totted up the points yet but that gives me a command squad, 2 full combat squads, 2 support units (a HMG and a light Mech) and one character. Talking of characters, I havent had the heart to break it to Mexican Dave yet, he ordered 2 characters with his initial purchase, sorry mate, the limit is 1 per platoon.

I did some thinking (yes!!! that was what the noise was), for a small skirmish game you can fit an awful lot of figures on the table, take these yanks, minimum of 1 command squad, 7 figures, between 1 and 4 combat squads, take 4 and thats another 48 figures, take 3 HMGs as supoports thats another 9 and of course your single character, thats a whopping 65 figures in a platoon. I dont think that any platoon got anywhere near that in real life.

Big guys back on the painting schedule

Well its been a year since I got them, so with Mexican Dave buying some Weird War 2 Germans I thought its time to finish these guys off, its only a dozen but I sort of lost track of these.

Must have a read through the rules again but they did look very promising last year anyway.

and another update

Well I had a good scour of the Fortress Europe book and settled on 1000pt (ish) armies, both sides came to 1035pts so I'm not worried about the odd few points. So 1st heres the filthy hun.........

followed by the gallant forces of freedom....

a few bases still to be painted, and a lot of tarting up of bases etc but all in all playable from the moment that the postie delivers the rulebook.

10mm Flames of War update

Well I was having a look at the Fortress Europe book and it looks like the quickest way to get a game on the table (using my existing armies) is to field a tank company per side. Then I had a look at what support/weapons attachments they could take. Ended up with a Panzer Kompanie (mixed) with a Panzergrenadier platoon to back them up, and for the Yanks, they got a weakish Tank Company, a Mechanised Infantry platoon and a battery of Priests to spread all that HE goodness around. So how much do I have to buy/paint to get that on the table, well, buy, NOTHING! Paint, not too much, this lot really....

Shouldnt take that long really :)

Mexican Dave has got his wish

Well Dave has been banging on about the lack of 10mm goodness for our FWC games (he doesnt really like 6mm), well his prayers have been answered. Go here http://www.hawkwargames.com/ for a sneaky peek at a few of the new 10mm models about to be unleashed. From what I've heard it's a whole new game system, all being launched at once, rules, 4 races (between 12 and 15 models per race), scenery, etc, etc.
Should be very interesting to see what the prices are like.

And yet another new project

Given the rash of new 15mm plastic releases by PSC and Wargames Factory started me musing again about Flames of War, this was a game I had in 15mm a good while ago but due to the rather pricey minis I gave up on and got rid of. So at the club last night I got chatting to Mexican Dave, who rather liked the game the couple of times we played it, it could have been the thought of all that plasticy goodness that put him off flying his planes right, who knows. Lets just say that his hopes of two victories in a row were soon dashed. Meanwhile back here in the man-cave, common sense has broken out, Flames of War, fine, 15mm, not so fine. I thought about it and came to the conclusion that really, doing it in 15mm was going to be pretty silly. I already have 6 10mm WW2 armies, all painted up, that and the fact after perusing the FoW Ostfront book, the plasticy goodness is actually a bit sparse on the bits and bobs needed, I've decided to just do it in 10mm. Just my luck the Pendraken site is down, the server is sick apparently, so I cant get planning any purchases, but the gypsy side of me is seeing lots of green tanks in my future.

And................. Done!!!

Well, thats that lot done, not too bad really, a wargame assembled and painted in a fortnight. Ok close-ups would show the (rather poor) quality of painting, but that piccy shows them pretty much as you'd see them on-table, so for me, thats good enough for Government work.

Have I played it while painting this lot up, hell yeah, I've played about a dozen games so far, plays really fast, the rules just work without being over the top with detail. I think it says enough about the rules that of the dozen I've played (all on easy mode) I've only won 4. This game has A LOT of re-playability.

What do I think could improve this game? I've been pondering, 1:600 isnt really my scale, I think I'd like to re-do it in 1:300, again not really my scale but the aircraft at least are a big chunky handful. More aircraft stats so it can spread into other conflicts, more scenarios, 6 at 3 difficulty settings is a bit on the stingy side.

Aside from that I can honestly say that I've had more games (and fun) in the last fortnight than, well at any time in the past, so all in all, money well spent.

Just for Slorm

Slorm asked how I was mounting my AWACS planes so here's how I did it

Step 1, using one of the predrilled bases as a guide, drill a 1mm hole through one of the non-drilled bases

Step 2, cut a 2" length of 1mm wire, I use some florists wire that I bought years ago, about 100 feet for £1.50

Step 3, glue the wire into the base

Step 4, trim the wire so that there's about 1" left above the base

Step 5, pick your plane and locate the tiny mounting hole in it

Step 6, enlage that hole to 1mm, a couple of mm deep is more than enough

Step 7, a spot of superglue on the wire and push gently into the hole

Step 8, wave your favourite paintbrush in its general direction and your good to go.

repeat 31 more times. Warning the metal on these is very hard so take care when drilling, and get lots of little blobs of blue-tac ready for mounting those missile dice.

Unboxing AWACS

Oh, deep joy, the postie just chapped the door with a parcel for me,

thats an awful lotta stamps, never mind the stamps he says, lets look at whats inside.

well, fairly obviously the game box and a wee present from the designer, a medal for all us pre-orderers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yadda, yadda, yadda, enough yakking whats inside the game box?

This lot, a (very) thin rule book, double sided counter sheet, quick reference sheet for all the toys in the game, bag of bases, bag of dice and the necessary bag of toys.

the bag of toys tipped out

and sorted out, so whats there?

5 M1A1 tanks for teh US
5 Scud Launchers
10 T72s
10 AA tanky things
6 Mig 21s
4 Mig 29s
6 Mirages
6 F16s
4 F15s
4 A10s
2 F117s

62 models in all, should keep me busy mounting and painting for quite a while, I started on 5 aircraft for one of the scenarios and a couple of things hit me right away, one is that 32 of the bases come pre-drilled, sorry but that was a blunder, the holes are just too damn big, somewhere between 1.5 and 2mm. Way too big for a 1:600 aircraft, so I'm drillling the vehicle bases with 1mm holes. Second thing was that the metal is way harder than anything I've encountered before. I'll probably do another post when I've got summat painted and had them on the table.

While I'm waiting

Just thought that as I'm waiting for the Polish biplane to cross Europe with AWACS, I'd do something with my skaven warband for Songs of Blades and Heroes. So here they are, Warpmaster Queek and his squeaking minions.

Just FYI, these guys are literally on a hiding for nothing, the scores on the doors are, Played 2 : Lost 2 : Casulties caused  0, they really are rubbish, but I do like the look of them.