Last Game of Flames of War for 2011

I put a shout out for a game to my fellow gamers at our local club. It was my last game for 2011 as I am heading to New Zealand on a Holiday very soon. Awesome. It was proposed for 2 players per side with 2,000 points each to spend, Late War, Total Vitory mission. One side Germans and one side Soviets. It was an easy guess that my fellow Sov player would be taking an IS-2 heavy tank list. I really had no idea what we would face but I thought it would be a great chance to get an Udarny Soviet Shock troops list on the table. It is always great to hang with some gamers and throw some dice around and see what happens. The up coming new Soviet compilation (Red Bear) and tank rules naturally got a little kicking around among us.
My List...
2 maxed out Infantry Platoons.
Flame teams x 4 (2 for each Infantry platoon).
Scout Infantry
5 x IS-2 heavy tanks
5 Flame Tanks
Blunt and simple...just the way I like it (sometimes).

During the game unusually for me I took a defensive stance around the left hand objective. Why? This was because of lots of open space and lots of mobile MG vehicles that would reduce my Infantry numbers easily enough. This proved possibly the right thing to do as 2 Platoons of Pumas arrived behind my force during the game. Besides we rolled Defender in any case.

When some SS infantry started to occupy some buildings in assault range of one of my Infantry Platoons the Shock Infantry went on the rampage and wiped a few teams before they fell back but it was enough to force a below half check and the last 2 teams retired from the table. Sometimes even fearless troops break.

Table set up with the Road being the halfway line in no mans land.

After deployment the table from the other end with my Soviet Infantry dug in around an objective.

The Panzer IV versus IS-2 and infantry fight for an objective.

A big fight took place at the other end of the table with Panzer IV (FV nutty SS ones) going hard out for the objective in the trees. They destroyed themselves in the process.

Phil's awesome Soviet ground attack planes doing another Air Strike. My FV soviet scouts managed to nail one of the Hummels in an assault from the rear table edge but they got destroyed in the process. The planes are 1:100 non Battlefront models.

Puma platoon arriving from reserves behind my Soviet Infantry. Fortunately all dug in with heads down.

End game. Flame T-34 tanks passed bog checks to get within 4 inches of the 2 of the remaining Infantry in half tracks to destroy them both. One was destroyed earlier by an Infantry flame team who sneaked up on them through the buildings. In the same turn something incredible happened. I had 3 IS-2 (stationary) who required one 6 each to hit 3 Panthers. I rolled three 6s. Incredible! One Panther remained though passing its armour save but earlier in the game one was lost to Air Attack. Under half test that was required failed so no more panthers.

The game was fun and a good way for me to finish my gaming year. No more games for me as I am away in NZ and North Queensland with the family until lat January.

Have a good Christmas every body and all the best to you and yours from me (Brendon AKA The Kiwi).

Cheers

Gladiators 28mm first attempts

These Gladiators are from Foundry and my first crack at 28mm figures in a long time. Trying to do so much skin is proving a challenge and I haven't found a technique that I think nails it just yet. But these come out OK. I sprayed them with matt varnish then painted gloss varnish on shields, armour and helmets. My aim is to keep the colours of Red and Green. Two different team colours and colours that are complimentary opposites. Bottom line is that they are loud and they clash visually. Turns out Romans liked them bright, colourful and shiny. It's a lot different from 15mm WWII thatt is for sure.
Cheers from The Kiwi (Brendon)

Funky German Early War recon platoon (6 Rad)

This week I got 2 x 6 Rads completed.
The first great thing about getting a blister of these 6 Rads is that you get 2 armoured cars. The second great thing is that 2 is enough for a platoon. The third great things is that they have a 1 colour paint scheme.
As far as building an early war list they are a fraction cheaper points wise than the 8 Rad armoured car recon option.  Here is a few pics I took of them complete with decals from Dom's Decals.
Cheers from The Kiwi (Brendon).

Bunker down.

I purchased a box of Battlefront MG bunkers a while back and got around to painting them last week. I also acquired 2 Panther Turret fortification blisters a while later. I decided to get these completed as I was getting a little stale at painting more Olive Drab for my American Flames of War collection. Painting the bunkers was an interesting break from some US Shermans I started. I sprayed the bunkers a base of Black, Concrete was then painted with London Grey and some other more natural Stone Grey colour was added for highlighting. I mixed or also randomly applied Khaki as well. Panzer Grey and London Gray (Vallejo colours are definitely on the blue side of colour in the light that I see them in. Having seen lots of good real examples on the web of German bunkers painted as fake houses or with murals of trees or just a 3 tone camo pattern it was tempting to go all out on them but in the end I went for just adding some green shapes. However I faded the green out by washing with watered down grey and a little dry brush over it as well. Keeping it simple overall so they still retain that fairly fresh poured concrete look that I associate these hard points with. Shown here below with the addition of my 2cm Flak nests I made a while back. Now they don't look so lonely. The second pic hopefully gives you a sense of size of the MG Bunkers compared to an Infantry stand. The Panther Turrets are yet to have the little air pipe added (that's what the small black spot is at the rear).

 
 Cheers from The Kiwi (Brendon)