Flames of War Projects for August

 August was a great month for me and the hobby.  I painted lots of stuff and managed to get in a few games as well.  August saw a return to Flames of War late war.  Late war has been a very limited period for me, even as it is the most popular period for FoW.  This has most been due to my primary opponent not really caring for the period.  Over last couple of years my gaming group has been changing and LW is not the main period for me for WWII.  This meant I needed to get my collection updated to be able to hang in this very competitive period.

The German army provided the most options for me from the dead-lead pile so I decided to jump back in with them.  The first thing on the agenda would be some AA.  Allied air is way more likely in LW than MW so this was a must have.

Sd Kfz 10/4 Platoon

I painted a couple of Sd Kfz 10/4 Light AA halftracks.  These are the Battlefront resin and metal models from the MW box set.  These are the same models they have had in production for years and I really like them.  They are easy to build and paint.  I have two more that I will paint on Panzer grey for my MW armies.

Next up is a platoon of 251 halftracks.

Sd Kfz 251D

These are the current LW German halftracks from Battlefront.  They are plastic models and are very nice.  I acquired these assembled from a local gamer as part of a collection I purchased a few years ago.  It was not the most precise build but after painting they turned out pretty good.  These have already seen battle as part of my Berlin training battalion army.

Over the years I have collected a number of LW Panther tanks from Battlefront.  These are the ausf A and are the old resin and metal models.  Several are from special characters, back when that was a thing with FoW.  I decided to paint up the first four in the collection for a Berlin Panzer Training Co army.

Panther A

Panther A

These are the first models where I used the Vallejo pigments.  After my normal paint process, I applied dry pigments to represent dirt and dust.  I really like the look and plan to experiment more with these pigments.

To support the Panthers I also needed some standard PzIVH tanks.  These are the back-bone of LW and have plenty of MW uses too.  Not sure why it took so long for me to paint these up and add them to the collection.  These are a mix of the old Battlefront resin and metal models and the current plastic models.  The resin ones are a salvage project that I have been working on for a number of years.  They are real Frankenstein tanks with parts from PSC PzIV.  The plastic models were pre-assembled as part of the collection with the 251 halftracks.

PzIVH Command

PzIVH

PzIVH

PzIVH

Sadly, the resin models are really showing their age.  They serve the purpose, in game terms, but I will likely replace them with plastics soon.  In nearly all cases the BF plastic kits are superior to the resin models.

Finally, we have more items painted specifically for the Berlin Panzer Training Co army.  Normally, PzII tanks would not be in a LW list, but Berlin changes that.  These are a mix of the N and M variants. They are plastic models from Battlefront.  They will definitely be doing double duty in my MW armies.

PzIII N and M

Twenty-six models all together.  Not a bad couple of months.  Sadly, I have slowed way down on painting production for the last couple of weeks but I am trying to get one more Napoleonic Russian battalion done.  Just need to push through the slump and get back on track.

A Gift From An Old Friend - Part 1

 I recently inherited my friend Al's beautiful Fate of a Nation Israeli army.  I say inherited deliberately as Al recently passed away.  This is not how I wanted things to turn out but I am honored to have this collection.

Al was an avid gamer and one of the nicest people I have ever known.  This army was in his collection for a long time and I think he painted most, if not all, himself.  The models are all Battlefront.

M50 Platoon 1

M50 Platoon 2

M51 Platoon 1

M51 Platoon 2

Magach 3 Platoon 1

Magach 3 Platoon 2

AMX Company

Sho't Platoon 1

Sho't Platoon 2

M113 Mech platoon.  A few of the infantry stands have gone missing.  I will need to see what I can do to fill out the ranks.

Miscellaneous items.  Over the years some items have been lost. I might have some extras of these in my unbuilt pile.

The complete army minus three Ouragan aircraft that are in really rough shape.

A couple years ago, when Al was down-sizing, I picked up a lot of his unbuilt models.  I don't even remember what all I got.  Needless to say, between this collection, my existing collection, and the unbuilt stuff I have a really huge Israeli army.  I will gradually work to touch-up and repair these models and to base and weather them to match my existing force.

Al is the second of my long-time game friends to have passed away in the last few weeks and it is very sobering.  Neither was old enough for this to be expected and really, they should both should still be around enjoying life.  I need to re-evaluate my own life because I ain't getting any younger myself.

I have plans for a memorial game using Al's models very soon.  Stay tuned and stay healthy!

Q3 2020 Recap

Another quarter of the amazing, and slightly painful, year of 2020 is behind us.  Time for a recap of my hobby progress.  The idea with these recaps is to help keep my annual goals on track through the course of the year and, so far, I think it is helping.  Generally speaking, the time from July until the beginning of November is a tough time of year for me and I usually see a slowing in hobby productivity during this time.  This year is no different.

Necromunda

I have really neglected talking much about this game so far this year as most of my activity has been centered on purchases.  But this was actually my main goal for the year with this game - try and catch up on all the releases and keep up with the new stuff.  I have actually done pretty well with this so far this year.  I am still behind on the latest Escher stuff and the new Orlock stuff is coming soon so I will be spending a lot more money on this in 2020.

It has not all been about the purchases, I have made significant progress on painting my collection as well as building models.  Back in April I built the new Goliath figures.

Building is not all that has been happening.  This quarter I finally finished my long neglected Escher gang.  I started these nearly three years ago but just could not find the motivation to get them done. 

A new Necromunda campaign has started (OK it's just Tim and I playing some games) and I needed some additional members for my Goliaths so I painted a few more figures for that gang.

I have been working on painting terrain for Necromunda but so far none of it has been what I would call finished.  I have also played several games for far this year and many were in Q3.  If I do nothing else with this game this year it it will still be a big win.

Q3 was not all about Necromunda, however.  I had my first real distraction of the year in August.  I jumped into collecting Marvel Crisis Protocol.  I've not yet played the game so I have no opinion yet on the rules but the models are very cool.  The models alone are enough to make this a good purchase.

I managed to build all the models I have purchased for the game so far.

I did manage to paint one model - HULK.  The larger size of these figures will be a challenge for my painting style.

MCP is certainly a distraction as it was not on my radar at all at the beginning of the year but I have no regrets.  I love Marvel and I want to play a cool super hero game and this looks like the ticket.

There was another new game added to the collection in Q3 but this one cannot be counted as a distraction - World War III: Team Yankee.  I did say back in January that this game would likely suck me in once the new starter set was released and it did.  Tim and I each buy a set and I traded my Soviets for his Americans.  This gave us each a good starting force.  I also picked up the original Bannon's Boys set from my friend Mike, giving me more M1 and a couple of Cobras.

I managed to assemble nearly all my models.  These new TY plastic sets are really great models.

Once we have about 100 points assembled we got in our first game of the new edition.  It really played well and the game was a blast.  I thought the US forces were not going to have much of a chance against Soviet T-80 and T-64 force but I was able to pull out a win.  The game is so much faster than the WWII or even the FoAN versions.

Even though my painting production has dropped off, it has been a fun quarter for the most part.  The ongoing COVID drama is still making it hard to enjoy things but that seems to be slowly improving.

Models Assembled year to date (includes cleaning and prepping metal figures):

15mm FoW WWII - 11 (5 tanks, 2 aircraft)

15mm Team Yankee - 16 (16 tanks)

28mm Bolt Action - 8

28mm Age of Sigmar - 21 (5 Cav, 1 Mortis Engine)

28mm Necromunda - 7

28mm 40K - 7

28mm Terrain - 22

40mm Marvel Crisis Protocol - 23 (11 terrain. 1 HULK)

Total - 115

Figures painted year to date:

15mm FoW WWII - 212 (11 Tanks, 6 guns, 4 Rocket Launchers, 2 aircraft, 4 pillboxes and nests, 4 Objective Markers)

28mm Age of Sigmar - 14 (1 Mortis Engine, 2 Cav, 2 Realmgates)

28mm Napoleonic - 1

28mm Necromunda - 14

28mm 40K - 32 (17 Terrain)

Total - 273

Game Record to date:

Bolt Action 1-0-0

Gaslands 0-1-0

FoW Great War 0-2-0

FoW Mid-war 2-6-0

Team Yankee 1-0-0

Kill Team 2-0-0

Necromunda 4-3-0

Warhammer Underworlds 0-2-0