Tuesday, July 30, 2013

US Artillery Shameless Self Pomotion

 A gaming friend found him self force to get out of the hobby and sold off a number of pieces to me.  I have been painting them.  I have some 105 in my collection already and it was a tough call which to keep and which to sell but in the end I decided to keep mine with the custom bases I built.

 Staff team  front and back
HQ team
 Two Observers (OK so you only need one call the second a bonus) 

 Jeep for the observer 
 And the Guns them selves
 If you like these please go to my eBay page an place you bid. 







Monday, July 29, 2013

RSO Trucks for Flames of War

The Raupeschlepper, Ost (RSO) was built by the Germans in World War II to deal with the Russian Steppes.  Wheeled vehicles and even half-tracks have a hard time with the Russian snow and especially the Russian MUD.
I am planning to use these to haul my PaK40s which is one of their historical jobs.
I'm not sure why but to me this squat little truck with tank tracks just looks cool in some hard to define way.  I think its the way I can picture a cartoon face on the front end of it.
Naturally soldiers always have extra stuff that get hung off the side if it won't fit in the bed of the truck.
Now that I have several complete Flames of War armies I am realy enjoying filling in the support options so that each platoon can be complete if the scenario and/or the points allow. 

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Trained or Conscript in Maurice

For the game Maurice there are three basic troop types Elite, Trained and Conscript.   Units can move between these on a battle by battle basis if they break they drop in quality if they get a lucky roll of the dice they improve.

There is there for a need to designate the quality in a quick and easy way.  My simple approach is to have the Trained units carry flags while the constricts will have not flag. This works but as I only did 4 stands for each unit so I need to make some extras.

I can now demote my trained units to conscripts and promote my conscript units trained units. If I want to use these troops in Black Powder they can make a pair of small infantry units sort of like the Irish Piquets (select troops form a variety of regiments).

Friday, July 26, 2013

Snow Panzers 2

I got these two Panzer IVs in trade with my pal Harry. I gave him some old glory 15s Austrian Grnezers and some cavalry so he could start an Army for Maurice.  The deal worked out for me as I now have four of these tanks
I stuck with my winter theme for this army.  Painting the Panzer first in Valejo paints green ocher followed by a white wash (about 4 parts water to 1 part paint, that's very approximate). Then I finished it off with a dry brush in green ocher and snow flock. 

One issue I do want to address is the Schurzen this is the first time I have used Battle Fronts plastic schurzen and it sucks.   Half of my brackets broke so each is mounted with two instead of the 4 its supposed to get.  I am not inexperienced when it comes to removing pieces from a plastic spruce.  These parts look no better than the metal equivalents but are much harder to deal with.
I now have four Panzer IVs to from a platoon to complement my StuGs in a Panzer company.  I have Three snow StuGs I will have to get at least one more and I have to decide if want my HQ to be StuGs or Panzer IVs. (I can hear the Panther fans grumbling) I am hoping to get to give this army a spin down at the Whiz this Sunday.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Polish Farm

This is the Fire and Sword Polish Farm house I got as part of my winnings at Huzzah! Con back in may. I have to say its one of the best building I own.
Little details like the pile of fire wood really help bring this to life.  I may need to ad something to the windows but I am not sure so for now they are left in the black primer color.
The wood grain and thatch on the roof is very well done and realistic I cannot recommend these pieces enough. I understand the company has a US distributor now so I hope we will see these in the not to distant Future of the shelves of our local gaming stores.
The style of building is very old but so I could probably use this in games from the middle ages though the Eastern front of World War Two.  I have some plans for an expanded base with some additional scenery to really make this piece stand out.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Re-building the JR Minature French Villa

  As I posted earlier this week I got the French Villa from Noble Knight less than perfect condition.  As I reported they gave me a full refund since they didn't ask me to return the damaged building I decided to see what I could do to put it back together.  I got a 5x6 inch base from a craft store and began assembling the pieces.
 I use woodland scenic glue to fix the large pieces on the base and then used a little super glue stick the pieces to each other just for a little extra strength.
With all the major pieces together the French Villa looks almost like new there are some cracks that are still visible but think I can cover that up with some paint and make it look like some battle damage or something. I'll up date this as I work on it so you can see how it goes.

Between History and Fiction

A little while ago Battlefront posed a link to sight called Beasts of War were a player talked at length (and by that I mean more then 45 minutes) about the ahistorical army he planned to make for Flames of war. I only watched the first few minutes, enough to know I would not be entertained by the presentation (many others do seem to like this production judge its own merits not my say so), but I have found the debate on the merits of the idea in the Flames of War forum to be very interesting.

Like many I did not appreciate this fellow dismissal of  the historic aspects of the game out of hand.  World War Two is a serious subject and deserves a certain degree of reverence even in a game.  Unlike some other how ever I have no real issue with the idea that some one create a fictional 'army'  or character to fight in a historic war game.

You will recall my friend Mark brought Captain America into one of our games.  This added some fun to the game and I don't think it hurt the historic nature of the game (such as it was).  Had Mark brought this figure into a scenario based game portraying a real battle that would be a very different story.  But in a randomly generated battle no harm was done and in fact much fun was had.

Flames of War is not a strictly historical game. Most of the games are not based on historic battles, but are randomly generated missions, on a map that is not based on a historic battle field, and are between forces built based on the player's taste form list provided by Battle Front in its campaign books.  These lists even when based on historic units rarely reflect what a World War II company would have with it going into a specific battle. For one no company commander in any army in nay war gets to pick and choose his support options the way a Flames of War player does.  The books are Campaign not Battle books after all the assets available to a division, Battalion, company etc will change over time. 

Flames of war is focused on tournament play not the gaming of historic scenarios.  As such players have the expectation that games will be fair and balanced were as real war is almost never fair and balance.  In real war most generals won't attack an even force (if they know its even), if you have the option you attack were you are strong and your foe is weak. 

War-games are more historical fiction than historical fact I think its reasonable to allow people to indulge their fantasies as long as they make it clear they are fantasies. 

Monday, July 22, 2013

Noble Knight acts noblely

I ordered a couple of items form Noble Knight last week including the JR Miniatures French Estate. Sadly the estate arrived badly damaged .
I was discouraged as these are pretty rare.  Noble Knight did give me a full refund incuding part of the shipping cost so while I am not thrilled about the way these arrived they did right by me.   Now its time to try a little reclamation project and see if I can put Humpty Dumpty back together.

Friday, July 19, 2013

Warmachine at 3 Trolls

I made my way to 3Trolls last night for the Thursday night Warmachine/Hordes game night they have.  It was very busy with something between 8-10 players.  Andy (who with his father Richard owns and runs the store) gave me a learning game.  I had the forces of Kador (who have a Russian vibe) while he was running a clockwork army.  Andy's army had a very "army of Oz" feel to it which was rather cool.
My snipers drew first blood on his clockwork angles(proxy miniatures)
the I advanced but my berserker types took it on the chin.
He war-jacks have a lot of neat area affect weapons and heal them selves...
So it made sense to close in with the... Berserkers don't really care if they die do they?
I played my war casters (the Butcher) feet of blood lust and got in a bunch of really nasty shots crippling three of Andy's war-jacks and then...
shuck the hunter in around to hit Andy's war caster...

Andy concealed at this point he felt he could prolong the game but baring dice silliness he would loses eventually.  I enjoyed the game (its been two weeks since I played last!) I can see the appeal of the game as the use of focus to give your best troops (war Jacks) boost really give you the chance to manage your forces and to limit how the dice hurt you. Also the Chess like element of take out the leader and win means even if your getting trashed one good turn still score you the win, or the loss. Andy and I took a while to play but most of the other games were fairly quick not sure if this is part of the game design, the players list design or their general style of play.  Quick games are good as they leave more time for socializing, drinking and/or more games.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Snow StuG upgrades.

A few months ago a got a little bag with a set gun emplacements since I wanted them to be all weather I had this little bag I figured I needed to use... or it would get me in trouble!
I swear officer its a hobby supply!
So one of the projects was to add some details to my snow StuGs.
 Its hard to see the dusting of now here but if you see previous pictures below you'll see that this little bit has done a lot.
As you can see pre-dusting they had too much base color showing through.
 Now not only do they look whiter  they have some texture and I really love the look.
The 'snow' works well for this, and I have some other vehicles that will be getting this treatment.

New Article at Troll in the Corner

Some detailed back ground for those who may want it for the Grand Duchy of D'Argent.

http://trollitc.com/2013/07/the-grand-duchy-of-dargent/

Monday, July 15, 2013

Sorry for the lack of posts...

The bad combination of a busy scheduled (that includes little gaming) and serious humidity that is holding back several painting project means I have had very little to talk about.

If I can get a day were I have the magic combo of free time and low humidity levels so I can top coat some projects expect a flurry of activity.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Ranger Demo at Table Top Arena

Last night I made my way Tabletop Arena in my capacity as Flames of Ranger.  I brought two "750 point armies" and met with several players who were interested in trying the game.
When you lead with your chin you get punched and I did several times... but hey the goal is introduce new players not win here.  Tony and the Staff at Table Top Arena were happy enough with the results to scheduled a second event for the 1st Tuesday in August.