Airfield attack, a FoW game report.

One of my club mates John, and myself had a large game at Maelstrom Games in Mansfield recently. We had initially set the game up a four player game two players per side, using 1500 pts each player, however the other two guy's, Johns friends, were unable to get as it turned out, so John and myself set about playing the game on our own.

The table, all 12 foot by 4 foot of it obviously belongs to Maelstrom Games, however all the scenery used on the table is out of my own collection. We had all day to play which as it turned out was just as well, so carefully choosing a scenario that did not finish by turn 6 and one we could adapt for our purpose was needed, so looking through the mission section of the rule book, we decided to use the scenario 'Hold the Line'.  However as we had all day to play we wanted more than several turns, so we added an additional 3 turns to front end of the game, so for example I was not rolling for delayed reserves etc until turn 6, this would allow the Allies to move over the large playing area without being penalised, and it also to allowed us to use the Night Fight rules for good measure.The basis of the game was that the assault was planned for dawn and all movement was potenially done under cover of darkness, however we did start rolling for dawn to arrive form turn 3 as specified in the main rules.

Set up was done between 9.30am and 10.30am, we actually started playing by 10.45am and we finished the on turn 22 at 5.00pm! And not a tank in sight, pretty unusual for my games.

So here are some pictures of the table layout and the game, a Luftwaffe airfield somewhere in France in 1944 is about about to be attacked by an elite unit of British Para's. Unfortunately we got so engrossed in playing we forgot to take pictures more frequently.

The forces consisted of two companies of British Paratroopers, with Priority and Sporadic air support, light artillery and some anti tank guns.

The German forces comprised of part 1, a company of Fallschirmjager with fortifications and Luftwaffe AA support.

German Part 2, an Aufklarungsschwadron, (Reconnaissance Squadron), with AA support and NW42 rocket battery.

 The battlefield.

 German deployment.

British deployment.

The game:

The Allies have to capture one, or both of the two objectives in the German deployment area, objective one is the crashed ME109, and the second objective is the command post next to the large ruined building.

Turns one to three:
The British para's move up the table at full speed, using the terrain and cover for concelament.
The German half track recon patrol moves towards the town on its patrol sweep.

Turn four, no dawn rolled.
The British move through and occupy some of the buildings on the outer edge of the town.
The German recon platoon moves close and spot something trying to move into a field, they immediately open fire, rolling a 6 to see if they could see the target and reveal a gun team trying to hide, one of the gun teams is destroyed by the command half tracks 3.7cm cannon, along with an infantry team cut down by one of the other half tracks MGs trying to make for the  field.  The recon platoon radio back to base and the alarm is raised.

Turn Five, no dawn rolled.
The para's move as quickly as possible now that the jig is up, a platoon of Jeeps race out of cover using nearby woods as cover, the gun teams shot at during the last round return fire destroying two of the half tracks and bailing the third.  The survivors of the recon platoon successfully manages to pass their motivation check and live to fight on, albeit out of the half track at this point.

The crew of the half track successfully roll to remount their vehicle and realising that a large enemy force is nearly upon them elect to stay and try to stem the tide.  The half tracks gunners open up destroying another of the gun teams but to failing to do little else.

Turn six, dawn is rolled.
As if on cue a flight of three Royal Airforce Typhoon's attempt to strafe the airfield and take out the MW42s.
The para's shoot at and bail the command half track, however the vehicle is assaulted and destroyed by he teams in the train station.

The remainder of the attacking force force move forward at the double where ever possible, using the intervening scenery as cover.  The Tyhoon's sweep low over the airfield but all three planes are shot down by the platoon of Luftwaffe 88s AA guns.

The Germans roll for reserves and get a 5, the second recon platoon races towards the oncoming attacking force.  Everything is out of range of all the defenses, however the spotter for the MW42s hiding in a ruin on the perimeter can see one of the Jeeps in the British recon platoon, and calls in a barrage, destroying a jeep and the infantry team.

Turn 7
Nothing of any significance happened in this round other than both sides movement, pretty much no shooting worth mentioning from either side

Turn 8.
One flight of two Typhoons appears and are promptly shot down by the AA half tacks.
Both side maneuver into better positions or move at full tilt to reach the objectives, little to no shooting to speak of.

Turn 9.
Another flight of two Typhoons.
The para's move at top speed utilizing all the terrain and cover to block line of sight. The para mortar platoon moves on to the hill to get a good vantage point.  The 88s shoot down two more Typhoon's trying to knock out the NW42s.

The Germans receive two more platoons of reinforcements, the two Fallshirmjager platoons move onto the table from the rear edge of the board.

The recon patrol races to intercept the attackers. The NW42s fire again but fail to do anything, other than pin the infantry target they fired upon.  The 88s shoot down two more Typhoon's.

Turn 10.
Two lots of attacking Typhoons this turn, in two flights of two.
While most of the British pars move at best speed through the woods, a heavy MG platoon sets up position at the edge of a wood on the right hand side of the road, while the remainder of the 6 pounder platoon savaged by the recon half tracks in the earlier rounds set up in the wood on the left side of the road to provide covering fire.  The howitzers are towed into a copse of trees, all passing their bogging checks and the rest of the para's move as best they can.
The mortars smoke the 88s, something that was to happen on nearly every round after this one, so the effective AA fire so far enjoyed by the Germans was pretty much ended.  The 6 pounders open up on the recon half tracks and bail one. One flight of Typhoons are shot out of the sky by the light AA battery, however the other flight attacks the reaming two recon half tracks destroying both.  The platoon fails it motivation check and is destroyed.

The Germans get another reinforcement in the shape of an armoured Grenadier platoon, which doubles its movement to try to get to intercept the oncoming waves of attacking infantry.  The platoon of three armoured AA half tracks move with the Grenadiers to support them.

By this point the airfields primary ground defenses are in range, two platoons of 4 HMG teams and two HMG bunkers, all fire at whatever target they can see, and there are plenty of targets to choose from, the result of 60 HMG all firing dice ends up shredding one infantry platoon reducing it to under 50% and pinning it, but being fearless vets pass their motivation and live to fight on. The HMG platoon on the edge of the woods is reduced by one team and is pinned, as is the 6 pounder platoon.  The NW42s have a target this round, the Jeeps trying not to get bunched up present a too tempting target and are promptly bombarded, destroying two more vehicles and their infantry teams, and then promptly failing their motivation test for losing more than 50% of the platoon and are destroyed.  The AA half tracks do a stormtrooper move to get closer to the advancing Brits.

Turn 11.
No aircraft this turn, the mangled para infantry platoon fails its motivation and remains pinned, however the HMG platoon un pins itself.  The howitzers make one final move just hovering on the edge of the wood, again all passing their bogging checks.  The mortars smoke the 88s, the second mortar platoon having moved into a protected position now starts to bombard the defenders.  The HMG platoon fires and while scoring a respectable amount of hits causes no casualties on the Fallschirmjager HMG platoon, but does pin them.  The 6 pounders fire on the HMG platoon with no effect as they are under the smoke laid down by their comrades.

The Germans now get all of their reserves on, the last two armoured Grenadier platoons arrive and make for the defensive line.  All pinned units successfully un pin.  The AA half tracks move into a covering position while the first Grenadier platoon disembarks and moves to intercept the para's who are close to the first line of the airfield barbed wire defenses.  The half tracks, the Grenadier platoon and all the HMGs open up laying down a withering hail of bullets.  One complete British platoon is wiped out and another reduced to below 50%, again passing its motivation to carry on the fight.

Turn 12.
Again no Allied aircraft.  All pinned units un pin, the 88s are once again smoked, and two bargarges come in form the howizters and the second mortar team.  This barage resulted in pinning three entire platoons manning the defenses but the Germans suffered no other casualties.  The HMG and the 6 poiunders concentrate all their fire power on the AA half tracks and the Grenadier platoon directly in front of the, but to no avail, the allies rolled appallingly not even getting enough hits to pin the Grenadiers.

The Germans managed to un pin the HMGs, but the second Grenadier platoon was firmly pinned, the light AA battey managed to un pin too.

The AA half tracks the Grenadiers, along with all the HMGs poured yet another withering volley at the attackers, this round saw a 6 pounder gun team destroyed and another HMG team bit the dust.  The NW42s managed to fire on the third attempt, killing one team and pinning two platoons.

Turn 13
No aircraft again, the 88s were smoked, and more smoke bombardments from the second mortar on the HMG/Grenadiers, the howitzer failed to hit as did the HMG and 6 pounders, although the Brits were virtually at the barricades.

The Germans had about as much luck as the British and caused no casualties this turn.

Turn 14
An exact duplicate of turn 10 for both sides, although the first of the British Para's successfully crossed the first of the two line of barrciades.

Turn 15.
A slightly better round. One flight of two Typhoons appeared.  The 88s were once again smoked, as were the HMGs and light AA battery behind the defense, a clear run for the aircraft this round.  The HMGs and the 6 pounders again tried to knock out the half track AA and Grenadiers, without much success it does have to be said.  The howitzers managed to kill a couple of the Grenadier teams manning the defenses, but other than that casualties were light, with one AA half track bailed out.

The Typhoon's screamed in and made their attack run, and bailed out all four of the half tracks that they had attacked, well what a let off that was for the German defenders.

The German reply was quite emphatic, 60 dice of HMG shredded yet another para platoon and reduced the previously shredded platoon to one last surviving team, the HMG platoon was reduced to below 50%, but yet again the Brits passed their motivation to fight on.  One of the howitzers bit the dust, and the MW42s pinned the troops trying to move up in support.  The AA half tracks and the remaining teams of the Grenadier platoon we proving to be a thorn in the side of the para's trying to get to the barricades, the German teams were knocking out the odd team here and there but it was wearing away the amount of available troops to make the final push fort the objectives.

Turn 16
No aicraft.
The lone para passed his man alone check and proceeded to move to the rear, the leading paratroops already across the first of the barbed wire barricades dig in and wait for support.  The 6 pounders move into short range and try to get shots in at the Fallschirmjager HMG platoon, the 88s are smokedr the light AA platoon.  The two 6 pounder gun teams fire and knock out a HMG team.  The allied HMG platoon manged to kill two teams of Grenadiers, and knock out a AA half track.

The NW42 had no targets as once again the spotter was under the smoke, so the spotter bravely moved closer to the at the barbed wire to try to see something. The Germans poured fire into the dug in troops, killing two teams, yet more British teams fell to the AA half tracks and the Grenadiers.  The 88s now had a viable target as the 6 pounder platoon had moved under 16 inch allowing them to shoot, however it now allowed the AA guns to return fire, the 88s opened up and the 6 pounder platoon was completely destroyed.

We forgot to take pictures form this point as we were so engrossed in the game!

Turn 17
No aircraft.  This is the last turn that the allied player was able to use the Typhoon's.
The sole para team making their way to safety fail their man alone check.  More para' s cross the barbed wire.  The 88s are smoked, as are the light AA battery and HMGs. Two para platoons move to within 2 inches and shoot at the Grenadiers preparing to assault, two teams go down.  The surviving HMG teams bail a AA half track.  The howitzers drop a bombardment onto to a Grenadier platoon not under the smoke near to the light AA battery, no Grenadiers are killed but one of the light AA guns is knocked out and all three defending platoons are pinned.  The para's take this opportunity to assault, the first assault is bounced as the para's are hit by several shots from the AA half tracks and Grenadiers .  The second assault went better for the Brits and three teams of Grenadiers are killed, along with an HMG team, the Germans fail their motivation and fall back in confusion.

Two of the three pinned platoons fail to rally, only the HMG platoon passed its motivation.  The AA half track crew remount the vehicle and the Fallschirmjager HMG platoon move to support the crumbling defenses.  The Bunker HMGs finish off the allied HMG at the edge of the woods.  The MW42 spotter no had a target, the mortar platoon on the hill, and a bombardment was successfully called in reducing the mortar teams down to two teams and its command team.  The AA half track and Grenadiers, finished off the second mauled para platoon.  The para's were near to the objective but were running out of manpower.

Turn 18.
The mortars did not smoke the 88s this turn, rather trying to pin the the HMG platoon which they successfully did.  The remaining para's facing the AA half tracks knocked bailed out both vehicles and reduced the grenadiers down to two teams, then assaulted, only one team was killed and passing their motivation the remaining Grenadier assaulted and killed a para team only to fall in the counter assualt, the AA half tracks were destroyed, but had held up a significant number of para's for about four rounds.  The Para's then turned their attention to the assault of the HMGs, defensive fire killed two British teams, however the remaining HMG teams, the last of the second Grenadier platoon and the last light AA gun were all destroyed in the assaults.

The Germans were now on the back foot, however two full Fallschirmjager platoons held both the objectives and a full Grenadier platoon was moving to cut off the now very depleted para's.  Only one 88 could fire however its three shots killed a team, and the HMG nest killed two more teams.  At this point the para's did not have one intact platoon left, but had so far only failed one motivation test.

Turn 19.
The para's moved closer to the objectives, allowing the now freed up stragglers the chance to catch up, smoke was dropped onto the closest objective, the reduced mortar platoon failed to hit, however the howitzers hit the Fallshirmjager HMG platoon and killing two with the two remaining teams failing their motivation.  The para's poured shots into the HMG nest and assaulted taking the nest out.

The two Fallschrimjager platoons stood firm behind their entrenchments but were having trouble hitting anything due to all the smoke.  The 88 took out another team.  The MW42s hit and pinned the mortar team on the hill.

Turn 20.
This was getting close, one more lost platoon on each side and both sides were going to be below 50% and need to take company morale checks.

The paras had to assault to win, there was no other way, so more smoke was dropped from both mortar teams to provide concealment and a bombardment from the a howitzers, which pinned the last Grenadier platoon and the closest Fallshirmjager platoon.  The para's assaulted and killed three teams, the FJ passed their motivation and counterattacked killing two para teams.  Another assault by the Brits killed another two FJ teams, and the the defenders failed their motivation and fell back allowing the para's onto the objective.

The Fallschimjager rallied and moved to attack, the last Grenadier platoon stood its ground and shot through hr smoke, knocking out one team, the Fallschirmjager shot but failed to cause a wound, the 88 missed as well.  In the assault only one team was killed, however the counter assault  just killed one FJ team which just happened to be the 2iC, so the fight continued with the Germans killing the remaining para's, although that platoon was now down to only four teams.

Turn 21
This was going to be make or break.  As expected in came the smoke from the mortars, however the short platoon missed,  the howitzers were silent as their spotters could see nothing of the target area.  However more than half of the para's remaining troops were four turns away if they doubled and the Germans still had the two HMG bunkers and one surviving HMG nest, not counting the 88s, so the assaulting para's were unlikely to get assistance from that quarter.

The para's on the far side of the building that had assaulted and taken out the AA guns moved to attack the building, the building was occupied by the last Grenadier platoon and the FJ 1iC, the para's shot and took out two of the seven teams, hitting enough times to pin the platoon.  The resulting assault saw three more teams go down one of them was the 1iC, however the Grenadiers successfully counter assaulted killing two of the para team's.  The para's once again  counter assaulted and wiped out the Grenadiers,  now putting the Germans in the position of needing to take a company morale check.  The para's consolidate and take the objective.

Right then, fail this roll and its all over, however fate or the dice gods had one last trick to play on us, more on that in a minute or two.

The Germans passed their company morale test, the last four teams of the short FJ platoon cannot get to within four inches of the objective as the para's have teams in the way. So half of the second FJ platoon moved along the trench lines half of the platoon holding one objective while supporting the other platoon.  Both platoons fire and pin the para's and the short FJ platoon goes in and promptly kills absolutely nothing, however the para's fail to counter assault, so the FJ withdraw, leaving the para's holding the objective.  However the good news is that the last team the FJ killed in the shooting phase finished off another platoon, which now meant that the para's had to take a company morale test.

Turn 22.
All John has to do is pass the company morale test to win the game, he rolls the dice and its a 1, I have never heard such language as I heard that day, right re roll time using his British Bulldog special rule, one of his surviving 1iCs is one of the teams at the objective, the other 1iC had perished in the conflagration of HMG fire several turns earlier.

So all John had to do was roll a 3+ on his re roll to win the game, what does he roll another 1, well I thought the language had been bad on the first roll, my my I have never heard the like. So although John had taken the objective, all of his remaining troops ran off, granted there were not that many left to be honest.

I tried not to laugh to much, as all I have to do is pass my company morale test, and promptly go and do exactly the same thing and roll a 1.  So all my remaining troops run off too.

We had virtually wiped each other out by the end, although I had one of my HQs and three complete platoons left, with one part platoon, John had no intact platoons at all, but at least one more surviving platoon than I did.

What an end to the game, that was one we could not have predicted.

It was a good game, very enjoyable indeed, it took all day to set up and play, actual playing time was about five and a half hours, we were not hanging about either, we got to turn six in under well under an hour, and getting 21 full turns in the time we played was quite fun.

Two and a half weeks later!

Strange title to my post you might think, not really this is the time its taken me to get all the current batch of Flames of War models completed.

I have not posted much lately, same reason as I have not painted that much recently either, apart form the aforementioned FoW models,.  I had just been too busy with packing parcels of merchandise for Fanderson sales and doing all the GCN work I took on, mind you that said I have been some what productive this last few weeks, with around 100 parcels packed and posted for Fanderson Sales and around 30 odd clubs back on the GCN club list, not the mention the dozen or more I am currently dealing with, so finding time to do anything for myself was proving difficult.  Oh and not to mention going to Scotland for week in mid June.

We go to a holiday cottage on the Solway firth coast about 45 minutes away from Dumfries, usually once per year, the cottage is owned by my wife's cousin, in a small village called Southerness.  The week before we went the weather forecast was for absolutely awful weather, with wind and rain.  So I packed a load of paints and my US tanks, as well as plenty of reading material, I was not going to be bored.

Funny thing was we left the really foul wet weather on the M6 just after Carlisle and did not see any bad weather until we hit the M6 at Carlisle a week later, the weather was dry, some cloud and a few really sunny days, which meant that me planned painting session pretty much went out of the window, bummer a coupleof days rain and I would have a load of US tanks finished!  Not to worry we had a good week and the batteries were recharged.  On one of our trips out I managed to pick up some more useful books from a really good second hand bookshop in Kirkcubbright, I have visited this particular shop three times now, and this trip was as good as my previous visits, I came away with three books, one of them was a really useful book on WW2 Allied vehicles with loads of colour plates, dead handy for reference for the project that I was working on, US armoured vehicles. 

So not much painting was done in Scotland, and the time went so fast, we went on so many walks, our two Greyhounds started to refuse to go out, unusual for them, mind you they loved galloping around on the beach every morning.  Home and more work was waiting, loads of mail and parcels to pack, what I needed was a plan, and some good time management to allow me to get cracking with my own model projects, I wanted to get all my US tanks finished.

So week one, the last week in June saw the dogs being walked at 7.00am, followed by two hours of tank painting, then a couple of hours packing parcels, a couple of hours doing GCN work and then back to painting the tanks again for another couple of hours. Late afternoon get the dinner prepared for my wife coming home from work, then another couple of hours painting after dinner and the tea time dog walk..  Blimey I was rattling through these tanks and no mistake.  Mind you the weather was so bad and wet that I did not leave the house apart from walking the dogs for the best part of a week.

Week two, now into July carried on pretty much the same, but I slowed down a bit on the tank front as I had other jobs that needed doing and a couple of figure building commissions to do for a comic shop in town.

Fortunately both the Fanderson and GCN side of things slowed down a bit and I could once more concentrate on the tanks, it was ll going so well then after on eof my monthly trips to Nottingham for a meeting with Battlefront Miniatures I calle dat Maelstrom Games on the way home and ended up with another six tanks, a box of M4A3 76mm Shermans and an M32 TRV, so that added a couple more days to get the tanks painted.

Thursday 12th July saw me finish the tanks and get them photographed and uploaded to my Facebook album.

Time for a rest, not likely I have now started painting the staff, observer, command teams and a few other bits and pieces, not to mention a platoon of 3" towed anti tank guns.

Ah well onwards and upwards, although the SAGA Viking warband is calling for some attention.......

Flames of War an update.

Been a while since my last Blog, I have been quite busy with one thing or another, we managed to get a nice week away in Scotland in the second week of Sept and we are now in the middle of building work as we have an extension being built on the rear of the house. Lord above I will be glad when its finished, the mess is driving me nuts!

Enough of real life, back to the models, last Blog I had just about completed all the Germans models I had left, and so I turned my attention to the pile of untouched US models, however the models built and painted for my US forces were for the Iron Cross Painting Competition held at the Official European Flames of war grand Tournament held over the weekend of 3rd and 4th Sept. I thought that I would give the first painting comp a go, I did not expect to get anywhere and so I did not have my hopes dashed when I failed to win any of the five categories I entered, although I did not disgrace myself, so will settle for that. I will get back to them once all the German models are out of the way.

Freshly painted is another platoon of Pak 36's and a 10.5 cm heavy mortar platoon for my Falschirmjager force, a platoon of 15cm NW41 Nebelwerfers, along with three heavy weapon upgrades for Grenadier HQ and two more StuGs.

Sat glued to their bases with the filler drying is Von Der Heydte and his tank hunter teams for the Falschirmjager force, and a Grenadier assault platoon.

When those are finished, I can then turn my attention to the pile of early war German tanks, for either a Light Panzer Company or Medium Panzer Company. Although they looks to be a lot sat there in blisters, I can rattle through them very quickly so they should not take me too long to build and paint.

With the early war Panzers completed that really will be the end of the Germans, as I will have filled two entire FoW kit bags, but can now do early, mid and late war for the Germans.....

Then is back to the US models, watch out for further updates and maybe a few pictures too!!

An interesting couple of weeks!

When I say interesting I do not mean it in a positive way, well not all of it anyway!

It all started back during the third week of July with what I though was just a summer cold, nah it was proper 'man flu', the reason I know it was a bad virus was when the wife caught it, the previous week it was a case of get over yourself its only a cold despite my vigorous pleadings that it was more than that. Christine soon altered her opinion when she started with the symptoms, and after spending the better part of the weekend in bed stated that her 'illness' was worse then mine, well she is a nurse so she should know!

The really annoying part of this was that Chris had booked that week off work, typical, we do have a holiday planned, but that is not until the new year, but thought we could go out with the dogs for some nice trips out, well all of that went out of the window. Chris had berated me the week before as I had a GCN council meeting planned at GW HQ on the Tuesday, which just happened to be my birthday as well, however as it turned out my being out all day just meant that she got to sleep more with out my disturbing her.

One week on the flu was going, thankfully, only to be replaced with a chesty cough which I have now just about recovered from.

The hobby took a real hit that week and fared little better following week as well, it was a good job I cleared so much scenery in the preceding months. On the Monday I started work on the 15mm scale resin buildings I had purchased recently for the western European village/town, and then ground to a complete stop.

I had to go to a funeral for my cousins husband on the Tuesday, this is never good even when you are expecting the worse to happen. Granted I got cracking on the buildings again on the Wednesday, then I had to attend the 'speed awareness' course for the speeding ticket I picked up going to Comic Con Wales in early June, 4 1/2 hours and £92 later, or rather all Thursday gone out of the window as it turned out. The car had to taken into the dealership Friday morning as we had a recall notice as something on one of the chips need to be updated for some reason. Although I did get to spend Friday afternoon working on my buildings.

This week has proved a bit more of a productive week thankfully, I finished all of my current 15mm buildings, a row of four shops, a row of four houses, a large Cafe, a large shop with entryway and an out house for good measure. I also decided to construct some custom road sections, using vac formed plasti card that represents paving, which is glued to some thick card stock, these road sections will look better with the buildings than my other road sections which lean towards the 'rural'. I also worked on some club scenery while I was doing my own, we now have a nice selection of 15mm terrain being as we have attracted a few new Flames of war players recently, but wanted to fill it out a bit more and as Wargames Emporium owed the club some scenery, we now have a couple of boxes of the Battlefield in a Box Rural Roads and Vineyard sets all ready for use.

I am at Maelstrom Games again on Sunday for one of our COGS all day game day's, and might look at picking up a couple more buildings from the 'Total Battle Miniatures' range, I only need the odd building or two now as I have a few already.

My 15mm scenery collection is growing apace, and I now have more than enough to fill at least two 6 x4 foot boards, at a push I could probably do three!

Onwards and upwards, as I have platoon of 120mm heavy mortars to paint, and my three entries for the Iron Cross painting competition at the Flames of War GT in a couple of weekends time need loads of work on them....

Nearly finished the german FoW army, no not quite!

Well there I was thinking that I had about finished the German side of things for Flames of War.

I got pretty close it has to be said, but I had to purchase that one extra blister didn't I. Well to be honest it was three blisters I actually purchased, a section of PaK38 anti tank guns, a section of Pak 36 anti tank guns and a section of Fallschirmjager PaK 36 anti tank guns, which were all assembled and painted in quite a quick time frame it has to be said.

I had made a bit of a start on the six infantry bases I am using from the Infantry Aces blister pack, but real life kept getting in the way, then a bout of flu, which was diaganosed as 'man flu' by the wife until she caught it, then is was proper flu, typical.

The illness may have slowed down the painting, but it did not stop me from going on-line to buy more stuff, so I now have a blister of Fallschirmjager heavy mortars to get cracking on, not too bad a build job and as the boxes are getting very nearly full to bursting, I am definitely slowing down with the Germans, although I have now worked out what I need to purchase to have an early war force. The list of early war tanks is not that long and so I am going to build a Light/Medium tank company which I will be able to use for mid war as well, and with those tanks purchased, all space in both my German carry cases will be used, so a good place to stop.

Stop with the German that is, I have also bought a few more bits and pieces recently for the US army, although the blisters I have bought this last week are for building to enter the 'Iron Cross' painting competition at the Official Flames of War European Grand Tournament in Nottingham on the 3rd and 4th September, where I will be all weekend long as I am helping out at the event.

I feel the urge to enter some models at this competition, to be honest I think this will be my one and only shot at this doing something like this in this scale as the old eyesight is not what it used to be.

I will write up a blog of what I intend to build and enter in a couple of weeks when I have finally decided, I have a few idea's I am just not 100% on them yet.

The final push...

Now that the last of the current batch of scenery is finished for the Battlefront Miniatures Official Flames of War GT, and ready to be taken back to head office in Nottingham later this week, its time for a final push to get the brushes going and get the last of my German models painted and packed away. Or at least get them all finished before I have the chance to buy anything more!

I have been so busy doing the scenery for Battlefront this last week, and with all the other work and meetings for the GCN over the last couple of weeks, it has really eaten into my time, so my own model work ground to a full stop, granted I did 'refresh' the straight out of the box paint jobs for the new 'Battlefield in a Box' sets, the Monastery and Vine Yards last week but that was the sum total.

I plan to have a session or two this week which will see all the part painted FoW models completely finished, although there are now two new additions, 'groan', not more models bought, afraid so, but only two blisters this time, a Bergpanther recovery vehicle and a Russian T34/85, nope I am not starting a new Russian army, this is a one off model for use in one of the Panzergrenadier lists for a 'looted panzer platoon', cool doing only the one tank is easy.

Although when I get the rest of the scenery finished for Battlefront, assuming that I am given some more that is, and when the last of my German models are packed away I need to get cracking and get back on track with some other work that I have either to finish or to start.

There is the Airfix Saturn 5, which has been sat assembled, sprayed gloss white and awaiting all the detail painting since last February, that model is ready for the masking to be applied for all the metallic and black area's to be spray painted, the old Aztec airbrush will need agood clean as its not been used in over a year now.

Following on from that, I have a few 1/6th scale vinyl kits, these are 12 inch tall figures from various films, Klaatu and Gort from the old 1950s movie, The Day the earth Stood Still, a Darth Vader from Star Wars, an old vinyl kit, (in actual fact two of them), of Captain America, this kit has peaked my interest again because of the new Captain America First Avenger movie, and 'cap' has always been one of my favourite comic books characters. There are a couple of other Marvel and DC figures to build and paint that are to be for display in a local comic/model/collector shop here in Chesterfield. Plus several other injection plastic kits that I need to build of various craft from Gerry Anderson series, Thunderbird's 1 and 4 at the top of the list, among many others.

This is of course not counting any of my other war games models that need attention, its going to be a busy time between now and the Christmas holiday.

As I said its time for a final push to get some of that lot finished......

Flames of War and more....

Well I am very nearly out of German Flames of War models to paint, granted I do have several models yet to finish, a couple of SDkfz 250 half tracks, two Wespe's and a half dozen Opel Blitz trucks, all of these are more than half done, plus the six small bases of infantry from the new Infantry Aces blister, and my latest and quite possibly last purchase for a while on the FoW front a Bergpanther recovery vehicle.

Unfortunately I have been a rather busy over the last couple of weeks with other things that needed priority on my attention and time. I had a load of scenery to complete for Battlefront Miniatures, thirty feet of various river sections, with another thirty feet sat in boxes in my workshop awaiting attention, in addition to that little lot I cut up a 6 foot by 4 foot door mat which makes excellent 'wheat fields' for 15mm scale, unfortunately for me I picked the hottest day of the year to carve that mat up, so I was drenched in sweat by the time I was finished, however there was a large box of fields all boxed up and ready to go back to Battlefront.

My time over the last two weeks was not going to be my own either as I also had several articles to write up for both Wargames Illustrated and White Dwarf magazines, its surprising where all the time goes when you start doing jobs like that. Although last Friday I did mange to get a bit of painting done for myself first thing. I had to take my youngest daughter Kirsty for a medical assessment at lunchtime on the far side of Sheffield following a car accident she was involved in a couple of months ago, which meant that I was not able to get much time in the workshop.

However the time I had available in the morning meant that I could do a little bit of work on the two new 15mm scenery pieces I picked up from Battlefront on Thursday, a ruined Monastary and Vineyard set from the new Cassino ranges. They are very nice straight out of the box for the price, they are only priced at £15.00 per set which is great value for money, but I wanted to add another level of detail and weathering to them, so they were duly drybrushed and painted slightly differently to the boxed versions, however I am quite happy with the finished result and they now 'tie in' much more with my other small (but growing) collection of 15mm Western European buildings and ruins.

This week will see another thirty feet of river sections completed and the 8 foot by 4 foot roll of door mat currently sat in the workshop, cut up into 'wheat fields', hopefully it will not be quite so hot when I start to carve that roll up. Variations on a theme will be the order of the day for this roll of mat, with burned and scorched sections of fields rather than just plain fields.

Mind you, its not just been scenery and assembling of FoW models I have looked at this last couple of weeks. I managed to get a game of Warmachine in at COGS two weeks ago, one of my club mates has a tourament coming up at Maelstrom Games and wanted a practice game, so out came my Menoth army. I have concluded that I am not totally satisfied with some aspects of my Protectorate army, and so I am looking to sell some of them, I do not want to get rid of everything, but I want to hit the 're set' button and start again, get rid of models I never use, (there are quite a few), and maybe get some infantry type units that I have not looked at so far, I am not completely 100% decided which way to jump and will 'wing it' as I go along.

I also managed to dust off my collection of Circle Orboros models though, These have been assembled and primed for about three years or more, but I never got around to actually painting any of them. I plan to revisit this Hordes force and add to it in the near future, as I love some of the Warp Wolf models and hopefully get some games in too.

This coming Saturday (9th July), sees me at the Mantic Games open day in Bulwell near Nottingham and I shall be at the Festival of History in Kelmarsh North Northamptomshire on Sunday 17th July in the war games marquee, manning the GCN stand.