20mm Russians Force on Force

About this time last year I picked up force on force from Salute and never really did anything with it, but recently ambush Alley released Cold war Gone hot and this perked my interests up quite a bit,

with the "what if factor" and the "evil" coming from the USSR (if your to believe the media of the time) which 30ish years before had been allies in removing the Nazi warmachine from the western world if it had kicked off who knows eh...

So myself, Nick & Coops have opted to go for this in 20mm as we're already go the scenery with KGN and the price difference between 15mm and 20mm isn't that much but 20mm you get better detail, cooler looking models and personally I think there easier to paint?

So these are the infantry for the "small" soviet assault from the CWGH book, all I'm waiting on now is 4 T-80B's from S&S and I'm good to go, The infantry are from elhiem figures good price and good service with a really quick turnaround!

So the whole lot...

The HQ team,

Team One

Team Three

Team Two

Overall I'm quite pleased with these, pretty simple to paint, I started with the army painter Leather brown and highlighted the brown with tan earth and then bleached bone mixed in, the green was russian green and then just simply did the weapons and a watered down delvin mud wash.

Kampfgruppe Normandy - Escalation

Myself and Coops arranged a 300 point KGN game for this week down the club,

So it was the battle of the PBI's my mighty German Wehrmacht against the British,

I decided to roll with the following:

Battlegroup HQ
Motorised Recce
2 Supply trucks

Grenadier Platoon
2 Panzershrek teams
HMG team
88 with tow

2 squads of StuG "G"s

and that was 300 on the nose, 4 command elements & 28 motivation,

The last time I played against coops he rolled me with his shermans, and this time I decided to double the amount of StuG's to counter that,

So this is the battle from the Germans perspective... Coops will do one from the British perspective (Coops Blog)

So the set up and the placement of the objectives, before rolling for sides, the four objectives were the engine shed, the signal box, a field behind the factory and a cottage.

The motorised recce element fly onto the table and take cover from any threat that might be around,

Not seeing anything about they scoot off and secure the field behind the factory, 

meanwhile the vanguard turn up and the 88 with the mover (which is really a signals truck)  move into position waiting for the impending armour push and goes on opportunity fire.

an infantry squad move up the side of the engine shed securing the second objective.

and a panzerfaust team leg it into someones back garden!

So the main force turn up and I roll a good number and three stugs, a supply truck and other odds and sods turn up.

The 88 shoots at a sherman but fails to hit...

The StuG's make what us of the cover that's about, 

knowing how sneaky the British are covering various angles, the Stug spots a recce staghound?but fails to hit...

 the return fire from the Achilles makes short work of the 88, at this point I nearly went into doom and gloom mode as I've been disappointed by the 88 in nearly every game so time to invest in a pak40 me thinks!

But vengeance is mine! A sniper shot by a Stug takes out a sherman 

and another goes bounding through the hedgerows trying to out flank the advancing British armour

even more stugs turn up with some infantry support and another supply truck

still playing the waiting game, the looming shapes of Churchill's can be made out... 

and the staghound returns fire and slots a Stug!! Coops was quite chuffed with this shot and I can't blame him!! 

until I pull mechanical failure and play it on the firefly, then roll a 6 and the vechile is abandoned!! LOL! I didn't expect that!! 

So the infantry move past the knocked out 88 (boohiss)

shots are being exchanged left right & centre and a sherman goes up in smoke.

The Churchill's are getting very close!! with rounds bouncing off there front armour I'd be lying if I said I wasn't panicking... 

with an opportunity to side shot a Churchill I expose a stug to a piat team, 

and I miss the the target but the piat team doesn't...

Getting really close now!! 

Seeing coops sending his recovery truck to try and sort out the firefly & the sheman I put a stug in pointing in the general direction.

the HMG team finally sets up ready for the advancing infantry

and a side shot from a Stug takes down a Churchill!! Rejoice! they can be killed!! 

Whilst a panzerfust team go for a point blank from the rear and miss!

some how the panserfaust team survive and leg it! 

the time is running down, at this point we'd both taken quite a few moral chits and I was only about half a dozen away from breaking,
 

the panzerfaust team eye up there next target!

with the objective unsecured a lone Stug nips forward making sure that the Achilles carn't get a bead on him! 

Another panzerfaust team going after the same target.

The super herioc stag hound takes another stug out with a point blank side shot and in a turn of events the staghound goes up in smoke,

So I manage to win the game with the tightest of margins, and with the suppressed Churchill only the two Achilles were left running around, Coops was unlucky with the mechanical breakdown taking out the firefly, then I managed to suppress a Churchill and then the crew of another abandoned there tank when the panzerfaust bounced off the side!

overall I'm happy with this list, I'm going to drop the 88 and go for either a panther, tiger or pak 40, I will pick up a second infantry platoon so that I can get even more shiney support options!

Special thanks go out to Nick for the use of his terrain, some very very nice work.

Zvezda Review - German Bike & sidecar 1/72

I'll blame this one on Coops.....

I "acquired" some zvezda bike & side car teams so this is the initial look at the kits,


So the box Art,

you get a one piece sprue and the plastic is pretty much the same as the recon team so a semi bendy plastic.

and what they look like once you've put them together, you could get away with not using glue but I glued mine as usual, and didn't bother with the bases that you get in the box just put them on 40x40 bases so the profile is the same as most of my other stuff in my collection.

Overall another good kit from the Zvezda guys I'm sure for about the same price of £3 you could get metal versions but as a quick throw them togeather kit its worth it in my eyes.

but why 4?? well two reasons really the first one is that my eyes are bigger than my belly! and coops semi-convinced me to get what was on the shelf at stafford games, and that I'm going to use these to represent transports for my normal infantry platoon, something a little different from the usual trucks but no doubt I'll still get some at some point!

Flames of War 15mm Churchills & Dystopian Wars bits

So the month of March is rapidly closing to an end and I managed to get some odds and sods done for Dystopian wars,

So the three bits that I had kicking around I decided to splash some paint on, 

The Second swimming Metzger Robot, the sea looks a bit naff in the pics for some reason?

Fresh out of the ship building yards the Rhine class Fleet carrier, nice and simple to paint! 

and the monster which is the Seydlitz mobile airfield, and what Coops will be facing tomorrow night ;)

And finally the churchills  for my tank company are sorted, the three on the far left are a tad shiney but I didn't shake the can for long enough so I'll re-do those at some point, nice and easy and I'm looking forward to blasting jerry with them!

with less than a week till we hit April I doubt that I'll get much more done as I'm feeling the dreaded "man flu" coming on, so the Pledge for this month stands at....

Bought 24
Painted 47
Difference 23!

So the success continues and for my first quarter I'm in the green ready for the influx of salute!

First Look: Warpath

So I picked up the Marauder army box set up a while back when it was first released and myself and Lee have been threatening to play it for a while but never actually got round to it, getting distracted by Nick Cutlass campaign then KGN exploding onto the scene!

But I organised a trip over to the local club in Loughbrough and one of the chaps over there offered to show us the ropes with regards to the system,

so in true Anton style I decided to splash some paint on the guys and see what I could get done but more on this later...


So as I'm lacking Pic's from the game I'll jump straight into my thoughts..

Gameplay

Its fast! real quick to play simple rules but there still WIP and you can tell with some of the areas but as a free set of rules its great for the "younger" gamer but also has enough to be a pick up and play. Some say that its just a watered down 40K but if you go into this with a fresh mind you might like it! the Nerves system works very well in my eyes.

The forgefathers are the don's at shooting and on the opposite side of the fence the marauders are combat monsters! One thing that we did learn from the initial game is that you need quite a bit of scenery and most of the marauders got shot to pieces in a zulu style charge! 

Models

If you look on the Internet at the various forums there seems to be a mixed view, now we've been spoiled rotten by GW for a while now and the marauders are a little basic to look at and have some "ok" poses and like but as "wound" markers they are good enough for me, simple to stick together and more importantly cheap as chips!

The only "bad" thing personally is that since the initial release nothing has been released for the marauders and this makes my current army selection very very limited! ok so you can convert GW kits but personally I'd rather give my pennies to the underdog... 

Lastability

So the initial set was Marauders & Forgefathers with the corporation just about to go live and the concepts and pre-orders for the Veer-myn (say it quick...) clever eh ;) as the game is still in its infancy its still a fair while to go before the gaps in the army lists are filled and the actual core rules are sorted out with some of the grey areas and balancing that is required.

So will it stand the test of time and could it compete with the giants of the wargaming world in the form of GW, Privateer Press, Infinity & Battlefront who knows? 

Ok so the forces coming out are good for proxies for the 40K universe like the kings of war range nice for fantasy...

But as a standalone FREE system with a little effort and some fluff thrown in there for good measure yea its "ok"

anyway enough whaffling on to the plastic crack porn!!

so two basic grunt squads and a captain

a close up of the captain, good size model lovely pose but without some greenstuff trickery not multiposable but a bargain for £9!

close up of one of the grunts dead easy to paint, enough detail for them to look interesting but not too much that they become a ballache to paint.

Raptor fast attack buggies, made from a plasticy resin and the forks were a bit wonky but I decided just to bang them together and go for it (fits with the "ork" feel) now these are quite a good price you can three for £30 which I thinks pretty nifty!

cleaned the camera lens at this point! This is a converted raptor armed with machine guns, 

and the stock version with a rocket launcher.

So I managed to get that lot done in a couple of days, and I'm just finishing off another 20 odd guys so I'll do a "how to" for those people interested, but with the mojo still coursing though my veins I've this lot to get done for my flames of war British army, all I need to do is await some missing parts from battlefront (there customer service is tiptop!!) and I'll start cracking out the army in due course, will it be finished by the end of the month?? no bloody chance but I've a few bits to do and that'll just  round the pledge off nicely!!