2015 Retrospective

This a reflection on the last 12 months, and looking at the plan for 2016.

I started 2015 playing in the Warmachine competition at ValleyCon, having picked up the game in 2014 and building a Protectorate army in support of my son who was playing Khador. Sitting down after the comp, I decided that this year I wanted to try and get back into Flames of War after a hiatus of eight years.

That plan has had mixed results. There's very little FOW being played at the local club, as there are so many other games that people are enjoying. And I wasn't as proactive as I could have been about hunting down potential opponents. I've only played maybe 10 games, but they were all good games against people I enjoy spending time with. In particular I enjoyed a couple of themed 2000pt Mid War games that were played on an 8x6. Flames of War works really well when you have space and stick with historical opponents. As well as the games, I have managed to put together a new Early War army and some terrain, and chip away at a few bits and pieces to fill gaps in existing armies.

Here are some of the things that I have worked on during the year:

Early/Mid War DAK Panzer Company HQ: 2 x Panzer III G

DAK 88s - I had lost the barrel for the one on the right, and scratchbuilt a replacement

Early War Matildas

Late War Gebirgsjager Nebelwerfer Battery

Gebirgsjager 15cm NW41

Gebirgsjager Heavy Anti-Tank Platoon - 7.5cm PaK40

Gebirgsjager HMG Platoon

Jagdpanthers - just because

Comets - again, just because

Protectorate of Menoth - Reclaimer

Deliverers

High Paladin Dartan Vilmon

So, what are my hobby aims for 2016?

1. Finish the AWI Continentals over the next couple of months, and hopefully get in a practice game or two of Blackpowder before the main event.
2. Start an army for another game. That's looking like Impetus at this stage, but Bolt Action is another game which people are getting into locally, and could be worth a look. Although I also need to keep in mind the next item on the list:
3. Give Team Yankee a go. I am skeptical about moderns in 15mm, but I wonder what influence it will have on FOW 4th Edition. If I pick it up seriously, I would be looking at playing in 6mm instead.
4. Finish the Late War Gebirgsjager, and play a couple of games with them. I have all the bits I need, just needing to paint them up: Pioneers, PaK38s, StuGs and a mountain artillery battery.
5. Continue painting Comets until I can field a squadron, and give it a run. I'm hoping that the plastic Cromwells will become available as individual sprues, as a pair of plastic Cromwell CS tanks would be a better fit with the plastic Comets than the resin models.
6. Rebase and touch up my Mid War 8th Army to match the EW units I've just finished. I'm looking forward to the upcoming re-release of the North Africa lists.
7. For Warmachine, touch up my older units which aren't at the same standard as my more recent efforts. I also see Reznik2 and Hand of Judgement as being kits that I'd like to pick up this year.
8. Set up my train set. I've been lugging bits of OO-scale model railway around the country through numerous moves over the last 15 years, but have never had anywhere to set it up. We do now, and it's something that the kids will get a lot of enjoyment out of, so I think it's time to get it up and running again.

That should be enough to keep me out of trouble for a bit. I'll look to keep blogging about progress towards these goals. So, happy new year, and thanks for reading. All the best to you for the year ahead.

All Finished

And here we have it, my completed army for the Flames of War tournament at ValleyCon next month.

Armoured Cars

CHQ and three platoons of Rolls Royce and Morris armoured cars. Built out of the box. I toyed around with ideas for conversions, particularly for more variety in crew figures, but ended up sticking with the kit figures. Caunter colours are Vallejo Model Color: Buff, Green-Grey and German Fieldgrey, with patterns per Mike Starmer's excellent book on the subject. Half were given a wash of Windsor and Newton Peat Brown ink, but after a replacement bottle turned out to be a completely different colour, the rest were done with Army Painter Strong Shade, and I'm never going back. 

Anti-Tank Platoon

Two 37mm Bofors portees. The dismounted option is provided by two Polish wz.36 guns and 8th Army 6pdr crews. Figures in shorts had trousers moulded on with Milliput. 

Motor Platoon

Three squads plus two ATRs, using the Battlefront Italian Campaign figures 

Artillery

A section of four 18/25pdrs from the BEF box, recrewed with Italian Campaign crew pack. I looked at mixing in the BEF figures, and did use the gun layers, but the rest didn't really grab me. 

Disco Stu didn't make the cut...

Objectives

I've done two objectives to go with the army. One is the BF Destroyed M13/40 kit, the other is two of the 18/25pdr limbers.

So there we go, three months of work complete. Thanks for following the process, I've enjoyed posting about it as it's gradually come together.

ValleyCon Progress - And First AWI Figure

I now have nine of the 11 armoured cars complete, with just the CHQ to go. Artillery is coming along, with Quads, 15cwt trucks and the guns themselves done, but I still have all of the crew to paint.

I've also been working on the dismounted 37mm guns. There are no BF anti-tank gunner figures for the Italian Campaign range, so I have repurposed some of my 8th Army 6pdr crews, converting them to match the rest of the army by turning their shorts into trousers.

So we're now starting to look a bit more complete, and very nearly finished. I've missed my goal of being finished by Christmas, but definitely looking good to be all done by New Year. With five weeks to go, I should have enough time to finish some terrain, and help my son Jaime with some Khador bits and pieces he needs for the Warmachine competition.

I've also painted up the first of the 28mm AWI Continentals as a test run. The Perry figures are beautiful. Slight filling required where the arms attach at the shoulders, and I had to march around the room trying to work out how the arms were meant to be positioned to look natural (for which I was of course mercilessly mocked by my family), but otherwise brilliant castings and a joy to paint. 17 more to go from this regiment, which I should be able to do in a few batches, then a second regiment of 18 figures to go after that.

ValleyCon - Seven Weeks To Go

We're already halfway through December, with less than seven weeks to go until ValleyCon. I've been chipping away, but ran into a snag late last week. I ran out of the brown ink I use for shading, and the replacement bottle I picked up isn't a colour match. And not just a slight mismatch that I'm being overly picky about: it's pink rather than brown.

So, rather than risk another bottle of the same brand, I've ordered in a different wash in the hope of getting something more reliable. That should turn up in the next few days, and then I'll be able to finish off the teams that are on the bench and post an updated progress photo.

This week I also picked up a box of Perry 28mm AWI Continentals, to paint up for a multiplayer game of Blackpowder being put on next year. I've never done anything in 28mm, but the thinking was "it's only 36 figures, how hard can it be?" My first reaction on opening the box was horror at what I'd taken on: they're incredibly detailed and I don't think my technique built on years of painting in 15mm is quite going to cut it. But I've picked up some inspiration from seeing what others at the club have been doing, and there's an excellent painting guide in the box, so we'll just have to see what happens. And it will certainly make a nice change from caunter...

Travels

No wargaming progress recently as I've just come back from a week in Hong Kong. I was there for work, so the trip involved a few more visits to power stations and cement factories than would normally be expected.

Lamma L9: 335MW Combined Cycle Gas Turbine

Green Island Cement

Hong Kong International Terminals

It wasn't all about the infrastructure, however.

View from Victoria Peak

Roast Goose

Panda!

With the trip out of the way, normal transmission should resume once we're all settled back in.

Quick ValleyCon Army Update

Just a quick update today. Over the last couple of weeks, life has limited the amount of work I've done on my ValleyCon army, but I did knock off four more armoured cars and the two portees. I haven't painted the crew yet, in particular I need to decide whether I'm happy using the gunner that comes with the armoured car kits, or try something else to make them not look so identical.

I had planned to have the 37mm gun removable from the portees, as I think having the dismounted option will be important. Alas, unlike the 6pdr portee, the 37mm portee kit has the gun carriage moulded as part of the truck. Battlefront don't do a British 37mm pack, but the gun is the same as the Polish wz36 so I have picked up a pack of those to use instead.

I'm not going to make much progress over the next couple of weeks either, but I think I'm pretty much on track to have them all finished before Christmas. Quite looking forward to the prospect of something different - painting the same camouflage on so many vehicles is starting to wear a bit thin...

ValleyCon Army Progress

When I last posted two weeks ago, my ValleyCon army looked like this:

One lonely completed team, lots of blank bases and a stack of work to do. Since then, I've painted the Motor Platoon, including transport.

Not 100% happy with the canvas tilts on the trucks, I might revisit them later. It's a bit sad that it probably took more time to paint the trucks than they'll ever spend on the table, but it was good practice for the caunter colours before I do the rest of the armoured cars.

I've painted the full motor platoon with three ATRs, even though I'm only using two of them in the list. Previous experience says that if I don't paint them now then I probably never will, and even if I did get around to it in the future then they won't look the same. Just thinking about that, I should go back and paint three more Rifle teams before too long, to leave open the option of using them as a Rifle Platoon in some other list in future.

So, this is where I'm up to as of the end of the weekend - gradually filling in the blanks.

Some good news is that the 37mm portees and the rest of the armoured cars arrived during the week. I had a pack of the Italian Campaign artillery crew on order from the Battlefront webstore, to replace the BEF crew in the 18/25pdr boxed set, along with a few other special order items, but they've only shipped half the order so I guess the crews aren't available. Luckily, eBay has come to the rescue and there's now a pack of the artillery crew winging its way to me from Minnesota, so that's everything that I need now accounted for.

Next step: get some more armoured cars painted up.

ValleyCon List - First Team Completed

Last night I completed the first model for my ValleyCon army: a Rolls Royce armoured car. A simple build, straight out of the box, with just the addition of a (hugely overscale) radio antenna.

I don't usually base vehicles, but have decided to base the armoured cars here as they are narrow and top heavy. The trucks and quad tractors for the support elements are all one-piece resin models with bases moulded on, so it also helps tie everything together. And, it was a chance to decide on basing style before getting stuck into the infantry and gun teams.

Some photos:

Reasonably happy with the result, although of course the close-up photos are incredibly unforgiving and I can now see defects that were invisible before. Now I only have to remember how I did it and repeat it ten times...

I have been toying with the idea of swapping one of the Morris/RR platoons for an RAF Rolls Royce platoon, as this gives a couple of upgrades that can use up the last 10 points that I have spare. This fits nicely with the theme of the list, as Combeforce also included cars from No. 2 Armoured Car Company, RAF.

I believe the RAF Rolls Royce armoured cars had the older, fully-enclosed turret, rather than the open-topped turret used by the Hussars. I have had a go at scratch-building the alternative turret, to give me an option of swapping out the kit turrets if I decide to go with the RAF option. The results are shown below, on the hull of the car posted earlier.

Terrain Project

I've always been lacking in terrain, partly due to 10 years in the wilderness, during which time I never played, so this year I have decided to rectify that. I'm great at starting projects, but struggle to finish them off unless there's a specific purpose or deadline that I'm working to. So, with the terrain project I have set myself the goal of putting a complete 6x4 table's worth for ValleyCon.

The plan when I started was to do a Sicily-themed table. I then found out that the competition will be Early War, so that doesn't fit, and it doesn't even vaguely match the desert army I've decided to take. Such is life. I've decided to continue as I am, just so I can say I've finished a project. If I'm lucky I'll have time to do a desert table later.

The constraints I've placed on myself are as follows:

1. Suitably sized for Flames of War's footprint. Just thinking about things like buildings that can comfortably fit a number of medium bases, area terrain big enough to hide an infantry platoon, roads which are wide enough for large bases, etc. 
2. Transportation and storage. I love modular terrain boards, and there are some fantastic examples on the internet of them being done really well. Unfortunately, I'm a bit restricted in storage space and I don't think they're really an option for me, so the aim is to go for a traditional solution using a drop cloth and scatter terrain, that can be boxed up for storage, easily modified if it doesn't play as expected, rearranged to give some variety in future, and potentially extended to make an 8x6 table.
3. Reasonably balanced for gameplay. This is tricky, as missions can be played across or along the table, by armies ranging from static to highly mobile. I want a good mix of bulletproof cover, some difficult going, sensible options for objective locations, and a few areas with decent lines of sight without the board being dominated by them.
4. Cheap. There's a lot of wonderful terrain pieces commercially available, but they're expensive. I wanted to scratchbuild as much as possible to try and keep the cost down. 

Here's the basic road layout I'm starting with. The large black area on the right is going to be a town, with the smaller black area on the left potentially being a bridge. Not sure about that: a river makes sense for the setting, but can have a big impact on gameplay, so I may end up doing something else at that end instead.

The roads are made from railway ballast and coarse turf, glued onto a brown felt backing. I think it looks okay, it's flexible so can mould to contours, and is easily patched up when damaged. 

To try and get a Southern European feeling, I've added stone walls lining the roads, vineyards and olive groves.

I have no idea what Italian vineyards looked like 75 years ago, so mine are modelled on what I know: Marlborough. Sufficient space between rows for medium bases, and space in the headland for large bases. 

The olive trees are made from Woodland Scenic armatures. They're detachable to make storage and moving models through the groves easier. A couple of ideas tried here: one grove has the trees plugging into their bases as they're supplied, while the others use magnets. Not sure yet which way is better. 

I've tried to put lots of gates in so that the walls don't cripple vehicle movement too much. I don't think I have enough yet along the roads, so will build some more. Probably aiming for one gate every 18" of wall.

Still need to make buildings, and there are a number of things I need to decide: how to do hills, on top of the cloth or underneath it? What material to use for them? Do I make a bridge and put a river in? Luckily my eldest minion is pretty competent at FOW, so we can test a few ideas out in trial games and adapt the layout if it's not working.