Death from above

I have been rather lax on the painting font as of late, first I didn't want to do much while waiting for V3 of flames of war and second I got hooked on both minecraft and star wars the old republic. As far as the video games go, I tend to get excited about them for a week or two then get bored and go back to my miniatures games be it playing or painting, so on that front I am good for awhile. V3 being released and the new rules in hand I have not only played a few games under the new rules I have also been getting back into the painting groove now knowing what I want to be using in upcoming games.

One of my favorite changes is the air support rules, I have always liked using air but it was hard to find the points for something so unreliable, but when they work boy do they work. I used Stukas a lot in my early days of playing, I loved them, my opponent hated them. He hated them so much he started taking priority air just to drive mine off. I rather like the new air support rules, first off one plane on the table, this effectively adds 6" to your wave off distance from behind as before multiple planes deployed 6" behind you off to your sides, big improvement in my mind. Second they range in automatically if the target is not in cover, either your opponent learns to use cover more effectively or he is toast. Of course now you only get one attempt to range in if they are in cover but this is unmodified, so you only need a 4+ to get that range in on a veteran unit that is concealed and gone to ground. So even the bad part of having one range in attempt has a silver lining in there (sort of).

While there may be better uses of my points much like there was in V2 I will for now at least be trying to fit air support into my soviet lists, at least until I get a proper artillery battery completed instead. so now I will shut up and share my completed Il-2 Sturmovik.

I am not 100% happy with how this came out and as it is one from one of the battlefront 3 plane boxes I may do another one and try to get a better result. For now anyone pulls their panthers or tigers out into the open is going to have a very bad day.

Next up i should have some SU-85m's completed soon as well as customizing a turn counter for FOW.

Early war french

As I mentioned in an earlier post I have been painting some Early war french. They are coming along and i thought i would share the work done so far. once the tanks are done the only thing left will be the crews for the guns.

current WIP 3 "Steel Colossus"

105mm howitzers

75mm Artillery, I really like these with the limbers.

infantry platoon

Once upon a time in Germany

I came across this set at the Battlefront booth at Fall-In and for some reason had to have it. It is one of the Wargames illustrated vignettes but is a show exclusive meaning you cant order it anywhere.  it is 28mm and includes figures of Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goring, Martian Bormann, and Heinrich Himmler, Along with the banner and the Dias they all stand on. While I admit the subject matter will not appeal to many I can see this sitting in my display case along with my small collection of German equipment and medals.

I picked up a decent bit of terrain at the show as well and will be showing some of that here as I get it painted. I discovered Mark IV terrain and was quite impressed I will be reviewing some of their products soon.

Soviet 57mm zis-2 anti tank guns

Just completed a platoon of old glory 57mm zis-2 anti tank guns.

Pak 40

I have been working on and off on terrain a lot lately but unfortunately I have little to show for it yet. So I thought I would share one of my favorite FOW units today. Gun teams may die all too quickly all too often in FOW but I love the way this unit of Pak 40s came out and when they work they work quite well.

command team

holding off the allied advance somewhere in France

B-17 'Liberty Belle" lost

 Sad news to share, The B-17 Liberty Belle Crashed yesterday outside Chicago Ill. This is a huge loss as there are only a handful of airworthy B-17's left. This is sad news for me especially as last summer I was able to take a flight on this Aircraft. 

 

 

jagdpanther better pics

I took the camera outside and got some pictures in good light. I really need to find a better indoor photo setup but who wants to spend money on that when there are so many more minis to buy!

jagdpanther

Finished the jagdpanthers today. these have been sitting on my shelf half done for I think almost 2 years now, I really like the models but its hard to push myself to finish something until I want to use it. Now that they are done finaly I am wondering if I will use them or not, oh well.

I took a bunch of pictures but my camera hates me and only one came out decent.

Millitary collector

 It has been said that I have too many different hobbies, and its true. I not only paint minis build models and play games but I also have a classic car and a militaria collection to keep me occupied and my wallet empty. Today I went to the NYS militaria Collectors Association show. I Collect about anything from the second world war and earlier with a strong focus on WW2. Today I picked up a small grouping which consists of a single dogtag a marksmanship badge (with rifle tab) and a combat infantryman's badge.

nice small U.S. Grouping

 Its a nice grouping of fairly common items but having them all come from the same GI makes a nice set.

I also picked up a German Wound badge, this is similar to the U.S. Purple heart and came in 3 grades depending on the number of wounds received in combat, they came in Black, Silver and gold.

Wound badge

This is the post 1942 version of the silver wound badge, it is cast in a whitewashed zinc. it looks darker in the above picture than it actually is.

And finally I picked up a Tin of 50 German Atikah Cigarettes which is still sealed, its an odd item but I doubt I will ever see another and I just couldn't pass it up.

Japanese NCO

I completed this figure and got it all based up.I think the basing really makes it look good.

Soviet infantry

I have never claimed to be a fast painter, I have finally finished the first company of infantry for my soviet battalion. This is a complete company of 3 platoons one which is all sub machine gun teams, with its own Komissar and a maxim hmg team. I intend to do one more complete company and then a number of different support options I have available. I was going to do a Tankovy Battalion but I decided to just buckle down and paint the Infantry and do a Strelkovy Battalion as the massed infantry is what made me want to do soviets in the first place. The local Escalation league kicks off next weekend and I still haven't made a final choice for my list, though it is either going to be soviet infantry or back to Germans. I am the master of last minute decisions. If I go with Germans the Soviets may become my first mid war list, A horde of Fearless Conscripts will give the opposition a reason to run and hide.

and now for something completely different

I have been painting Russian Infantry for the upcoming escalation league and finally I decided I was going insane painting the same thing 120+ times. So today I started something a little different just to keep my sanity in check. I build 1/35 armor on occasion and decided to pull something different from that stash. I found an old box of 1/35 Tamyia Japanese Infantry I picked up at a flea market while trying to haggle over something with little success I finally got him to at least throw in the infantry. so here sits a box of infantry that I likely would never do anything with as Japanese stuff usually isn't my thing.


I opened the box and decided on the command figure, I love world war two but there is something about the eras before when men fought up close with a sword that gets me. The Japanese still using swords in combat really shows how ww2 was in some ways the end of the end of an era.

Marders

I haven't been happy with my pictures thus far so I thought I would try something new to see if I can get better pictures.

So here are some marders I did awhile ago taken today with my new photo setup.

another t-34 update

After finishing up the t-34's I remembered something else I had planned on doing. While going through the Russian armor For this list I realized I was short 1/2 a tank, I had a hull for a t-34 but couldn't find the turret. I really didn't want to buy another tank when all I needed was a turret. While browsing through Battlefronts Russian offerings I found this blister SU883 Komissar Mikhail Dedov, this comes with a complete t-34 with both the 85 and 76 turrets, both of which are individually sculpted and would make excellent command tanks.

            

T-34's

the T-34's for my 600point list are almost complete, the only thing left for me to do is weather the tracks a little. I painted these in a brown and green Camouflage scheme and i really like the way they look. I am contemplating making this a winter army and have a method in mind for vehicle white wash that should work right over what I have already done. I think this might be interesting having tanks in a summer type camouflage that have been whitewashed over for the winter.

the current battalion commander

escalation league.

Task Force Orange, Syracuse Flames of war is starting a Flames of War Escalation league beginning this coming March. Beginning in  March we will be playing at 600 points and adding points each month until August when we will hit a full 1750 points and hold a Nationals Qualifier tournament. Although I could Simply use army's I already own and add a few new units each month I decided I would use this as an excuse to build up my Russian Tankovy list.

 At 600 Points I will have a whole 2 units on the Table, its gonna be hard to attack and defend for awhile. My 600 point list will comprise of a Battalion Commander Mounted in a T-34/76 and one company of 8 more T-34/76, Supporting the Tanks will be a motostrekovy Company of one Platoon and a single Maxim HMG and a Commissar team to keep them all in Check. I have almost completed the motostrekovy platoon and the T-34's are close to being completed.

In true Russian Fashion the command and Commissar teams lead from the rear

I Played a Game with them this Past Sunday that taught me just how difficult a time German armor can give these guys. I ran against a German Panzer Company with 4 PanzerIV and a PanzerIII along with a platoon of Panzer Pioneers. The Panzers tore me up and simply absorbed most of my return fire.

A thorough Thrashing was had on both sides

Eventually I managed to destroy all 5 of his Panzers at the cost of 7 T-34's. It was a quite the fight and looked bad for me for awhile. once all his Panzers were gone My infantry got up and brought the fight to the Fascist invaders. At this point my larger infantry force poured over the pioneers and took the objective winning the battle for the glory of the Russian people.

Now of course I have to point out that this was only the 3rd or 4th time my opponent had played the game and he is still learning what does and does not work. Though he did put up a good fight and I learned just how nasty German armor can be when all you have is some all but outdated tanks to face him with.

The battle is won, Vodka For all!