R.I.P Frank Woodruff Buckles

Yesterday the world lost the last surviving veteran of the First world war. Mr. Buckles Enlisted in the U.S. Army in August of 1917 at the age of 16, and then served in Europe during the Great war being discharged from service in 1920. During the Second World War Mr. Buckles was a Civilian POW Being Captured by the Japanese in 1942. In recent years Mr. Buckles had been an advocate for a National Monument to Veterans of the First world war.

 The world has lost a great man
Rest in Peace Frank W. Buckles

Frank W. Buckles in 1917 (image from wikipidia)

Challenge accepted

A member of my local gaming group challenged my Germans to take on his Brit Commandos. I couldn't let such a challenge go unaccepted, so out came the .78 Sturmdivision to send them back to the Tea House with their tails between their legs. Most players expect certain things in an infantry force, but they rarely account for HMG's encased in solid concrete bunkers and Infantry running around in a Trench line. I do Love a Fortification list, I have run the Sturm about 10 times total and they have suffered one defeat. Today I ran 2 games, the first was a no retreat mission and I slaughtered the commandos, That game proved how valuable HMG's are, though having half of them encased in bunkers makes them survivable enough to make them worth having. Of course on the other hand my opponent now understands just how important it is to neutralize the rarely seen HMG's. My second game ended in a draw due to running out of time though I did have another surprise up my sleeve for him. Just as he got the remnants of a commando unit onto an objective my Pioneers launched a Goliath into his midst (yes I know its cheese but I like cheese). that was all she wrote for that unit. Unfortunately we had to stop just as I had 3 Marders contesting my objective on his side of the table (free for all) at the same time he moved up 4 priests. The game ended in a draw though it would have been mine if I had time to blow away the preists. oh well.

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.

Building a city

The last week has been far to busy, trying to find time to paint much has been almost impossible. Seeing as I have nothing to show in completed miniatures I figure I will instead cover what seems to me to be the sometimes forgotten element of war gaming, Terrain. I also want to say that its funny how much alike it seems gamers sometimes think, even when we have never met. One of the guys over at What would Patton do (a great blog and podcast by the way) has begun building "Steve-O-grad". about a week before I heard of his project I had ordered some buildings from JR Miniatures to begin the same project. Of course my city will not be "Steve-O-grad" and I am not sure I like the sound of "Matt-O-Grad" (that confirms it seeing it in type its awful). I intend to use a selection of somewhere around 50% JR Miniatures buildings and 50% built myself. Here are some pictures of the current buildings either completed or close to completion for "yet to be named-o-grad" If you have a good idea for a name for my city feel free to leave a comment who knows you might end up naming a city.

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!