Flames of War Soviets and some Rogue Trader

So, I'm currently participating in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge as I find being awarded points from the Internet for getting things done whilst posting to a blog filled with people doing the same really, really helps me to get stuff done.

I have no idea why, it just does!

As my grand painting plans were taking a while to get finished, I decided to try to do some things that have been hanging around that should be quick. The fruits of this endeavour were some flames of war soviets.

First up, some scouts which I've made more interesting by adding some German prisoners, made by Peter Pig

Close up of one of the bases

 And another

To keep with the recce theme, some BA-64s

I added decals for a bit of visual interest given the Soviet approach to adding markings was a bit hit-and-miss as far as I can tell.

The challenge also include themed rounds with extra points (I know!) for painting things that match the theme. The first theme was "nostalgia", so I dig out these three chaps who were the first ever figures I bought for wargaming!

Rogue Trader sculpts and they were a joy to paint again as they'd been paint stripped a while ago.

I doubt they'll see the table in a 40k game, but perhaps Pulp Alley or similar at some point.

I'll hopefully be posting a fair bit more as the challenge really works to get me painting!

Bits and pieces of painting

So, I've managed to get some relatively random bits of painting done as I couldn't stay focused enough to finish the daemon army (what a surprise!). Here are the results.....

First up, some saga figures. The Fox and I arranged a game a couple if months ago an in a fit of excitement I started on some of the figures I had lying around suck together but not yet painted. They are technically welsh, but as all the saga figures are hairy chaps I don't think it matter too much!

8 warriors, 4 hearthguard and a warlord are the ones done in this batch, with a green theme to tie them together (and no, I have no interest in trying to work out whether they could make green and whether it was expensive in the dark ages - I just like the shade and so used it!). Obviously I didn't get them finished for our game, but just having a game got me started on them and they're ready for next time as I now have 6 points painted up.


Next up are some reinforcements for my FoW Germans. I've had some old school artillery for ages, not painted (quite a theme with my stuff!) but here are some panzerwerfers and infantry guns to increase the options I have when playing.

I've also been working on lots of my dark eldar to get them done in a paint scheme I can be relatively proud of instead if the "only just three colours and not highlighted" that quite a lot of them were for the last tournament I attended.... I shall post them all together separately.

Flames of war - airplane special

So, I bought these planes for FoW really quite early on in my playing days. I just never got around to painting them.  Perhaps it was the fact that there were three planes in the packs and I couldn't face it.  Perhaps it was the fact that they were notoriously bad at taking paint as apparently battlefront used a different resin for them to that they used for their tanks. Or perhaps it was my massive paint queue :)

Anyway, they live right at the top of my storage boxes and so always appeared when I played to shame me (I keep my other unpainted stuff as close to the bottom as I can to avoid this) so I decided to just get on with it as the new FoW rules mean you only need one plane to represent the flight on the tabletop.

So here they are, a Stuka, an HS-129B3 (with the MASSIVE GUN) and a shturmovik. Now I just need to resist the urge to tie invisible thread around them and hang them from my ceiling :)

Eastern Front re-opened!

So, Nick and I decided to re-open the Eastern Front and so my Soviet soldiers stood ready to counter-attack the aggression of the invaders….. They were pretty much the same lists as last time we played as neither of us had done much to our armies. We also realised the last time we’d played was the final week pre-twins, so about 15 months ago!

So, my forces were going to be attacking 3 objectives and Nick’s elite FJ were going to defend 3 objectives and he got to remove one of them on the 6th, 7th and 8th turns, so I was going to have to get a move on to capture them.

Both our armies set up on the table and I sent a small platoon of 7 bases to sneak up the left flank to keep the defenders there honest and frankly everything else set up threatening the right flank. And then just steamed forward in a Warhammer type formation :) The wood is chock full of infantry and the armour are T-34/85s, SU-57s and SU-122s on the far side.

I did include air support this time and it either didn’t turn up each turn or only had 1 plane arrive – see the blue dice for proof!

Anyway, opposing the Soviet advance was a platoon of dug in FJ, 5 marders (horrible little things) and 4 P4s who appeared out of nowhere in ambush, but fortunately at long range given the Soviets swift advance forcing them back a little.

I couldn’t hit Nick’s forces due to the extra modifier from Hen & Chicks, so over to Nick in the shooting gallery…… which was utterly woeful as Nick’s brand spanking new dice deserted him. The upshot of 16 high calibre shots and an accurate mortar barrage was one wrecked SU-57 and 5 other chaps bailed out across the platoons (you can just see them standing behind their vehicles) as Nick couldn’t buy a Firepower test on 3+ to actually destroy anything….. The P4s, so stunned by their lack of success, failed their stormtrooper roll to get into hiding.

So, the brave Soviets shot back and the T-34s were outstanding – needing 5s to hit from 6 dice, they hit 5 times….. and passed all of their firepower tests on 3+ to add insult to injury. P4s all destroyed (mainly because they failed their Stormtrooper roll on the last turn). The Marders were taken down to the last vehicle, who then failed his morale check and ran for the hills. So, in the middle of turn 2, Nick had all of his armour destroyed and it looked grim….

My planes also decided to turn up and at least pinned the defending FJ platoon and my massive 25 stand infantry unit ran into the open and found themselves in assault range - Losing 5 out of 6 hit bases to defending fire wasn’t great though, but the asssult was on!

Only 3 bases made it close enough to attack and needing 4+ to kill, promptly rolled a 2, 2 & 3. Ah. Oops. The FJ counterattacked and got 7 (!) bases close enough to attack and only needed 3+ to kill bases. This could well embarrass the Soviets and ruin the attack…… but Nick promptly missed with 5 of the 7 attacks! The Soviets took heart and the swirling melee continued for a number of rounds (you keep having rounds until someone breaks off) and the upshot was only an HMG left to the FJ (who also lost their CiC in the melee) and the Soviets down to half strength. The Kommisar having to shoot one stand as an example to the rest of the platoon to make them hold their nerve in the middle of the fight.

As the dust settled, it appeared that my consolidation moves had accidentally claimed me the objective (the two teams in the distance hiding bravely behind the house) and Nick was unable to get anything close enough to the objective to contest it.

So, we got a game in, re-learnt some rules and Nick’s horrible turn of shooting followed by a great turn from my armour really put the FJ in a hole that they couldn’t getout of. Nick’s contempt for the Heer continues to grow as they let the FJ down yet again, the P4s in particular have always done poorly for Nick, so I think his idea of getting the FJ to crew his soon-to-arrive 88s is a good idea :)