Marching under the cover of Dawn

I’ve not been idle these last two weeks, as the terribly shot pictures below will attest to.

Saturday will be the first Flames of War tournament of the year for the NorCal circuit – a 1650 Late War affair, 3 rounds with 1^st round starting in darkness with Dawn rules (Meaning after turn 3, rolls are made each turn to see if the sun decides to pop up!), the 2^nd a regular game and the 3^rd will be played with the Dusk rules (Opposite to the 1^st round, in that come turn 3, rolls are made to see if night comes down to ruin best laid plans!). Missions have also been pre-determined, which is novel.

A Tiger having a kip in a ditch.

I put together a list from the D-Day allies book, “Overlord”, from the 4^th Canadian Lorried Rifles (Sans the lorries.). It’s a Trained (skill level) list and will be my first time trying out a Trained list in a tournament setting. The reasons I chose it were –

1. I can get more platoons into the list (9 in this case) so even though my troops are going to be easier to hit, there should be more of them than there is of my opponents. Should.
2. All my stuff is painted up as Canadian 4^th, so fit the bill perfectly and I’ll only have to paint one unit for the tournament!

I don't really fancy my chances at this shindig, although I do have all the tools necessary to tackle most every list out there aside from perhaps a Soviet tank horde. I will be happy if I place midway through the results. So far I believe there is a full compliment of 24 players, so it'll be fun to see people's painted forces and see some of the cool players I got me meet last year. Wish me luck!

Speaking of which, that unit are my much used, but never loved – my M10 Achilles Self Propelled Anti-tank guns (With the obligatory 17 pounder guns). For some reason, I use these a lot, yet have never actually painted them up. Well, that’s changed now and they are as done as they’re going to get prior to Saturday. Really all that’s left to do is add some mud effects so they match my tanks and armoured cars.

Top of the stove, best lighting in the house.

I’ve also been frantically painting up a birthday present for Densmol for his birthday earlier this month (That he’s also going to be using on Saturday.), a German Flak36 88mm gun – terror of just about every battlefield it was deployed upon. So far I’ve painted up the crew and the gun and cruciform, it just needs basing, which I hope to have done tonight.

8.8mm showing the scratches and stuff.

All the figs on their bases waiting for the filler to dry. (I even managed to paint the red shoulder markings.)

Lastly, in an effort to help my painting queue get smaller, I spent a couple hours basing my 100+ collection of random fantasy miniatures that I have been using for roleplay games. It’s my intention to have these on hand to just pick up and slap a tabletop paint scheme on when burnout threatens. In this collection are miniatures from multiple makers that go back all the way to 1983. TSR, Ral Partha, early Citadel and Marauder through to more recent Reaper, Malifaux, Mantic and Privateer Press. I’ll be sure to put up a post for each one that I get off my queue.

There's about 30-odd more to add to this picture.

Some of the minis needed some 1st Aid. This Citadel Norse fellow had lost his sword arm. Now he leads the way in the darkness.

This Old 1st Ed Talisman Dark Elf needed a new sword blade. With paint, this won't look so shite.

Old old old TSR pig-faced orc. Spear head was well flimsy, so I gave him this over-the-top glaive with horsehair type stuff to cover his badly cast hand.

This one got a nasty simple spiked spear.

Old 80's TSR Trolls. My 9-year-old son can sculpt better than this. I love these minis! ^_^

40mm Bofors

Although it's been a while I have little time so I'll keep this brief and to the point.

I painted a small platoon of 2x Bofors 40mm Anti-Aircraft guns made by Old Glory. Horrible miniatures to paint which is sad for suck simple two-piece models (Gun and base.). For fun I magnetised the guns so they can swivel and to make them a little more convenient to transport.

As to the use of this unit, with the newest Eastern Front Book (Desperate Measures), it seems every German list and it's mate is taking the new unkillable Stuka Ace Rudel, so in games where air power is plausible, I'll shove these chaps in to protect my boys - they also double up nicely at popping light tanks and armoured transports and utterly shred infantry.

Scanning the skies.

Simple usual basing to match the rest of my platoons.

Shooting over this chap's head will not make him your friend.

That NCO on the right had a miscast face....

In other news, the first regional Tournament of the year is coming up on the 22nd in San Rafael and so with my army list submitted, I need to get painting the one platoon I've been avoiding for quite a while so I'll have everything ready - 4x M10 Achilles Self Propelled Anti-tank guns. Nice vehicles that are perfect for ambushes against armoured targets, though shite versus infantry due to them lacking any High Explosive ammunition.

I've also taken on the task of painting up a german 8.8cm Anti-Air gun and crew for Densmol's list for the same tournament as a birthday present. Lots to get on with!