Showing posts with label KonigsTiger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label KonigsTiger. Show all posts

Sunday, 17 March 2013

Total War Flames of War

The last few months have been devoted Flames of War for me. I have painted up a whole stack of armour and infantry.

I have also been involved in 2 large Total War games kindly hosted by Britt at his house. I must say he went all out to generate 2 fantastic tables.

Both games involved 2 players aside, both fielding 1750 points each. For the allies we had Britt with his dirty Yanks and Josh with his vile and imperialistic British. On the side of the Axis was Kenny with his staunch and loyal Hungarians and me with my noble Germans.

The first game used almost pure Total War rules on a stepped table setup. While this was a good game, especially for learning purposes, it ended up being a bit disappointing and somewhat static since 3 of use turned up with Infantry Companies. Because of that casualties were fairly light on both sides. Victory went to the Allies. Due to getting caught up in the game I forgot to take pictures for most of it.


Table set-up


My copse of Doom. For some reason every single bit of Anti-Tank ended up around this bit of woodland.



 The second game was much more dynamic as there were now 3 Tank Companies and there was tons of death and violence. Set up was fairly simple. The axis had to take and blow 3 bridges to prevent the Allies crossing the Rhine. The allies had to keep at least 1 bridge open when the game ended to win the game. Once again, large portions of the battle go undocumented as we got so involved in the action.
The small village slumbers, unaware of what's coming

The Allies advance into the town, severely damaging the small detachment of German Armoured Cars that managed to get there first.

The Allies continue to push hard at the village. Axis forces start to react and move up to counter
Axis forces also align to the left and advance on the undefended bridge

Things start to heat up in the village as Allied forces pour in.

The King Tigers take and hold the bridge. 1 turn later they would rid the world of that Murderous Dog General Patton.

Aerial photograph shows that the town center is starting to become clogged with burning armour. It also reveals the death trap that Shwein-Shnitzel Hill had become for the Axis Armour. 

Sadly, the King Tigers failed their Storm Trooper role and ended up just in range of the Jacksons. One was destroyed and the other bailed. The platoon then failed its motivation and ran away, leaving the bailed tank to be captured. Sadly it was then given to the Cowardly French, repainted and stuck into a museum:

(Lets be honest, its amazing that this tank is still in good running order and I would kill to watch it in operation)


Sadly, all good things must come to an end and this is what the table looked like when the game ended. All of Britt's combat platoons had been destroyed or fled the field. Josh managed to roll an ungodly amount of motivation rolls and 3 of his armoured companies stayed on the field despite being down to 1 tank in each. The most important result though was that 2 bridges still stood and that allowed the Allies to carry the day.

Can't wait for the next one. Will have to see what tricks I can come up with so the Axis can get in a win.

Friday, 25 January 2013

Bad Kitties and Friends

Its a new year and a new focus and enthusiasm for war gaming. Much of this can be attributed to the opening of a new game store in my area. Well, its not new but it moved to a new premises which is only 25 minutes away door to door. Its a big store with tons of space and lots of product. Its amazing just what those 2 things can do to your enthusiasm and to the contents of your wallet. The store itself used to be called Sci-fi Genre and is now called Atomic Empire.

What that means is that I am getting in more gaming and I have also met a few new people. Hell, I have even managed a few small games of 40k which will be part of my next post.

This post more concerns my small but growing Flames of War army. Over Christmas I went halvies on the Open Fire box set. I kept the Germans and my friend Kenny took the British. I was also able to aquire a few pieces of individual armour, hence the name of the post.

This amounted to a new Tiger 1E, Panther A and Konigstiger. Painting and assembly went well. I changed my method putting them together and used 2 part epoxy instead of super glue and I am very happy with the result. Those tanks will NOT be falling apart.



This brings my total up to 2 Tigers, 3 Panthers and 1 Konigstiger.

As mentioned I also put together the contents of the Open Fire Box set. All in all I am very impressed with what came in it. 2 full platoons of Grenadiers plus HQ, the 2 Pak40 guns and the 3 StuG G's. All went together well and look good. The infantry does have some issues with being single piece plastics but nothing thats noticable on the table top.

In a frenzy of hobby enthusiasm I assembled and painted everything in less than a week. I will say that doing the 81 infantry figues almost crushed my will to live.

 The 3 plastic StuGs. They look good and are a teeny bit bigger than the resin versions. I think the extra width actually makes them look better. Also brings my StuG count to 8



The 2 Pak40's: Lovely models and very easy to put together. 

Grenadier HQ stands 

 
Grenadier Platoon. There is a 2nd platoon but it looks the same so didnt take pictures.