My South African armour is now painted. I haven't put on the decals as I don't have them yet but that should hopefully occur in the next month or two. I also added 2 M10C's to the tank park. While it isn't strictly historically accurate to have the C variant (The 6th Armoured Div only had the base M10's) I put them in so if I want to use other books to run the list I can. I am specifically thinking of the new Market Garden book where the 17pdr gun has been uprated to AT15.
The Company is out of the FOW Forces book, is Confident Trained and comes in at 1745 points. Should hopefully be able to use them in a game next weekend.
Group shot of the company.
4 Sherman's of the HQ Platoon
2 Platoons of Sherman's. 1 BF (front), 1 PSC (rear)
2 Platoons of Sherman's. 1 BF (front), 1 PSC (rear)
My latest brain fart (and what has been occupying my time and money for the last 2 months or so) is my Flames of War tank company based on the South African 6th Armoured Division which was stationed in Italy during 1944 and 1945.
Yes, I am South African :)
Now, given that there are no briefings to cover this I have decided to use a generic British Tank Company out of the Forces book. This allows me to take loads of Confident Trained tanks. It also allows me to take most of the vehicles that were in use by the Safa's
Having researched the division quite a bit I discovered that the South African's made use of pretty much every mark of Sherman (I-V) including the MkIV in at least one instance. I suspect that this is due to being attached to the US 5th Army during part of their time in Italy.
They also had access to 76mm armed Sherman's as well as 105mm armed versions. Sadly, no British Briefing allows me to take these variants as well Fireflies. Oh well. Normal 75mm and 17pdr versions will have to do.
They also had access to Stuarts as well as M10's though again, sadly, do not appear to have had access to the M10C's
In building up my actual army I decided that since they had such an eclectic variety of Sherman's I would try and get as many variants as possible in.
Using a combination of Plastic Soldier Company, Battlefront Open Fire and Achtung starter boxes as well as individual blisters I have Mk2, Mk3 and Mk5's mixed in. I also managed to acquire some M5A1 Stuarts for cheap off Ebay. I am now just waiting to build up my funds to get some M10's as well as some Commonwealth Infantry and some Sexton SPG's
Everything is built and is just waiting primer and paint.
20 Sherman's and 4 Stuarts. Enough to give the Hun and the Eyties a run for their money
In the pursuit of stating a new Flames of War army I am going to sell off some my unused Warhammer 40k stuff. I have never sold anything on ebay before so this will be a trial run. If it goes well then I shall put up some more stuff.
First is a 2005 Games Day Veteran Sergeant Aurelius mini. He has been previously painted and used but I have stripped him down as best I can.
Anyone want to take a look? The auction can be found here:
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.
So I have only just recently been able to have a look at the new Dark Angels Codex and see how the changed effect my Deathwing and overall I have to say it hasnt changed much. A few points value increases with the biggest being the 60 point increase in Belial. However, he has increased in ability so I feel its worth it.
I am also not that impressed with the Deathwing Knights. I feel they are expensive for a unit that is essentially a 1 turn wonder but time will tell if I am wrong on that.
I am also slightly irritated that they made the Command Squad into a non-scoring unit. No longer are they just Deathwing Terminators with some upgrades. This fact reduces the number of troops choices in my 1750 list. Oh well.
The thing I am most delighted about however is the fact that I can now take my Land Raider Redeemer. I know its not the best LR and it has some issues especially since Templates cant Snapshot but I still love the idea of it. Plus it just looks awesome.
Overall then, aside from only 3 arm swaps I havent had to change very much in my list. The only thing I did have to drop in my 1750 list was my Dreadnought and that has not reduced my combat power by too much though I will miss that TLLC and Missile launcher especially since it now has Flak missiles.
Arm changes were to one of my Sergeants. He has now become my Company Champion so had to loose his Storm Bolter.
2nd arm swap was one of my Belials. He used to have a TH/SS mix with a large sword counting as the TH. This had to change. So he went from this:
to this:
The last change was to my Libby. He used to carry a Storm Shield to represent the Invulnerable power that DA libbies used to have. With that power gone he now has a SB.
to this:
Now all I need to do is play some games and see how it goes. I do have a Doubles Tournament coming up next week. 1k points each and my partner and I are both doing Deathwing.
