Army Planning For FlamesCon 2018

FlamesCon is just around the corner, which is to say it is still a few months away but I need to nail down which army I am taking and then finish painting it. I have at least nailed the very first issue which was Flames Of War, or Team Yankee.

Right now, I have two competing options (plus a 3rd wild card) that I am debating

1. Canadians: lots of Leopard 1 tanks, supported by some infantry and anti-tank guided missile vehicles. This army is almost finished and I just need to paint some crews, apply decals, paint machine-guns and do final airbrush dusting and varnish.
2. Czechs (masquerading as East Germans): lots and lots of T-55AM2 tanks, with plenty of in Formation support so they won’t break, and plenty of high altitude support. This army is largely assembled but otherwise not yet started.
3. French: these are my wild card as the army is assembled, but otherwise not started. Given the fact they would be significantly easier to finish than the Czechs I am not sure why they are relegated to wildcard.....

The Canadians:

Simple list, as many Leopard 1 tanks as I can fit in (given the points level), some infantry, recce and plenty of M150 TOW and ADATS. The Leopards can rush the enemy and either flank them or just try to overwhelm them, whilst the missile carriers do much of the heavy lifting as the Leopards 105mm gun is a little underwhelming.

I am keen to finish the army, but I have built it as a 100+ point force so cutting it down to 75 points hurts my soul. 

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The Czechs (East Germans):

Best way to beat MSU spam is to play it and see how it works? Also, I am thinking of using part of this force next year at Panzerschreck where Casey and I are going to team up again so painting this up kills (or wounds) two birds with one paint brush.

Plus, it is a pile of cool models... and I am being cunning and using my Syrian infantry that I carefully based up on a fairly brown/grassy basing style to be my generic Warsaw Pact infantry teams. So, painting these means I get to progress two projects at the same time. I know the figures are not quite right but they are close enough.

Click the image for a bigger version

The French:

I've been chipping away at this project as a fun, spare time, when I want too project. Other than infantry and AMX-10RCs I have no idea what the force might look like other than having lots of wheels!

Where to from here????

Short answer, no idea! I will be getting the Canadians finished in the coming weeks (stay tuned for photos) now that I have some extra decals to complete them.

The Czechs have been progressing as a relaxing evening hobby project. It is too cold to paint out in the garage but assembling some tanks in front of the fire whilst watching some TV has been nice.

For now, lets assume the Czechs are option 1, whilst the Canadians are a fantastic back-up option when I inevitably run out of time.

Stay tuned.......