Canadian Painting List?

As I mentioned in a previous post I've found myself quite energised about Team Yankee after FlamesCon 2018. One of the outcomes of this is a desire to paint an expansion pack for my Canadians. Right now I have a solid 100 point Force but looking through some of my options about how to expand it I found a wealth of options that I have previously discarded, but now with a little game time I find quite desirable.

So what's has me wanting to pull out the brushes?
Infantry
I really enjoyed how my single platoon performed in-game so adding a second platoon, and therefore a second Formation, is looking really good as a tactical choice. In fact a lot of my painting requirements stem from this. I have the Formation commander painted already, so this just means adding 4 M113s and the full strength infantry platoon.

SP Mortars and an OP
Adding a cheap battery of M125s are a no-brainer as far as I am concerned. They count for the Formation morale, have smoke, and best of all I have two painted already (for some unknown reason).

The OP is as much about the hobby opportunity as anything. I figured I guy either crouching on top of the M113, or high up in the commanders station with some maps on front of him would be fun.

TOW Launchers
The ADATS is great (with a capital G) but also quite expensive. An infantry Formation can pack a lot of M150 TOWs and they are fairly cheap, but quite lethal vs most enemy tanks. Plus I get to shoe horn a few more M113s into my army.

Leopard 2 tanks?
The Canadians didn't get Leopard 2s till fairly recently but that is not to say they wouldn't have acquired a platoon somehow during a hypothetical WWIII. If I painted 5 I could run them as an allied Formation....

Tornados
I have four F-18 Hornets at home assembled and ready to paint, along with some period correct (more or less) Canadian decals. Plus Hornets are cool.

More ADATS and Blowpipes?
Not on the list, but very tempted to fill out the platoons. After-all if I am going to paint this many things, what is another 5.

There you have it, I just want to paint another 35-40 things to round out the Army... hmm, lets hope my newfound energy lasts long enough to even build all this stuff!

4CMBG Canadians For Team Yankee - Finished?

Not long before FlamesCon 2018 (9 hours before if I am being precise) I finished my Canadians Force for Team Yankee. I am really pleased with how the army turned out, especially since I experienced a few "speed-wobbles" during the painting where I thought that the Leopards were going to be way to dark and boring. Luckily a combination of a little remedial dry brushing and a decent matt varnish pulled them back.

To find out more about the vehicle numbers check out this excellent article by Dan McLean on the Team Yankee website.

Scroll down past the images to find out why I say "Finished?" in the title.

The HQ Platoon (minus 1 Leopard 1)

There are another 16 more Leopard 1 tanks, all looking like this... so many tanks!

The Company Commander with the "39" tank.

Some of the M113 APCs

Canadian flag on the front, vehicle numbers on the side in low-vis black and high-vis white on the rear

M150 TOW Platoon

And a look at some of their markings

Crowd favourite, the ADATS

Blowpipes, for a little extra AA support

Two units of Recce Lynx

And a closeup of their markings.

And some of the infantry (as used in Free Nations)

So why did I say "Finished?" A couple of reasons really. 

• Firstly, I found that even though I applied fresh gloss varnish under my decals, and then put two coats of DecalSol on them I still got quite a bit of silvering. I did a little experiment where I used a very sharp blade to pop a few small holes in the decals, as well as cutting them along panel lines, then reapplying DecalSol and this seems to have helped. 4 vehicles down, now I just need to do the other thirty-something.
• Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, I really enjoyed running this army at FlamesCon and so now I found myself wanting to add a bit more to the force, just to round it it. Stay tuned for more on this topic.

FlamesCon 2018 Report

Well another FlamesCon has come and gone... and this one has left me really buzzing!

The Turnout:
This year was (I think) the beginning of a resurgence for Flames Of War in New Zealand. Going back a few years we could comfortably count on 45-50 attendees to a FlamesCon, but as V3 became more convoluted and bogged down with contextual rules and clarifications the numbers began to drop.

The release of V4 certainly saw the event (last year) take another hit, much like other events around the world as there just wasn't enough Mid War lists to make the period interesting.

This year the organisers decided to run Late War, with (hopefully) an eye towards Mid War next year. It was really heartening to see so many players coming out of the woodwork to see what V4 was like. Best of all, everyone had good things to say about the new version. The numbers were still down on the days of old (with about 30 players across Flames Of War and Team Yankee) but I finished the weekend with a good feeling about the turnout for FlamesCon 2019.

The Gaming:

Team Yankee is taking its own good time to build up momentum in New Zealand (looking forward to Panzerschreck 2019!) as there are plenty of people with armies but not as many coming out to play. One positive of this was that with an 8 player event, I got to play everyone except the eventual winner, Andrew Duncan. It was quite nice to face off against almost everyone over the course of the event.

I can say without shadow of a doubt it was also one of the most enjoyable events from a gaming perspective. I really enjoyed all my games, felt like I had a chance of winning, felt like I had a chance of losing, and thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with my opponents. I cannot recall the last time where I finished an event and could honestly say that.

Two thumbs up!

The Army:

"I starting building my Canadians before they were cool" was my catchphrase for the weekend. Long before Free Nations was on a writers schedule, I was planning to build the army. Sadly, is an indictment on how long it takes me to finish an army these days that I was doing the final painting and varnishing at 11.30pm on the Friday before the tournament. My list was simple (click the image for a bigger version) and built around a lot of Leopard 1 tanks, some infantry and anti-tank assets. It was a blast to run!

The Leopard 1 tanks were awesome at killing things and burnt so brightly when they got lit up by anything (Carl Gustavs, Milans, 120mm AP rounds, as well as the odd HESH round from a Scorpions 76mm gun). The ADATS was fun, but tended to be targeted quickly once people realised how good it was! My star performers were probably the infantry, mainly because;

• I like how they turned out (paint job wise), 
• they are fairly useful on the table, 
• and they are great for taking (and holding) ground when the Leopards couldn't brave the enemy RPGs and Charlie G's!

The Final Word:

Great event, great opponents, middling result (5th, I think, out of 8), but with a Best Painted award! Believe me when I say that has been a topic of much good-natured abuse around the office.

Roll on FlamesCon 2019 I say!

If you want to check out my photo dumps from the event, including army shots click the links below.
Team Yankee Armies...
Flames Of War Armies...
Day One Gaming Shots...

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. 

Click the image for a bigger version

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.......