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...

Building a Marine Amphibian Tank Company

I’ve made no secret of my excitement about the Marine Amphibian Tank Company. And with Andrew making so much progress on his Ka-Mi tanks I thought I’d better get my act together and push ahead with my painting.

Luckily the LVTs are a breeze to assemble. With the hull and tracks being one piece, you are just gluing together the turrets and adding the optional hull machine-gun. A fairly relaxed afternoon saw them all assembled and undercoated.

The next problem was choosing what paint scheme I preferred. There are plenty of options and in the coming weeks I’ll have a short article talking about the most common options to choose from but in the end it came down to a grey or grey/sand scheme (like the Studio models) or a green/brown/sand scheme. The three colour scheme was just too similar to European paint schemes and nothing says the Pacific to me like tanks base coloured in grey!

Using my airbrush, I started by painting a light coat of grey over the whole model. This was to lay down a base colour for me to start highlighting up. I then applied a little more paint in certain areas such as the middle of large panels, the top surfaces, and anywhere else that I wanted a slightly lighter colour. Working over a black undercoat, I was able to use the grey as its own highlight by slightly varying the density of the paint coverage.

I decided that the grey alone was a little boring, so I thought I would try adding the common sand-coloured camouflage pattern to give the models a little more impact on the table. I also thought that the extra colour would mean that I did not have to do as much work to make the grey look good. So the next step was to cover the model in blu-tac.

In my paint collection at home, I didn’t have the Colours Of War Dry Dust or Crusader Sand that Aaron used when painting the studio models. So I improvised by grabbing a dark sand colour that I already had and sprayed it on. The blu-tac worked as planned, leaving me with nice hard edges between the grey and sand but I was not particularly happy with the colour as the studio models just looked better.

Looking at the images now as I write the article I find myself in two minds:

• I quite like the plain grey, and it is a valid historical paint scheme, so I could just stick with that approach (saving me some painting time!);
• Or I could “borrow” the studio paints for an evening and go with the grey/sand scheme.

I think will mull this over a little more and in the next few days make a final decision – the more I think about it, the longer it will take to finish them and get an army on the table. 

 

Churchill's Wall Of Steel

It probably comes as no surprise but there are plenty of good things about working for a gaming company, not least being surrounded by passionate gamers and hobbyists. The downside is that it takes a supreme amount of concentration and effort to not get swept up in the excitement that happens every time we work on a book.

Sadly, one of the many things I have not been blessed with is the ability to stand my ground and say “Whilst I think this new book/project is very exciting, I already have too many things on the go, so I won’t be building anything new time time.”

Instead I say......

In this case there are two lists that have really called out to me and whilst I’ll leave the Death or Glory boys to Casey, I am sorely tempted to try to knock out a quick Churchill Armoured Squadron just because...

The army list is so simple because I thinking more about models rather than just effectiveness on the battlefield, but in saying that I wouldn’t underestimate 99 points of Churchill tanks!

Thanks to the Churchills coming in at a nice round 11 points each it would be very simple to tweak the list if I wanted something a little more robust by dropping a Churchill CS (or even both) which would give me plenty of points for recon, 25pdrs and infantry making it a much more rounded force capable of taking on a variety of opponents.

But let’s be honest, the real drawcard for this list is 9 (yes 9!) Churchills in one company!

Flames Of War V4 Launch Weekend

Over the Flames Of War V4 Launch Weekend I was pulling a little bit of double duty; hanging with most of the studio team assembling my DAK Panzers, whilst jumping back to the desk every now and then to web content. I thought it would be fun to shoot a little time lapse footage of what I was up to.

Saturday was a lot of fun and whilst it looks like I spent most of the day assembling Panzer III's, it wasn't as time consuming as it appears. 

Sunday was a bit of mess as the website decided to take a little break and all of our content dissapeared due to the quantity of content and massive amount of traffic generated by visitors coming by to check out the event.

The weekend was a blast and I now have (spoilers!) all of my Panzers and SP AT assembled for my Early/Mid War DAK tanks. Just need to get some recon and potentially aircraft or AA.

Hope you enjoy the video.

Mid War Plastics At FlamesCon 2016

Its pretty traditional these days for Battlefront to bring a few rapid prototypes of some of the new plastics we can expect to see over the coming months. This time was no exception and we had a few of the new Mid War plastics we can expect to see on shelves in early 2017.

The models are rapid prototypes based on the CAD data that will go to the toolmakers, assembled and then given a quick coat of primer. They are used to make sure that the model will look right and go together correctly. Much easier than staring at 2D printouts of components.

There were also a few new goodies for the East Germans in Team Yankee. These are traditional metal/resin models and are looking awesome!

 

Ahh, 2017 so many projects for me to start.... will I finish any of them?

FlamesCon 2016 is coming!

FlamesCon 2016 is happening tomorrow! Whoops, where did 2016 go? I seem to have blinked and we are at the end of the year.

So... I picked up a Soviet infantry army off a couple of friends and it looks lovely. I've been wanting to paint one up for about 15 years since I first saw a massive Mid War Soviet Militia Battalion. I even thought I'd get it painted next year, but when the opportunity came to grab one that was already painted I took it. I'll put some pictures up another time but it is pretty massive! Maybe not massive compared to some Soviet armies but pretty big compared with any other FOW army I've ever painted.

Needless to say I thought I'd take it along this weekend and try it out. The list I am taking is a little static - I'm easing myself into the complexities of running a big Soviet horde by taking a small Soviet horde with plenty of guns!

With a weird number of platoons (7) and a lot of expensive toys it is probably not a traditional Soviet list but I've also wanted to try a Soviet Gun Line... I expect to come out in a body bag in most games but lets be honest as long as plenty of enemies die Stalin will be happy!

My plan is to leave each objective defended by some anti-tank guns and artillery, whilst the infantry hold the centre and one flank leaving me with some options when it comes to counter-attacking. Time will tell if it was a good plan or not!

Good luck to everyone else heading to FlamesCon and I'll no doubt have some pictures from the weekend up sooner or later!

Time To Hit The Beaches!

It is going to be a very busy week in the Studio!

So what about that 2015 eh…

Looking back 12 months ago I can see a year filled with a measure of confidence and a hint of common sense. Did I manage to achieve anything from my plan?
 
Flames Of War 
Yeah, let’s cut to the chase there and say… no. Most, if not all of the items on my list did not progress very far at all. I still want to do my British Comets and got to see how good a list they can be when handled well at FlamesCon last year. The Masters were a wish that I never even came close to achieving after only heading out to a handful to tournaments. I feel a bit guilty about that given I work for the company but I do get to spend my days thinking about all sorts of Flames Of War goodness that it's nice to have other things on the go.
 
Dust Tactics 
The hiatus continues on the Dust front. I have my extra Steel Guard units now (Thunderbolt and Lightning) but haven’t had the enthusiasm to get them primed and painted. I blame Victor for not organising some games for Andrew and I.
 
WarmaHordes – aka The Year (Decade) Of The Troll.
I actually did a decent amount of painting last year! I didn't finish my 50 points but I made more progress on it than any preceding year. My friend Chris Baker gave me some wonderful pointers on airbrushing 28mm figures and I was able to do a pretty decent job of remembering some of his tricks. Certainly the army (half finished) looks really good and given a concerted effort I think I could push my way to 50 points for the next big tournament that I am likely to get too (in August/September). I also took the half-finished force out to Lords Of Ruin in Wellington last year and it was excellent. Almost every game ran the full time on the clock making for hard fought, exciting games where I felt like I had a chance to win – unlike most of my WarmaHordes games. The recent nerf to Warders has dented my enthusiasm a little, but being competitive in WarmaHordes is not a priority so I am sure I will bounce back.

X-Wing (and Armada)
Loving it. Having less hobby time now than in the past I am really enjoying the casual nature of the game and the low requirements (i.e. zero) on my hobby time. I took 3 Phantoms to the NZ Nationals last year and had a blast. It was not a very competitive list (could have been the Squadron Leader?) but it really surprised a few opponents. The NZ meta is quite variable with a good mix of lists, so vs low pilot skill hordes it was awesome, whereas elite high pilot skill squadrons it suffered. Taking such a wacky squadron made the day loads of fun. Looking forward to seeing what 2016 brings after the release of The Force Awakens.

Building Battlefields
Yet another year went by on this front… in the middle of 2015 BF moved offices and we lost our massive gaming/hobby space and I have not been organised (or incentivised?) enough to make a space at home where I can leave everything laid out for a while as I paint and flock up a pile of stuff. I still want to tackle all my Battlefield in a Box product though and get them all flocked up as the roads and forest bases (especially) look better with a little flock on them. I did spend some time on my Tablescapes Urban Tiles and the sample tiles are coming along nicely!

So What Happened?
I was sitting on the train heading home one night last year and found myself getting annoyed at how little gaming and “hobby stuff” I’d done over 2015 and I realised that there were a number of things getting in the way.

1.    “Life” –The average week day looks like this; Get up, shower etc, organise breakfast for my son, walk to train, catch train, walk to work, work, walk to train, catch train, walk home, have dinner, play with my son, bath (for my son), put him to bed/do dishes and tidy up, and bang, its 9pm at night, watch TV or play some World Of Warships to decompress after the days activities and it is off to bed. Another day done. Weekends have more time spare but 70% of the week looks like this.

2.    “Laziness” – Looking around my traditional gaming group (which goes back over 20+ years to university days) that instead of gaming we tend to sit round playing Clash Of Clans during our usual catchups. Instant gratification, no effort, and when you are all playing in the same Clan you get a similar feeling to tabletop gaming where you can discuss raids, plan for Clan Wars etc. Our “group” decision was that this year we will make much more of an effort to put down the tablets and play a game or two a month. So far it has worked.
3.    “Kids” – My son is three and a half and loves playing with dad so there is plenty of time kicking footballs, playing with lightsabers, watching Thomas the Tank Engine etc. We have also recently added another member to our family and as time passes I am sure he will want to do the same thing. Bottom line, less time and less energy for hobby stuff.

4.    “Work” – Some (or more than a usual amount) of my blog energy last year seemed to be directed towards stuff for work. Whilst there was no one project that consumed it all, it was a thing here, an article there, and some painting for that. 

I am envious of my friends that have similar constraints on their time but still seem to do it all. Guess I need to train up the kids to paint.

So Whats The Plan?
I’ll cover this in another post but I am heading into 2016 with a realistic take on things, but still deluding myself that I’ll get a lot done. Team Yankee, Terrain, Trollbloods, and US Marines are all on the schedule for this year and that’s taking into account an almost four week old baby at home.

However the one New Years resolution I plan on keeping is that this year there won’t be so many posts on the blog starting with “So its been a while since I posted anything…”

Soviet Big Tanks and Berlin

I thought I would put up a follow up post in the same lines as my previous one entitled "See, Want, Must Have Now (SWMHN) Disorder" and this time take a look at Hero Guards Heavy Tanks and Hero Heavy SP Artillery Regiment in Berlin.

First up we have to understand what it takes to become a Hero Of The Soviet Union... you have to be:
Luckier: basically it is harder for the enemy  to kill your Company or 2iC, needing a 5+ instead of a 4+. For most nations this wouldn't be that useful but with your Guards Heavy companies when you don't have a 2iC keeping the boss in play is useful.
Smarter: pass Skill tests on a 3+, useful all the time especially if you are assaulting or firing bombardments.
Sharper: no Hen and Chicks

So you are about as close as you can come to being a Veteran team, without being one. Yep I know that there are a bunch of people that wanted true Veteran teams but then I may as well just be proxying my Soviet vehicles as Americans or Germans... with the Hero rules I have some flavour and most of the benefits with less of the negatives (a higher points cost per team).
 
So on to the Companies themselves: - they are both very similar in terms of their structure which is why I thought I'd look at them in tandem. An IS-2 in command with 3 platoons as your core. For your IS-2 company you can choose between the obr 1943 (FA 10) or obr 1944 (FA 11) versions, each packing a 122mm breakthrough gun coming in with AT 16, FP 2+. For that point of armour you are paying around 10-15 points per tank. Personally I am not convinced that I would be dropping those extra points unless I had them left over at the end and certainly in outset I would be putting on .50 cal AA MGs (+5pts), Bedspring Armour (+5pts) and Tank Riders (+10pts) first as these give you more all round bang for your buck.

 

For the ISUs you can choose between the ISU-122 and the ISU-152. Each has FA 9, nothing outstanding but you can ignore a good percentage of medium tanks out there with that, and Volley Fire making them pretty useful up close. The 122 has the same gun as the IS-2 meaning it slices through most tanks and knocks out soft targets, whilst the 152 has an AT 13, FP 1+ Bunker Buster. Don't sit in front of it as you may not like the results. Like the IS you can put the same upgrades on the ISU and the .50cal AA MG is an easy choice and the rest comes down to personal preference.

So why do I like these two sets of combat platoons? Previously I've been a fan of the IS-2 as a support tank for other lists where it could add some heavy armour, hunt down mediums and sit in front of AT guns. With the Hero list I think it expands on that role but this time on centre stage. For 1,110 points you can put 7 IS-2 obr 1943 tanks in your list fully geared up with all the add-ons. Doesn't sound all that wonderful at first glance but you still have 400-650 points to put some support troops in and 7 IS-2 obr 1943 tanks all grinding towards an objective take a lot of stopping... and when you are running them you don't stop! Trust that you need to be lucky to get any hits with your guns thanks to ROF 1 and don't worry about. 

Force you opponent to change their plans and hope for a few lucky hits on the way in, then get to the objective and ground your opponent out of there with all of those attacks in an assault. Bedspring Armour gives you a 4+ save on the defensive fire from enemy Panzerfausts and Panzerschrecks. You get a 2nd attack per tank (thanks to your tank riders), hitting on 3's, and your Turret Rear MGs help you bounce off some of the enemy attacks back.

The ISUs are a different kettle of fish and my preference run the ISU-122 and stick back a bit with them where you should get the benefit of +1 armour (from long range) and work over the enemy tanks, then close in where the Volley Fire will help to make up for the low ROF. For this to be successful you need screening troops to stop enemy tanks from getting in amongst you and then protect you once you close the gap. The ISUs are not as forgiving in my opinion but I love their look and that counts in my books.

Plus until I unlock the Object 704 in World Of Tanks this is my substute of choice.

Next time up, what would I like to run in the Divisional Support section...

See, Want, Must Have Now (SWMHN) Disorder, and Berlin

I thought that I might put up a little public service announcement this week about a serious disease that effects many people, not just miniature gamers. It is known as See, Want, Must Have Now (SWMHN) Disorder.

It involves you seeing something, deciding that you must have it... NOW. In most cases this resolves itself normally and goes away over time, but in a surprising large number of people it takes a turn for the worse where the afflicted person gains a variant of the disorder commonly known as See, Want, Must Have Now, Put In A Box And Do Something With It Later (SWMHN-PIABADSWITL) Disorder. This obviously does not roll off the tongue so easily but is very serious indeed.

After careful research I have found that I am in fact a sufferer of this Disorder and instead of hiding it, I am going to wear it as a badge of honor! How does it effect me? It does it in the most insidious way... it makes me buy figures that I intend on doing something with, but if I am being honest I think I may never get around to actually assembling, painting, or even gaming with!

In all seriousness though, if you see a post tagged with SWMHN it means I want to do this pretty desperately, but if this is the last time you see me excited about it before jumping into something new then don't be surprised!

Take the recent Flames Of War book Berlin. I love this book (of course I may be biased!) and think that it has some really fun flavourful lists. I also think that in the right hands they could be pretty nasty. Today I am going to take a look at my favourite list, and possibly one of the most flexible German lists ever (and thats saying something!).

The Berlin Kampfgruppe Company gives you a choices for your combat platoons, starting off with the traditional Panzergrenadier Platoon in Confident Veteran or Fearless Veteran and with or without halftracks. The Fresh Panzergrenadier Platoon recently brought to the fight as Confident Trained or Fearless Trained, Fallshirmjager Platoons, Volkssturm Platoons (yep and army of those outstanding figures) or my personal favourite, the Hitlerjugend Platoon. Seven Fearless Conscript Panzerfaust infantry teams for 85 points (and they can move and shoot with them unlike traditional 'faust teams). Plus they wear a blue uniform that looks pretty straight forward to paint up and (unlike the Volkssturm) they benefit from the "Enjoy the War" special rule meaning that they will stick around even when pushing to the limit.

Hitlerjugend Panzerfaust team

Once you have your infantry you have a pretty traditional mix of Weapons Platoons, but with the cool exception that you can have Volkssturm versions. Now if I were a better, faster, or more regular painter I would be all over these! For less than 200 points you can have 4 HMGs, 4 mortars and 2 infantry guns. Yeah they are Reluctant Conscripts so you are going to bleed VPs but thats three platoons that look cool, boost your platoon count and won't require much luck to get their points back.

Waffentrager (8.8cm)

Moving up to the Support Platoons you have the usual stuff - Panzer IV, Panther, Tiger 1, King Tiger, StuG and so on. I can field these in plenty of lists so whilst cool they are not what I get immediately drawn to. The Waffentrager (8.8cm) and Bedbug on the other hand really are a piece of me. In World Of Tanks I still haven't made it to one of the Waffletractors yet (so close) but "unlocking" it in Flames Of War is pretty close. Packing a nice long 88 on the back they can take down pretty much anything with ROF 2, AT 16, FP 3+ and the three of them only set you back 315 points. They don't want to move and shoot but whatever is in front of them is in some trouble. 

Kleinpanzer Wanze

The Bedbug (or Kleinpanzer Wanze) is tiny and had a couple of crew, but more importantly  it had a pod of 6 Panzerschrecks. It basically darts out, fires (at for ROF of 3 even when moving!), then runs off and spends a turn reloading. The Panzerschrecks have a normal stat line with AT 11, FP 5+ so they may not be outstanding but a platoon of three vehicles comes in at 65 points making it pretty impressive on a points to weight ratio.

For the rest of the support you have the options you would expect to see in pretty much any Late War German company diagram: 105mm and 150mm artillery, Nebelwerfers, Heavy Mortars and lots of 88's. What makes this a bit different is that amongst the 3 platoons of Luftwaffe Heavy AA Platoons you have a couple of interesting options over and above the traditional 88. There is the 8.8cm FlaK 41 (ROF 2, AT 16, FP 3+ and with a Gun shield) and the 10.5cm FlaK39
(ROF 1, AT 17, FP 2+. Both of which can have extra crew to bump their ROF up by 1 for 10 points per gun. Basically you always find that 10 points because you are missing out if you dont. 

8.8cm FlaK 41

The only downside of these guns is that being crewed by Luftwaffe they are Reluctant Trained so you may not get to use that extra ROF too many times if you get pinned down. 

So don't get pinned down...

So, with all that said what am I planning in putting in my Filemaster storage box labelled Berlin:

1500 points

Berlin Kampfgruppe HQ	60 points
Hitlerjugend Platoon - 3 Squads	85 points
Hitlerjugend Platoon - 3 Squads	85 points
Hitlerjugend Platoon - 3 Squads	85 points
Panzergrenadier Anti-tank Gun Platoon - 3 PaK40 guns	165 points
Tank-hunter Platoon - 3 Waffentrager (8.8cm)	315 points
Bedbug Platoon Platoon - 3 Bedbug	65 points
Volkssturm Platoon - 4 Squads	105 points
Luftwaffe Heavy AA Platoon - 2 8.8cm FlaK 41 (extra crew)	170 points
Luftwaffe Heavy AA Platoon - 2 8.8cm FlaK 41 (extra crew)	170 points
Luftwaffe Heavy AA Platoon - 2 8.8cm FlaK 41 (extra crew)	170 points

With this list I would be very tempted to swap out the PaK40 platoon for some Nebelwerfers or other artillery just to put a bit of smoke in the list to help hide some of my troops. And if you bumped it up to 1750 points I'd keep both the PaK40 and Nebelwerfers and add in some of those Volkssturm platoons I mentioned before. Having 12 platoons can't be a bad thing right?

Is this a meta-defeating, all conquering list? Probably not, but with this much AT lurking around a tank player better not mess up his alpha strike or he will be scraping his Shermans up and putting them in the bin! Plus with some creative basing it would look outstanding!

Next time, Soviet Hero Guards Heavy Tanks!

Volkssturm infantry and a 10.5cm FlaK39

Gaming At Panzerschreck 2015

Ready for a big day of gaming Phil and I were in the zone, ready for anything...

Round 1: Breakthrough vs the Stanton Brothers and pair of Sicherungs kompanies

We deployed in our corner, whilst a great big train drove by

The PaK40s and King Tiger worked it over, whilst Phil's artillery pinned down some infantry heading for the objective. On the left flank my Pumas skirmished with some infantry.

The King Tiger pursued the tank (passing its skill test to move) and destroyed everything but the far Tank Hunter car, leaving it stranded. My Pumas were jumped by StuGs and retreated to the safety of my PaK front.

Getting our first reserve of the game on turn 5, Phil pounced on a weakened infantry platoon, wiped it out and jumped on the objective. The train (as it was still functional) stopped enemy troops from contesting it.

Okay, this was a pretty weird game. We were heavily outnumbered and our reserves just did not want to come on. My Pumas pushed up, shot some infantry, took some hits and retreated. Phil spent most of the game with one unit of heavy mortars on the table. We were lucky to come away with a 4:3 win!

Round 2: Dust Up vs Joe and Cameron with US Tanks and Paras.

For some reason I didn't take a lot of photos in this game, but this was on of the few. Phil's halftracks working over the guys artillery, trying to knock a few off an reduce their effectiveness.

This was a fun game to watch - I say that as my force was pretty static in it whilst Phil, Joe and Cameron fought it out on the far end of the table. Phil pushed up and got punished by a combination of air support and artillery, getting off an assault but running out of steam against some pretty smart opponents. In the end we timed out and both ended up loosing 1:3 as we just could not finish anything. This would become the theme of the weekend.

Round 3: Fighting Withdrawal vs Ken and Damian. Damian stretched his Trained Tigers across the table, whilst Ken backed them up with is SS Panzergrens.

We rushed the near end of the table, ignoring casualties, over a bridge and into Ken's troops. Meanwhile our tanks and guns took potshots at the Tigers. I felt that we should have knocked out more but some great dice, some bad dice, and certainly some average dice made it slow going.

Phil's assualt ran out of steam (Reluctant Trained eh...) but my Pumas managed to get round the flank of Biemeyers Panzer platoon, chipping away at them before getting in behind the line of Tigers.

 Sadly that was all she wrote. Ken and Damian withdrew in good order leaving Phil and I with a single point to show for some pretty intense fighting - 2:5 loss.

Round 4: Free for All vs Mike (who lent me the Pumas) and Andre.

Mike and Andre deployed a massive Soviet gun line stretching the entire table, backed with rock hard infantry and SU assault guns.

Once again we pushed the flank, chipping away at the guns. My Tiger and PaKs also slowly killing the artillery. Yet again those the fragility of Phil's troops was exposed and the lack of "slug it out" ability of the Pumas did not help as Mike's company command T-70 killed off my CO in his Puma.

We put in a decent showing in this game, but Mike was rolling morale tests like a legend and whilst we had a mathematical chance of winning the game his dice kept the Soviets hanging in there. 3:4 loss. 

Round 5: Surrounded vs Paul and Ste with a wall of Soviet infantry and tanks.

Forced to attack the Soviets split their force and sent the bulk of the infantry and T-34s at the objective in the town, whilst a small unit of infantry and SU-100s forced us to keep the back objective secure.

Paul pushed up aggressively, pushing the Panzergrenadier halftracks out of the way and reducing the defensive firepower considerably. Within a couple of turns he would be low on numbers but so would we.

At the other end of the table the Pumas dashed back and wiped out the Soviet infantry before...

dancing around the flanks of the SUs.

This turned out to be a game of two halves. The fun and less stressful end with the Pumas and SUs, and the nail biting end with the rest of the infantry and Phil's force lurking in the streets of the town. Unfortunately for Ste and Paul there was so much firepower in such a small space we were able to wear them down and whilst Phil did not have a lot left it was enough. 4:3 win to us.  

In the end we found ourselves solidly in the bottom quartile of teams, so not a great performance on the scoreboard, but I did get to have a lot of fun running the Pumas around and whilst I still want to paint them army for myself I think it will take a back burner to some Cold War Gone Hot troops... and some Trollbloods of course!

Next up, I've got a few photos from our trip to the Waiouru Army Museum.