Goodbye 2012...

It is fair to say most of us in the office at work suffer from Mike Envy, that is we are all amazed by the quantity and quality of models Mike paints over the course of a year. Sitting down tonight to a very quiet New Years Eve with my son I thought I would look back at what I have achieved through the year...

January/February - EW French. A full infantry company in time for Battlecry 2012. Waiting for the next EW tournament so that I can paint up my Somuas and Lorraine Carriers. Not looking too good with only one BF GT though...

EW French Infantry Company

March - Circle Warpwolf Stalker. A pretty quiet month on the painting front with focus being more in the direction of planning for coming events.

pKaya goes out with half the cast of Twilight?

April - Khador Iron Fang Uhlans. Another NZ Nationals has come and gone - I took my usual position of "tournament bunny".

CHARGE!

May - Iron Painter and Circle Wolds. I do love our Iron Painter events (24 hours of straight painting) even though I am a bit of a softy and end up sleeping for the last few hours. Whilst the rest of the guys were knocking out forces for Blood, Guts and Glory I was working on my Mid War (and techically EW) Soviets. I also spent a week working on my Circle Wolds in preparation for NiCon and the WarmaHordes teams tournament.

Soviets with camo?

Got Wood for Stone?

June - Tournaments. June was all about the last months furious painting efforts, so not much interest on the brush front. Both tournaments worked out well though with Baldur putting in a solid effort for me, whilst my T-26 horde managed Best Army - June was a good month!

July - Dystopian Wars. Love this game! Managed to finish off some Dystopian Wars terrain that I had been sitting on for a while. Easy to paint and looks great when finished. Guess that means I really should finish those last two islands!

We are sailing...

August -  New Miniature added! Not much to say other than that the early comments about him being a laid back little fella that enjoys sleep, food and daddy time have continued, much to my enjoyment!

Leave me alone, sleeping!

September - IKRPG. Got distracted this month by the new Iron Kingdoms RPG. Victor is going to run a game in the New Year, once the rest of us sort out our characters...

Hey Sean, so about that book?

October/November - Late War GT and 1956 Israelis? Back to the brushes to work on my LW GT army - I thought I would take something different and use Blood, Guts and Glory to field a 1956 Operation Kadesh Israeli Tank Company. It was a heck of a fun army and is definitely going to come out at another event. I just need to finish painting the "missing" platoons that I did not get a chance to do. I also found myself distracted (a lot) by the new X-Wing game by Fantasy Flight...

Flames Of War gamer in the making!

December - More X-Wing.  Pre-painted miniatures... fast game system... that was me distracted for the rest of the year!

2012 Wrap-up
3 Flames Of War armies
1 Hordes "army"
2 Warmachine/Hordes expansion packs (new things painted to add on to an existing force).
A pile of Dystopian Wars terrain.

Not a bad effort, I think I give myself a A- on the effort front. Feels like I slacked off during the second half of the year, although given the arrival of my son I think I will forgive myself. Over the next couple of days I will sit down with my wife and plan out the 2013 tournament season and from there start thinking about the painting requirements.

Have a good New Years everyone!

Flames of War Mid War GT 2012

T-26 in 3 colour camo - thanks to http://www.o5m6.de/

Twas the night before the Mid War GT

When all through the house

Not a creature was stirring
Not even a mouse

In the figure case tanks lay

Put there with care

Painted and varnished

They would fight like a bear

When out in the lounge

There arose such a clatter
Oh darn... I've forgotten to put some decals on he said!...

During the Iron Painter event at work I managed to complete about half the force, and as it was I managed to go so close to finishing off the army with plenty of time to spare only to stumble at the last hurdle. Luckily my wife asked me a question about 45 minutes ago which reminded me of the 3 small jobs I had still to do. So here we are 10 hours before the GT, 2 jobs down leaving one last job to do - varnish my T-26s.

KV in process (left) and finished (right)

Luckily for me I love the smell of Moana (the worlds best varnish) in the morning and since it dries in about 5 minutes I can complete that final job first thing tomorrow morning. 

As for the army list - here you go:

Light Tankovy Companies 
10x T-26S obr 1939: 205 points.
9x T-26S obr 1939: 190 points.

Heavy Tankovy Company
 6x KV-1e: 620 points.

Tankovy Anti-tank Company
 4x 76mm ZIS3 guns: 130 points.
 

Light Armoured Car Platoon
 3x BA-64 75 points

Armoured Car Company
 10x BA-10M: 310 points

Sporadic Air Support
 I-153: 90 points.


Total Points: 1620 points

The plan is to use the KVs to lead the charge, T26s will protect the flanks whilst the BA-10s use their mobility and lack of Hen & Chicks to be my mobile force. The ZIS-3s can hopefully protect an objective and the air support will take out German Tigers.... or at least that is the plan. I'll let you know how it goes next week....

Iron Painter 2011

This weekend (in fact right now even) a few of us from the office are doing a 24 hour painting challenge to paint a 500 point Raiding (or Garrison) Force from Burning Empires. I'm doing a Compagnia Mitraglieri which has a couple of platoons of infantry, a platoon of artillery and some AS37 Autosaharianas. 16 hours in (almost 4 in the morning) and its not looking too flash I have to say... I have 20 stands of infantry or guns to knock out by midday....

Here is a before shot of the AS37 platoon - an after shot will be up later in the week. For more info check out the Flames of War website though.

And for something a little lighter.... Sean was clearly having a bad afternoon on Friday. Although the other guy in the comic looks particularly charming!