Time to party like it's 1985

The first boxes arrive for the Cold War:

Some infantry and some tanks. Pretty straight forward. The infantry are going to need transports, the tanks are going to need more tanks.

When the boxes are opened we are confronted with 10 sprues for the T-72s, along with some decals and the unit cards. I like the cards. They contain all of the info needed to play with that unit.

The infantry come with lots of infantry, cards and stands. One thing I had somehow missed when reading through the book was that the gremlin AA and MG stands are actually large bases, That is a bit different.

The long term plan is to mount the infantry in BMPs, get some Gophers for AA and Carnations for heavy support, as well as more T-72s. By that time hopefully the West Germans will be out and I can begin accumulating some Leopard/Marder/Panzergrenadier goodness.

Time to go listen to some Wham...

Nate

2 more HG platoons complete

This time an infantry platoon and a pioneer platoon for this company of the Herman Goering Division.

3 stands of HG infantry. I used a lot of Luftwaffe blue with this platoon, because I love the colour, and it makes the HG a little more unique.

The light wasn't good for taking photos this afternoon, but you get the idea.

Pioneers - a few more camo smocks with this lot

The last three stands of pioneers.

So I have one more platoon and the artillery crew to finish. They should all be ready to post down to Craig in anticipation of the next lot of arrivals by Monday.

Nate

Battle of Dertosa

Mike came around this morning and we had another game of Commands and Colors Ancients. I let him choose the scenario and the side, so he decided to be Carthaginian and chose Dertosa as the scenario. I thought it was a bit of a strange choice - the Carthaginians looked quite outgunned, especially in the centre, but had a cavalry advantage on the wings.

The first turn

I dragged some pretty generic cards out of the pile, and decided that I would concentrate on winning the battle on my left centre. I would refuse my right flank as it faced the elephants and heavy infantry. I was expecting this to be the main area of attack.

As it worked out, Mike's left hardly moved all game, as he tried to pin my centre but suffered from his auxilia being outgunned by the Roman medium infantry, and some poor dice rolls when his light cavalry tried to get around my flank.

End game

In the end I won quite comfortably, collecting 6 victory banners by taking out light and auxiliary units - and one very unlucky heavy infantry unit. I had no cavalry left at the end of the game, but it didn't matter - Mike had lost his centre.

We talked about the level of abstraction at the end of the game and how when you gather two units to attack together with some sort of advantage it can all be undone if you roll a flag with your first attack and force your opponent to retreat before your second unit gets a shot.

Aside from that, it was an enjoyable and quick game, and I'm certainly keen to play more regularly, although Mike needs to find a way to fit it into his hectic schedule.

Nate

My Wargaming Week

A number of blogs that I follow have a 'Paint Table Saturday'where they look at what they are working on. I thought about following suit, but decided that the paint table didn't really cover all of the various hobby doings that I get up to. I always post my painting, but not everything else that goes on behind the scenes. I thought I might try to do a week in review post, and the plan is to try and do this once a week on a Sunday.Hence, 'My wargaming week'. We'll see how long it lasts.

 First up, Some Centurion Shots for the Arab-Israeli wars. I decided to sell my good old Quality Castings Centurions seeing as I had these four Battlefront vehicles that I got from Geoff just kicking around after abandoning the India-Pakistan project. They were undercoated, base coated and given a bath in Army Painter dip last weekend, and yesterday they got the last few licks of paint and a varnish.

On Friday I decided that I'd undercoat the M48s and anti-tank jeeps that had been ear-marked for the Pakistani army. They will now do service in the Israeli forces. Up until now I have had 8 Magach 3s, but no Magach 2s, so these will give me some list flexibility - as will the option to field a full anti-tank jeep platoon.

 I undercoated the last of the Crimean War figures last weekend, and yesterday painted up their bases. These guys are ready to slip into the painting schedule after I've finished Geoff's next lot of figures.

 Newly built and basecoated are 2 platoons of late war armour for the New Zealanders in Italy. In exchange for the next commission for Craig which will contain British paras, Japanese tanks and some SS infantry, I'll be receiving most a late war New Zealand army. This armour and soon to be purchased 6 pounder at guns wil complete the list.

 The paint tray at the moment with a couple of platoons of the Herman Goering division. Of course this week I finished a batch of Craig's figures as well, and they have their own post. With this lot, the basic colours are done, and I estimate that they will be complete by Wednesday. Then just another two platoons and Craig's figures will be completed.

Finally, this isn't a wargaming project, but is tangentially related. I have long had the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition just sitting in a box. The DC Who's Who has been sitting on a shelf. Neither of these situations was optimal. They are my favourite reference material - after 1989 I feel that Marvel and DC comics took a slide that they have only occasionally recovered from since, and those recoveries have been spasmodic and never been sustained (I'm thinking, for example, of Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men and Garth Ennis' brilliant Nick Fury and Punisher runs). So these are like a time capsule on my favourite era in comic books. As such, they deserved better treatment, so today I built slip cases for them so that they could comfortably sit on one of my bookshelves. The ultimate plan is to cover them in a collage of pictures like some over-excited 12 year old girl decorating her diary, but just a couple of pictures have been glued on so far.

So that was the wargaming week that was.

Nate

More for the HG army

About half way through now. Here are the fallshirmjager platoon and the machine guns that are part of the company:

The FJ command stand.

Fallshirmjager

More fallshirmjager

Even more fallshirmjager!

The machine guns for the Herman Goering heavy weapons platoon.

Close up of the MGs

I have another HG infantry platoon and a pioneer platoon on the painting tray now. 

Nate

Starting the HG

So I finally stopped getting distracted and got into the latest commission - a Flames of War company from the Herman Goering Division.
I've started by painting up the HQ elements and a couple of mortars.

Lots of command - and a Goliath!

Panzershrecks

Two mortars for the heavy weapons platoon

The figures are nice to paint and I really like the Luftwaffe blue uniform. I've started the Fallshirmjager platoon and the MGs for the rest of the Heavy Weapons platoon. Hopefully they will be up by mid next week.

Nate

Desert set-up

Today I finished off some desert buildings for the Arab Israeli Wars.

A close up of the village

Panoramic shot with a MiG lurking over some Israeli Shermans.

The first buildings that I made I gave to John when I sold him the Arab-Israeli stuff last year. They weren't part of the swap back so I needed to make some more. These have been on the go over the last few weekends, and the final coat of paint went on today. The last thing I need for the set up is a well (makes no sense having a village in the desert without one), so I'll be thinking about how I'm going to put that one together.

Other triumphs this weekend are cleaning and basing all of my Pakistani infantry, the Indian recoiless rifles and gluing together two Pakistani M48s and two anti-tank jeeps. The Crimean War Russian hussars and artillery arrived on Thursday and they are all now based and undercoated. I also glued together 6 Warg riders to complete my Dragon Rampant armies for Lord of the Rings. All very productive forms of procrastination before I get the Herman Goering Divison figures painted for Craig. But from here it feels like I've been getting the house in order before embarking on this commission. Now I'm set and it will be into the first 40 figures tomorrow night!

Nate