6th Guards Tank Brigade - Part 1

Hi all. Griddon here with a introduction into a quick mini project I have planned before I start my Germans in the Aussie winter. I'd like to call this project: "Project Churchill Awesome". 6th Guards Tank Brigade is probably more sensible and accurate. I have six Chuchills and a Machine Gun Platoon to paint and then we can give the Germans something with slightly more resiliance than wet paper to shoot at.

We'll do some history first. This is a bit back to front as I first decided I wanted to get some Churchills on the table and I then went looking for historical justification. Let's pretend I did it the other way around for a moment. (I'll admit this also. When picking a historically accurate unit, I wanted to make sure I could get decals to suit.) So having done some research I decided on representing 6th Guards Tank Brigade, 4th Tank Battalion Coldstream Guards. There is quite a lot of information on these guys online. Google is your friend as always. Some references were contradictory but this is pretty much par for the course for the lesser known combatants in the war. What I do know is that the Bridage landed at Gold and Juno beaches on July 20th 1944 and almost immediately went ito action supporting the 15th Scots in Operation Bluecoat. Here, the 6th Guards Tank Brigade were the unfortunate recipients of some unwanted attention from a Jagdpanther from 654 schwere Panzerjägerabteilung. Let's just say, the Jagdpanther did particularly well. Read more at your leisure. As I mentioned, decal availablilty is important. Dom's Decals has got me covered here and they supply the tank names in decal form too. This info at Northirishhorse tells me what the tank names were for each tank in the battalion so I'm basically fully set.

Product Review - Dom's Decals

Balkenkreuz and turret numbers by Dom's Decals

Hi Guys, Blackwolf here, with a quick chat about Dom's Decals.

I first heard of Dom's Decals while browsing The Gamer's Table blog, and saw a nice review and some cool pics featuring some early war German 8-Rads. At the time I was about to start on my s.Pz.Kp 'Hummel' project, and was looking for appropriate decals to use on my Tiger tanks. Now Battlefront have always made an extensive range of models, but I found their decal range to be lacking. So my prayers were answered when I took a look at the Dom's Decal website, and found a great range of 15mm scale decals, including 10 different styles of turret number (pictured below), 6 styles of Balkenkreuz, registration plates for the Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS, & Luftwaffe, and divisional symbols for every Panzer and SS-Panzer division. I was in business!

Soviet Guards Tank Battalion

Right-o, Blackwolf back again, with a quick update on my current project.

A little while ago while browsing through my LGS I decided to start a Soviet Tank Battalion. I have no idea how the thought popped into my head, it really was a spur of the moment decision. There I was looking at all the shinny boxes (especially the German ones... I'm a sucker for the Germans) when I just decided that yes, grabbing a box of T-34/85's and starting a tank horde was an excellent idea.

Cut to present day, and I have 21 T-34/85's finished, plus 3 captured Panthers (I only need 2, but painted the 3rd for the fun of it). My initial list was something like this...

HQ T-34/85 with cupola

10 T-34/85's with cupola's

10 T-34/85's with cupola's

2 Decoy Panthers

Rota Razvedki Platoon with 3 squads (SMG's) in Universal Carriers.

Eastern Front Table - Part 1

A table. Not my table, but it illustrates the point... It's even an Eastern front table... ish.

Hi all, Griddon here again. It has been a long time coming. I've never had my own table at home but considering the arrival of my first child in January I've come to realise that being able to host a game at home gives me more chance of getting my FoW fix and avoiding agro from 'er in doors... Plus, I consider the screams of a hungry baby to be a home turf advantage. If you're not used to it, perhaps my opponents might become distracted. Evil plans.

All three of the Bunker3030 authors are putting tables together. I've opted for an Eastern front table. As I have plans for an Eastern front army as my next FoW force it seems like a sensible choice. Beyond that I reckoned it would be one of the cheaper and easier tables to organise and both time and money are always important factors for a hobby!

The table will consist of a Games Workshop Battlemat, a Kerr & King Eastern Front Village, some ready made trees and some home made roads. I'll also be adding some wheat fields and hopefully some haystacks made from door mats.

Part 1 focuses on the fantastic Kerr and King Eastern Front village buildings.

Buying Stuff: Local Hobby Store or Cheapest Option

G'day all. Griddon here with a rant. Albeit a rant with factual information. It was meant to be a quick update on my Panzergrenadier Division Grossdeutchsland as I said I'd detail where I bought my stuff from but I kinda got mad half way through and thought I'd chuck some emotion into the mix. ;)

Where you buy your stuff is an important factor for Australians. Perhaps not so important for those living in the UK or the US. Before we get into the meat of this, let me say this:

I totally get the need to support local gaming stores and I have done so with my latest Flames of War orders as well as the entirety of my last 40k force and all my Malifaux. However, I feel the viability of local gaming stores are being completely undermined by the pricing policies of a particular and very popular gaming company, Games Workshop. That's my opinion.

Getting things right

Hi all. Griddon here. I read a forum post recently where, responding to a new player asking for the low down on Flames of War, a guy highlighted the difference between a 'recreationist' and a 're-creationist' and how their approaches to the game may vary. Which one was I? I thought I knew but then considering my first efforts at building a Flames of War army I might sit somewhere between the two.

A re-creationist would place high importance on accurately representing their chosen regiment. A recreationist might only care for the rules or the game play. A re-creationist might get annoyed playing an opponent with an unpainted army and sweat at the prospect of someone running an Italian list against an Eastern Front opponent. A recreationist wouldn't care - they just want to roll dice. I'd consider myself more of a re-creationist. I like the 'look' of a battle as much as actually playing it. For me, there really is some reward to seeing nicely painted minis amongst nicely finished terrain.

Irish Guards Column March - Operation Garden

Hi all. Griddon here. About time we got some allies up on this blog. Blackwolf popped over earlier and we did some serious production lining at Dave's to get some roads ready. Post on those later no doubt. Afterwards we took to the garden and got the cameras out.

The Irish Guards are my first force in Flames of War. I didn't really know what I was getting into when I placed the order for the whole lot at once. Needless to say I was massively overwhelmed with 'little manz' when the package arrived. 'I've got to paint how many 15mm infantry?'.

At first I didn't really enjoy painting the 15mm scale infantry. The details were often obscured and it felt like a monumnental task even without block painting or shading. As it was I did the force with simple block painting and washing and the end result is cohessive and I think it has the required table top appeal.

Hobby Day - Roads part 1

Hi, Blackwolf again, back with a quick post about the terrain making session us Bunker 3030 boys had Sunday in Whitey's garage.

So far, we've been playing our games of FOW down at our local club, the Western Suburbs Wargames Association, of which we're all members. The club scenery is pretty good (as can be seen from this AAR I've posted on Battlefront FOW forum), and we're happy to continue gaming at the club, but we also decided that we each want our own FOW battlefield. Also, we each chose to do a specific theme. Griddon chose Eastern Front, Whitey chose Normandy, and I chose Dutch countryside. We've each bought a GW battlemat, and have purchased buildings from Kerr & King (more on those in a future post), and have placed an order for Woodland Scenics tree's. So Sunday we chose to tackle another important piece of scenery we all wanted for our battlefields.... Roads!

Schwere Panzer Kompanie 'Hummel'

Blackwolf again, presenting the second FOW company I've finished and gamed with. This time its the mighty beasts of Schwere Panzer Kompanie 'Hummel', using the Tiger tank list found in Hammer & Sickle.

Being a bit of a history nut (There's a lot of us out there!), I like to base all the force's I collect on actual unit's. These can either be units of convenience, like my 9.SS-Panzer Division Grenadiers, or units that fascinate me for a particular reason. Schwere Panzer Kompanie 'Hummel' is definitely a unit that fascinates me. First off, Tiger tanks.... need I say more? ;) Secondly, a Tiger unit that fought during Operation Market Garden was a good fit, as our gaming group focussed on this battle when we started out. Thirdly, and most importantly, were the specific vehicles that made up Kompanie 'Hummel'. For the brief history of this unit, visit here. But let me go in to a little detail about the vehicles used...

9. SS-Panzer Division 'Hohenstaufen'

Hi, Blackwolf here, with a look at the first* company I collected when we got into FOW, a Panzergrenadier Company from the 9. SS-Panzer Division.

First off, a bit of background on my choice. The first thing to decide upon was the nationality... This was pretty easy, I've always been a big fan of German machinery in WWII, from their uniforms to their tanks and planes. I'm sure there's heaps of guys out there like me who built model Tiger tanks as a child/teenager, as I'm sure there are more model Tiger tanks in the world than the real thing! ha. Also helping my decision to take Germans was my regular opponents were all taking Allied armies. So, decision made, too easy, on to choosing the actual list to use.

We all decided, strangely, to build infantry companies. Being an avid reader of the FOW Forum, I was aware that newbie's would be better off with tank companies, as its easier to get to grips with the rules and game mechanics. But still, we all decided we wanted the true workhorses of the war to start with, the Poor Bloody Infantry.

Panzer-Grenadier Division Großdeutschland

Hi folks, Griddon here.

This is to be the very first post detailing the development of my German Late War Flames of War army. It starts with a discussion about the list in this post, but in the coming weeks and months i'll be putting a lot of effort into documenting how I go about pretty much everything in the process of concept to table top.

Firstly I will say this. The list wont win tournaments. It isn't designed to. The list is a step in the process of getting a good selection of Germans painted and available and should be fun to play in casual games. This list is an elite four platoon list that will be cheap and easy to get ready and gaming with.

I have chosen to represent the Panzer-Grenadier Division Großdeutschland on the Eastern front around 1944. These guys were known to be really quite well equipped. Infact this was one of the reasons I picked them. In my very first list I had a squad of armoured Panzergrenadiers. During late war, it was actually quite rare for Panzergrenadiers to be issued with halftracks so finding a regiment that definitely did receive them was top priority.

And a Blackwolf wandered in...

Hi, Blackwolf here, launching into a quick introduction.

I'm the "Mat" Griddon spoke of in the opening post, and its great to be involved enough in this great hobby of ours that myself and the guys feel its time to give a little back to the FOW community. I've been reading heaps of FOW blogs over the last few months, and have been captivated by just about each and every one of them. I find them quite inspiring, and will often race off in pursuit of my next painting project after reading a good article or seeing some awesome pics. I hope that we at Bunker 3030 can do the same for others, as well as entertain and inform along the way.

I'll be spewing forth a cavalcade of modeling logs, battle reports, product reviews, funny photo's, tournament news, and anything else that takes my fancy concerning FOW and WWII in general. After all, FOW is awesome, WWII is fascinating, and there's so much to see and do (and have done to me?) that there's barely enough time to see it all, and do it all (and have it all done to me!).

See ya soon, and cheers for reading.

Welcome and Introduction

Thanks for swinging by Bunker 3030!

Based out of Point Cook, Victoria in Australia, Bunker 3030 is a blog on the subjects of Flames of War (FoW) World War II miniature gaming and a lot of what that entails. We'll also be very keen to discuss topics linked to FoW including but not limited to: Movie Reviews, Hobby Articles, Battle Reports, Tournament Reviews, Product Reviews, Tactics Discussions and anything else that takes our fancy.

The three main contributors are all keen table top miniature gameing enthusiasts. The cool thing about this blog is that each of us are at a different stage of the hobby. Dave has yet to start his first army and has yet to play his first game. By comparison, Mat has played many games and owns a good number of armies. I sit in the middle. I picked up the game last year and have just finished painting my first army. I'm hooked.

Over the coming months we'll be sure to show you why FoW is such a great and addictive game.

Thanks and catch you soon.