Eastern Front Table - Part 2

Hi folks. Griddon here with an update on the Eastern Front table. It's nearly finished. Sweet.

So, Mat updated the blog with our session knocking out some MDF road sections a few weeks ago. Mat very kindly took those home and gave them a coat of textured paint and put some track marks all over them. I received them back last week and set about painting them all dark brown and dry brushing up a little with a lighter shade. I then broke up the edges with a moss green colour stippled on and these areas will be covered with static grass as soon as I can get to the shops to buy some.

6th Guards Tank Brigade - Part 4

Hi All. I thought it would be a good idea to update on my 6th Guards Tank Brigade project.

I've finished the tanks! Hoorah! All six are completely finished including decals, weathering and sealer. I've resisted posting a picture of the whole lot as I want to hold that over until I'm finally finished with the entire 1750 point list. So, for the moment, just a picture of the first one!

I also thought I'd show how I'm doing my machine gun platoon. I have two methods on the go. For the first method I have miniatures glued to the end of a small nail for ease of access. These are the guys from the universal carriers and they might have been quite awkward to paint if glued to the vehicle. I wanted to show this method as it's how I painted the first two of my three British late war rifle platoons. It has its merits for standard 15mm infantry for sure. Ease of access being the main one. This allows you the best chance at catching all the details of the miniatures but once finished you have to glue them to the base and texture / paint the base seperately.

I now prefer to glue my bare metal miniatures to the base, texture the base and undercoat prior to painting. I find this much quicker and with four infantry per base it is usually pretty easy to get in amongst the minis to capture the detail. In the instance of the Vickers machine gun platoon, I'm not sure I had much choice anyway as the Vickers machine gun itself is rather difficult to assemble as it has a very small land area to make the bond for both the Vickers and the belt feed. Super Glue makes short work at messing up paint jobs so it just wasn't worth the risk for me.

Battlefront's Customer Service

Hi, Blackwolf here, just wanting to share my recent experience with Battlefront's customer service.

Recently my lovely Fiancée placed an order through Battlefront's online store for the Battlefield in a Box - Rivers boxed set as a gift for me. A few days later we received an email from the Australasian Manager of Battlefront explaining that the rivers boxed set was out of stock, and that it may be some time before they became available again, but would I be interested in changing my order to four river expansion boxes? Well, this sort of thing can't be helped, so I said yes, that was fine, especially as I was now receiving 12 river sections instead of the 7 that come in the box, though I would be missing out on the bridges the box contains. So I asked if the bridges were available separately, my intention being to purchase them if they were. I received a reply a day later, stating my order had been changed to the four river expansion boxes, and that the manager himself was throwing in a spare set of bridges from his own collection.

We all have many reasons why we love playing FoW... Love of WWII history, beautiful miniatures, gorgeous scenery, kicking your mates arse ;) But the main reason I'll keep supporting Battlefront is due to customer service like that. Not only were the bridges thrown in for free, but they came out of the Australasian Manager's own collection. That my friends, is above and beyond customer service. Battlefront.... You guys rock.

Book Review: Troop Leader - A Tank Commander's Story

Hi all, Griddon here with a quick book review.

While browsing the WWII section in Borders a month or so ago I found a copy of Troop Leader: A Tank Commander's Story. The book covers the activities of 8th King's Royal Irish Hussars through the Normandy breakout campaign all the way to the eventual occupation of Germany and the immediate post war period.

The book is written by Bill Belamy and is taken from his journal written at the time. These journals were against army regulations but in hindsight I think even the top brass can acknowledge the value they add to understanding the conflicts and learning valuable lessons. The author talks about his experiences in the various roles he had such as Squadron Echelon leader, through Troop Leader and subsequently, Reconnaissance 2IC.

Upcoming Mid War Tournament List's

Hi, Blackwolf here, with some musings about an upcoming mid-war tournament.

Hobby store "Realm of Legends" here in Melbourne are planning on running a one day mid-war tournament on Saturday, the 7th of May (link to their WargamerAU post here). I believe this comes at the end of a mid-war escalation league they've recently run. We here at Bunker 3030 couldn't participate in the league as we were concentrating on late war armies, plus Realm of Legends is in Croydon, a suburb about an hours drive from the Bunker. However, we are interested in the one day tournament.

Our problem, as already stated, is that we have late-war armies. But, with a little tinkering, we've written up some lists from the armies we have that should do alright in mid-war (we think, but honestly, we have no idea, we have no experience with the period). I'm planning on the following list from Eastern Front...

6th Guards Tank Brigade - Part 3

Yo. Back again with a quick update. With my exams now over I'm free to concentrate on more fun things. Having prepared my Churchills before the exam I was good to go with some painting this weekend. I managed to get from bare resin / metal to fully painted over the course of a couple of days. Probably about 4 hours total work. They aren't finished yet. They need about 30 minutes of work each with the decals but I'll get round to that this week.

So, for the painting I went with the basecoat, wash and drybrush method for the main armor and did some detail work only on the various bits of gear strapped to the tank.

Here is a quick run down of the process for those who aren't familiar. Let's assume you've got your preferred primer already on the model.

Step 1: Basecoat by brush, two thin coats of Russian Uniform.

I didn't worry too much about getting Russian Uniform where it wasn't wanted at this point as the tracks get a coat of very dark brown later.

Breakout - One Day Mini Campaign

Hello again. Griddon here with a quick post about an event that Blackwolf and I are running in July.

Flames of War hasn't really got a firm foothold in Victoria yet. Probably, the number of regular gamers is around fifty and they are distributed over a large geographical area. With war periods you shrink the gaming group even further. Blackwolf and I are both exclusive to Late War at the moment but over at Realm of Legends, they have just finished up a Mid War escalation league.

With these issues in mind, we wanted to find a way of bringing players together. Our approach here is to run a one day mini campaign. The format is going to be three games of 1750 points late war with themed Normandy breakout lists. We'll avoid blue on blue by having equal numbers on each side of the conflict and we're going to have the results of each round affect the match ups for the following round.

Some Quick Pics

This weekend just passed I took two mates through some introductory games at our local gaming club. While I waited for them to arrive, I took some pics to pass the time. Unfortunately, my camera's uncharged battery didn't last long, so only got a few pics. Enjoy!

6th Guards Tank Brigade - Part 2

Hi all. Griddon here with an early update on the 6th Guards Tank Brigade bits I'm putting together and painting.

I received all my bits courtesy of Viv at Battle Bunker, Northcote. (If you haven't come across Viv yet, he's a bit of a Youtube personality. Check him out. Lots of cool scenery videos.) I cracked open the Churchill blisters and settled in for a quiet Saturday morning assembling all the tanks. As usual, the first process is to check the resin for defects, remove the flash and then wash the resin parts in warm soapy water. While they are drying I set to fixing and filing the metal bits.