6th Guards Tank Brigade - Part 5 - Finished

G'day folks. Griddon here again with the final installation* of the 6th Guards Tank Brigade mini project. They are finished along with the HMG platoon to turn my Hell's Highway force into a Fortress Europe Confident Trained Infantry list which I'm going to play as 6th Guards Tank Brigade supporting the 15th Scot's.

Not a lot of words for you. Just pictures. Quite a few of them. Tips, advice, comments. All welcome.

Eastern Front Panzer List

The Hornisse / Nashorn

Hi all. Back again with some list discussion. A few weeks back I detailed my plans to get Panzer-Grenadier Division Großdeutschland onto the table. Those plans may be on hold. :) I had some doubts about putting another 'hobby' list together which I already acknowledged wasn't going to be competitive. I've since got a few more games under my belt. I've also been playing World of Tanks a bit. The combined effect was a rewrite of my intended German list.

The aims were quite simple. I wanted competitive. I wanted fun. I also wanted a combined arms list which had Tank Hunters, Panzerspah and a solid back bone of Panzer IVs. Since I also have an Eastern Front table on the go it makes sense to have an Eastern Front list to push about. So, I immediately went to take a look at the Bagration Panzer Divsions PDF available on the Flames of War site. Not bad but aside from some interesting support selections the same lists can be achieved from Fortress Europe and with the later I benefit increased Tank Hunter options.

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.

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.

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.