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Saturday 31 December 2011

Kittys got claws...

First of all, I hope everyone had a great christmas, and I will take this chance to wish everyone a happy and prosperous new year...

Christmas was quiet on the hobby side of things - all I got was three boxes of Zvezda Stukas from the cat and a K R Multicase from the inlaws as my Flames of War stuff is now too numerous to fit into one box.

So, onto a little battle I had against one of my regular opponents at Hulls Angels, Alan. After pondering a suitable list I realised that I hadn't taken out my Panthers to play yet. They are great tanks if used correctly and I wanted to see if they lived up to their fearsome reputation.

We played a modified cauldron scenario where, as this was a campaign game, the Germans wouldnt get delayed reserves but standard reserves.

Starting on the table were 2 Panzer IV's and a fallschirmjager platoon.

Unfortunately, Alan, who had taken a US armoured force, had deployed a platoon of 76mm shermans in close proximity. The 76mm guns did what they do best, and turned the Panzer IVs into mincemeat

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The Panthers turned up to even up the odds. It was clear from an early stage that the central objective was going to be where it was all going to happen so Alan began to maneuvre accordingly. Some long range sniping took out a couple of shermans, before Alan decided to try and knock out one of my 3 panthers with a sneaky shot at the side armour...

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Which ended about as well as you would expect if a sherman tried to stare down a Panther...

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Some lucky long range shooting took out a Panther and the other advanced on the objective taking the fight to the Americans. Had the game ended there, it would have been a German victory, but unfortunately I had to wait until at least Turn 4 with the objective uncontested.

The arrival of the tiger tank!
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Which was promptly knocked out by Alans air force (Doug, take note - this is how you use air power :D )

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Meanwhile the fallschirmjager, who had become pinned by the aforementioned US force, decided discretion was the better part of valour and promptly refused to move for ooh, about 6 turns...

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Heavy fighting erupts around the objective as the two panthers show the Americans how to fight

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The falschirmjager finally realise that they are there to fight not have a picnic and get stuck in. Unfortunately a lack of anti-tank kit hampered me, but they did knock out two shermans.

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Before finally falling back, almost wiped out to a man

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By this stage, a second panther had succumbed to weight of fire, and the last remaining panther crew bailed out and decided to head home.

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A hard fought game with the allies suffering 12 shermans lost out of 17 but victory belonged to Alan.

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Thanks for reading!

Saturday 10 December 2011

Marching on...

Well it's taken a few months but I've finally finished my Late War British Infantry, which I will be using almost exclusively as the infantry element of the Polish 1st Armoured Division. Although not as complicated to paint as the fallschirmjager, they still had lots of tricksy detail to paint (gaiters!). They will never win an award for best painted army (unless it's the only painted army at the competition) but they do look decent from table top height. The only thing I would want to add is rank to the command bases, but I just don't have the skill for that!

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Next up are some plastic Panzer IV's from the Plastic Soldier Company. These models are truly excellent and I only fear that my paint job has not done them justice. I cannot wait for the Panthers that are coming out in January from these guys!

The only thing they need are transfers applying but I've run out :(

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SO what's next on my table? This will be my last Flames of War army in the Late War period due to time constraints. I've gone with US Airborne plus some supporting elements (i.e. it was reduced at the Hobbycraft sale and it's all that was left...)

Artillery
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Paras
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More tanks!
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Take a look at the sprues - remember this is a 15mm tank. Awesome! And so reasonably priced!!! Battlefront (and GW) take note - this is how you get people to spend their money on your products!

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As always, any comments, much appreciated :)