The first Flames of War game of 2013 (Part one)

I was hoping to do a full AAR of this game (with a load of pictures as well), which had been in the pipeline for around a month, but as it turns out, I ended up being quite ill with Bronchitis!  So, here I present the set up of each force and in the next/final part I will give a brief run down of the battle as it took place..

Usually, on or around bank holidays our group like to have a big game of Warhammer 40k or 40K Apocalypse, but over the past year things have been a bit quiet on the 40k front for us, and a few of us have been playing other games such as Flames of War and Firestorm Armada, we decided to play something else.  As soon as the idea of Flames of War was put forward, everyone was keen to play, particularly the guys who don't already play it (I'm putting this down to excessive playing of World of Tanks over the past few months!).

So, we arranged a simple British vs German battle, around 3200 points (As to fill an afternoon/early evening), mostly using Turning Tide and Earth & Steel.  We had two companies per side, with one FoW newbie on each side.  Luckily I had just received the Open Fire box set, so had an Armoured Company to allow a second British detachment!   From what I remember, the forces were as follows:

British:
Airlanding Company
Company HQ with Sniper + 3 x PIAT Teams
3  Airlanding Rifle Platoons (with 3 Rifle Teams)
Airlanding Pioneer Platoon
Airlanding Machine Gun Platoon
Airlanding Anti-Tank Platoon
Commando Company

Armoured Squadron (From the Flames of War 11th Armoured Division pdf)
Company HQ (2 Sherman V)
2 x Guards Armoured Platoon (2 x Sherman V and 1 x Sherman Firefly VC)
1 x Guards Armoured Platoon (3 x Sherman V and 1 x Sherman Firefly VC)
1 x Anti-tank Platoon, Royal Artillery (4 x M10C 17pdr SP)
101st Airborne Parachute Platoon

German:
German Panzergrenadier Lehr Kompanie
Company HQ
2 x Panzergrenadier Lehr Platoon (with 3 Panzergrenadier Squads)
1 x Panzergrenadier Lehr Platoon (with 2 Panzergrenadier Squads)
Panzergrenadier Lehr Heavy Mortar Platoon (1 Section)
Tank-Hunter Lehr Platoon (3 x Jagdpanzer IV)

Panzer Lehr Kompanie
Company HQ (2 x Panther A)
Panzer Lehr Platoon (4 x Panzer IV H)
Panther Lehr Platoon (4 x Panther A)

So there we go, we've got a British infantry heavy force of Fearless Veterans, elite Airlanding troops and commandos, supported by the solid, confident veterans of the 11th Armoured Division.  On this misty June morning, they face off across the countryside of Normandy against the Confident Veterans of the Panzer Lehr, equipped with not only the rapid and devestating half-tracks of the Panzergrenadiers, but also the devestating strength of the Lehr's finest tanks.  

Will the daring British advance succeed, or will it be crushed by the well equipped and trained Panzer Lehr?  In part 2, we will find out...

Geeky Gaming Goodness!

Since I've just finished relocating all my Christmas goodies into their various new homes, I thought I might as well post a picture of the geeky elements of the horde of gifts I seemed to receive this year!

I chose/bought some of the stuff myself (I don't my wife would have managed to get the Army Painter bits without my aid), but a fair bit of it was a surprise, especially the awesome Hobgoblin pewter ale tankard!

I won't lie though...I received XCOM: Enemy Unknown as an early present a couple of weeks before Christmas, and after playing it every day, I'd already completed it before Christmas.  It's pretty much all I've done with my free time since I got it!

The DVD haul is pretty cool, I wasn't expecting any of these and there's over 90 hours of  stuff to watch.  I've already watched the first six episodes of 'the World at War', it's a superb series.  I've learnt a lot about WW2 already from watching it. Dad;s Army is self explanatory I hope, it's one of the best British comedies I've seen.  The War of the Worlds TV series is one of my favourite TV shows, and after many years of waiting it has finally come out to buy and watch at home!  I've never met anyone else who has even heard of the show so far though...

Wargaming wise, I'm set up for the next few months by the look of this little lot!  Open Fire, I have kept the Brits and sold off the Germans to one of my FoW playing friends.  I also got a box of Plastic Soldier Company 15mm German panther tanks to go with my FoW German Army (4/5 are already built!).  The Italeri American Special Forces and Vietnamese Army/Viet Cong, and Airfix M113 should set me up with enough troops for a few battles of Force on Force/Ambush Valley as well!  Hopefully, with this little bundle i'll be able to get some of my friends fired up over FoF!  Finally, I've bought some Army Painter coloured primers for my DA force.  I hardly ever play 40k anymore, but I want playable force for the occasional game with friends, so i'm just going to us these to get them quickly up to tabletop quality.

All in all, I think i'm going to be busy for a while!

Gaming Resolutions 2013

This year, I've decided that i'm going to make a concerted effort to get my existing wargaming and roleplaying projects caught up to date.  Since I took a 'break' from playing 40k just after last Christmas, I've gotten into several new games, and although I've hand a handful of games of each, I've spent little time actually painting the models.  The result is that I now have a veritable horde of miniatures stacked up waiting to be painted!  Although I feel i'm a competent painter, I've started collecting non-28mm scale models now, so this may turn out to be a challenge.  New models I've bought this year that need finishing are:

• Flames of War:  British Airlanding Company and Support, Irish Guards Armoured Squadron and German Bodenstandig Grenadierkompanie.
• Firestorm Armada:  Directorate Starter Fleet and Carrier.
• Force on Force:  Various forces for Vietnam, Somalia and Modern Afghanistan.

This is in addition to my existing Blood Bowl teams (three), Epic Space Marine army and a new Dark Angels force i traded with a friend (Four sets of the Dark Vengeance Dark Angels) - Yes, my 40k hiatus lasted just under a year!

So, with all that in mind, my wargaming shelves are already fully loaded, and there is much work to do!  My resolutions for 2013 are as follows:

Wargaming

1. Complete all three Flames of War armies and my Firestorm Armada fleet to at least tabletop standard, and do not buy any more models for these armies until this is achieved.
2. Play a minimum of 1-2 games per month (of any wargame).
3. Finishing building up the Epic Space Marine force and play at least one game with it.
4. Try using the 'Army Painter technique' to paint my Dark Angels up to TT standard ready for the Easter game.
5. Complete enough models and obtain enough scenery to run a Force on Force campaign (Probably 'Day of the Ranger') for my gaming friends and hopefully get them into FoF.

Roleplaying:

1. Bring my Conspiracy X campaign up to date (and do so after each session) on the Obsidian Portal website.  
2. Run the Conspiracy X campaign a minimum of once each calendar month (as promised to the players already!).
3. Finish writing the Call of Cthulhu Campaign I have been writing since last year.

Now I look back, there are actually a few more than i expected, still I feel these are attainable, and I need to make up for this year, where I've managed to convince myself that moving house in January is still a legitimate reason for not getting back to the painting table by December...

New beginnings, etc.

So, it's a new year again and I find myself setting the same old resolutions I always seem to set myself, yet never really fulfill (gaming-wise, at least).  I've always liked the idea of creating a blog to record my adventures and experiences in my various hobbies, and I expect, my occasional thoughts on other things that interest me.  It also struck me that I may actually make some progress on my various goals if I actually had to document what I was doing.

So, I've decided to kill two birds with one stone and create my very first blog (ta-da!).  You'll have to bear with me while I get the thing customised and set up just how I'd like it, but it shouldn't take too long.  In the meantime, I think its best to get on with the real 'meat' of the blog and post.