Fracas: Blurry Pics

Its midnight and I have finished my tanks for Fracas. Pics have been taken with my cheap point and shoot without a tripod. Sorry for the poor quality. Will try to get a tripod tomorrow and get some more shots of the entire platoon up.

Game 1: FFA

Another great weekend in Palmerston North. As always the panzerschreck doubles was one of the highlights of the gaming Calender. I will try to briefly explain how all the games went and what my lessons were.

Here is what Tim and Myself took:

NZ Div Cav in Italy (NZ armoured car squadron)

HQ 2xStaghounds

Troop 1 2xStaghound I, 1xStaghound II CS

Troop 2 2xStaghound I, 1xStaghound II CS

Troop 3 2xStaghound I, 1xStaghound II CS

AT platoon 4x17/25 guns

Limited Kittyhawks

2nd Independent Para in Italy

HQ 2xPIAT 1xSniper

Para platoon

Para platoon

Para AT 4x6pdr

British artillery 4x25pdr

NZ AA 3xBofors

Game 1: Free for All vs Brian and Andre (Finn tanks, CT Germans with Tiger)

I am going to just say it. I love me some free for all. It's the type of mission I plan for. The only downside is time, some defensive or slow players can time out causing a loss for both players. This wasn't the case which was great!

They had a mixture of CT Germans, with 10 Tx26s. Their main force to attack with was 2xKVs and a Tiger. To counter this I put the 17pdrs covering our right hand objective and had Tims Para Rifle platoon, Para 6pdrs and the 25pdrs protecting our left hand objective.

The Staghounds attacked the right hand objective while Tim’s 2^nd Para Rifle platoon attacked up the centre.

With the help of Tim’s sniper the Staghounds smashed the 88s defending the objective and pushed off the infantry protecting it. A last ditch effort from 5xT26s killed a staghound but couldn’t withstand the mighty firepower of the Staghound. We took the objective while threatening their second objective. Tim’s Paras held onto the objective under attack from the Heavy tanks.

6-1 to us!

Key part of the battle was deployment. We had good AT defence on both objectives, the Staghounds Recce move concealed the objective I was going to swarm. Brian and Andre deployed their 105s almost in the corner which placed them too far to contest the objective. They deployed their tanks to advance along that board edge. With their 8” move they could not move fast enough to help out against my Staghound attack.

Man of the Match: Tim’s Sniper. Took out an 88mm gun all by himself which allowed my staghounds to overwhelm the only other gun covering that objective.

Panzerschreck 2012: Need more sleep

I has been a while since I updated the Blog. Mostly due to a hit in motivation when my camera and laptop got stolen. I have replaced my good camera with a cheap point and shoot, as you can tell from the previous entries its not very good at close ups.

This weekend Panzerschreck ran in Palmerston North. It has continued for its 3rd year as a doubles tournament. This year it was 2200pts per team Mid War.

I of course took Staghounds and Tim took British Paras.

We justified my Staghound fetish by winning best overall. Here are some pics. A full report will be up when I can get some sleep.

Your not a Troll!

Well the local gaming store closed this week. Not a huge loss as those who were running it didn't know how to run a retail store and really didn't know how to run a game store. They did have a closing down sale ending this Friday.

I picked up some Warmachine stuff at 50% off their retail. That sounds good except for that they were 30% above RRP to start with.

I quickly painted the Warcaster tonight to test out my red skills. Photos still using the cheap camera.

Highlander Troll

So I needed to fill out 4pts for a 25pt Highlander tournament coming up in May. Its limited to no characters. 1 Warcaster/Warlock, 1 Jack/Beast, 1 Unit and 1 solo. Any remaining points must be spent of jacks/beasts but you cannot take more than 1 of any jack/beast.

Not having a large choice of good cominations I was left with 4pts. Trolls only have 1 beast worth 4pts and that is the Swamp Troll.

Grim however needs a certain type of high class troll in his posse. So not just any troll from the bogs and swamps will do.

He chose this dapper gentleman:

Bam and the Tank is gone

Its been a while since I painted some of my 28mm WW2 figures. After counting up my "to do" pile I have:

2 boxes of plastic Bolt Action British infantry (for Italy)
1 platoon worth of metal Bolt Action British infantry (European style helmets)
1 platoon worth of metal Bolt Action German infantry
1 6pdr ATG
2 Universal carriers (Still on order from the UK)

Oh dear.

So I decided to paint the 6pdr as it was a relatively easy job. However the model didn't come with instructions and I only found out after I had glued some of the bits in the wrong place.
The 3 crew it came with were wearing the European style helmet so I cut the helmet down on one figure and removed the head from the other. I replaced brain cases with parts from the plastic kits. I also needed a crew of 4 for the ruleset we are using for 28mm (Rules of Engagement) so I made up another figure from the plastics.

I also added a few bits and pieces to the base, Tommy gun, SMLE rifle, shovel and rocks. I also tried to cut down some of the shells so the looked like APDS ammo. I gave up after 1 as the tools I had weren't up for it.

So here they are:

Equinox, final figures to fight

Last month my DSLR got stolen along with my Laptop and Xbox. Today I bought a cheap point and shoot to try to get by with. Its hit and miss. Without my tri-pod most of the shots were to blurry. I might just have to live with it however till I can get a decent replacement.

Finished painting all my trolls on Sunday for Equinox this weekend. My first Warmachine tournament and it looks like it will great. I have tested both my lists and I am happy with knowing how my forces works together. However there are over 100 different Warcasters/Warlocks in the game and I have only played a smaller number of them.

Still 7 games of two days will be a good learning experience.

Here are the Trolls: