Army Spotlight - Flames of War, British (Late War)

I became interested in Flames of War a couple of years ago. It was around the same time that my interest in Warhammer 40k was waning, and I had also decided that 8th Edition Fantasy just wasn't for me. I had always been a bit of a WWII buff, and so it didn't take me long to find was is most likely the most mainstream, if not the most popular, of WWII miniature wargames. I ended up trading some Lord of the Rings SBG miniatures my sister's ex-boyfriend had given to me for the old mid-war British rifle company boxset, and a few other goodies. 

One of the problems I think most wargamers encounter is buying miniatures at a faster rate that they can be painted. Last summer (2012) I decided that wouldn't be the case with my British. Over those months I sat down and painted most of what I had - the infantry taking the longest compared to the vehicles. The result was an infantry company and two tank companies.

Here's the infantry. The company commander and 2iC are in front (no snipers, however. Never had much of a use for them in FoW). Behind are 3 full infantry platoons. Accompanying them is a few support platoons - machine guns, mortars, and 6-pdr anti-tank guns with Lloyd Carriers for additional mobility. 

I started playing FoW with the 2nd Edition 'Open Fire!' set, which came with 2 StuGs and 3 Shermans. Though they were American-models, they were the basis of a Sherman tank company. Unfortunately, it's a bit skewed toward Market-Garden then Normandy as half of each platoon is made up of Fireflies (I somehow managed to buy a lot of Fireflies). 

 

I was also a fan of the cruiser family of tanks that ended up in the form of the Cromwell and Challenger tanks, so I also have a company of them. In Normandy I replace the Challengers with Fireflies borrowed from the Sherman company. 

Here are the oddballs of my collection - more assets than anything else. In front are 3 Churchill Crocodiles - they're decent at anti-infantry work with their flamethrowers, and their heavy front armor gives them semi-decent chances against heavier German guns. 

Behind the Crocs are the Recon platoons I use. The first is a single section of a scout carrier platoon. I'd like to get a full platoon one of these days, as the Bren 'swarm' can deal with both infantry and armor (with Mounted PIATs). Recon moves help with that. The Bren carriers accompany the infantry. There's also a single platoon of Stuart Vs. While their guns aren't anything spectacular in Late War, they're little, fast, and can still put a dent in side armor.

Last are four M5 halftracks. If I'm looking to add a little infantry support that can keep up with my tanks, I mount a platoon in the halftracks.

Last is the artillery. 25 pdr guns on the left, and Sextons on the right. The last old 'Open Fire!' Sherman acts as an OP for the platoon, and a Grasshopper provides an aerial view. 

So that's the Brits. As I mentioned last week, I really need to work on my Germans, which are languishing in storage at the moment. I'd also like to start Americans at some point. 

The End to a Summer of Hobby

Three months ago I wrote out what I planned to do hobby-wise during the summer. With Oktoberfest beers and pumpkin-flavored everything coming back, I think we can safely say that summer is over. So let's see what I ended up getting done.

WWII:
I finished painting the entirety of my British for Flames of War, which will be featuring in an article sometime soon.

Unfortunately, my Germans remain relatively untouched. I never really got the chance to sit down and do the sort of' 'block painting' that lets me get a large amount of miniatures done in a short amount of time. However, with arrival of Plastic Soldier Company's sprays coming to the Warstore in October, getting a layer of dunkelgelb on the vehicles at the very least won't be a problem.

I didn't work on terrain all that much either. A rug did get cut up for some fields.

SAGA: 
Here I've made the most progress. The Vikings are fully painted, based, and finished. I've also added a unit of Levy archers for some ranged support (though the Vikings Battleboard doesn't offer much in the way of improving ranged attacks). The Anglo-Danes are also coming along nicely, with a finished Warlord, and unit each of Warriors and Hearthguard that need to be based and varnished. The other Warrior and Hearthguard units are still primed black.

ACW:

Nada. Nothing. It's disappointing. I've been taking so long to get them done that the infantry and artillery figures are starting to have their primer layer peel off. 

FIW:

I unfortunately realized that I was going to need to get rid of some of the miniatures I had. My Warmachine/Hordes stuff is on eBay now, and my 6mm Moderns and 28mm Romans were offered up on Bartertown.

My 18mm FIW collection was also a part of this purge. The minis and rules are now in the hands of a hobbyist up in Canada who I hope will be able to actually use them. 

So that's that. I've also realized I have two fleets for Full Thrust put away, so I'm thinking about what to do with them. Outside of miniatures, I've also been playing a lot of Android: Netrunner, one of Fantasy Flight Games' Living Card Games. Maybe I'll do a post on that as well. Most importantly is getting games in, as AARs are what everyone comes here for, anyway. 

Painting Update - SAGA

Sorry about the lack of a post last week. I hadn't done anything hobby related, so I decided to take a break rather then spew out some opinion piece to fill the space. 

After a few weeks of painting, I finally managed to complete the 5 points of Vikings I have for SAGA. 

The Warlord, with his shield inscribed with runes to keep him safe. 

The hearthguard - the same that failed me in the last battle they were in. 

Hearthguard Berserkers, the glass cannons of the Vikings. 

The first unit of Warriors. 

And the second unit of Warriors. 

Bow-armed Levy. 

As I said, this comes to 5 points of in-game units. A standard game of SAGA is played at 6 points, and I've been wondering how to get that last point. A single unit of Levy is more than enough for Vikings, especially as they don't have any way of improving missile attacks from their Battleboard, and Levy are generally useless in melee. Another unit of Warriors might be useful, as I could split it into two and combine them with the Warriors I already have, giving me two 12-strong Warrior units.

But what really interests me is another unit of standard Hearthguard. Berserkers aren't an option, since a Vikings warband can only take a single unit (4 men). But another unit of regular Hearthguard could be combined with the unit I already have and give me an 8-strong unit in-game. Not only would this give me 16 attacks in melee - which can go much higher with the abilities available to the Vikings - but it also increases their chances of staying on the table after a bad round of combat.

However, my attention at the moment turns now from the Vikings to my second SAGA faction - the Anglo-Danes. My starter warband arrived earlier in the week, and the miniatures have been cleaned up and glued to their bases. I'm hoping to have them based (Drydex'd, I suppose) and primed.

My ultimate goal is to have the contents of the two starter warbands painted as soon as possible. There's a FLGS near my university that's very heavy on Warmachine/Hordes and 40k, but no Historical wargames. I'm hoping the similarities between SAGA and Warmachine/Hordes and the relative cheap price of getting into the game can attract some players.

Vikings vs. Anglo-Danes - SAGA AAR

It's been awhile since I've spoken of anything relating to SAGA, but that doesn't mean I haven't been doing anything with it. I've been busy painting the 4 point starter warband of Vikings, and even picked up a unit of levy to add some ranged attacks to the predominately (completely) melee focused Vikings. My next move will be to get the Anglo-Dane starter, then get both forces up to 6 points.

In game, the Vikings focus on offense in melee and removing Fatigue from their units, and the Anglo-Danes have many defensive abilities and can place additional Fatigue on enemy units. Because the two factions play so well off of one another, I've decided to use them as my demo factions in the future.

Alex, one of the guys who frequents 7th Dimension Games, showed up last Saturday with some miniatures (which he revealed to be a small part of a rather extensive Dark Ages collection) to act as Anglo-Danes, while I used my Vikings.

This AAR is really going to lack pictures, which is much different from my normal style, but I was much more focused on explaining the rules than recording what happened.

Our two warbands lined up opposite of one another. The objective was to killed the opposing Warlord or, failing that, get the most Victory Points by the end of turn 6. Alex deployed his Arthurian-based warband closer together, while I spread mine out, hoping to be able to catch him from multiple sides.

The first few turns of the game involved a lot of movement, with Alex and I positioning our men in an attempt to be the first to initiate combat. First blood went to my unit of Hearthguard (which you can see off to the far right, behind the smithy), who killed 4 of Alex's Warriors - and dying in the process. A little too enthusiastic to get into combat, they must have lept right onto the waiting Danish spears.

Alex kept his force fairly close together, and this meant that my wood-and-meat grinding Berserkers were left out of the battle for its entirety. 

Alex showed me that the defense-focused Danes were no slouches when it came to offense. He sent a unit of Hearthguards into one of my Warrior units and killed 5 of them. He then used 'The Push' ability and killed the remaining Warriors to had tried to disengage. 

My Warlord and Warriors then completely failed to do anything to the Dane-axe wielding Hearthguard, who showed my hapless Warlord what melee was all about, splitting his skull alongside a good few of the Warriors who had followed him into combat. And with that, Alex's Anglo-Danes secured their victory!

In our after-game talk, Alex said he found the game to be fun, and the fact that it's definitely on the more 'game-y' then 'simulation' side of historical wargames didn't detract from that at all. He told me that he has plenty of miniatures that could be used for Anglo-Saxons, Welsh, and Normans, so I won't be lacking for opponents (although some Byzantines would be cool... ). We also agreed that it wouldn't be hard to market this game to Warmachine players, since its shares more than a few similarities, and it's definitely cheap to put together a 6 point warband. 

So that's that! I'll hopefully have everything painted by next week, and if I'm lucky I'll have another AAR to post. If not, it'll be a painting display post, or perhaps a review of a certain board game that I recently picked up. 

Everything's FUBAR! - FoW Vietnam AAR

Once again, a group event was held at 7th Dimension Games. This time, Gary had brought out his FoW Vietnam collection, replete with fully painted models and excellent terrain. With four players, two were assigned to each side with myself taking control of two NVA infantry companies.

The mission was to rescue the crew of a downed helicopter. The Free World objective was located in the top left corner, between the small patch of woods on the right side of the river, and the larger half-circle of woods. The NVA objective was behind those woods.

The NVA force was an Infantry Battalion (Fearless Trained) which consisted off:

Battalion HQ

x2 Infantry companies (with B41 rpg upgrades)

Recoilless Gun company

Anti-Air company

Local Forces company

x2 HMG nests

The US force was a Rifle Company (Confident Trained) which consisted of:

Company HQ

x2 Rifle Platoons

Armored Cavalry Platoon with

-Command M113

-x2 Scout Sections

-x3 Sheridans

Tank Platoon

Aeroweapons Platoon

The game started with a bang when the local forces appeared in ambuscade and opened up on one of the two American platoons that had been on patrol, following the small stream. The Americans didn't take much damage (especially since each infantry stand can take two 'wounds' before being removed) and they fired back. Their return fire was near as ineffectual, and only removed a single stand.

The NVA came on in force. One of the infantry companies was placed just within the woods behind the American objective, safe from enemy fire in the cover of the trees. The two HMGs revealed their positions, hosing the Americans in a shower of hot lead. These nests would be critical to the NVA, keeping the Americans from advancing their infantry towards the objective.

The second NVA infantry company came in behind the Americans, and began to chase after them. Several assaults occurred, and while none where decisive, the Americans became trapped between the advancing NVA infantry and the HMG nests.

Of course, with the large amount of defensive fire the Americans could still put out, the NVA had to fall back. By this point the Americans were down to only 1 platoon at near full strength. The second platoon had been reduced to a single team, and the Company commander was safe after a couple close calls.

The 2iC was in a much worse position, however. His team advanced and attempted to put a LAW into one of the nests, but failed to hit. He was then butchered by the local forces, their black clothing wet with sweat and blood.

The situation on turn 4. Unfortunately, it came would be another two turns before any of the American reinforcements would arrive. 

Knowing that American reserves would be arriving regardless of what was rolled next turn, the NVA infantry stopped their pursuit of the Americans and turned to face the incoming armor. Unfortauntely, because they moved, they were unable to dig in. Fingers were crossed.

The American arrived, with the Armored Cavalry rolling onto the table in full force. The amount of fire the M113's alone could put out was disgusting, and the Sheridans added their Beehive ammo (basically turning their cannons into giant shotguns) into the mix.

The result was a decimated company. While they managed to pass their morale tests (thank goodness for Fearless infantry), the NVA plan was in tatters, so we decided to pull the infantry from the table. Another passed morale test, and Charlie melted away into the trees...

Only to reappear further away, and in greater numbers again. This heralded the end of the game - it would take too long for the American armor to get to the objective before the NVA could take it, and the infantry couldn't make it either. The main problem came from the lack of reserves on the American side - the tanks and helicopters never made it onto the table, and they could have rained terror on the NVA forces. 

It was a fun game, however. And while I'm not so interested in Vietnam, this definitely gets me interested in FoW set in the Cold War, which the group agrees we have a fantastic resource for that!