More to come on this project very soon.
11 hours ago
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
French Hotchkiss H-39 Cavalry Tanks
The next installment to my 1940 Escadron de Combat is a platoon of H-39 tanks. My plan with this army is to model the 2nd DLM at about the time of the Battle of Hannut. Naturally, I made this decision after I had already built some tanks. Turns out the 2nd DLM had no H-39 only the older H-35. Oh well, per the rules they are basically the same tank so no biggy I guess.
These are very neat little models. They have excellent armor for the period but the guns are not so good. I am not sure how these will actually work in game terms but they are cheap enough to bring lots.
More to come on this project very soon.
More to come on this project very soon.
Monday, October 7, 2013
French S35 Somua
This is the Company command tank. I can already see an issue with this army. There is no 2iC so if the CO gets it there is no back-up.
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Life Without Games Workshop
Hi! My name is Robert and I have not played a GW game in about a year. That was a game of 40K against my friend Lonnie. I wrote about it last December if you are interested. At the time I did not know it would be the last GW game as I fully expected that Lonnie and I would get together again. I did realize that my GW days were numbered.
Over the years I have played lots of Games Workshop games and purchased huge amounts of models, both new and used. I started with Necromunda back in 1996 and collected and painted nearly every Necromunda model made. Next I moved on to Warhammer 40,000 and started a small Dark Angels army. I really loved the models and the gamer were fun. GW games helped to rekindle some old friendships and start some new ones.
In 2001 the Lord of the Rings game first appeared. My friends and I were really excited about the movies and the game and by 2005 LOTR:SBG became my main GW game. I spent thousands of dollars over the years amassing a huge collection of Lord of the Rings models. Much of which did actually get painted and used. During this time I continues to build armies for 40K and upgrade the rules through four versions of the game (Lord of the Rings went through the same number of versions over the same period).
In March of 2012 I played my last game of LOTR:SBG. For several weeks prior GW rolled out new versions of the army list for the games and repackaged long released models in smaller model count packages. This had the effect of doubling the price for models that GW had already made massive amounts of money off of. This was about the same time that Finecast was released and the new FC versions of the hero models were more than doubled in price. Combined with the damage the new army lists were doing to the game I could see the writing on the wall.
Even with the death of LOTR:SBG I still was not ready to completely drop GW games. The 6th edition of 40K was released in the Summer of 2012 and I (grudgingly) dropped the $75 for the rules. At the same time I purchased the new Ork Dakkajet. I really loved both purchases and have no regrets for them. At the time I did not know they would be the last GW purchases I would make.
The last few years has seen some real changes in the GW hobby. The cost of the hobby is one part of this. Prices are sky high and are actually quite ridiculous. I make more money than I ever really thought I would and in the last 10 years my income has roughly doubled. In that same period the cost of playing a GW game as quadrupled or more. Their prices are increasing much faster than inflation even while the company outsources production to cheaper locations. This has not gone unnoticed by many gamers. I have seen lots of people leave the GW hobby and move to other games or even out of miniatures altogether.
Now consumers and gamers in particular love to bitch about price but I really believe that GW has priced themselves out of reach for their target market - teenage and preteen males. GW has also done huge damage to their brand with their pricing policies in different markets. I don't claim to understand the ins and outs of how things are priced in various places but I can say it is nuts that an item in, say, New Zealand, can cost twice what the same product costs in the United States even though the currencies of the two countries are near parity. To then rub salt in the wounds of these gamers by setting policies that prevent them from making purchases from a country that can offer a better deal than they can get locally is plain profiteering.
Then we come to GW and how they protect their IP. First of all, let me say that I believe they have a right and a duty to protect their IP, but they have a lot to learn about the best way to do this (their PR department must hate their legal department). The internet is filled with stories of GW sending letters and threatening various websites with legal action for things that seem to be fair use and within the scope of legitimate news. But GW seems to think that, since they have money, and most of these websites don't, they can just do whatever they want. Well, they are right, they can do whatever they want. But I don't have to support a company that treats it customers and best fans as if they are all criminals looking to steal from them.
In the end, I miss playing 40K and Lord of the Rings, but I don't miss all the baggage of the GW hobby. I have moved on to companies that appreciate my business and make a real effort at customer service. This is a great time to be a miniatures gamer as there are so many options available. Now I just need to decide whether to keep all this stuff or sell it off....
Over the years I have played lots of Games Workshop games and purchased huge amounts of models, both new and used. I started with Necromunda back in 1996 and collected and painted nearly every Necromunda model made. Next I moved on to Warhammer 40,000 and started a small Dark Angels army. I really loved the models and the gamer were fun. GW games helped to rekindle some old friendships and start some new ones.
In 2001 the Lord of the Rings game first appeared. My friends and I were really excited about the movies and the game and by 2005 LOTR:SBG became my main GW game. I spent thousands of dollars over the years amassing a huge collection of Lord of the Rings models. Much of which did actually get painted and used. During this time I continues to build armies for 40K and upgrade the rules through four versions of the game (Lord of the Rings went through the same number of versions over the same period).
In March of 2012 I played my last game of LOTR:SBG. For several weeks prior GW rolled out new versions of the army list for the games and repackaged long released models in smaller model count packages. This had the effect of doubling the price for models that GW had already made massive amounts of money off of. This was about the same time that Finecast was released and the new FC versions of the hero models were more than doubled in price. Combined with the damage the new army lists were doing to the game I could see the writing on the wall.
Even with the death of LOTR:SBG I still was not ready to completely drop GW games. The 6th edition of 40K was released in the Summer of 2012 and I (grudgingly) dropped the $75 for the rules. At the same time I purchased the new Ork Dakkajet. I really loved both purchases and have no regrets for them. At the time I did not know they would be the last GW purchases I would make.
The last few years has seen some real changes in the GW hobby. The cost of the hobby is one part of this. Prices are sky high and are actually quite ridiculous. I make more money than I ever really thought I would and in the last 10 years my income has roughly doubled. In that same period the cost of playing a GW game as quadrupled or more. Their prices are increasing much faster than inflation even while the company outsources production to cheaper locations. This has not gone unnoticed by many gamers. I have seen lots of people leave the GW hobby and move to other games or even out of miniatures altogether.
Now consumers and gamers in particular love to bitch about price but I really believe that GW has priced themselves out of reach for their target market - teenage and preteen males. GW has also done huge damage to their brand with their pricing policies in different markets. I don't claim to understand the ins and outs of how things are priced in various places but I can say it is nuts that an item in, say, New Zealand, can cost twice what the same product costs in the United States even though the currencies of the two countries are near parity. To then rub salt in the wounds of these gamers by setting policies that prevent them from making purchases from a country that can offer a better deal than they can get locally is plain profiteering.
Then we come to GW and how they protect their IP. First of all, let me say that I believe they have a right and a duty to protect their IP, but they have a lot to learn about the best way to do this (their PR department must hate their legal department). The internet is filled with stories of GW sending letters and threatening various websites with legal action for things that seem to be fair use and within the scope of legitimate news. But GW seems to think that, since they have money, and most of these websites don't, they can just do whatever they want. Well, they are right, they can do whatever they want. But I don't have to support a company that treats it customers and best fans as if they are all criminals looking to steal from them.
In the end, I miss playing 40K and Lord of the Rings, but I don't miss all the baggage of the GW hobby. I have moved on to companies that appreciate my business and make a real effort at customer service. This is a great time to be a miniatures gamer as there are so many options available. Now I just need to decide whether to keep all this stuff or sell it off....
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Random Update
I just realized that it has been a few weeks since my last post and September is close to being over. I can't let a whole month go without posting something! So here is something...
Actually, I have been doing a fair amount of stuff over the last few weeks. I have just been a bum about documenting it and posting. Last week our game group got together for a big ACW Black Powder game. Tim posted lots of cool pictures of the game. You should go check it out.
We have also been playing lots of Bolt Action. Our local Warlord folks setup a small escalation league and Tim and I jumped in. We got in several games against lots of great opponents. A good time was had by all.
As for painting, I have been working on my Flames of War French tank company. I am making good progress and am just putting on decals for 19 vehicles. I really hate working with these little 15mm decals. To make things worse you need 5 or 6 for each tank. Anyway, I am nearly done with the tanks and that will give me about 1200 points of French.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Can It Be? More Fallschirmjagers!
I just finished up another 23 28mm Fallschirmjagers. This is in addition 12 I did a couple of months ago (and failed to photograph and post). This brings the collection to more than 100 of these guys!
These figures are a mix of Foundry, Black Tree and Crusader. This addition brings me to 6 full squads and a couple of dozen extras. I have lots of support options done now but I still have a few team left to paint. I still need to add a PaK40 and maybe a Nebelwefer. I also want to add some motorcycles and a kettenkrad.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Plastic Soldier Company Panther
For my Kursk German army I am going with the Panther Company. Since I am cheap...no, no, no...sensible, I am going with the Plastic Soldier Company Panthers. I really love the PSC models and I recommend them highly. This set allows you to build any of the three versions of this tank - ausf D, A or G.
The trouble is with the instructions. This kit suffers from the common confusion with the Panther version numbers. Unlike other German tanks the Panther did not start with the A model. The A was actually the second model and the D was the first. This means that the instructions start with the A but it is actually the D and the D is the A. To make things worse, the version that should be the A is really the early A that was built for about a month. To build the most common version of the A you will need to do some converting. The G version in the instructions is the later version that was available in 1945 so to build the more common G you need to do some converting.
The key to making this kit work is to do some research and take the instruction with a grain of salt.
I have 10 of these built so now I need to order some decals and get to painting. Stay tuned for more.
Monday, August 5, 2013
El Guettar Campaign Complete
I meant to do this post a couple of weeks ago while event were still fresh. Tim and I played game 11 of our El Guettar campaign a couple of weeks ago. We both knew that this might be the last game and if not there would only be one more game after that.
I was really unsure as the force I should take for this battle. I knew Tim was unlikely to leave the Tigers out and my previous infantry force had no answers for them. I guessed the he would stick basically with the half-track heavy panzer grenediers. With this in mind I decided to build a force to kill the half-tracks and just ignore the Tigers. I took basically the following.
HQ
2 M3 Stuarts
Combat Platoons
5 M3 Stuarts
5 M3 Stuarts
4 M3 Lees
Support
4 M10
4 T19
Limited P40
Fortunately, Tim did stick with the panzer grenadiers and as expected he brought two Tigers again. He did make some significant changes, however. He dropped the artillery, AT guns and air support to add a 4 tank PZIII platoon. This was going to be a little tricky. The scenario we rolled up was Fighting Withdrawal and Tim would be the defender.
As the defender Tim left the half tracks off the table. He had to cover three objectives, one on his right and two close together on his left. I place both the of these objectives with the idea that if one got pulled late in the game the other one would be just a few inches farther away. Tim seemed OK with this objective placement as it allowed one dug in pz grenadier platoon to cover two objectives. Tim placed his Tigers in the center of his line and as far forward as possible. He wanted to dominate the center of the table. On his right he deplayed three platoons to cover the one objective. Part of this, I think, was due to this objective being in a small village that provided excellent cover.
My plan was rather simple, I would focus the majority of my force against Tim's left towards the two objectives held by the single platoon. I would send the 2iC and one platoon of Stuarts in a feint against Tim's right, hoping to keep the PZIII platoon from shifting to reinforce against my main attack. The main attach consisted of a platoon of Lees, a platoon of Stuarts, the CO, a recce platoon and the TD security section. I planned to keep the Tigers occupied with artillery and air power until the M10's could get into a good spot and may be do some damage.
My plan, I must say, worked much better than I expected. The M10 platoon deployed on turn two and knocked one of the Tigers. Within another turn the Tiger platoon was destroyed and the German infantry was pushed off the objective. Americans win 6-1! Here are the final numbers for the campaign.
Wins
US - 7
German - 4
Victory Points
US - 43
German - 34
Casualties
US - 174
Germans - 99
Vehicles lost
US - 62
Germans - 51
Guns lost
US - 7
Germans -7
I really liked the format of the campaign. It was very simple and it favors the side with the initiative in the campaign, in our case the Americans. But it provides a reason for the games and a way to track some interesting info about the battles. Tim and I have already chatted about how we might change the system to add more detail and about where the next campaign will be set.
I was really unsure as the force I should take for this battle. I knew Tim was unlikely to leave the Tigers out and my previous infantry force had no answers for them. I guessed the he would stick basically with the half-track heavy panzer grenediers. With this in mind I decided to build a force to kill the half-tracks and just ignore the Tigers. I took basically the following.
HQ
2 M3 Stuarts
Combat Platoons
5 M3 Stuarts
5 M3 Stuarts
4 M3 Lees
Support
4 M10
4 T19
Limited P40
Fortunately, Tim did stick with the panzer grenadiers and as expected he brought two Tigers again. He did make some significant changes, however. He dropped the artillery, AT guns and air support to add a 4 tank PZIII platoon. This was going to be a little tricky. The scenario we rolled up was Fighting Withdrawal and Tim would be the defender.
As the defender Tim left the half tracks off the table. He had to cover three objectives, one on his right and two close together on his left. I place both the of these objectives with the idea that if one got pulled late in the game the other one would be just a few inches farther away. Tim seemed OK with this objective placement as it allowed one dug in pz grenadier platoon to cover two objectives. Tim placed his Tigers in the center of his line and as far forward as possible. He wanted to dominate the center of the table. On his right he deplayed three platoons to cover the one objective. Part of this, I think, was due to this objective being in a small village that provided excellent cover.
My plan was rather simple, I would focus the majority of my force against Tim's left towards the two objectives held by the single platoon. I would send the 2iC and one platoon of Stuarts in a feint against Tim's right, hoping to keep the PZIII platoon from shifting to reinforce against my main attack. The main attach consisted of a platoon of Lees, a platoon of Stuarts, the CO, a recce platoon and the TD security section. I planned to keep the Tigers occupied with artillery and air power until the M10's could get into a good spot and may be do some damage.
My plan, I must say, worked much better than I expected. The M10 platoon deployed on turn two and knocked one of the Tigers. Within another turn the Tiger platoon was destroyed and the German infantry was pushed off the objective. Americans win 6-1! Here are the final numbers for the campaign.
Wins
US - 7
German - 4
Victory Points
US - 43
German - 34
Casualties
US - 174
Germans - 99
Vehicles lost
US - 62
Germans - 51
Guns lost
US - 7
Germans -7
I really liked the format of the campaign. It was very simple and it favors the side with the initiative in the campaign, in our case the Americans. But it provides a reason for the games and a way to track some interesting info about the battles. Tim and I have already chatted about how we might change the system to add more detail and about where the next campaign will be set.
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