US M3 Lee Platoon

I played another game of proper Flames of War v4 over the weekend.  This time I pulled out my Tunisian US tank company.  I have not played this army for a couple of years so it was nice to get is back on the table.  I took this three tank M3 Lee platoon for the first time but I needed to paint it.  For the game I just had the base colors on it.  It performed well in the game and so I thought it deserved to be finished.  These have been sadly sitting in my to-do pile for a few years.  I painted them based on a tank from the 13th armored regiment, 1st armored division in Tunisia in early 1943.  I am not sure how accurate my reference material is but I like the look of them.

Pavlovsk Grenadier Regiment

With my Napoleonic French at a usable point I decided to switch to Russians.  I am starting with grenadiers and the first unit is the Pavlovsk Grenadier regiment.  This is the first and the third battalions and the figures are all Warlord Games 28mm.  These are nice figures and are very easy to paint.

1st battalion front 

1st battalion rear

1st battalion command

3rd battalion front

3rd battalion rear

3rd battalion command

Comments

Long ago, when I first started this blog, Blogger would automatically email me whenever someone posted a comment on one of my posts.  I came to rely on this heavily as a way to filter off the SPAM and to reply to anyone who have a legitimate comment.  Over the years the number of comments I received dropped as people moved away from following blogs and onto social media.  This drop in comments hid a change that Blogger made.  At some point it stopped sending me notifications of comments.  Recently I have noticed this but I lazily ignored it.  I figured I would get to it.  Today I got to it and I found a bit of a mess.  First, I missed a BUNCH of legitimate comments and for this I am truly sorry.  I don't want it to seem like I am ignoring people as that is not what is happening.  I have always been a bit slow on relies but I never intended to never reply.  The other issue is I now have an infestation of comment SPAM I was not aware of.  Starting today I will begin a review of all my posts and clean up the crap and reply to those I have missed.

Stormcast Eternals Castigators

I painted a small unit of Castigators for my Stormcast army.  These are the models that come in the Soul Wars set.  It is a little frustrating that this is not a 'legal' size unit for pitched battle games.  These are purchased in groups of three for pitched battles so you need one more or leave two at home.  Oh well.  This seems to be the way of building armies from the starter sets.

These add a much needed ranged combat capability for my Stormcast army but in their first game I was not impressed.  They are really designed to go against Nighthaunt armies (shocking) and are just marginally useful against others.  I will pick up the easy build box at some point so I can feild either 2 units of three or one unit of six.

The new Sacrosanct style Stormcast Eternal models are not my favorite.  With the Soul Wars release and the appearance of the Sacrosanct models we now have Stormcast models with more robes such.  What I like about the Stormcast models is the armor and now they are covering most of it up.

Everblaze Comet

I painted my first army specific Endless Spell for Age of Sigmar.  This is the Everblaze Comet for the Stormcast Eternals.  My friend, Randy, used one against me in a game last year and it was very effective.  I knew it would be a must have for my army.  I used it for the first time last weekend and it did well.  I need to be very careful in how I use it as it is not a predatory spell so it cannot be moved.

This model was super easy to build and paint.  It only has three pieces including the cool molded base.  I painted and flocked it in a couple of hours.

Khorne Bloodreavers

It has been a couple months since I have finished any painting projects.  I have been busy working on several things I just haven't finished anything until now.  This is my first unit of Bloodreavers for my Age of Sigmar Blades of Khorne army.  My collection for this army consists mostly of figures from AoS v1 starter set.  These figures are from that set.  They are actually pretty nice figures.  In game terms these guys are meat shields.  These were painted to tabletop standards and as usual look better in person (and arms length away).

A Kill Team Battle

Yesterday Tim and I got together for a game of Kill Team.  This was my 5th game since we decided to try the game out earlier this year.  This would be our first game using our own custom Kill Teams rather than the pre-generated teams from the starter set or the Rouge Trader set.  Tim used is Deathwatch kill team and I took my trusty Orks.

For this game we selected the Terror Tactics scenario.  The setting is a ruined sector frontieris settlement that has been taken over by an Ork Mekboy for his workshop.  The the goal of the battle is to do as much damage to the enemy as possible.  The first kill team to break is the looser. For this game we actually forgot to use any of the sector special rules.

Deployment is complete.  For the Scouting Phase the Orks select Take Forward Positions and and the Deathwatch selected Eliminate Sentries.  

Ork gunners move up to take better firing positions.

Deathwatch marines target the advancing Orks.  They score a single flesh wound on a Loota.

Orks advance on the DW who are taking cover behind the Mekboy workshop.

After a couple of turns of moving and shooting the Orks in the center have closed into melee with the DW.  Meanwhile the rest of the Orks are providing covering fire to keep the rest of the DW occupied.

The dense terrain made for some very close action.  A failed charge leaves and Ork in a bad spot.

DW Marines are dropping like flies.  The Grot has just killed a Space Marine with a close combat pistol shot and now looks to join another fight.

The DW sergeant has fallen and now this loan Space Marine is overwhelmed. He would stoically fight on as the rest of his team falls.

The loan surviver of the Deathwatch kill team manages to take out one more Ork and this results in the Ork force breaking.  The marine passes his break test and wins the battle.

At truly epic battle and a shocking win for the Deathwatch.  The marines took hit after hit and made save after save and took piles of flesh wounds before going down.  I really though that the Orks had this but time and again the failed to get that last wound.  This was the best game so far I think.

Tim and I are slowly getting the finer points of the game.  I still struggle with the command abilities.  What can I use and when is at the center of this.  I frequently forget to use these abilities at all.  Another aspect of the game that we have not yet used are the specialist traits.  This will open up new dimensions once we figure out how to use them.