Thursday 31 July 2014

The Great War - Ze Germans Part I - Unboxing

Hello all,

The guys at Battlefront were very kindly and sent us a few of the Great War boxes to review. Myself and Winner Dave were both very excited by the Great War era and like excited kids at Christmas started checking out the models! Dave wanted the Brits and I was happy with either so took the Germans. 
In part 1 I'm going to look at the Infanteriekompanie HQ, the Infanterie Platoon and the Infanterie Machine-Gun Platoon, in part 2 I'll look at the 7.62cm Krupp Infantry Gun and the AV7 Tank. So let's check out what's in the box (just to let you know this is the army deal, but as these are early runs the box packaging wasn't ready yet).

Wednesday 30 July 2014

Beyond The Foxholes Episode 16 - Great War Special


Hello All

Welcome to Beyond The Foxholes 16 - Great War Special

In Act 1 we join Ben and Winner Dave as they take us through the new FOW era The Great War. The guys talk about whats in the new book, a look at the missions, the British and German models and some of the extra bits coming out.

Then in Act 2 the guys round out the episode with a look at the army lists, what they are planning to do, some podcast you should check out, and any other thoughts.

Tuesday 29 July 2014

The Great War - Tommies Part II - Unboxing

Back once again and today we're un-boxing some more Brits for the all new Great War range from Battlefront.

Let's start with GBR571, OQF 18 pdr
You get 2 very nice looking guns and 2 even nicer looking carriages.  I didn't have to do much the in the way of clean up and they went together well.  The only thing I found was that I had to do was use a pin vice to widen the holes in the wheels for the axle.

Monday 28 July 2014

The Great War - Tommies Part I - Unboxing

Well, I'm a very lucky winnerDave, today Ben arrived at my door with a bag full of British for Battlefront's latest release, the Great War.

Let's take a look shall we...our first offering is GBR702 Rifle Platoon.
I've filed the bases, de-flashed and airbrushed primers black and then grey in a pre-shading style.

The advancers, come in 4 poses
Amount: 4,2,3,2

Friday 25 July 2014

Auto Defend Lists and the Meta

Hi all,

it's been a while since I rambled but here's a thought which has been playing on my mind - will auto defend lists change the meta?
I'm certain many of you will rightly point out fortified lists have done this for years. But the difference there is the points for static fortifications, and their deployment before objectives. This time the points are just going on the army and nothing else.

Wednesday 23 July 2014

Razvedki Platoon

Hello

I've been looking forward to getting on with this platoon for a long time now (since BA2 in February).  However it's been really hard getting my hands on all the constituent parts.  In fact I'm still missing a blister pack of Mounted Razvedki Crew, but I'm fed up of waiting.

Monday 21 July 2014

The Definition of Madness (US Armoured Rifles Painting Challenge)

Hello All

From the title you may have guessed I'm doing another painting challenge. As I start typing this it's the morning on the 30th June and I'm planning on painting an Armoured Rifle Company for Devizes Attack 2014 on the 19th/20th July. As I have no painted models for the army yet that's 19 days to paint 1750pts of Mid War US! I do have two weeks off during the 19 days so I do hopefully have the spare time to be able to hopefully do it, but just to add a little extra pain to the whole thing I'm also painting up a few extra bits so I can do the army for Late War and as a standard infantry company.
Now you may ask why I would want to do this mad challenge, well that's not an easy answer. I have always wanted to do US Armoured Rifles as I love the platoons being so big and being almost a complete combined arms force in themselves. Add to that I have come to the painful conclusion that I'm an infantry player and not a tank commander, I felt I needed a new army. The final reason was I wanted a reason to use the new plastic Armoured Rifles as they looked great on the Battlefront Website (the guy how painted them shuld have his hands cut off).

Friday 18 July 2014

German Reinforcements for Late Late War

Hi everyone i'm back with a few more models to display.

One of the nice thing with the last couple of Late war books - Desperate measures and Remagen, is that there are some really cool toys now available to the germans - conversely they also cost a lot in points terms, but to me they are just awesome models with great rules!
When Desperate Measures came out initially I really wanted to do a force for it, even if it was only slightly sprucing up my Panzers - the problem was I had a mountain of painting and really didn't want to get any more to add to it. Thankfully along came my birthday and my good buddy Alex said he's get me the model I think is the pinnacle of AA in FoW - the Ostwind - the only problem was it took me about two months to get the buggers!

Wednesday 16 July 2014

Finnish AT and AA guns

Hi all another Finnish update this time it's guns! 
Finn's have vast numbers if different options throughout the war, so I've again magnetized the bases (not the AA as of two options the bases were too different). The nice part is that the guns are able to look battle worn too - and I've tried to again go for that look with lots of tri colour camo peeking through.

Monday 14 July 2014

Thoughts On Edge Highlighting and an Elefant

When I started painting, it was because I wanted to master smooth transitional blending, I thought it looked cool.  I wasn't really into edge/extreme highlighting and the few times I did try it, it looked awkward and not like how the big boys do it.  Then FOW entered my life and edge highlighting wasn't even on my radar any more...I mean if Reuben doesn't do it...then I don't need to...right?  That was until I saw this...this is by a chap who goes by the handle of stalkerminsky on www.heresybrush.com
That got me thinking about edge highlighting, I mean that is one cool looking tank right?  As I wasn't starting anything new any time soon though I've delayed it.  That's when the Italy books came out.  One of the things that struck me, was that the painting of the minis seemed different...might just be me, but have battlefront got new painters?  The thing that struck me was the prolific use of edge highlighting.

Friday 11 July 2014

Review - Anarchy Models stencils (and some Jagdtigers)

Hi All Coxer here,

I thought I'd bring you a review of some stencils we were sent here at Breakthrough Assault.
They're from http://www.anarchymodels.co.uk/ and if you check their website they have some helpful videos to talk you through their use. Now They are designed to work with an airbrush, but I think with a bit of care they'd work with hand paints too as well. We were sent two sets of stencils, one of camo stripes one of German crosses, I thought I needed a big canvass to work on, thankfully I have 4 Jagdtigers lying around.

Wednesday 9 July 2014

M26 Pershing Platoon (UBX43) Review

Hello All

Last week I finally got my hands on the new M26 Pershing Platoon (UBX43) kit and while I'm in the middle of painting up a 1750pts MW Armoured Rifle company for Attack 2014 in a few weeks (more on that in a future post) I just had to build and paint these bad boys ASAP! 

What's in the box:-

The box comes with enough bits to make 3 Pershing and the sprues include the bits to make a Super Pershing if you want to use that option. You get the normal US decal sheet and a plastic sprue with 5 tank crew on. One thing of note it the box does not include any magnets, the model is designed to be bui
lt with a plastic peg to slot the turret into the hull, but it does look like a Magnet would fit the whole the peg goes into if you wanted to use magnets instead.

Tuesday 8 July 2014

Beyond the Foxholes Episode 15 - On the Road to the Welsh Open


Hello All

Welcome to Beyond The Foxholes Episode 15  - On the Road to the Welsh Open

In Act 1 We join Ben and Winner Dave live from Ben's car as they drive up to the Welsh Open. The guys talk about their lists, expectations, what they have been up to,  a little look about at Beyond the Foxholes first birthday and then they round out the episode with a little chat about what they have coming up and their Firestorm Bagration campaign.

Then in Act 2 we join Ben and Winner who have been joined by Alex for the drive back as they tell us the tails of their weekend in the Welsh Principality and talk about the weekend.

In Act 3 Winner and Ben add their closing thoughts to the event and look to what is next for the guys and the cast.

Monday 7 July 2014

Bovington Tank Museum - Wargame Convertion 5th/6th July

Hello all

This weekend we all went to the Bovington Tank museum for the annual wargaming convertion put on by Battlegroup South. Myself and Winner Dave played in a big game of FOW that was about 12k a side while Ben, George and Ben's daughter Jessica looked around the convention.

From the mighty Staghound to the humble Jagdtiger they are all there, and it's hard, when you have all your toys with you, to not try and do a scale comparison! We were lucky that our FLGS has a pitch there, and this year opted to do demo games both days, and Saturday was FoW. But first Ben to talk about the convention.

Friday 4 July 2014

Welsh Open 2014 AAR and Photo Dump

Hello All

Last weekend we all went to Welsh Open at Firestorm Games in Cardiff. This is one of our favourite events, (you can see what we got up to last year in the MW tournament), this year was 1550pts EW which is rapidly becoming my favourite period!
Between us we had a nice mix of lists. Adam took his Finnish he's been painting up for awhile now, I took my T-26 horde, Winner Dave took his Japanese, Alex took the jock column and Jeresy James rounded us out with this Italians.

Wednesday 2 July 2014

AAR - SS Westfalen vs Tankovy - Surrounded


Hi all, 

with the new Bridge at Ramargen book in my hands I really wanted to try out the new another SS-Panzer brigade Westfalen list. It looks like a solid list and who doesn't like enjoy the war on a 2+? With none of us having a full US army built (Ben's Armoured Rifles have a grand total on 1 painted model!) it feel to Winner’s Tankovy from Desperate Measures to be the opponents. 

We rolled Surrounded, and as I auto defended Dave had to attack.


SS-Westfalen (Fearles Trained)
  • HQ + 2 Schreaks + 2 Trap Teams
  • Full Ersatz SS platoon
  • Full Ersatz SS platoon
  • 2 Ersatz SS Mortars
  • 4 Ersatz SS HMGS
  • 3 15cm Volks rocket launchers (RT)
  • 3 Jagdpanthers RV
  • 2 Panthers (RT)
Tankovy (Fearless Trained)
  • HQ T-34/85
  • 10 T/34/85
  • 10 T-34/85
  • 4 BA-64's
  • Full Rota + .50cals