How to Camp Properly

Having been playing a lot of infantry armies, I've realised more and more that there is an 'art' to camping. As much as it is about hunkering down on the objective, you can't just do that and expect to win.

The reason for that is initiative. This was really brought home to me in the first game of my MW adventure at the BA Mid War One Dayer. I was facing off against a Mixed Tankovy Battalion and realistically I had nothing which could hurt him except my Heavy Mortars and AT guns (all two if them). Now at the same time he couldn't just roll into me due to close defense teams and weak side armour on T-60's etc. But he was able to dictate the game fairly easily by just sitting off and slowly wearing my army down before he assaulted. And this has been what I've realised I do with all my other defensive lists - I have something that will take the initiative back! I'll take you through my favourite examples of this below

Finnish Armour - T-28

Ok I'm going to admit I'm a glutton for punishment!

Having felt like I had finished the Finns I picked up some some T-28's for my Finns in the EW sale - they form a great part of a panassari company - post on that to follow...

Plastic StuG Platoon Review (GBX83)

Stugs, stugs and more stugs! Let's be honest we all love the Stug!

I enjoyed painting the plastic Open Fire StuG Gs so much that I ended up buying another set just to get hold of three more of them (you can never have too many assault guns) and so I'm very excited to get my hands on the new plastic box set. Once these guys are done I should easily have enough to field a company of them - Got to be done right!?

Beyond the Foxholes Episode 21

Hello All

In Act One we join Ben, Winner Dave and Adam as they chat about what they have been up to recently before taking a look at Barbarossa.

In Act Two we hear Ben and Adam's interviews from the weekends Reading Warfare convention. Including an interview with Will from the Plastic Soldier Company, Steve Charlton's Mounted Assault tactica (yes we did Mounted Assault finally!) and many more.

In Act Three Ben and Adam give their MW AAR from Reading Warfare.

And finally in Act Four the guys drive into Dave's Mail Bags before ending the episode with look at commonly overlooked tactics.

New Fate of a Nation Book (FW902)- Review

Hi all,

James here with the new Fate of a Nation book!

Eight companies, cold war tanks and games under a burning sun! What more could you want from a new book?

Battlefront’s Fate of a Nation book FW902 covering Israel’s six day war with the Arab states surrounding it, is fantastic and expands out on the Wargames Illustrated booklet released previously.

Flames of War Tactics - Air Support 101

Hi all,

Coxer here examining a probably overlooked aspect of Flames of War air support. 

Air support is available to a huge variety of lists with multiple different planes being available. Broadly speaking air has two roles, ground attack and interception, but first a quick look at the mechanics of air (and anti air)

Winner Dave's Soviet SU-100s

Hey all,

Finally got around to getting my own SU100s done and dusted, so Ben can finally get his back (Strictly speaking they were SU85Ms but no-one knew).

I did have these painted up a while ago, but didn't get around to painting the commander for ages.  As I have started my DShK on Trucks project I painted a commander plus a replacement Rota Razvedki rider that went missing.

AAR - Late War - Welsh Guards vs 512 Schwerepanzerjager - Breakthrough

Hi All welcome to another AAR.  This time instead of one of out usual 'we're preparing for a tournament' AAR's I've tried to craft two lists which should be very different but hopefully balanced in opposition. So before onto the AAR proper I thought I'd take you through the lists.  Welsh guards-  So why the welsh guards? Well it's been a while since the Cromwells made the tabletop - and they're fast - they're really fast. Oh and expensive! So how do you make a list for these guys ? Well let's start with the compulsory choices obviously - that's 10 veteran tanks - none of which can even scratch the front armour of the opposition. So what's the way (other than outflanking to kill big cats? Templates - well I decided to try the typhoon here - let's get the allied air superiority on the table. I like to also have a couple of other units for a rounded allied list - recon and arty - due to points. ( and also aesthetics) I've gone for 4 Stuart's as Recce, and some heavy mortars - this should mean that infantry is relatively vulnerable - whilst also providing some smoke as needed. The list is fast but made of glass! More of a scalpel than a sledge hammer I hope!  Schwerepanzerjager-  Firstly I want big cats! That's going to be all 4 Jagdtigers (I'm opting not to take Carius deliberately but he would be an excellent choice !) now to give some opposition to fast tanks zooming up the side lets take some Volksturm - no infantry to oppose them sadly but they should be good speed bumps! As there is air, a couple of Ostwinds would be nice, but only trained - finally some King Tigers would help make this feel like a real 'big cat' list - and with some spare points as always add Nebs. This list is I think a proper big cat list - but in a mobile battle with the Volksturm and Nebs deployed only one big cat (or Ostwinds) will start on the table....

Welsh Guards 2 HQ Cromwells 3 Cromwells + Challenger 3 Cromwells + Challenger 4 Stuart's with AA MG's 4 Heavy Mortars Limited Typhoon

Schwerepanzerjager (Relutant Trained) 2 HQ Jagdtigers 2 Jagdtigers King Tiger 2 Ostwinds 3 Nebs Full Volksturm Platoon + LMG (RC) Full Volksturm Platoon + LMG (RC)

Is 1800pts (or 1900pts) Late War Too Big?

Hi all thought I'd bring my thoughts on the new LW points level to the discussion table.

Firstly this appears (at time of writing) to be the new points level - at the Welsh open in June they said this is their plan for 2015, and corrivalry are going to 1800 too.

But, is it too much? 

M4A3 (Late) Plastic Sherman Platoon (UBX44) - Review

Hello all

My main focus for the end of 2014 going into 2015 will be expanding my US forces so I can use a number of different army lists. So when I saw the new M4A3 (Late) Plastic Shermans (UBX44) I had to grab them to add to my army.

The Flames of War range of plastics is getting better and better from the slightly awkward beginnings with the Open Fire Shermans and StuG's to the excellent SU-85 and Pershing Box Sets. With that in mind I was interested to see if this set fixed the problems that plagued the Open Fire Versions, and at first glance I am happy to say that this is a completely different model.

Project Finland – Mission Complete

Hi all Coxer here,

Wow, that’s another huge project completed. It’s been 6 months since my first post for this project went live, though with the planning which goes into it, the painting which normally starts before posts go live etc – I’ve been working on the army since January of this year

The aim was always to get an army which could be played in multiple time periods(EW/MW/LW) – and not only have I done that but I’ve also taken them to tournaments in three different time periods too, EW – Welsh open, MW – Breakthrough Assault MW one Day, and LW – Breakthrough Assault LW one day. Not too bad I think. I will admit though due to having lots of other lists and armies I’ve not played them in as many normal games as I’d have liked – in fact I’m going to take a little FoW painting break so I can catch up with playing these guys and also some of the other lists I have yet to play.

AAR - Mid War - Mixed Tankovy vs German Pioneers - Dust Up

It's been a while since I have posted up an AAR and with the combination that I haven't done an AAR with Kev "The Silver Fox" Perry yet and Reading Warfare around the corner it seemed like a good time to do another one.  I rocked up at KP's place and we rolled up Dust Up, one of my favourite missions. I had played against KP's army at the Breakthrough Assault MW One Dayer with my Armoured Rilfes and came off worst for it (Although I did give KP a few headaches!) so I was out for revenge.  Note:- This was to be my first game with the Mixed Tankovy and spoiler alert I made a few mistakes, but that's why you practice so you know what to do when your at the tournament.

Motorised Pioneer Company HQ Full Pioneer Platoon + Panzer Knacker Full Pioneer Platoon + Panzer Knacker Heavy Platoon - 2x Mortars + 2x HMGs 4 Pak 38s 4 Brummbärs 1 Looted KV-1e 2 8-Rads 3 Nebs

Mixed Tankovy 1 HQ KV-1e 6 KV-1es 10 Matilda CS 8 Stuarts + AAmgs 4 BA-64s Limted I-153

ZIS-30 (SU105) Review

Hi all,

I got my hands on a recent release from battlefront, namely the Zis-30 (SU105). Which is a self-propelled AT gun. You get two in a blister, I have two blisters so will be showing off four of them.

My first reaction to the above picture was...cool.  On the cool-o-meter they are up there hanging out with Marder IIs, staring down on Marder IIIs.  I'm quite excited to get on with these puppies and will be writing this blog post in stages.

Project FInland : Finnish Sissi

Hello all Coxer here,

So here is it the final platoon! It’s a lovely sculpt, and very interesting too. It comes in 2 pieces, the main body and a separate set of skis, which fit into the new style bases pre drilled holes, though I do wonder why these guys come in little packs of 5 and not in one big blister… They fit in relatively cleanly, a little fiddling with the poles is needed at time.

I painted them as I have done the rest of my infantry – I’ll be honest these are not my best work – it was a real slog trying to motivate myself to paint these guys, and I have never been so happy to finish a platoon! It’s been a tough project, and finishing on a big old infantry platoon is just what you don’t want at the end! The main change was using the black-brown for the ski’s – this I think looks really nice contrasted to the white of the snow.

Blog Highlights October

Hello All

October has come and gone so it's that time again where I take a look at some blog posts that caught my eye. First up this week is Chris from Wargamer on Tour and his post about the up coming plastic sets for FoW.

 You probably have seen these already, but it's worth bring them up in case you haven't or if like me you're very excited by the British Infantry and the plastic Comet/Cromwell set, a British army is now firmly on my plans for next year.