Monday 31 August 2015

Team Yankee Preview - Tanks and Anti Air

Hello All 

Welcome to the final model preview for Team Yankee (but not our final Team Yankee preview!).
This week we are looking at what you have all been waiting for, the tanks! We will also look at the AA assets.

Friday 28 August 2015

Fez's Road to Art of War Too Part 2

Hello there,
Fez here again with an update on the road to Art of War Too - apparently, this road is paved with dead T34's.
Bovingdon's T34/85 - Nice detail on the Cast Mantle
I tried another game with the FT Hero Tankovy list, as I hadn't had time to adjust the models from before, my opponent for this one Justin with his Nisei. The fact that I didn't take pictures is evident of the death he tolled out - That list is horrible! Fearless everywhere, Jumbos, time on target, it was just horrific. I got a small victory in shooting down his AoP with the IS-2 AA, but that's about it!

Thursday 27 August 2015

Beyond the Foxholes: Eyes & Ears - Episode 4 - Early War French Recce and Tanks

Hello All

Welcome to the third episode of Beyond the Foxholes: Eyes & Ears, our premium content podcast available on Libsyn.

In this episode we join Adam and John Brook as they talk about Early War French, mainly focusing on the Panhoard and the Tank lists. The guys look at all the special rules, tactics and all the different list builds.

These two have played a lot of games with their French recce and both took them to the ETC this year for their respective teams. So you would hope they know what they are talking about!

Wednesday 26 August 2015

Stuartica - Using An Early War Tank In Late War

Stuarts -They are better than you think they are.

I'm on a one man crusade to prove that the best tank in late war, point for point is the humble Stuart M5 light tank. I am aware that this is an uphill struggle to pursuade people of it's merits, but one day I will get the chance to take on Ben in a Stuart Vs Panzer IV/70 fight to the death and when I emerge triumphant on my one remaining light tank, I will be able to insist we get a new logo replacing the silly Gudarian's ducks with a proper tank, from early war, in late war.

Anyway, there are a number of options for using Stuarts in late war, should you choose to, the British use them as recce, the soviets use them as a 10 tank mass of awesomeness and the US use them in squadrons of 5 as a light tank in a number of lists. Having played around with the US options I think the best option is to go for Confident trained Stuarts and I tend to use the 3rd AD from overlord as I get to auto attack and spearhead, both if which are very useful, the first because this is a very, very aggressive army, and the second because spearheading let's you cover some more ground before the enemy start shooting you, which as we will see is absolutely vital.
Stuarts vs T34s, suicide you say? I think not...

Tuesday 25 August 2015

The Foxholes Episode 37 - ETC Special

Hi all

Welcome to Beyond The Foxholes Episode 37, we join Adam and a host of people as they chat about the ETC

This episodes is a little different as Adam has recorded a diary of this long weekend in Prague representing team Scotland.

The sound might be a little off in places but overall this gives you a great idea of what the weekend was like. Also note this episode has some crude language. 

Monday 24 August 2015

Team Yankee Preview - Artillery

Hello All

Welcome to the third Team Yankee model preview. This week it's the turn of the artillery.
The artillery is broadly fitted into two categories, heavy and support. All the artillery is motorized, something quite different from what we are use to in WWII FOW or even Six Days War and Vietnam. 

Friday 21 August 2015

Volksgrenadiers - The Next Generation

Well I'm in a really good mood! It's well known that there has been one list I've been looking forwards to for, well forever - and when we chatted to Battlefront about the Berlin books and they said it would happen in the digital release - I started salivating - and now it's here! Yes Volksgrenadiers are back, and this time they're more reluctant and confident than ever before!
Just so you can catch up on why I love volksgrenadiers you can see my old articles on them here and here.

Wednesday 19 August 2015

AIW Painting Challenge Month One - Ben's Israelis

Hello All

As you may remember we start an Arab-Israeli War painting challenge thanks to the sale Battlefront did a month or so ago. After much chatting and swapping of sides I ended up with Israelis and decided to paint up an infantry company to be different from the mainly tank heavy forces the others would be collecting.
My original plan for the first month was to paint up my 4 M51 Isherman's and the jeep squadron, As you might tell from the above photo I didn't get to do this as my Isherman's were delayed (I should have guessed the tanks would be popular!). I ended up buying two Sho'ts off ebay and painted them up instead.

Tuesday 18 August 2015

Beyond The Foxholes Episode 36

Hi all

Welcome to Beyond The Foxholes Episode 36, we join Ben, Adam and Winner Dave as they chat all things FOW

In act one the guys talk so news for the blog and podcast, Adam's experience with Team Scotland at the ETC before the guys normal AAR.

In act two the guys chat a bit about the first model sighting for Team Yankee and then Winner Dave runs us through his Devizes AAR.

In act three we close the episode with Winner Dave's Mailbags and then a look a the guys lists for Robin's MW tournament in September,

Monday 17 August 2015

Team Yankee Preview - Air Support

Hello All

Welcome to the second update looking at the models coming out for Team Yankee. This week we are going to look at airpower.
For Team Yankee we can see two types of air support, ground attack planes and helicopters. Personally I love air support and I always want to try and get it into a game, not because I think it's effective (not for me anyway), but because I love the way it looks.

Sunday 16 August 2015

AIW Painting Challenge Month One WinnerDave's Jordanians

As I type this, it's the 23rd July and I've only just started the painting challenge.  In my defence, I couldn't afford to stop painting the 144 figures you get in a Strelkovy box, otherwise I'd never pick them up again.  Also the delay in shipping means I didn't receive my tanks until two days ago.
Sneek peek at the end result

So 500 points worth of miniatures, is not going to happen.  Then again it never was.  Points in game terms don't translate well into painting effort. So I'm going to focus on getting the infantry done (A Moshaa Mekaneekey (Mechanised) platoon, which is only 190 points and hope I can catch up in months 2 and 3.

Friday 14 August 2015

AIW Painting Challenge Month One - Adam's UAR

So it appears unlike winner and Ben almost all my stuff arrived.
You've hopefully seen the AA I did earlier, and winner gave me some great feedback - which I of course ignored until I compared my modulated T-55's to the fully finished AA - I then realised he was right!

Thursday 13 August 2015

Beyond the Foxholes: Eyes & Ears - Episode 3 - Late War Tankovy

Hello All

Welcome to the third episode of Beyond the Foxholes: Eyes & Ears, our premium content podcast available on Libsyn.

In this episode we join Ben and hammy as they talk about Late War Tankovy. The guys look at all the lists from Red Bear and Desperate Measures, special rules, tactics and all the different list builds.

A detailed look at the main tanks plus what support works best with each of the different options.

Wednesday 12 August 2015

That Which Does Not Kill You… - ETC 2015

Today we have a guest post from Bill Wilcox. He was part of Team U.S.A. for last weekends ETC in Prague. Bill brings us very in depth AAR of the tournament.  
Now that I’m back home, and slightly better rested (only just), I thought that I should do write up for the weekend.  For those that aren’t familiar with the event, this year’s ETC (European Team Championships) was held August 5-9 in Prague and is currently comprised of three gaming systems – 40K, WHFB, and, FoW.  For FoW, there are two events over 4 days, attended by players from all over the world.  This is truly a world championship event.  The singles tournament on Thursday was 68 players over 3 rounds.  The team event from Friday through Sunday was the largest FoW event ever held, with 180 players on 30 teams from 4 continents.  We had 28 national teams with two UN teams comprised of multinational players.

Tuesday 11 August 2015

Beyond The Foxholes Episode 35 - On The Road To Adolf Don't Surf

Hi all

Welcome to Beyond The Foxholes Episode 35, we join Ben, Marc and Alex as they chat all things FOW

In act one the guys talk their lists for Adolf Don't Surf, a little Team Yankee plus Alex lays down a challenge for Adam!

In act two we join the guys after day one of the tournament after a few random thoughts the guys talk about their first three games.

In act three we close the episode with a chat with Nobby about Vietnam before a run down of the last couple of games and a little ETC chat,

Monday 10 August 2015

Team Yankee Preview - Infantry and Transports

Hello All

A few weeks ago we posted up the name of the new Flames of War period, Team Yankee, but we haven't finished with showing some new bits. For the next month or two we will have a post about Team Yankee every Monday.
August will focus on showing the models for Team Yankee, starting today with the U.S. and Soviet infantry and their transports.

Friday 7 August 2015

Away For The Weekend

Hi All

No post today as with ETC and other "real" life bits we have been stupidly busy. I hope you all will join me in wishing Adam, Alex and Marc good luck at this weekends ETC (Team Scotland might ned it!).
We will be back to our normal post schedule next week with the first month of the AIW painting challenge.

Thanks Ben

Tuesday 4 August 2015

ETC Team Profiles - Team Scotland

Groundskeeper Willie: It won't last. Brothers and sisters are natural enemies. Like Englishmen and Scots! Or Welshmen and Scots! Or Japanese and Scots! Or Scots and other Scots! Damn Scots! They ruined Scotland!
As you must be aware by now the Tartan wearing, Whiskey drinking Scottish ETC team is making its way to Prague and Victory in the ETC. I thought that our readers here at Breakthrough Assault would appreciate an in depth view on our future FoW champion team.

Robin 'Too much spare time' Spence
Robin is team Scotland's fearless leader, he has more experience with different armies in FoW than any other human alive, able to take an army, sometime only play it once, analyse its strengths and weakness's before selling it on EBay. He is the brains behind team Scotland having worked out all the match ups, and already engaged in vicious psychological warfare with other teams to make them think he's a blithering idiot with no idea. In fact he is as cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University....

Monday 3 August 2015

ETC Team Profiles - Team Northern Ireland

Guest post by Matt McVeigh 
After a good start, (14th in 2012) Team Northern Ireland have fallen upon hard times over the last two ETC’s, coming last in 2013 and in 2014 last but one. In 2015 a team of elite warriors has been selected to address this issue and to bring Team ‘Norn Iron’ back up the rankings (by one more spot at least hopefully!).

Team Captain – Jonny ‘Jonny 65’ Fisher

The ‘point collector’ of the team using an all-out attack tank list. Jonny will be looking for some good match ups – which is looking good since he is doing the pairings! A veteran of every ETC, Jonny is the first name on the team sheet and our best player. He’s tee-total though, which is a bit odd on this team, but then someone has to drive!

Sunday 2 August 2015

ETC Team Profiles - Team Wales

Guest post by Roger Whittam
Last year was Team Wales first time attending the ETC and surprisingly enough we managed to finish 9th overall with the best result of all the Commonwealth Nations. We were stunned and this year had a flood of offers for players for the team to pick from as a result. Even this became a nightmare as who you do and don’t take and not wanting to upset anybody. Still it was a matter of elimination and we came down to the final 6:

Infantry

Paul Frith – Red Banner Strelkovy.
Paul has the nickname “Digger” for a reason and really I should of had him in with an autodefend force but constraints of painting he opted for a solid Red Banner Strelkovy and trusting to the match up strategy to get him defending. It is true, I expect Paul to win the defensive mission, draw the fair fight games and panic in the mobile mission as he will actually have to move something!

Wins Expected 2 or 3

Saturday 1 August 2015

ETC Team Profiles - Team England

Special article by the most Special Lord C


Jez Evans (Captain)

Jez has been wargaming to a high standard for years getting to the top of DBM rankings. He enjoys wargaminng so much he has his own shop! But this is not his profession. His FoW achievements include being the UKs No.1 ranked player in the past, Currently No.3 (I think due to the site being down), at just about every event he enters Jez is in the top 3 players. He is the only other player to win the Welsh Open besides Steve Charlton, this year he shared this with Steve C. He is very consistant and one of his biggest strengths is the ability to compose a very difficult list to beat.