AIW AAR - Israeli Infantry Company vs UAR Tank - Hold The Line

Hello All and welcome to our first AIW AAR. A picture from the first game. As you know we have been collecting armies for a tale of four gamers challenge after which we wanted to do three AARs with the armies. This is the first game and sees my Israelis vs Adam's UAR, well not quite. We did start a first game which was fighting withdrawal but Adam's plane killed both of my Sho'ts in two turns and my Jeeps got MG'd shortly afterwards. So we rolled for another mission and got Hold The Line. I decided against trying to Night Attack and tried to defend the village.

Israeli Infantry Company HQ Full Infantry (without transports) + Blindside Full Infantry (without transports) + Blindside Recce Jeeps 4 AT Jeeps 2 Sho'ts 4 Heavy Mortars

UAR Tank Battalion HQ T-55 7 T-55 + Stabilzers 7 T-55 + Stabilzers 6 PT-76 + 4 BTR-50PK 2 ZSU-57-2

AIW Painting Challenge Month Three - Ben's Israeli's

Hello All

Welcome to the last part of the AIW painting challenge, you have already seen Winner's and Adam's month three of the painting challenge this week and now it's my turn. This month I didn't have much left to paint, just four Anti-Tank Jeeps and a Heavy Mortar platoon.

I was looking forward to painting the Jeeps as they were part of the reason I wanted to collect the army, they just look cool. I'm thinking about a Jeep army if we revisit AIW just to get more of them!

AIW Painting Challenge Month Three - Adam's UAR

Hello All

So the colossal task is over! I had been dreading this month as it was not only the 13 vehicle hulls but air and infantry.

I started with the infantry platoon - as with the vehicles I've done all the models as opposed to only those I need as it requires little more models. The infantry were painted off the bases, with a grey undercoat, I then used zenithal spraying with desert tan and sand to highlight them. After this I picked out the faces and hands using US drab then a little flesh to highlight. The guns are neutral grey/light sea grey with flat earth for the wooden parts. I then varnished before applying a thinned down Vallejo umber wash over the whole model to add definition. I've left the bases sandy with minimal drybrushing - as I've not found any tufts I think suit it.

AIW Painting Challenge Month Three - WinnerDave's Jordanians

Hey all,

What a great feeling to get this painting challenge done.  There's been times it has felt like a challenge and I've been painting when I didn't really feel like it or I've been painting somethign when I'd prefer to be painting something else...

This month's challenge was to get my remain units done, 4 rocket jeeps and 2 AA spgs.  The jeeps were really fun to paint.

AIW Painting Challenge Month Two - Adam's UAR

So I wrote this and it seems to have vanished into the ether hmm...

Anyway, this month I had the relatively small task of only 8 T55's this was due to me being on holiday so needed to be small - though having a large chunk this month moving house may be a challenge too...

Painting Challenge Month Two - Ben's Israelis

Hello All

Month two of the painting challenge has been and gone and I have been a busy beaver. This month I painted up two Ch’ir Mamochan (Motorised) Platoons, they are without transports as I was really struggling with points (not having the half-tracks saved me a whooping 165pts!).

Painting wise I painted them in four batches over two days with another two days for basing. I decided to do something quick and simple and after spraying them Russian Uniform I picked out the details and painted on Army Painters Quickshade. The basing was done the same way I did it on the Jeeps in month one.

AIW Painting Challenge Month Two - WinnerDave's Jordanians

Hey,

Month two has flown by, I thought I had some breathing space but it turns out I've been painting like a madman in order to get these done.  Even with a two week holiday off work.

Edge highlighting alone took me 3 days and I was so glad when it was done.  10 tanks at once is hard work.

Without further a do here they are...1415pts worth of tank.  My list only calls for 9 of them, but I wasn't going to not paint one simply because it's not in my current iteration of a list.

Blue square platoon, have a spare wheel on the front glacis plate for added ease of identification on the table top

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.

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.

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!

Painting Painting ZSU-57-2

So I've started our new painting challenge and as with every new painting project I try to learn a few new techniques and tricks, and this project will be no different.

So I choose these guys as a nice little unit which can form part of my first months painting, they are similar enough to the T55 (obviously) to be a great test bed for the painting.

I started by cleaning up the models, and as a base colour I tried one of the Vallejo air brush base colours 'desert tan base' - the first issue is that this colour is a lot lighter than desert tan (my colour of choice) but by using a light colour there is less need for multiple layers to cover the black, also unlike the grey base I've used before, it's easier on the eyes to distinguish between the paint and the grey of the resin.

After basing it, I then did a layer of desert Tan, after this I covered the tank in a variety of tape and blue tab to highlight in a type of 'bad modulation' as I call it ( I used Vallejo air Sand) I tried to get some nice areas of contrast between panels, (, with varying degrees of success) in some places it's more subtle than others...

Arab Israeli War Painting Challenge

Hello All

With the The 'Battle of An-Nakhl' Arab-Israeli War Sale Ben, Winner Dave and Adam decided to finally take the plunge and get into AIW. We are picked different nations and so the fitting thing to do seemed to be a painting challenge.

We are keeping it simple, 500pts a month for three months and then some gaming. A couple of other guys in the area have armies already so expect the after action reports to come think and fast. But before all of that lets hear from the guys about their projects.

Giving Up Infantry For Lent!

Welcome to the first ever ramble by Jersey, normally the sort of post Adam brings to the blog, looking at branching out away from the infantry lists and platoons that dominated my tactics and games over my first year in the hobby. This was written before Battlefront explained their schedule for 2015... the project I propose in this blog will be started after Brown Water Navy, which I'm very excited about but hopefully the sentiment is of use for those of you stuck in a "rut" with an army which you want to escape!

After playing Flames of War for a year, I’ve collected and finished painting two armies; a huge Italian infantry army with tanks and guns for three periods and a PAVN Local Forces Company for Vietnam games. At the start of the year I set myself a challenge in the form of New Year’s resolutions to finish companies from four different time periods and four different company types and if possible, use them at events. The last few units of PAVN were finished after this promise so count as Infantry and Vietnam time periods… now I just need something new!

Some Mid War Italians... where it all started.

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.

Fate Of A Nation - Book Review and Spoilers

Hello All

This weekend at Colours I was lucky enough to get my hands on the latest Wargames Illustrated with the Six
Days War briefing book. So I thought I would do a little review with a few spoilers for everyone.

First Impressions

The Book seems small, it's only 28 pages cover to cover but this is all lists as all the background text is in the Wargames Illustrated. The book looks gorgeous with lots of great pictures of the three forces in the book. I have to say at this point these look like some of the best painted models in any of the Battlefront books, I have to guess this was a labour of love for the painters.