Team Yankee - Tale of Four Gamers

Hello All

With the new Team Yankee rule set coming out we decided to have a painting challenge to get us to paint up our armies as fast as possible, But this challenge won't be as ridged as previous challenges.

There won't be a "paint X points or X number of units in a month", as this is a new game and we don't want to worry about release dates we are going to paint up the units at our own pace but with the goal of having a 100pts army painted in three months (around the end of January). So expect regular updates over the next few weeks and months. So lets see what everyone is planning.

Tale of Four Gamers Month Three - Andy

Hi All,

Its the final day of the challenge and its pretty late but I did it. Well 99% done. I haven't finished in style like Ben having painted loads extra too but I have done what I set out too do and finished an army in three months. For me thats unheard of! It's been quite tough, especially right at the end and in some ways it has taken a little of the fun out of it, but overall its been good and at least now I can look forward to some gaming and adding more to the army.

Tale of Four Gamers Month Three - Ben

Hello All

So the tale of four gamers is coming to an end and I have completed my objective of getting my British army painted. In-fact I have painted more than I needed to with extra Shermans, Stuarts, Comets and currently on my painting table a battery of Land Mattresses. Plus I'm hoping to get enough blisters of SAS for my birthday to run the new SAS list and I'm looking forward to the new plastic Cromwell when that hits the shelves.

You might be able to tell that although I have finished the challenge and I do feel the achievement of having done so, I also feel as though I'm just starting to get to the half way point with this army. Anyway back to the focus of this post, what I have painted to finish the painting challenge. This month I have painted up 4 Archers and 6 6 Pounders.

Tale of Four Gamers Nachtjer Challenge - Month 3 and Goal - Alex

Well it's been a long three months of busy modelling and painting but it's done. This month everything has come together and I received all of the stuff I had ordered and after a monster session of armoured vehicle painting everything is finished.

So at the end of last month I had some mostly based infantry for dismounted motorcycle teams. After a bulk buy of textured paint, they're done:

Tale of Four Gamers Month Two - Fez

Arrgghh! Splosh, Splash, Dunk, Splat! Damn it!

The sound of last minute painting echoed through the Fez house hold once again. The new hamster Callie (or .50 cal, depending on who you ask - Stug passed away last month) looks on bemused. I'm sure she'll soon get used to the painting lamp being on so late at night. My long suffering girlfriend walks into the room once again - "Why do you do this to yourself? I'm off to bed."

I clean my brush, look at the sorrowful brown base coated Panzersturm platoon staring back at me, and ponder on the question.

Brown platoon of SHAME

Nachtjager Tale of Four Gamers Month Two - Andy

Well, here we are with month two over. I'll be honest its all been a bit of a whirlwind this month, what with buying my first house, finding out my work is closing the nearby factory and moving everything two hours away and potentially being made redundant and a fantastic weekend of gaming at the Breakthrough Assault III tournament! I actually won 2 games, drew 2 and lost 1. Not bad considering my only goal was to win a game.

In amongst all that I also found time for a bit of painting. Not as impressive as Ben's conveyor belt of painted miniatures but I'm happy all the same.

If you've been paying attention you may have noticed there are no Bofors SP's pictured. That because they're still in a shameful pile of bits. I decided to focus on the Sexton platoon this time and just make sure I got them fully completed, that and I just didn't fancy cleaning up and supergluing all those fiddly gun pieces! However even the Sextons haven't completely been finished as my decals still haven't arrived. Hopefully they'll all just get done at the end but I have to admit that without them they're definitely missing a bit of character.

Tale of Four Gamers Month Two - Ben

Hello All

I can't believe we have finished the second month of the challenge already. For this month I painted the core of the army, the two infantry platoons with Ram Kangaroo transports and some Heavy Mortars. This gives me a 1250pts army to play some games (hoping to get an AAR or two in very soon).

I started off the month by painting the new plastic British infantry which you may have seen reviewed here. I won't spend too much time talking about them here as I have already covered them in the other post. I will say painting tartan was surprisingly fun (not fun enough to do a whole platoon with tartan or anything silly like that mind). It didn't take long to find a pattern I liked the look of, I ended up choosing dark blue as it matched the logo of the 51st Highland Division.

Nächtjäeger Tale of Four Gamers Month One - Fez

Phew, who knew toy soldiers could be so tiring!
Hot on the heels of a mega paint session of American tanks for Corrivalry, the deadline for our first months Nächtjäeger painting came roaring up out of nowhere.

Given that the new models aren't in stores yet, I chose to start with what I had - the Mobelwagons, Stugs and Panzersturm Cannon Platoon.

As these are going to be late-late-late war, I decided to use the Mig Ammo Late war paint set  and AK Interactives' Late war Camouflage profile guide for inspiration. I found the pictures of disc-camo moblewagons, and thought that I would once again tackle the Anarchy Models HD Stencils, using the new 1mm ambush mask.

Nächtjäeger Tale of Four Gamers Month One - Alex

So here's my first month of painting and modelling for the Nächtjäger challenge. Now unlike The rest of them I had to put together a load of motorcycle recce, which certainly brought out my masochistic streak.

I also had got SS motorcycles, now I had planned to just paint them up as Heer troops but when I looked closely at the models and saw the uniforms were completely different I decided to paint them up as SS. Now this is probably historically inaccurate, but in my defence I will put forward the following:

1) I've put together two platoons of motorcycles, I'm not putting more together just to get the right uniforms.

2) At this stage in the war supplies were a little sketchy, so it seems slightly plausible that a group of Heer might get some other uniforms given to them.

3) Riding motorcycles cross country is bound to be grubby work, my motorcyclists will therefore have overalls for when they are riding and will change swiftly into a neat clean uniform when they dismount. 

4) It's my army, naff off.

I'm aware 2&3 do not seem to make sense together.

Anyway, this meant I have had to try doing SS camo, which was fun, if also painstaking and eyesight straining.

Motorcycle recce, out in force

Nachtjager Tale of Four Gamers Month One - Andy

Talk about cutting it fine! I've enjoyed it but its been a bit pressured at the end.

The progress this month was slow but steady, mainly due to the infantry platoon. Work also threw a bit of a spanner in the works meaning for a week instead of sitting at my painting table I was in a cabin looking at this:

Not a bad view really but being on the Shetlands did hold up progress. So without further ado here is my progress for month one of our painting challenge.

Nachtjager Tale of Four Gamers Month One - Ben

Hello all

Month one of the Tale of Four Gamers challenge is in the books and I don't mean gloat but I knock this one out of the park! Not only did I finish this with three weeks left of the challenge, I also painted up 6 extra Shermans so I can use them as a tank company.

The Shermans are all the new plastics Battlefront have been recently release (which Adam reviewed here). They are really nice and so so so so much better than old Open Fire versions.

Nachtjager Tale of 4 Gamers Painting Challenge

Hello All

With the new Late War book around the corner we thought it was a great chance to do every hobbyist's favourite challenge - a Tale of 4 Gamers. This will be based on Operations Varsity and Plunder with all of the armies from the new book. This also links in nicely to Ben's new years resolution.

The plan is to do three months of 600pts chunks with a legal army and games planned for month two. We will also be taking the armies to a tournament and we are looking into the possibility of a campaign as well.

Ben and Andy will be focusing on the Allies while Fez and Alex are going Axis.

So here are the guys to talk about what they are planning.