Tale of Winter Gamers - US Paras - Final Report

Hi  All

So this is my last TOTWG post, I have painted everything I wanted to paint for the challenge and so I'm surprisingly in the position that I have finished something early (very unlike me)! Adam is going to contuine on for another month as he still has a few things he wants to paint. Quite honestly I'm surprised with how well this has gone! Most of you out there have probably taken part in some sort of Tale of X Number of Gamers and I dare say 90%  them never get finished, let alone finished ahead of schedule with painted armies!

Also for myself it is ending now takes a lot of pressure off of me with my other projects. I have 2 armies I'm painting up for tournaments in May and June (my Market Garden Paras and My Mid War Fins), I'm also dabbling in Vietnam and I'm struggling to find enough hours in the day!

It's been an interesting journey for me and possible the first time I have finished an army in one of these challenges. My biggest bugbear of the whole think was I wasn't happy with my basing after the first couple of units, but I thought it would be too much work to go back and re base the whole army. The completely snowy bases works well for a snow board but looks very out of place on a "normal" table. Were as if I'd done a small amount of frosted snow I would have looked good on a snow board (maybe not as good as completely snow like I have done), but would have also worked on a normal board. But that's hindsight for you!

Heres a look back at all the painted units.

My first unit a US Para Rifle Platoon

My Platoon of M18's. While not a ToTWG unit they have been in almost every list, I still plan on adding a second unit at some point so I can run a TD Company.

The Glider Artillery. These guys really are the work horse of the list when combined with the AOP.

The Second Rifle Platoon, this platoon used the metal paras instead of the plastic as I prefer the models.

The LMG Platoon. Still not used these as anything other that Combat attachments.

I love this unit of Jeeps, but me being me I always get them stuck in and lose them. Need to remember they are recon first, a .50cal second!

Easily the Anti Tank Guns are my favourite unit in the army! Almost every game I send the Bazookas off by themselves to assault enemy tanks.

My main 1750pts lists. I have an in depth look at the list here 

Closing thoughts

I have had a lot of highlights with this challenge and I'm looking forward to getting a campaign going with Adam in the near future. I think my biggest highlight was the two tournaments I went to, Brighton and Corrivaly were a lot of fun and I think the army played well.

I have a few more units I'd like to add when I revisit the army at some point in the near future, a second unit of M18's and some Jumbo tanks are on the cards. I'll also look at Armoured Rifle platoon, but that'll be towards the end of the year as between now and then I have a fair few projects on the go. As I have already said I'm doing Market Garden US Paras and Mid War Fins for up coming tournaments and I have also been bitten by the Nam bug and don't have the time or money for any more projects.

Looking past these projects we are currently talking about do an Early War Desert Gamers Challenge in September as we'd all quite like to get into Early War. We have learnt a lot of lessons from this challenge and have talked about a format change, but I'll leave that for another day.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this little challenge

Ben