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.

Winner Dave - Jordanian - Sareya Mudara’aa

As usual I started with a model first approach and vehemently declared that I was taking the UAR and would be buying an IS3 horde.  A spreadsheet later calculating the costs in real world money and the realisation that I'd be using a conscript army and I was regretting my decision.

After discussing with the boys I've ended up taking the Jordanians and that suits me just fine.  Still get get rocket jeeps, some cool looking AA type guns and Centurions...oh yes Centurions. Unfortunately there is no plane option, but that is offset by the M113 APC.

At this stage I have no idea whatsoever how the stats stack up or how the game plays...so my list is purely based on having the bulk of the toys.

Breaking into a new period is not easy, Ben's attempt to start Nam and our combined attempt to start Great War has been less than successful...so far.  I'm hoping that with the three of us starting AIW at the same time then we can get this era off the ground in our community.

Now to stock up on some new paints :)

Adam - UAR - Kateybat Debabbat

So we're doing an AIW challenge - it's my first foray outside WW2 FoW so I'm certain it will
succeed due to my brilliance....

I originally went for Israeli forces - but after losing out on a sack race on alternate Tuesday to Ben, I went for Jordanians, and after some pleading with winner ended up with UAR...

This is how Adam plans to paint his T-54's

Now I've never done the whole 'tank hoard' or anything with the equivalent of Hen and Chicks, and definitely not played with a conscript force before! So I've decided to try and go for a very iconic looking force rather than a really combat effective force. As such I wanted the core to be the T54/55 - I think it's a great looking tank, and with stabilisers make a force which is not extortionately expensive to collect. Being mindful they come in boxes of three I've gone for two platoons of 7 and an HQ.

I wanted a plane - so with the MiG available grabbed that. I was aware it was only sporadic so grabbed some AA as well. The final platoon was a tough choice, another tank platoon? Some infantry? (Don't be silly a conscript platoon of AK infantry!) assault guns? T34's? In the end I went for the scout platoon. A mix of armoured infantry and light tanks with a spearhead is just a nice little add on! So here's the list and I look forward to cracking on with it.

Ben - Israeli - P’lugah Ch’ir Mamochan 

Hello all, so yet another challenge that I have got myself into... but man I do enjoy these challenges! Myself and Adam had a little arm wrestle over who got to collect the Israeli's and as you might guys from the title of this section I won (but Adam does get first choice for Cold War Gone Hot).

My first point of call was to collect a tank company like the other guys, but I thought a painting challenge where I paint thirteen tanks in three months might be a bit of a cop out. So I looked at doing something different and decided on Infantry. This will form the core of a tank company once the infantry is done but for not I'm happy to be doing something a little different from the other guys.

My list is simple (and with the Israeli points it was quite hard to make what I figured would be a good list!), once I had my two infantry platoons (dismounted to save a load of points!) and the HQ I looked at my normal two support points, smoke and recce. There are no recce options in AIW so I choose 120mm mortars for smoke and a pinning option if I do end up attacking infantry. Next up was the tank support and as I wanted a good sized unit and a 6 platoon list I picked four M51 Isherman. To round out the last two platoons I got jeeps to fill a cheap platoon slot and because they looked far too cool not to include and three M3 90mm DEFA with .50 cals, 1500pts on the nose.

For the first month I will be painting the four M51's, yes I know this seems like a weak first month, but I have a few Great War Germans I want to get painted for the new book and this is the best month to do it. I will then paint all the infantry in month two to make up for the weak month one.

Thats all for now, the challenge kicks off on the 1st July with the 31st July the deadline to have the first 500pts finished. So check back then and see how the guys are doing. If the sale as got you tempted to pick up some AIW models lets us know below, on Facebook or on Twitter.

Thanks for reading.