Fez's Road to Art of War Too Part 1

Hello there!

Having a busy work schedule has meant that I've not been able to get many games in or make it to the tournaments with the other guys, so I've been a bit quiet on the Flames of War front. I was then pleasantly surprised to see the announcement of 'Art of War Too', a late war weekender at the Sanctuary gaming centre! After playing so much Early war, it was interesting to go back to late.

But what to play? Jagdtigers? Nachjager Panthers? One of the other 100 lists I've got on forces of war/easy army?

To be honest, the answer came from another of my latest past times - World of Tanks Blitz!

So much bling!

As part of the VE day celebrations, World of Tanks released a snazzy limited edition T34-85. This thing is great in the game, with several perks making it different. The unintended side effect of falling in love with this tank is the need to have a horde of them on the table-top. Add the release of 'Vasili's Hammer' plastic Army box, and the as-yet-unused halves of my late war Germany books (Desperate Measures/Berlin), and I had a full blown hobby crisis.

And yes, my hobby pledge is doomed.

Art of War Too is rather interesting, with two games of 1675, then two more at 1750, and the final one at 1800 points. For the sake of my sanity (and wallet) I resolved to make an army as cheaply as possible, with no Infantry - I have enough German stands to paint, so it was all tanks for me!

I started at 1750, as this gave a good way to get used to how the Soviets played:

Ok, so they're Hero Guards. They're not really 'Soviet', but I like that about them. The model count is low, I don't have to worry about a lot of the Soviet special rules, and I have made a 5 T34/76 wide-tracked-10-dice-hitting-on-threes assualt squad of doom. And if that wasn't enough, I've stuck some IS-2's in as well. I need my heavy tanks after all.

As you may have realised, I know this list is far from optimal, but it should be alot of fun - Some crazy zipping about the board with the fast tanks, some Derp gunning from the IS-2's and SU-100's, and super-heavy-rockets of doom from the Heavy Katyushas. Its a shame their observer has no transport, as he's the only infantry team in the list.

Build and Sprayed PSC Soviet Green

With the paint still drying, I hurried down to the Guildford Games Club for their first blooding against the SS Panther list of Julian Cox - which he had made to test out the Recce and Mortar rules for the first time (I didn't know this in advance).

First Test - Free for all

We rolled up free for all, and deployed - I prevented Julian from deploying his Panzer Grens in their halftracks in the open, as I couldn't live with myself when they would have been obliterated. It's Julians second game, so I spent time explaining and guiding him away from common mistakes.

Here kitty kitty...

I made several errors myself, so it was a great learning game all round (Julian won with the company break after I overstretched myself).

1) Three T34/85's are as fragile as I thought they were.

2) Don't get greedy with the ISU-100's and move them into the open

3) Don't assault a single IS-2 into a platoon with a Panzerfaust (time was running out)

4) Don't park your rockets in one Stuka-sized template formation (REALLY FEZ?)

5) Don't forget that hull mounted Stug's won't be defensive firing, so just drive past them and crush the infantry behind straight away next time

6) I need to learn some WW2 movie Russian. Saying 'Achtung Stug!' doesn't feel right.

7) It will be a fun list!

I'm hoping to use the new Colours of War guide to paint these up in the same style as the World of Tanks 'Victory', so they should look great - especially with all those tank riders on the back.

Stay tuned for more updates, thanks for reading!

Fez