MW: US Armoured v. British/Canadians

Apologies for the video quality, this one didn't have great lighting and my phone is not the best video recorder!

MW: US Armoured v. German Armoured

Got a chance to play a game against my friend Mitch today.

Armies were as follows (roughly):

Germans:

HQ - PzIVs (I think)

5 Panzer IIIs (2 shot AT 9 guns)
4 Panzer IVDs
2cm SP Flak
2 88s

US:

HQ - 2 M4s

5 M4s
4 Stuarts
Full ARP w/5 zooks
Armoured Mortars



Video should explain the rest!

And it begins......

My British Infantry arrived today......

Stay tuned.

Italian Decor

So they're here! Despite how utterly miserable I have been feeling as of late, I made a trip to the border this afternoon to pick up my Italian buildings. While down to get those, I stopped into one of the bargain type centers and got myself enough tree toppers to make some trees! At $1 a bag and 5per.....I spent $5 and got enough stuff to make 25 trees. That's a pretty good return on investment, if they work out I might even end up putting some together for EBAY since finding terrain trees online for a decent price is hard sometimes.

So the JR miniature houses really are top draw, I ended up with more buildings than I thought because some of the bags have two in them, I also picked up a bag of 'out' buildings which all end up being the same, but I am sure once they are painted and sitting in different spots, it'll make no difference. I'll get some pics of them up soon and insert them into this post. I did up some fields out of a dense front door mat and used textured paint to give it some depth and make it look 'plowed'. It looks pretty good, though the paint did take a little longer drying due to its more for use on metallic/wood surfaces.

This past week I met a player from the Kingston area who was selling an army. Turns out he has been playing for some time, but currently only has time for LATE war. I have gone over to the dark side and bought myself some Germans. I had a hard time actually deciding whether or not to buy this army as I was afraid it would pull me away from what I am trying to do with my Aussie list. I had a game of Counterattack last friday and did not fair out too well......though I was able to kill a dug in spotter on turn 2, taking out the use of my opponents artillery for the better part of the game. I made some key errors, like trying to take on StuH's with Crusaders.......WTF. At least I am learning while I play, I'll remember next time. Stupid 2 pounders.....not sure if they could penetrate a paper bag.

Where was I? Right! Germans.....lots of Panzergren's and a few armored pieces make this a pretty complete army. I'll take the bulk of it away adding some Tigers and maybe an armored train. Wait and see I guess. I'll have to read some more Grey Wolf before making my mind up. I am excited to hear some of the news from WWPD regarding what's coming down the pipe for the US armored stuff in LW. Should make things very interesting with some of the new Shermans rolling off the assembly line. I actually dropped a bug in Steve's (WWPD) ear about a movie we had on while we played last friday. 'Jackboots on Whitehall' is one of the funniest movies with a ton of tanks, infantry, explosions, cheezy French resistance fighters I have ever seen! It's also where I got my Monty pic from......a truly epic movie viewing experience for pointless fun! Almost as much fun as watching this intro was over and over again for Medal of Honor. I give you 'Conversational German for the American Soldier'.

Summer Siege FoW Tournament

It's official; Dice Devil's are prepping to host the first ever Summer Siege FoW Tournament

Summer Siege 2012
Saturday, July 07th @ 1:00 PM

Details:
1500pts
LW
3 two hour games
Cost = 20$
First paid first (re)served
Early payment required to reserve spot as well as faction you will be fighting for (once chosen you cannot change sides)
Payment options: Interac money transfer or cheque or cash in person
Please contact Brett at Pripyat at gmail.com for payment or questions

Format:
Scenarios to be determined
100% Blue on Red
10 Axis Spots
10 Allied Spots
Standings to be submitted to RankingsHQ

Army Restrictions:
Please bring 5 copies of your army list and a copy of the FoW rules and army list source
All armies' sources require approval by organizers prior to July 1st
All lists must be seen and approved prior to 1:30 PM July 7th
3rd Edition army books accepted (Grey Wolf, Red Bear, 3rd Edition Bundle Forces Intelligence Handbook, any LW books released prior to July, 2012)
2nd Edition army books approved to use V3 National and weapon rules; ex. Stormtrooper and HBG respectively (Turning the Tide and Earth and Steel)
All other Battlefont army handbooks will use V2 National and weapon rules as listed in source
Official Battlefront PDFs subject to approval will likely use V2 National and weapon rules
Unofficial Battlefront PDFs are not accepted
Non-Battlefront PDFs are not accepted




Skip over to our forum to get more details on scheduling, registration and the awesome venue the club has secured! Our new Club Event page also has more info. 


Any questions should be brought up on the forum, not the comments section here - thanks!


Cheers,


Ca$h

New Forum is up!

I tested a couple of options for our new club forums, including embedded and it just didn't offer the options we wanted. So we have opened up "proper" hosted forums, and they are open for people to register for. Please follow the link at the top and feel free to start posting. You can expect information about the Flames of War events/tournaments we will be running to be posted there first.

Cheers,

Ca$H

Mirror Match: Aus v Aus AAR 64

Well its been a few weeks, but we are back with a Friday Night Fight at Ca$h's, using the complete desert terrain set on one table. I am playing PhantomRescue, who is running MW Australian Div Cav list. I decided to use the EXACT same list as him. I have to sub Grants-for-Shermans, and I also need to stop playing SWTOR to paint stuff this week! Above is the table set up. The lighting is weird because of the glare from the bright table.

The list for the both of us:
2 x HQ Crusader II
3 x Crusader II
3 x Crusader II
3 x ShermanIII
3 x ShermanIII
3 x Universal Carrier
4 x 25pdrs

We rolled up Free For All


About turn 3, we had this crazy Crusader Scrum. Only when fighting other Crusaders does Front Armor 4 make any sense!


After the Crusader scrum, I come out ahead with the 2IC Crusader on his obj, and 2 Crusader plus CO Crusader after a crazy tank battle! It would take a miracle for him to win, as I am about to win (He has to kill the Crusaders, concealed, with 25 pdrs, then take me below half) Video at the bottom


Here is a nutty FSJ vs Canadians shot, between Pripyat and RKelly.


Below is video with end game dissection (because it was crazy)

Becoming a club.....

So after much discussion and lamentations from the womens, we are forming into a proper gaming club. Basically, we are starting to host our own events/tournaments and the weekly gaming group is growing to the point where some structure is required to organize things. We have taken the opportunity to turn the humble "TableTop Tacticians" blog into a proper domain, thus allowing us more flexibility and options for expansion.

We have become Dice Devils GC - Dice Devils Gaming Club. We have now registered the domain www.dicedevils.com and for starters, have the blog forwarded there. We are looking to expand the site, and it will be growing over the couple weeks from just a simple blog to a more complete site, including forums, galleries, etc. Please be patient and bear with us through this change. Also look for info coming shortly for our tournaments this summer - we will be holding a few this year!

So you can continue to follow us at tabletoptacticians.blogspot.com for now, or at our new site www.dicedevils.com.

Stay tuned for more!

Cheers,

Ca$h

Movie, Italy and Shopping

The poster reads 'The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday'. It pretty much sums up Act of Valor, the movie depicting a few days in the lives of a group of Navy SEALs. In between shopping for terrain and grabbing something to eat, my wife and I went to see it last night. Overall I enjoyed it quite a bit, I expected the acting in the film not to be too great or anything because the majority of the cast are SEALs in real life and their first job is to kick ass and kill bad guys. So with those expectations, I think I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Go see it, I'd give it 3 out of 4.

On to my new project! So having spent some time playing a few games over the past few weeks I decided I would like to have a theme table. One of those tables where the terrain makes up a closer to real representation of a place in WW2 history. With some of the terrain I got for my birthday and shopping around online for buildings, I am going to make a very 'Italian' looking table in anticipation that eventually we will get some games in featuring some of the places that were a little difficult for armor to penetrate the city streets and alleys.

There are already a few desert buildings (mid east) out there and a mix of ones that are found in Italy during the period will make up the core of what I am trying to represent. At the moment I have 6-7 buildings on their way and should maybe pick up a few more or perhaps even throw down MattV's desert fort ruins to add some 'biblical' feel to the table top. With a few impassable mountain ranges or at the very least some 'slow going' terrain, this has the potential to be a very challenging layout.

I made my way across the 'border' to FdB in Gatineau on Saturday, Battle Brothers would be the store name I guess if it were translated. I thought the store had some nice, albeit few items for Flames. Cases and some well priced platoon and company sets make up most of the type of stuff they carry. I have been working over a LATE US list and was very tempted to pick up the Tank Destroyers they had in stock, with the 10% discount for the month of March on US items, they were tempting. They do order every MONDAY so if you want something specific they can get it in for you. I may try this once or twice to see what the service is like and will post my review once I get some more items. I left there with a US dice/token set, one of the large hills and the desert palm trees with bases. The prices were actually really good and better than average customer service will likely have me visiting the store again. Both places in Ottawa that carry Flames of War do seem to be quite a drive though unless you live right downtown.

I'll be making a call to The Comic Book Shoppe to see if they can bolster their Flames of War section. They have books and a few packs of Russian troops, but again a small selection in an otherwise HUGE store. Being there are more players from the Ottawa area into FoW, you would think a better selection would be available and I would not be relegated to online shopping all the time, I'm a want it now, get it now type of person and expect better pickings I guess than most other players who have already amassed their armies.
I'll be letting others know that if you visit their page and start requesting them to keep some stuff in stock, especially if they get their hands on some V3 rulebooks, new templates and the newer releases that are about to hit the market, I'm sure they would start bringing stuff in. Contact Comic Book Shoppe