New Year's Resolutions and such..

This is still a paint I have never used, oh the irony

Well, yet another year has passed, and let's see what progress I made this year when looking to my goals as set forth in 2014:  http://www.dicedevils.com/2014/01/2014-whole-new-year-of-empty-promises.html  Here is the meat and potatoes of the post: 
What I want to do then is set myself for a small amount of painting, but every night where possible.  I have my Soviet Moderns which are up first (hence the Seinfeld/Red Dawn pics) and then my DAK which I've been working on for next Historicon.   Its still not 100% sure if its EW or MW.  After that, I have a small unit of Free French to finish off, 3 M7 Priests and some 105s.    My LW 21 Pzr has a recce unit of halftracks and some Pumas so I can field more than the 2 lists I am known for.  

Lets not even get into the unpainted Brit Para army I have, or the 12 Grants and 9 Crusaders I have for my MW British!!

Well I did do the painting daisy chain.. all year, and got my Soviet Moderns done for a few games, got my DAK up TWICE (I did 2 full armies' worth.. All scout cars, and your regular sitzkrieging gun list) and then went nuts and painted up a bunch of free French stuff thanks to the new Italy books.. I got 2 more units of recce jeeps painted, a unit of M57 (AKA 6lbr guns) and some 105mm arty.   I traded that Brit Para army for some Itals, and sold 6 of the 12 grants to ThunderST.  However all this painting took place before Cdn Nationals, which took place in late August, and since then I have been totally burnt out on painting.   I tried to get some panzer IV's done for my LW 21pzrs, but it fizzled out big time.

So what can I try and predict for next year:   I will paint not much WW2.   With the new FAON book, and now I have the Tour of Duty book, I want to finish off my Russkies.. I have a few more infantry teams to go, 4 BRDM scout cars, another ZSU-23/4 AA and a MiG-21 and a Hind-D kicking around.

MiG-21's.. and yes my gfx card wanted to implode!

I also have some Napoleonics I want to get done.. I might play them too often but they look sharp, and I can always bring them to Histo next year and get a game in with them.    Some of us also got bitten by the RPG bug, so some fantasy-type models for the Pathfinder thing we are doing.    I reckon that by April or so I will start back up with some Flames of War, maybe my Itals.   Been playing a LOT of ELITE Dangerous,

ELITE:  Oxygen is overrated.. I had less than 4 minutes to get to a station.. nearest was 8 light years away, and my windscreen was compromised, so kinda like driving a convertible through Hyperspace!!  (Spoiler, I made it with 45 seconds to spare)

and just started DCS World (free flight sim, see pic above) and even some SWTOR, so not a lot of time painting.. but that's fine.

 

 

How bout you guys?  How was your progress this year?

 

Success Is Not Final

We are coming to the closing out of another year of games, painting and changes to the Flames of War landscape. I believe them to be positive ways forward, points levels, a new army list builder with Forces of War and the newer plastic models from Battlefront are fantastic looking. Board games are back and better than ever, card games are making an impact here in our group as well!!

We Gotta Get Outta This Place!

A short time ago, Battlefront had a sale on everything in their Vietnam line of models, books and accessories. I had always wanted to play a 'modern' era of Flames of War and besides WW2, Vietnam is close to my heart in the history of armed conflict. Whether it was being military brat or the fact that 'Tour of Duty' was a TV show I never missed when I was growing up. Something about the sights, sounds of the 1960's and the Vietnam conflict resonated with me and sticks with me to this day.

Weapons of Choice: Hawker Hurricane IID

There are a few air options for British support in Flames of War. With mostly US Air options being used in Late War source books, I have decided to look at the Hawker Hurricane and its influence on the Mid War time period when it comes to using it in your next Mid War list. With just under 15,000 of these aircraft manufactured for use during WW2, we'll look at its in-game practicality.

ELITE Dangerous: Home Sweet Home (Earth)

Hard to believe mankind has actually already landed the Huygens probe here on Titan.  In ELITE, this station orbits lazily between Saturn and Titan.

Here is another installment picture dump from ELITE: Dangerous.    Prior installments here: 1 and 2

 

Gamma is now live, and while there is still testing, the whole Galaxy is open, and there are to be no further wipes.   So this is effectively a 'head start' for backers, but I am using it to make a few quick visits, and of course, the first place to go on my list was 'home':  Our Solar System. 

I had arrived after 82 LYs in my trusty Hauler ship (think white U Haul van, no frills, carries stuff, has a long range gas tank when stripped out) and parked at the station near the moon, Titan (above) to refuel.  Unlike EVE, in this game there is fuel, and you use it up even just in-system!  I didn't want to run out between Mars and Jupiter for example!    Now that I was gassed up, I went on a tour:  (recommend clicking the pics for the best views)

 

More ELITE: Dangerous... if you are a rock (mostly pics)

'In space, nobody can hear you mine!"

Well, since last time I posted about ELITE, the game went into the final beta stage, and now entered Gamma, which is supposed to be a pre-launch for backers.   I wanted to test out mining before 'the last character wipe' so if I muck it up, no one cares right?    In ELITE to mine, you need mining laser, refinery, and cargo space.   I sold everything, bought a 'Hauler' space cube van basically, and started looking for a refinery to install.  

Battlecry 2014 (LW Tournament AAR)

It's likely the last tournament of 2014. Battlecry 2014!! 1650 Late War at Perkins Hobby's in Petawawa Ontario. A few of us made the trek through sleet and snow in order to play in this annual event. Have a look at some of the armies and some of the tabletop action.

Tank Gunnery 101 (by: Major(Ret) G. Barling)

From the inception of the tank in 1916 up to the present time, tank gunnery essentially consists of two activities. First, either the gunner or the crew commander (depending on the type of tank) tries to determine the range to the target. Second, with the range either known or estimated, the gunner aims the gun as best he can to engage and hit the target successfully.

Dice Devils PodCast Episode 4 is here!

Welcome back to another Dice Devils pod cast. This week we recap the Petawawa Late War Tournament from last week. We discuss our hobby plans and what we have been working on, and we talk about World of Tanks.

We also discuss upcoming events and games we are looking forward to along with our recent messing around with Dropzone Commander.

You can take a listen here:



As always, we welcome any and all feedback, and hope you enjoy the show!

Cheers,

Weapons of Choice M1A1 75mm Pack Howitzer

In this segment of Weapons of Choice, I'll be taking a look at the M1A1 75mm Howitzer. It's compact size and the power of the gun proved to be very versatile during WW2. Its use in Flames of War is not any different, with a few options to get it into any number of US or British lists. I'm a new fan of this addition to my US 82nd Airborne, it has proven to be a great choice for inexpensive artillery support.

Painted Panzers

I've had a few tanks lying around and have not been painting very much lately. I decided to break out the airbrush and some Pzr IV/70 tank destroyers that came in one of my German army boxes. We'll look at the tank and how it's represented in FoW.

Starting into Dropzone Commander

Last night saw Chris and I run our first Dropzone Commander game! The game is produced by Hawk Wargames (http://www.hawkwargames.com/ ) and it is a 10mm Sci Fi game of fast moving dropships and building to building battles. We thoroughly enjoyed the rule set. It was fast playing, simple to follow and the alternating activations of Battlegroups (units) kept each of us in the game the whole time.

I played the basic starter force of UCM (United Colonies of Mankind) which came in the stellar starter set :

Chris had picked up the PHR (Post Human Republic) starter with consisted of some very cool cybernetics enhanced fighters with mech style walkers in support :

Dice Devils Pod Cast Episode 3 is here!

Hi all! Welcome back to another episode of the Dice Devils Pod Cast. This time around we chat about our recent hobby adventures, the new Battlefront Tournament point total changes and Matt's trip to the National War Museum. We also discuss the upcoming Petawawa Late War tournament and the lists we are looking to field. I also pulled the pin on backing the new Heavy Gear Kickstarter, so we talk about that and other games, along with "Kickstarting" in general.

More information about the Heavy Gear Kickstarter can be found here :

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/heavygearblitz/heavy-gear-blitz-war-for-terra-nova-starter-set

We hope you enjoy the episode as we plan to have a follow up pod cast right after the Petawawa Late War Tournament in two weeks - so stay tuned!

Episode 3 :

'When in Rome...' FOW Italians for EW and MW Part I

"You lookin' at me??" <DeNiro voice>

So from my good friend Andrew/Twinlinked from the podcast, I have finally convinced him to let go of his Italians.  I am a sucker for those weird wacky armies (Free French, 21 Pzr Bathtubs, etc) so why not trade my unbuilt Canadians for these guys.  Most of the were built, but in varying states of disrepair.   I also bought a few more tanks and things, and am still awaiting a Falco biplane.

 

Here is most of them built.. the used stuff was in a tan glossy undercoat which I will have to cover to match the rest.

Weekend Gaming and Painting

Saturday saw a few of the guys get together at my place for a little bit of gaming and a quiet refuge for Dennis to paint his Italians. With lots of food, beer and some video games to pass the time. Weather up here is starting to get colder and the leaves are off the trees, so no more gaming in the workshop until 2015!

Painting?? Nope. I ended up playing a game of 'Fighting Withdrawal' against Andrew instead.

More Than Just Tanks

This weekend saw Brett and myself take on Sauron's evil minions in an attempt to learn how to play Lord of the Rings LCG. I'm a little late once again to the party of what's good and what isn't in the realm of newer games. It normally takes a lot of research and a little bit of risk when it comes to buying board games or card games these days. A lot of what's out there is very expensive and a lot of the time, not very good.

Episode Two!

We've been busy as of late and managed to sit down to discuss Game Summit and Geek Market here in Ottawa. We also dive into Flames of War lists, upcoming tournaments and the future of printed books vs. the new digital age being entered by Battlefront. Our own resident expert talks about some of the changes to World of Tanks!! As usual, drop us an email or comment on our newest podcast. We really do appreciate you listening and wanting more!

Listen to Episode 2 here or download it from the Podcast page.


Cheers,

There is NO Escape!

In this weeks installment of Friday Night Fights, a small group of us played Escape From Colditz. It's a board game that came out in the mid 1970's, it's creator was a prisoner at Colditz Castle during WW2. Colditz Castle is located in Eastern Germany, and has existed for a thousand years! It became a prisoner of war camp at the beginning of the war in 1939 and was in use right up until April 1945. The board game is loosely based on the layout of Colditz and the premise of the game is to escape to Allied territory using any means necessary.

The cover art has changed over the years, a Swastika appears on the first run of the game, but was later replaced by an Imperial Eagle.

"My Anaconda don't want None" ELITE: Dangerous

 View out the 'Moon Roof' of my Eagle MK III, staring at Freeport Dock in the Anarchy system of LP-98-132.  Note the planet's rings.. which you can fly close to, and see they are individual asteroids.. and you can pick one.. drop gear and LAND on it if you like!

 

So now for something completely different, I have been playing some Elite: Dangerous beta lately, and got together with Clockwerks from http://clockwerk-warriors.blogspot.ca/  Its basically a space game where you can do what you want, except you have to fly your ship (rather than click stuff like in EVE) including docking from hollow cube stations.  We decided to get some testing in vs NPCs, though we can at any time play vs 'the world' and possibly get ganked by player pirates, especially in Anarchy zones such as Freeport.

 

Speaking of, as I was lifting off to follow Clockwerks, I saw this Anaconda lifting off from pad 02.  Its a large ship, and bristling with weapons, we are in small light fighters..

The NPC Anaconda AI barely squeezes it through the space/air force field barrier slot on the inside of Freeport Dock

 

View from the outside, these things spin to make artificial gravity, and you can see the blue forcefield aka "the mailslot" where ships have to come in and out, and in the background the Milky Way and Large Magellenic Cloud can be seen.  The game has 160,000 of the closest stars to Earth in the game, and will procedurally generate the rest of the Galaxy.  The background stars are the ones around your current location.. so the constellations don't match our night sky in this case. 

 Well Looky Looky..

After a few rounds of killing NPC fighters defending a huge NPC capital ship, we came across an Anaconda (I like to think it was the same one we saw earlier) with some fighter escort.  I killed the wingmen, Clock engaged, and while it hit with a heck of a punch, if we stayed out of its front arc, only the turrets could hit us.  We kited it and finally killed the thing.  No loot though :(

Unlike EVE, even when traversing large distances within a solar system, you can steer your ship and go where you want to.   Here I am travelling at 12.8 x the speed of light, following Clockwerks (small blue comet looking blue dot center of the HUD)    This is still in Beta, but is a freaking blast.  Recommended you run a joystick and throttle.. since this is more of a sim than a space shooter..

 

So yeah.. this is my guilty pleasure when not painting my Panzer IVs like I ought to be!!

 

 

Podcast Episode One

After a successful first podcast, Episode Zero introduced our little group as we dove into Flames of War and other topics. We've just wrapped up episode 1 and it should be up this weekend! Myself, Tristan and Dennis dive right into Canadian Nationals, upcoming events and even some retro video game chatter.

We'd really like to hear from you, if you download this episode and have something to say, please drop a comment below. We look forward to bringing you more Canadian content and our perspective on all things Flames of War, tournaments and other interesting topics! Thanks for listening!

Here it is!!



EDIT BY MATT VARNISH:

Here are some pics I took of Cdn Nationals.. just for giggles.

 Table set up on Friday (Thanks Petawawa crew!)

A New Venture, An Old Army!

Hey guys, JO here again to show you what's been on my workbench the last few days. I was getting bored with my current Space Marine Bike Project so wanted to do something new. 

After looking around my hobby room I found inspiration in the oddest of places, my box of incredibly old 40k models. 

So started a plan to make a small (1000 points) Ultramarine army using only my old Rogue Trader Era marines.  Here are the first two guys I've managed to get done:

A chaplain and librarian to start, but I have a command squad based and ready for paint and 2 tactical squads assembled. I have to locate my old Mk I rhinos in my bitz closet but they will be next on the build queue. 

Thanks for looking and you can follow more updates on my twitter feed @MartyRayHart

Cheers, 

JO

Canadian Nationals 30-31 Aug 2014

This event marks the first time a Nationals has 'truly' been held North of the border. The title of the event was Eastern Canadian Nationals, the location was Ottawa. Downtown of Canada's capital city was the backdrop for a great event that almost never made it off the ground. A small group of players paved the way with their time and great risk to their pocket books to get this event out to the masses. 44 players total from all over Canada and the US came out to play in this event. Dave from Battlefront made the trip solo over the long weekend to ensure there were tables and terrain to use, a few out of town tables and terrain were also brought in to help out with the tournament.

 Players had lots of room between tables and chairs to sit on, a nice change from using a chair as a table for your army, dice, etc...

Warhammer 40k Batrep #s 5 & 6!

Well hot damn, its looking to be a busy time here at Dice Devils! We've managed to light a few fires and see continued content posted to the blog every few days! Heck its even tough finding room to squeeze in some things without bumping the other new content. We even have a new podcast! If you missed it, here it is again! That said, I know most of the Dice Devils crew has moved on from 40k, I'm back with renewed interest after starting to look at the game in another light. Despite the general negative sentiment we put out about 40k and Games Workshop in general, they still produce the best model, bar none, and have an amazing universe for us to play in. Without anymore chatter, here are a couple batreps I did over the last few weeks, the latter being a tourney prep game for a Tournament held a week or so ago at FDB Gatineau. Enjoy, and please comment if you like, hate or have a recommendation!

 Battle Report 5:

 

For the Emperor..... of France!

So, for anyone who has listened to our very first podcast will know that at Historicon 2014, we dabbled a bit into some historical 19th century action.   Ca$H and RKelly played a 10mm game, and I had been eyeballing this stuff for a while, and figured, why not?    The second wargame I ever played back when I was a kid was some chit-based napoleonics game, where I learned about the defensive square formation, artillery, and how a messenger from the General could be captured and cause a flank to fold because "you didn't get the memo"   almost 30 years later, its time to revisit that period.   The ruleset we decided on is Osprey Games' Fields of Glory, and we went with 15mm, since European buildings we have aplenty in our FoW terrain collections.  I had to be bad guys, so the French!  At the flea market, I was able to score an entire army, painted, for $90.  I had to buy just one Dragoons blister, and then paint those to match the pre-paints I bought, and I would be table-top ready.    Below are the pictures, fairly easy to paint just 12 cav models.

What's Next!?

As usual, I have been too busy to really concentrate on a Nationals list for the event that is a mere two weekends away....(should I have sent that in?)
I have been super busy with real life and have not had that much time to paint, play or really do anything other than maybe get out for a few hours on the weekend and go game hunting with Tristan. We've dusted off some of our old consoles and have started to add to our collections, tracking down some vintage stuff at flea markets and the odd retail store. I've also been pretty active on my Twitter account and getting into reading about all sorts of things that interest me. NASCAR, Flames of War, retro video games. Even managed to work a few extra hours of research into editing and making the podcast a success. The next episode will be cleaner and a little easier to follow, I did some up some intro and outro music as well.

Dice Devils Podcast!

We are LIVE!! We just finished putting the final touches on our podcast. We hope you enjoy it and come back for more. The plan was for us to have a simple, yet enjoyable format that discusses everything we're into. Flames of War will likely dominate the discussion, but it won't be overshadowing some new things coming down from HQ. Napoleonics, board games and some other topics are sure to come up! Be sure to contact us and let us know how you like the show. You can listen or download from the podcast link on the main page.

Tune In and Let Us Know How We're Doing!!

Follow us and the link will update on it's own. We will have a short post when we have more 'casts listed. We look forward to being a part of your spare time.

Listen to Episode ZERO here!

The In/Out music provided for free!

"Pump Sting" and "Funkorama"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Tournament at GameSummit 2014

Hi all, 

So here are the details for the Flames of War Tournament this year at GameSummit (www.www.gamesummit.ca)

Saturday, September 27th 2014
PALAIS DES CONGRÈS DE GATINEAU

(50, Maisonneuve Blvd, 3rd floor Gatineau (Hull sector) QC J8X 4H4 https://goo.gl/maps/s1ozT)

1650 points  - Late War
All approved 3rd Edition Books and PDFs.
3 Games, one of each mission type (Fair Fight, Mobile and Defensive)
Registration @ 9am, dice rolling at 10am (2 hrs per game). Finished up by 6pm.
Prizes for 1st,2nd,3rd, Best Painted and Best Sport 

Cost - $25*
*The arena is being moved into the room that held the geek market last time, and so will have its own registration desk and pass. This means that players buying their entry for the tournament includes entry into the event but only for the Arena and the market, however if people wish they can still buy a day/weekend pass but it is separate. 

Registration for the event should be on the GameSummit site in the next couple days. 20 spots ONLY! So register as soon as it's open. Please refer to our DiceDevils forum post for any Q&A.

See you there!

Something a little different

I have always been a gamer. Board games, PC games (dreaded DOS boot disks), consoles, you name it. So I have held on to some of my old consoles from my younger days, and recently pulled them out and started reminiscing and playing some games.

I am hooked.

I want to play more. I want to collect more. I mentioned this in passing to a couple of the lads, nostalgia ensued! We even ended up playing Turtles IV (Turtles in Time), Fatal Fury 2 and Street Fighter II Turbo last Friday on PhantomRescue's SNES.

So I started, over the last month or so, to check out flea markets and the like for some cheap additions to my meager selection of games.

So without further ado, here are some of my recent pickups :

Weekend of August 2-3

Long Weekend, Historicon Close Out and more!

Closing out my three part series on our trip down to Historicon, just some final thoughts more than anything. I got sidetracked by my new airbrush....can you blame me?!! All together it was a great event, the Flames of War Nationals certainly began a little later than expected, but Dave did a great job running it solo and we look forward to him running Canadian Nationals at the end of the month. This brings me full circle all the way to this weekend, where we had a holiday and as usual it was time for some gaming out at my place in the 'War Room'. I was getting tired of calling it the shop, not much work get's done out there....it's more of a fun place to chill out and listen to Split Infinity Radio.They're a great site and online radio station that plays to my inner geek. You can find them here SI RADIO

New Airbrush!!

So you're thinking about an airbrush. Maybe you want to get through that huge pile of minis that are just lying around in boxes, or maybe you're just looking to touch up some camo before a tournament. Tired of using brushes to try and get German camo patterns the way I would like them to look, I made a leap into something new. On my recent trip to Historicon, I had just finished buying some new buildings and some other gaming terrain. I had seen the Grex booth in vendor area and heard the name Grex airbrushes through other sources, but I had never seen one in action. After trying both the pistol grip 'Tritium' and the 'Genesis' models they had on their demonstration area, I bought 'Genesis.XSi3' with the compressor. I'll get to the compressor in more detail later, let's take a look at what you get in the kit.

Everything to get you started in one box!

Canadian Invasion Part 2

So Canada wins at the US Nationals. No, really. We scored a major victory when one of our very own won Best Painted Army this year at Historicon. Dennis 'MattVarnish' won with his German DAK army and came away with a nice plaque for his efforts. I'm not going to include all my games this year, but will highlight the ones that left the biggest impressions.  Once again this year, some of our crew managed to hook up and play against some of the 'Utah Boys', Mike managed to bring a few more with him this year and I'm pretty sure they'll be back next year. I played Mike in a game last year and got hammered, this year was a little different against Ryan.

Hold the Line Deployment

Fields of Glory - 15mm what?!?!

What am I doing?!?!  How did I get here?

It's a long story and it all kicked off a little over a week ago at Historicon (HMGS). A bunch of the Dice Devils crew made the 10+ hour drive down to Fredericksburg VA for this gaming convention. 6 of us were entered in the Mid War US Nationals tournament for Flames of War. This event will be covered by some of our other members on this site, so I will leave it to them, but suffice to say a great time was had!

So Napoleonics eh? Men, in their late 20s to 30s? No way. Not gonna happen. We are the lads that used to drool 40k! We play Warmachine, Infinity, FLAMES OF WAR - Not stuffy old cannons and muskets crap!

Well when you see this kind of thing in person...

it is hard to not get caught up in the idea of massed troops, and the defining moments of western civilization. Before I start sounding like a history professor, let's just agree that war gaming, regardless of the period, has an appeal that can easily draw fans of Sci-Fi to Ancients or Flames of War players to Napoleonics.

Canadian Invasion! Part 1

Once again July marks another successful trip down to Fredericksburg Virginia for Historicon 2014. Getting there was the easy part, waiting in line became the theme on the first day the doors were opened. I get you have a ton of volunteers who work at Historicon ensuring you have a good time and everything runs smoothly. Registration was only a small bump and just meant that even if you had your name in early, did not guarantee you would get through the queue quickly. This however, was the only small negative for me during the entire trip and is easily fixable by testing your registration process before the convention opens. This small bump was the ONLY negative for me the entire convention.

Old School Gaming

Wire Wire Pants on Fire

With the road trip departure time slowly approaching, I'm figuring I will have a few last minute things to do before heading out to Virginia. It looks like I have a few more barbed wire obstacles to build, maybe do a few more decals and then finally have a list ready for Historicon. The problem with my submitted list was that it lacked focus and was extremely weak when facing pretty much any other list. I'm looking forward to the tournament and not there to be over competitive, but I would like a win or two if I'm making the 10+ hour drive to come down there.

Adding armor of any sort in Mid War is crazy expensive, do you really want to drop the points on one tank? It can be killed by air, a lucky artillery strike or even get assaulted if you're not careful of what you're doing. I'm pretty much caught between these three choices, keeping in mind I can only build out of the models I have, and that's not much at the moment, I think Nebs, a few more Marders and some other essential German pieces are going to be bought on this next trip. I also need some more Australian blisters for my MW Africa Australians, if and when North Africa get's a proper re-write. I mean did we really need a re-vamped Grey Wolf this soon already? It was the first LW book I bought when I got into this game, and I have to see if the changes they made even effect any of my lists.

New Re-Worked Wire Obstacle

I was not happy with the way my first wire obstacles turned out, so with a little more time and some other materials, I went ahead and made this last night. I have a few more to make, but all together it didn't take too long to accomplish. The finer wire on the posts took a little more because of the wire itself, it's a plastic wire and has barbs on it to look authentic, so it was a little tricky to work with. I think with the lone wire on top, I'll place a post at each end to make it a little more 'full' on the base.

Low and High Wire Entanglement

So this is what I'm caught between playing, have a look and post a comment or drop me a line and let me know what you think about the three choices. They're not in any particular order. I'll be packed up today and have both with me, so I have a few more days to 'figure it out'. I'll let you know how it goes once again with a post-Historicon writeup.

First Choice Historicon
or
Second Choice Historicon
finally....after some mucking about in the late hours....
Third and Final One

Best Care Anywhere

Another night has passed until Historicon! Everyone is ready to get on the road and get to the hotel at a decent time to wind down from a long journey. Maybe you turn on the TV and start going through your list, you could open your case and find that your army has survived bouncing around in the back of a SUV for 11 hours. It's likely you won't encounter any issues and your models will be tournament ready once the dice start flying. Uh oh! You go through your stuff only to find a barrel broken, staff table tipped over or a .50 cal has come off a turret?
Enter your emergency kit! Like the combat medics, nurses (HELLO!) and doctors of WW2, you'll have to make do under pressure, get whatever treatment done with the fewest tools possible.

Simple $2 Tackle Box

Whatever you decide for storage, it should at least carry the minimum amount of paint, tools and glue to perform McGyver type repairs and touch ups. There is no point in over doing it, you can always find a paint color, tape measure or full model in case you forgot a turret on your buddies table after a last minute game before heading on the road. Remember your basic colors from kindergarten, black and white make grey! So if need be, experiment and you'll get a color close to the finish of that turret you replaced.

Storage For Spare Barrels, Stowage, Antennaes, Flock etc...

Small items store better individually in divided areas or tucked away in a small plastic container or plastic sandwich bags. Ensure if you do get a top opening box, it has a lid with decent clips that won't pop open or have any gaps that will allow small bits to come out and get lost.

All Your Brushes, Files, Hand Drill and Hobby Knife Right On Top

You don't need to pack everything off your hobby desk! I don't even care if you leave the house with everything in the bottom of your pack or tucked away in a pocket of your army case. At least make an effort and who knows, you might even be asked by someone "Do you have....." and you can step up and say "Yeah, I brought one of those." Your brushes need to contain one flat, one fine tip, one for inking and one for dry brushing.

Simple Color Selection and Glue!

Let's talk about your paint for a second, you'll have no room for a spray can and likely painting outside in the humid July temperatures would be disastrous. Let's face it, at this point should you be priming models? I hope not. Your kit will likely contain: black, brown, green, yellow, ink of a medium tone and a light color for dry brushing. The yellow is a good one because it mixes well with any other colors to give different tones. It also happens to help if you have a desert or German armor to touch up, or maybe a light tone for hair or shoulder flashes.

Packed and Ready

I decided the baby blue trim was hardly worthy to be packed up for a war gaming convention, so I painted it black and then applied German Armor from the Flames of War line of paints! Leave your thoughts in the comment section below or hit me up in an email. I'll likely get one more post in before heading on the road, I hope you take this and run with it. It's not expensive to get together as you own everything already minus the box. Hope to see ya at Historicon!!

Matty

Aktionstationen!! (Action Stations!)

Last year, I was more prepared! I had already finished my army, had a partner for doubles on Thursday and knew Historicon in 2013 was going to be fun! This year it's a little different.

A'LARM!!!!

If you've never seen Das Boot, then you are missing out. It's all subtitles and it's a long movie, but worth watching for WW2 buffs. It also kind of sums up how things are going for me at the moment. Action stations indeed.....

Finishing Touches

The bottom line is that I am not playing in the doubles event on Thursday, no one in my group wanted to play 9 games of Flames of War in 3 days and thought checking out the rest of the 'con would be worthwhile. I think after some thought, I agree to a certain extent. I'd be more than happy to play in this event again this year, as Eric from I-95 does an excellent job and runs a top notch event. It will however give me time to heckle Chris, Vic, and some of the other new friends I made last year while gaming. I'm sure the favor will be returned once Nationals starts on Friday. Right.....so I got my HMGS membership, I'm going to try and attend at least one more event during the year, that's the plan so far....I did miss the pre-registration though. I've been busy with work and life in general getting some stuff done around here. Up to and including working on getting my Pzr IV H in World of Tanks. Also known as World of Not Painting.....so worth it though!

Supply Truck (Converted Sd. Kfz. 9 'FAMO')

Since when did all the paint on vehicles come out of the same can? I'm ready and able to get some of my new armor on the table, but because I have become a little better at painting, I have also been doing some modelling. Creating from scratch is a lot of fun, it just takes a little more time. In this case, I have models painted already that fit into my list I can't see repainting them simply to make my army look 'uniform'......I've become a better painter and can't help some of my older models looking a little worse for wear. You'll find I am a master at basing, dressing up and adding to my models, so you won't even notice. (I guess you know now.....)

Stage ONE-TWO-THREE

I wanted to create some barbed wire templates and worked hard doing research and using some of my own experience in setting up, crossing or avoiding such obstacles. From top to bottom, it's a rubber mat cut into 8"x2" strips, grass mat glued onto it and desert or brown flock placed on it during step two. Step three is a simple set of posts, low wire, high wire entanglements covered off by two strips of concertina wire. Anyone who over thinks barbed wire has never worked with the stuff. Unless you are a fortified company or a unit that is in a strict defensive roll, this stuff is setup quick and doesn't take much time to do with practice. I find the 'Defensive' missions in FoW are 'hasty' style defensive missions, where you have very little time to react and do your best to place these 'obstacles'. You know they are not going to stop someone outright, but will hopefully slow them down.

A few unfinished teams I used for scale

I feel better now....it's after midnight by the time this post goes live, but all in all there is a little more time and we're seven days away from something I look forward to every year, might even have a chance to share some laughs and some Captain Morgan with some friends I haven't seen since last year. On a side note, you need to head over to YouTube and check out the official trailer for 'Fury', it's a WW2 tank movie, it comes out in November and looks awesome. The production managed to borrow some of the finest tanks out there for the film to add to its authenticity......including a TIGER!

Protection from what?....Ze Germans!?