US M10 Tank Destroyers

I have bags of 15mm WW2 US forces sitting on my table, just waiting for assembly and paint. I like painting US armor and vehicles, as there's nothing much to it.  These M10 tank destroyers are from Old Glory's Command Decision line.  They went together easily and the paint job was quick. 

There are a few more models than I need to make a single TD unit.  I'll be using four in a Flames of War army, and the other two can sit with my individually based 15mm WW2 armies. I just need to put together a few more jeeps to complete a mid-war TD platoon, or I could get the armored cars for a late war force.

So that was a nice, quick project. I'm not sure what I'll move onto next.

FoW: US Rifle Company, North Africa

Inspired by yesterday's post, I decided it's high time that I at least take a group photo of all my Flames of War rifle company models.  I started this project three years ago. But after making that post my blogging halted. I never followed up.

Fact is I continued to add to the rifle company and started to play some games. But then my game group went cold on FoW, as did I.  However, when they picked it up again, I remained on the fence until recently.  I'll share my thoughts on why that happened a little later.  First, here is the entire rifle company.

So everything looks like a bunch of dots.  But it took me 30 minutes to set this up, photograph, and then put away. I'm not taking another picture!  Besides, there's not a lot of detail on 15mm figures anyway.  These are all Old Glory Command Decision models.  Not a single Battlefront item besides the bases!  Here's what you're looking at:

Front square: Company Commander, 2iC, and two bazooka teams
Front row: Three rifle platoons of three squads each, commander and bazooka teams attached
Middle row (from left to right): Weapons platoon of 4 LGMs & three 60mm mortars; 81mm mortar platoon, Machine gun platoon, all with command teams.
Back row: two 105mm Howitzer platoons, with command, spotters, staff teams, and jeeps.

 That's about 1600pts or close to it.  If I add in a Sherman tank platoon, I get over 1700pts.

You're probably wondering why I invested so much time and energy into this game if I didn't play it.  Actually, I did play it.  I wanted a combined arms force, which this army represents.  I have a lot of stuff going on here.  But ultimately I think that's what killed my interest.

If you are a new player to Flames of War, I would strongly suggest you don't start with an army like this one.  There are soooooo many special rules and peculiarities for all of these platoons.  It's crazy.  When I first started playing, I couldn't finish a game.  I thought it was a fluke, but every game just ended with things unresolved.  There were too many rules to learn.  I began to think the game was fiddly and so rules heavy that it was unplayable.  Then the rule book didn't help and we had many divergent interpretations of the rules. This just further confirmed the game was not all that good.

So after a space of several years, I had forgotten everything about the game.  But the feeling of dislike lingered. I started playing with friends again, and we stuck to tanks only.  Oddly, I couldn't pinpoint anything too bad about playing just tanks.  After playing a few more games and then watching a few others, I began to realize that just concentrating on tanks made getting the game basics a lot easier. I started to enjoy it.

Now I understand that we all had taken a big bite of a complicated game. This was no trouble for some.  But for me it was more than I wanted to deal with. For now, I'm sticking with tanks and rotating in other unit types. This way, I learn all the special rules in manageable bits.  That's how I'd recommend a new player approach FoW.  You could also just play infantry only, getting down those rules before worrying about tanks, recon, artillery, air support, ambushes, transports, and on and on and on. 

So this force will not likely hit the table for a while yet.  But I expect parts of it will. I even intend to add some new units to this, like AT guns.  One day I may be playing the whole thing like I originally intended.

Adding to the Flames

Flames of War is a game that I've wanted to like for a long time. Everyone else seemed to really enjoy it, but I couldn't get into it.  However, recently, I think I've turned the corner with this game.  I find myself looking forward to the next opportunity to play it.  In fact, I'm adding units and thinking of trying new things.  Hence, the subject of today's post.

I've been playing a US tank company for North Africa.  It seems my gaming group has landed at the oddball points total of 1625, and now that has become our group standard.  I thought I had that many points in tanks but discovered I had miscalculated.  So to remedy that, I added in two recon platoons.  Here they are in all their reconnaissance-doing glory.

 I basically just had to add two M2 half tracks to make these platoons.  I snagged the infantry stands out of my rifle company.  The jeeps are from Old Glory's Command Decision line, and I already had them as well.  Since these two platoons are pointed so cheaply, adding them still doesn't stretch me to 1625pts.  But I plan to drop one recon platoon and add another Sherman, which will put me almost to the exact mark.

Here's the full Tank Company as it is today, without the extra Sherman tank.

You can't see too many details in this photo.  What I have in the front are the Company Commander and 2iC in M5A1 Stuart tanks.  Flanking the recon platoons are two Sherman tank platoons.  Tucked into the back is another light tank platoon of M5A1 Stuart tanks.  The Stuarts are also from Old Glory, in case anyone is interested.

What I like about this force is that it is compact and very portable.  For the most part, it was very inexpensive to buy.  I'm finding the game easier to learn by just playing with tanks.  Adding these recon platoons will introduce a new facet of the game to me.  I wonder how they'll play and how to best use them.  I gave each platoon bazooka teams, since I'll be playing other tank companies.  Otherwise, these guys won't have much to say on the battlefield.

As I mentioned, I have a full US Rifle Company for North Africa.  I'll break out those models and take a picture of them.  I have never documented my Flames of War armies.  So I'll get to that soon.

Plastic Soldier Company Tanks

It was a busy week for me, not leaving much time for working on my models.  With the time I had, I finished my box of Plastic Soldier Company 15mm Sherman tanks.  These five Shermans complete my Flames of War 1500pt US Tank Company for North Africa.

 I've been lukewarm on FoW.  It's a game in which I've actually invested a lot of time and money. But every time I play it, I'm just "whatever" about it.  I think I want to love it, but just finding it hard to do.  I have a 1500pt US Rifle Company as well.  So the game does have my interest.  I just need something to click.  I think playing a tank company might be the ticket for me.

The models themselves, two close ups of the tank commander and a tank, and then all 5:

At first I absolutely hated these models.  I found them fiddly and with unclear assembly instructions.  There are a lot of options and not all options go together.  They do show you what you're supposed to do.  But somehow that is not enough.  Putting the tracks together sucked.  It wasn't until the final two whenI learned the "Tao of Track Assembly."  Once I got it, the tracks went together easily.  I guess I'm prepared for future purchases.

I also used a slightly different paint scheme on these, using a yellow-green for highlighting.  This makes them looks slightly different from my other tanks.  But overall, I think I'll use this scheme for all US armor.

Following Along with Flames of War

Every since my days of playing SSI's incredible computer game, Steel Panthers, I've been interested in WWII battle games. I continued with Talonsoft's excellent West Front, East Front, and Pacific Front series after SSI went under. All these games played exactly like tabletop mini games. So you would think that once I went into minis that I'd start with a WWII game. However, I wasn't able to find any WWII rules that people I played with were using consistently.

These days, however, the local gaming group has decided to go into Flames of War. I'm totally thrilled with this. From what I've seen right now, it plays just like Steel Panthers and the Talonsoft series! The small 15mm size is actually pretty cool, too. The models remind me of the soldiers I played with as a kid. And anything I can do to make me feel like a kid again is OK in my book!

When I played my computer games, I used to play Germans all the time. But for the tabletop game I've went with a US Army rifle platoon. I've got about 600 points worth of stuff right now. I'm still figuring out how the game works and what else I should get to up my army size. I guess that will all come with time. For now, here's the current state of my army. I'm excited to get these guys painted and on the table!