Happy New Year - Let's Hope This One is Better!

Happy New Year everyone! With 2020 now finally receding into the rear-view mirror I can truly say I'm looking forward to the new year. To say that 2020 did not go to plan and did not live up to my hopes and expectations is an understatement of epic proportions. This has truly been a trying year for everyone. The pandemic has impacted us in ways both large and small. Very little good has come out of it with pain, difficulty, tragedy, and heartbreak being far more common. Above and beyond the pandemic, the United States especially is also suffering from an intense partisan divide which shows no signs of abating any time soon. My greatest hope is that we're able to begin to regain a sense of normalcy as the vaccines roll out and people can begin to resume their normal lives, but we have a long way to go.

Happy New Year - Year in Review and Plans for 2020!

Happy New Year to everyone who takes the time to read this blog. I hope this next year will be joyous and productive for everyone! Every year I try to take a few minutes to reflect on the previous year and lay out some thoughts of what I may be working on for the next year. I didn't really do much of a "year end" retrospective for 2019, but I vowed to do better this time around!

Battlefront's Update from UK Game Day - My Take

So Battlefront had a big splash and presentation in the UK recently where they provided updates on everything from Flames of War to Team Yankee to Tanks (among other things I'm sure). The guys over at Breakthrough Assault have released some of the details for those of us in the rest of the world, and there is also a good write up at No Dice No Glory. From where I sit, the reveals are truly a mixed bag with some upcoming releases I'm excited about and others that sort of confirm some of my worst fears. So based on the summary in the No Dice No Glory Forum, let's hit a few of the high points!

Fate of a Nation - 1967, 1973, or Both - Jordanian Forces

So the first three installments of this series detailing the various force in the new Fate of a Nation game have caused quite a bit of discussion, and I already have some additional reference data coming my way. That means that there may be some future edits to the Israeli, Egyptian, and Syrian force tables for the 1967 and 1973 wars. That being said, I wanted to get something up for the Jordanians, even if it was an early draft to see if I can get some additional references to come out of the woodwork.

Jordan has always been in a fairly unenviable position in the Arab world. They've continued to look West for aid and support, even as many of their neighbors looked to the Soviet Bloc. This preference can be seen in a lot of their equipment, and in their relations with their neighbors during the inter-war years. As such, most of Jordan's equipment firmly dates to the 1967 Six Day War, as they were most integral to that conflict. Jordan only reluctantly came to Syria's aid late in the Yom Kippur War, and only with one or two Armored Brigades.

Unfortunately as the table above shows, details about the force organization of the forces Jordan sent to Syria in the 1973 War are sketchy. I have at least one photo of a Jordanian Centurion during that conflict, so I'm 100% comfortable saying that the 105mm armed version was definitely there. There are wide reports of Jordanian artillery being involved in attacks as well. I'll continue to dig and hopefully clear some of the "yellow" out of the chart over the next few weeks!

Fate of a Nation - 1967, 1973, or Both - Syrian Forces

Like the Egyptians, the Syrian experience in the Yom Kippur / October War was drastically different than the earlier Six Day War. In 1973, the Syrians were on the offensive and managed to recapture a fair portion of the Golan Heights threatening northern Israel itself before the Israelis counter-attacked and force the Syrians out yet again. As such the equipment used and available in 1967 and 1973 differs slightly when playing the newest version of Fate of a Nation.

I've gone through the new book and worked to identify which formations and equipment would have been available during each war. Bear in mind, however, that the new game is not only meant to be played with what ever mix of equipment you choose, but it is also points compatible with the new 'Nam game, so you can mix and match (Israeli vs. NVA anyone?). Therefore any segregation of forces based on Six Day War or Yom Kippur War is purely optional!

As you can see from the chart above, given their position in the Soviet orbit during the time period, Egypt and Syria shared a great deal of equipment. There are, however, a few units unique to each nation based on what they were able to obtain in the early post-colonial era.

Hopefully this chart will be helpful as you build your forces from Fate of a Nation.  I'll be adding Jordanian forces in the future as well as some modeling and painting guides.  Watch this space!

Edit June 25, 2018 - Removed BTR-60 as a 1967 option - Syria does not appear to have purchased the AFV until 1970 based on better references than were originally available.

Fate of a Nation - 1967, 1973, or Both - Egyptian Forces

As mentioned in an earlier post, in the new Fate of a Nation rules, it isn't always clear which units were used in which conflict (or if they were used in both). A lot of that detail was originally included in the unedited unit flavor text (where available), but due to space constraints some of it was lost.

In this installment we'll look at the Egyptian forces available in the new Fate of a Nation rules, and which units were available for which war. Again, I'd like to emphasize that segregating the forces into 1967 or 1973 organizations is purely optional! When actually playing the game, feel free to mix and match as much as you'd like as the book is written to be used that way. This chart merely gives the player an option to focus if that is how you'd like to play the game.

In the 1967 War, the Egyptian Positions were in many cases more static and lacked the advanced man-portable anti-tank rockets like the AT-3 "Sagger". In 1973, the Egyptians were focused on attack, and both their infantry and armored formations were organized with assault on the Bar-Lev line and establishing a foothold in the Sinai as their top priority.

Hopefully this chart will be helpful. There are a few more entertaining, though rare, Egyptian units like the heavily modified T-34/100 which aren't in the book that I hope to see as "unofficial" cards some day. As before, I'm hoping to get some painting and modeling information up in the future as well.  Enjoy!

Edit June 25, 2018:  Removed BTR-60 from 1967 options. Egypt may have had some in country, but they were a very early model and not deployed. Standard model not imported until ~1970 along with Syria.

Updating Your Spandrels!

One of the original releases for Team Yankee was the Soviet "Spandrel" or 9P148 Konkurs. It serves as a light anti-tank asset for your Warsaw Pact forces, and is typically fielded in groups of two or three - you get three in the AT Platoon box set (TSBX11). Because of its light armor and inability to fire on the move, the Spandrel is generally best used in ambush or from prepared positions with some cover. As a part of my overall East German force, I decided I needed a unit of these cute little armored cars.

The Perils of Kickstarter - Over Promising - Under Delivering

Crowdfunding and Kickstarter has been a cornerstone of game development for several years now, and I last touched on some trends about two years ago in a blog post. Only a few days after that post, one of the miniature games I'd supported, All Quiet on the Martian Front (AQMF), abruptly shut down and its owners declared bankruptcy. While that particular property was eventually purchased and its new owners are trying to make a go of it, what looked initially to be a game with a broad player base now appears to firmly be a niche property. AQMF isn't alone in encountering difficulties in fulfilling their campaign obligations, as now the Robotech Kickstarter, which had been struggling to produce "Wave 2" for over a year, has finally thrown in the towel in a major way.

As of yesterday, Palladium announced that not only will "Wave 2" not be produced, but that the company's 30 year old license to produce Robotech games (role playing and otherwise) has expired and will not be renewed. This means that they'll effectively be having a firesale for existing product and not making any additional product. You can read the details of the announcement in the link above, but ultimately the failure of both the AQMF and Robotech Kickstarter campaigns come down to poor planning, poor management, and a "wave" strategy which can be Kickstarter speak for "Ponzi scheme" in many instances.

T-72 Adventures in Photography

I'm still playing around with the settings and lenses I have available for my Nikon because I wanted to go for more depth of field in the photos. I think I'm making some progress here:

I'll continue to experiment and will post the final "recipe" once I get everything ironed out...

East German T-72 Company - DONE!

My NVA (East German) T-72 company is finally painted, weathered, and the lot. I even worked out getting some decent photos taken of them, though I still need to work with the light levels a bit to get all of the details to pop. Going back over the photos, I likely have one or two details to add back in (haven't hollowed out all of my gun tubes yet), but that's minor compared to what it's taken to get here from where the started out.

Red tanks on the prowl

Markings for My NVA Vehicles - Peddinghaus Comes Through!

Good markings, numbering, and insignia can make or break an modeling or miniature building project. In the past I've created my own decals and markings for projects like the Soviet 1st Mechanized Corps for my lend-lease Soviet army as well as my 502 Schwere Panzer-Abteilung force. It is, however, a fairly tedious process and I hadn't intended to make my own markings for my East German force as Battlefront produced decals (TY014) included in the T-55AM2 kit, and available separately. Unfortunately I've had many issues with my decals cracking and fragmenting, so I went in search of alternatives.

Battlefront Decals - I'd hoped these would work, but have had several issues...

Peddinghaus decals in Germany has a very nice set of numbers and markings for East German vehicles in 1/87 scale which I'd picked up previously, but they're just a bit big for the 15mm (1/100 scale) Battlefront miniatures. I contacted Peddinghaus to see if they could or would run up enough 1/100 versions of the decals to make a go of the overall project, and needless to say, they came through in a BIG way! The photo below shows the original set of markings with numbers in 1/87 at top left, the Battlefront decals at right, and the 1/100 roundels at the bottom.

NVA Build Log - Painting Progress on T-72 and BMP Formations

I know it's been a while since I posted an update on my East Germans for Team Yankee. Rest Assured I've been working on them steadily, and I'm finally to the point where I can show some progress on the miniatures. They still have a ways to go before they're fully painted, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it isn't a train!

Because full modulation colors don't exist for the NVA late 1980's camouflage scheme, I decided early on to go with the Black and White technique using Ammo of Mig paints. This is in effect a pre-shading technique using their proprietary thinner which makes the colored paints semi-transparent better preserving the pre-shading. I started with the T-72's and the BMP's because they were fairly numerous (15 of each), but even at that I think they only represent about half of the force or a little less.

BMP and T-72 tanks with the black and white applied

Armor of the Arab-Israeli Wars - or - Mike's Visit to Yad La-Shiryon Part 4

With the new update of Fate of a Nation on the horizon for Team Yankee, I wanted to pick up where I left off with my photos from the Latrun armor museum.  In this installment we move on to the self-propelled guns. As with any modern force, Israel has required self-propelled artillery capable of keeping up with their armored advances. The IDF has used a variety of models over the years, and this entry will detail several of them including models purchased outright and those converted by the IDF itself into unique vehicles.

Known in Israeli usage as the Romach (spear or lance), the M107 175mm SPG is a fairly devastating platform. Used by the U.S. army through the 1960's and 1970's, the M107 lacks the enclosed fighting compartment seen on many self-propelled guns and howitzers. The reason for this is because of the gun's extreme range (21mi / 34km in its standard configuration), it is generally not expected to come under direct ground assault. The IDF used the type to great effect during the 1973 Yom Kippur War using the gun to target Egyptian SAM batteries in the south and to shell Damascus in the north once Israeli forces had broken through in the Golan. These were later upgraded with new ammunition increasing their range to 50km.

The M107 175mm SPG and a few of its friends

State of the Blog and Hobby

So it's been a while since I posted here. In terms of getting miniatures done, unfortunately what you see is what you get, I've gotten effectively nothing done in the past three months. There is a simple reason for that, I've been spending literally all of my time getting the new house ready for habitation. Our part of the process seemed fairly simple - emphasis on the word "seemed" - but interior painting (which we did sign up for) also involved all of the interior caulking on the trim (which we didn't realize we'd signed up for), so schedules and timelines sort of went out the window. However, we just recently got the keys, so now the move-in process begins! I'll have photos of the new work-room once I get moved in.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've likely seen that Flames of War is getting ready to release its Fourth Edition in the next few weeks. Unlike previous edition changes, 4th Edition appears to be a major revamp of the rule set with many similarities to the Team Yankee ruleset. Several recent podcasts over at WWPD have detailed some of the rules, and as usual with any rules changes the reviews have been mixed, though the camps seem fairly polarized at this point. I honestly haven't digested the scope of the changes yet, so I'll have to play through several games to understand the impact

Speaking of Team Yankee, the first new Warsaw Pact nation has been released for the mid-80's World War III gaming system. I'd already started building some Soviet forces for TY, but when I found out the East Germans were going to be released I decided to wait on painting them up until the NVA rules were released. I'm still working on finding the right colors to use for the three tone East German paint scheme (which technically wasn't used until the late-80's - but this is a hypothetical game anyway!), and I'll post a painting guide once I have it together.

I've also been writing up a little something fun for the WWPD blog - keep an eye out toward the end of the week for some great photos. I've been doing some writing in the background, and I'll let you know when those start getting close to hitting the wild!