Tournament Organizer

One of the biggest challenges at any gaming tournament is quickly and easily moving your army from game to game.  If you pack everything back into the carrying case, you frequently lose precious gaming time because you have to get it back out again, for me frequently in multiple levels of a battle foam box.

Chris Fretts came up with a really nice tournament box option for flames of war.  The top of the box has ample room for your army and even some ground work to show off your nicely painted army when the painting judges come by.  The box includes a drawer and a couple of slots that can hold you small rulebook, army lists, PDF's, dice, templates, and markers.

I decided to do mine in a generic U.S. Army paint scheme of Olive Drab with a few stencils.  I've been experimenting with various sprays and stencils and this gave me another chance to try out a few techniques (pictures below).  I'll likely end up hitting it with a final protective coat as well.

Had to add the gag about "allow for expansion" because who really has enough FoW miniatures?  Really? 
So far I think he's only done one batch of these, but if he ever does another batch I strongly recommend any tourney player think about picking one up - or building something similar themselves. 
 

Mystery Project Update!

So here's some more photos of the first of the two mystery projects...  At this point people should be pretty close to getting it.

 

 

The basic hull is together, but I still need to do some clean up - I'll get it posted later this week... :D

Building the 39(H) OP

A while back I built a 39(H) OP vehicle for the 21. Panzer Division Beutestug list for a friend.  I was building one for myself at the same time, but other projects ended up taking priority and I never ended up finishing it.  I received several requests for additional ones, but didn't have the time to hand build each one, but I may have found a way to make it work.

Here's the original I built a while back:

 

 

I'll be posting some pictures of the "new and improved version" - along with hopefully a cast - later this week. 

502 Schwere Panzer Abteilung Update

I'm finally making progress on my 502. Schwere Panzerabteilung army... since I have a MW tournament coming up in October.  The point value is a bit different than I've run in the past at 1675, but I'm going to go with it.  I'm modeling the unit in early 1943 before the organizational changes characteristic of that year take effect.  As such I'm going with a purely winter themed army. 

The list I'm going with is here:

HQ: Command Tiger I E + Sd Kfz 9 (400 points)

Combat 1: Tiger I E, Panzer III N (495 points)
Combat 2: Tiger I E (385 points)

Support:

Grenadier Platoon = Command Panzerknacker SMG team, 8X Rifle/MG Teams (205 points)

Rocket Launcher Battery = Command SMG Team with field car; AT section with 3.7cm PaK36 with Stielgranate, 4X 15cm NW41 launchers with 4X Sd Kfz 11 half-tracks. (190 points)

Total = exactly 1675 points 

Yes - I know it isn't great, but any time you take a Tiger list you're dropping nearly 1200 points in your compulsory choices before you get to add the gravy.  Given the list lacks recon I figured I'd just go with some smoke and some decent infantry to cover the tanks.

Here's a couple of pictures of the first Tiger I going for its final priming:

 

The initial Tiger I's used by the unit didn't even have the hangers for the side skirts.  I'll have a total of two initial production and one of the early production variants (which also requires a little work).  I'll post photos of the early Tiger I later this week once I get some of the detailing supplies I need to finish it up.

Guess the Mystery Project!

So I have my equivalent of the skunk works going here at home and have a couple of secret projects I'm slowly working through (in between finishing up that castable 39(H) OP, which is actually fairly close now!).  Rather than simply spill the beans and say "hey - this is what I'm working on" - I figured it would be more fun to do  a slow reveal on the project.  So here are a couple of pictures of the plans and the initial pieces of styrene sheet cut to shape. 

 

 

If anyone can guess it from this, I'll eat my hat, but as time goes by I'll post more photos.  I don't think it'll take too long once the hull starts coming together for people to get this one!

Sorry for the Absence!

Things have been more than a little crazy around here.  I have been working on a lot of Flames of War stuff, but not anything I could post to the blog.  Some of it I still can't!  As to some of it, unless you've been living under a rock you know that Battlefront is getting ready to release a small supplement covering the 1967 Arab-Israeli War with Wargames Illustrated.  Given this is how the Viet Nam range started, I have high hopes for the future!

The chaps over at Model Dads Blog did a nice video review of it.  I wrote an overview of the 1967 War and another article covering the armor of the Six Day Conflict for the magazine.  Needless to say that cut into my painting time, but any time I get an opportunity to actually write, I take it!

I've got a MW tournament coming up in late October and I've taken the opportunity to try and get my 1942 Schwere Panzerkompanie together.  This is a project I started back in January and I'm now actually finally getting around to finishing it.  Look for a separate article soon!

559. Schwere Panzerjäger Abteilung Wirbelwinds

The last month or so has been fairly busy with little time for actually working on my own miniature projects, but for the past week or so I've been able to start getting caught up a bit.  The Jagdpanthers detailed last month are ready for priming.  Also ready for priming are the Wirbelwind anti-aircraft tanks that will (hopefully) keep marauding fighter-bombers away from the big kitties.  The Battlefront Wirbelwind (GE165) is a very nice miniature on its own, but given that many Wirbelwind were converted from older Panzer IV hulls, there is a lot of room for variety.  Duske, Greenland, and Terlisten's Nuts and Bolts covering the Flakpanzer IV also contains a wealth of information and inspiration as well, not just for the Wirbelwind, but for the Ostwind as well.

Given I'm planning a unit of three  vehicles, I wanted to provide it with some variety.  As I mentioned before, the actual miniature itself is fairly nice, so I started with one just out of the box.  The model goes together nicely with the standard amount of clean-up on the tracks and the Flakvierling.

The Nuts and Bolts work also shows some that have deleted the vision ports on the front sides of the hull, but retain the single muffler/exhaust layout.  Figuring this would be simple enough to do, I just removed the ports, sanded the areas flat, and added a weld line for the front plate.

 

 

Finally is the one where I need my head examined.  I wanted to have at least one Wirbelwind with zimmerit.  Rather than use the hull from the Wirbelwind (which had some casting issues) I confiscated a hull from a Panzer IV H to use as the basis.  Unfortunately the Panzer IV H miniature doesn't have zimmerit on the hull sides.  To correct this, I removed the details from the right side and left side of the hull (except for the spare wheel bracket, which appears on several Wirbelwind).  I used miliput to not only fill the slots for the schurtzen (which do not appear on the Wirbelwind) but for the zimmerit as well. I textured the miliput with a modified Trumpeter 1/72nd scale zimmerit tool, and the results were fairly striking.

I also added zimmerit to the front and rear fenders using miliput as well.  On the entire model, I had to replace many of the molded in details with scratch-built styrene copies.  This includes the vision ports, jack block, and a few other minor details.  I took the bins from the defective Wirbelwind miniature and added them directly to the Ausf H hull.  The end result is a fairly convincing early production variant

The miniatures are now ready for priming.  You'll note I've left the heads off of the crew - the guns themselves are also not permanently affixed yet either.  I want to paint both of those separately before I glue them in place.  I'm also working on several "updated" Sturmgeschutz III Ausf G for this army (I'll need a total of six), so watch this space for the insanity on that particular project.