Flames of Nerd: 2020

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

West German TPz Fuchs Armored Personnel Carrier

Resin and metal builds with lots of little hand tools to paint, the top-mounted missile launchers are magnetized.

Crisp details all around, these were nice to paint.

Two units for the Pioniers to drive around in!

West German Marder Roland FlaRakPz 1

A pair of resin/metal AA Marders, simple to paint but the turret is a bit top-heavy.

Had to take some liberties with the decals so they would sit better.

More West German Marder 1 A2 IFVs

One more unit of Marder IFVs.

So many Marders. Could be worse, could be Soviets!

West German Leopard 2A4 Company

These are all-plastic models from Battlefront and were fairly simple to paint. I painted up two HQ tanks and two units of four tanks.

HQ tanks, not much for stowage on these.

All ten, ready to rumble.

West German Leopard 1A4

A single Leopard I, resin tracks were pretty beat up unfortunately.

This panzer is late to the party but I matched it up with the other Leopards I painted previously.

More West German Panzergrenadiers for Team Yankee

I finished the second half of a large commission for a friend of mine, Team Yankee West Germans from the Leopard book. Had to try and match some colors on these infantry, need to start writing that stuff down!

One more unit, plus a few extra small stands I was asked to paint.

Sunday, June 7, 2020

Japanese Type 94 TK Tankettes and Type 97 Te-Ke

These little tankettes can be brought as part of the HQ unit in Manchurian lists, and will go nicely with Hal's Type 89s. They're so small! Battlefront models.

I also painted up a single Type 97 Te-Ke tankette to go with a pair that I painted for Hal a few years ago. This one is from Peter Pig.

japanese-chi-ha-and-ha-go-tanks.html

Went with a similar style camouflage to the Type 89s

Tiny tanks with only a MG. What could go wrong?

Type 97 Te-Ke joins the party!

Japanese Type 89 I-Go Platoon

I painted a unit of Type 89 medium tanks for my friend Hal and used an early style paint scheme with ochre dividing lines. These boxy tanks had quite a few parts, but went together with little effort. I freehanded the camouflage and think it came out ok. Models by Battlefront.

A Four-color pattern was used in the late 1930's and had been phased out by the beginning of the Pacific War. Hal plans on using these for Manchurian battles.

I tried to freehand a regimental symbol I spotted online, think it came out ok.

Platoon party shot!

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Polish C2P Artillery Tractors

These little armored tow vehicles were the nicest models in the bunch, too bad the rules for transport in Flames of War these days will probably keep them off the table. Unknown maker.

Missing the windscreens, but none were provided.

Polish wz.34 Armored Car Platoon

Some reconnaissance, this time the wz.34 armored cars in all-metal. Two are from True North, not sure about the other one.

Unit leader has a 37mm gun, MGs for the other two.

Polish TKS Tankette Platoon

These tiny little tankettes were easy to paint, but the gun barrels on the 20mm-armed leaders were impossible to keep straight. True North all-metals, except one that's unknown and slightly different than the others.

First Platoon with the slightly more detailed oddball.

Tiny tankette swarm!

Polish Vickers Mark E Platoon

One unit of imported Vickers Mark E tanks, again from True North.

I made the unit leader stand out for these guys, had to cover up some already started camo work.

Polish 7TP Dual Turret Platoon

One of the platoons of 7TPs were the older twin-turret MG type. One of these is from a different manufacturer than the other two, and has much more detail. Others are from True North.

Again, similar paint schemes, with the odd-manufactured tank as the leader.

Polish 7TP Platoon

About half of a large commission of Polish armor consisted of 7TP tanks. These came to me already assembled and base coated so please forgive any mold lines. This is also the first time doing hard-edged camouflage by hand. These all-metal models didn't have much detail or any panel lines, and didn't have any stowage. Once the camo was done they finished up pretty fast.

One unit of three. True North miniatures.

The company. I kept the patterns similar except for some of the turrets to differentiate leaders.

Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Polish Guns

I finished up some Polish artillery and anti-tank guns for my friend Hal, he will be basing them later. The anti-tank guns were pretty fiddly, about nine or ten parts each for some reason.

37mm wz.36 (Bofors) Anti-Tank Guns. Unknown manufacturer.

100mm wz.14/19P Howitzers. Battlefront Miniatures metals.

75mm wz.02/26 Field Guns. Battlefront Miniatures metals, I think.

Saturday, February 22, 2020

IPMS Silverwings 2020

I entered my Flames of War Objectives into the local IMPS show, mostly because I've been thinking of getting back into scale modeling and wanted to give myself two reasons to go check out the event. I ended up placing in the Gaming Miniatures category behind some very nice Warhammer figures.

Thursday, February 20, 2020

Legion League II: Revenge of the Sith

I switched up my forces a little and replaced the lowly Imperial Officer with Lord Vader, and used his nice new command cards as well. I played my last three league games with Vader and Co. and went 2-1.

Darth Vader lead his Stormtrooper squads forward and chased Krennic and his Death Troopers away from the central objective, killing them almost to a man.

In my first game against Republic troops, Vader and a contingent of Royal Guard engaged Captain Rex and then marched across the field to chase down the rest of the clones. A sneaky move by R2-D2 cost me the game though!

My final league game matched me against another Imperial list and saw how effective Bossk can be. Vader continued to hunt down and destroy his enemies and I pulled out another win.

I went 4-2 in the league after a bye and that should put me in the top three. Vader is a beast!

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Tigers Marsch at Great Escape Games

I snuck in a game against Russ at the local game shop last weekend and used to opportunity to show my youngest son a few basics of the game. Mostly he rolled the dice and helped deploy the models, and I took over from there. I put together a very simple list of Tiger tanks from the D-Day German book. Russ brought British infantry.

Our table. We played Free-For-All.

Two units of Tigers would approach the bulk of Russ' forces, protected by AA.

The other unit of Tigers and a Fallschirmjäger unit would advance through the 'Haunted Forest'. (Not much store terrain for 15mm that day)

Some lucky shots knocked out two of Russ' Achilles on the first turn, and another on the second. The AA did good job of protecting the Tigers from some roaming Kittyhawks, but once the RAF targeted the halftracks they quickly died.

With only a single effective AT weapon left, the Tigers began to advance across the open fields.

My 2iC was left behind to secure my objective from any British shenanigans.

The rest of the Tigers encircled Russ' infantry and mortars on the other side, securing the victory.

Poor Russ didn't have anything but the Achilles that could really hurt the Tigers and once they were gone it was only a matter of time. First time I brought Tigers out in years, really fun!

Saturday, February 1, 2020

X-Wing Tournament

I played in my very first X-Wing event today at Game Kastle in Sacramento since my friend Reno was coming down from Chico to play in it. I brought five X-Wings and tried to make it as simple as I could.

In Round One I faced a Resistance list with Rey, a Transport, and an A-Wing, and managed to shoot down the fighter before all of mine went down.

In my second game I was matched up against Reno and his Separatists, a Sith Infiltrator and a pair of Nantex fighters. I managed to destroy them all while losing a pair of X-Wings.

In the last round I faced a Scum force with a Lancer Pursuit ship, a G1-A, and a HWK-290. lost three X-Wings while on my way to shooting them all down.

I had fun and actually won two games after not playing at all for over a year. Crazy!

Saturday, January 25, 2020

Legion League II: The Empire Strikes Back

A new Star Wars: Legion league started up a few weeks ago at Game Kastle here in Sacramento using the skirmish rules and a reduced points limit. My Imperial troops have engaged Rebel forces twice now, losing the first match while winning the second.

A close match seeing heavy Rebel casualties, but the Son of Skywalker hit my center hard and allowed the remaining Rebels to control enough objectives to win.

The jungle fight vs. a second group of Rebels saw the destruction of most of their forces, securing a victory for the Empire, even after losing their Lieutenant.

Friday, January 24, 2020

2019 Review

Last year I seemed a bit lost game-wise, as Flames of War was played less as V4 has struggled to find a footing in the NorCal area and the meta shift on the national level left me cold. Strangely though, I seemed to get quite a bit of new units painted in the first half of the year before commission work made me put my own projects back on the shelf for a time. I also reached out and picked up several new games, such as Star Wars: Legion, BattleTech, and the Harry Potter Miniature Adventure Game, though I've only had a chance to play the first of those. Conventions were attended in Nevada and here in California, West Coast Nationals in Las Vegas, Gauntlet here in Sacramento, and KublaCon and Pacificon in the Bay Area. Several smaller events were held locally, though most of these were more casual than in the past. I got into Legion on the recommendation of some good friends, and even played a few games of X-Wing. I also managed to paint quite a few minis!