To Tiger or not to Tiger?

I know you want me.....

Final round at 1000 Pts

This friday I had the chance to head over to Rob's place for FNF's.  This is the final week to earn points at the 1000 pt, 2nd tier level.  I was running the same list as last week, a Panzer Kompaine from Sicily that consists of:

HQ

2 x Panzer III M's

Combat Platoons

3 x Panzer IV E's

3 x Panxer IV E's

Divisional Support

Priority Air Support (Stukas with bombs)

Air Power!!!!!

Stukas throw knock out punch(es) at Friday Night Fights!

I was able to attend Friday Night Fights this week at Pripyat's.  This was the first week of Tier 2 in the escalation league so it was 1000 pts of Mid-war.  My list for both games looked like this:

HQ

2 x Panzer III M's

Combat Platoons

3 x Panzer IV E's

3 x Panzer IV E's

Divisional Support

Priority Air support from Stuka's with bombs

A Stuka pilots dream.....

Tier 2 version 1 complete!

I managed to finish my entire Tier 2 army for the Table Top Tacticians (formerly the Druken Gamers) escalation league.  This is my 1000 pts of Mid-war Germans from the North Afrika book.  I have to have 1 HQ and 2 Combat platoons so I'm fairly limited in what I can take until we move to tier 3 at 1500 pts.  Version 2 of this list drops the Stukas in favour of 2 pair of 8-rads.  If your interested in how I painted these you can follow it step by step here.

OC and 2IC in Panzer III M's

OC and 2IC

2nd Panzer IV E platoon

Can.do Stuka with rare earth magnets for easy of use

Rare Earth Magnets are strong!

Stuka ready for it's first dive bomb

Complete 1000 pts assembled and ready for battle

I'm hopefully going to Friday night fights and will get some action shots tonight!  I just need to make sure I take out all that Arty that seems to be coming from everywhere.

Painting Guide, DAK Panzer IV E's

This post is long over due.  The Drunken Gamers of Ottawa have just finished the first tier of their escalation league with a total war (check out the video at he link). So I'm a little behind with my painting but I just finished by first platoon, so Panzer IV E's (which I should be able to use for Early and Midwar in North Africa and Italy!), for my escalation league Germans and I'm very happy with the way they turned out.  If you follow WWPD this is very similar method to the theirs (I think I like theirs a bit better but I had already glued the tracks on so I could play with the models).  The next tier is 1000 pts so I'm looking at doing another platoon like this and then the OC and 2IC who will be riding in Panzer IV M's and then 4 8-rads.  The last couple of pictures are of a model Stuka that I found online.  It was 5.99 and came prepainted, it's 1/144 scale and as you can see from the pictures looks awesome! 

Without further a due here's how I painted my Panzer IV E's:

 Prime the model black but make sure that you don't cover any detail.

 I used an airbrush and painted the whole model Vallejo German Camo Beige.

 Next I washed the model with an Umber wash from Vallejo.

I used an artist pen (felt tipped and 0.05mm) which you can get at almost any art store to outline the whole model. 

 I painted the tracks and platoon commander black.

 I painted the wood handles scorched brown and the metal chain mail from GW, I also used German black grey for the uniform.

 Here is the final product after decals and purity seal has been added.  I'm very happy with how it all turned out.  I can't wait to get some action shots now.

Below are some more shots of the Tanks and then of the Stuka.  I got my from Echo Base Toys and the first arrived in about a week (about $8 for it delivered to my house).  I'm still waiting for the other two to show up.

Up next is the other Panzer IV E platoon and then the OC and 2IC in Panzer IV M's and finally 2 pair of 8-rads.  Hopefully it won't take 5 weeks till I'm finished the next platoon!

World of Tanks

So taking a bit of a break from painting (well still painting but slowly), my brother and I have found a new First Person Shooter entitled "World of Tanks".

Basically instead of being a single guy with a gun, you are now a tank, tank destroyer, artillery gun, light, medium, or heavy tank etc. Its AWESOME. Your crew gains experience, and improves to self repair things like tracks (if you lose a track, you're pretty dead), scouting for arty, get better guns etc. And you gain access to all the FOW tanks, including stuff that was never really in use (like the German super heavy Maus, or several US heavies). And you can drive US, USSR, or German tanks. I guess the brits miss out since between the USSR and USA, you pretty much have all of them.

Check it out. Its in closed Beta right now, and free to download:
http://www.worldoftanks.com/

Devil's Party

The Special Service Force or Devil's Brigade has always seemed like a really cool army to play.  I recently purchased the source book "Dogs and Devils" so that I could start building my force.  Ca$h from Druken gamers of Ottawa is starting an escalation league so this gave me a chance to create a new army and play some games against the boys.  Only problem was that the escalation league is Mid-war.  No worries I will use the SSF models and treat them as Royal Marine Commandos allowing me to start a new army and still fit with the era that the league is running in.  Bazoka become PIATs and aside from the helmets vs berets there really isn't a big difference.  I plan on showing WIP and battle reports in the coming league.  So here is what I'm going to be running:

Commando HQ - FV

3 x Commando Companies (1 x Platoon) - FV

1 x Canadian Anti-tank Platoon (4 x 6pdrs) - CT

1 x Canadian Shermans (3 x tanks) - CT

1 x Royal Artillery Battery ( 8 x 25pdrs) - CV

I'm going to start with the HQ, Combat Platoons and Arty and work from there (luckily the Arty is already painted!)