Friday 31 October 2014

Painting Tips

In my usual Saturday morning with the kids, I tend to do a quick browse of some of the Wargaming sites I have saved to my favourites bar. Things like Flames of War, DUST and I also have a good browse of www.wwpd.net/ to see whats been happening in the last week or so over there.

This morning has an article from Dirty Jon which is bloody awesome:


Dirty Jon's Basic Tips For Painting Miniatures


This has some great tips and even if you've been painting plastic/resin/metal crack for years, there are some really good ideas and little tricks of the trade which can make life easier.

So if you have 5 minutes, give it a read. Careful though, you'll end up spending half an hour on the site reading other stuff!

A Dirty Jon Tiger....because who doesn't love Big Cats!

Tuesday 28 October 2014

SAGA Drama!

Well, I don't think that anyone could call the members of TCOW slow on moving once a decision has been made! What started as a post of Monkey's Jordanian tanks on Facebook ended up being a quick decision for at least half a dozen of us to start playing SAGA which is something that had been talked about but never moved on.

So, what is SAGA I hear you ask? SAGA is a Dark Ages skirmish level game where you (as a Warlord) command a band of troops against a similar band. Featuring groups such as the Normans, Vikings and Scots, there is plenty of room for diverse forces to do battle and with new expansions coming out pretty regularly (the latest one covering the Crusades), you can do almost anything. As you only need about 20-30 figures, its pretty cheap (relatively speaking) to get into.

There is a series of videos (link below) from some Aussie guys called Knights of Dice showing how to play the game, so if you're interested, have a look before committing and then join us in the SAGA!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ3wfiPbNx4QfnYNekveODsZXCBNDc7lZ



Thursday 23 October 2014

Market Garden - The Final Battle!

As many of you will know (and if you don't, where the hell have you been?!) we've been running a Firestorm: Market Garden campaign at the club with the intent of concluding the campaign with a MEGA-BATTLE at FlamesCon.

Rather than regale you with memoirs of how we (Ze Grrrrrmans) pushed no fewer than 30 burning wrecks of Cromwells into the Waal from the bridge at Nijmagen to allow the glorious advance of KG Hummel and the 107. Panzer Brigade.... our campaign hand-holderer Mike Haught has done that for you over at his excellent gaming blog. Here's a link:

http://www.scarybiscuitsstudios.com/2014/10/highway-to-reich-dramatic-tcow-fsmg.html


I'd like to say a huge thanks to all involved in the campaign. Not a bad effort! Roll on the next one!




ICH!!!!

Wednesday 22 October 2014

Official FlamesCon 2014 Results

With the regular Thursday update to the FoW site, the official results are in! You can read all about it in the link below and there's some great photos capturing the action.

http://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=4650




Monday 20 October 2014

So many games, so little time #3: Simple painting to good effect - Part 3

Here we are back for part 3 which I will go over the picking out the detals & leg armour plates. Decals & weathering will follow in another part shortly.

So the main body of the walker is done but there are armour plates on the legs which have not been given any love as yet.

For these I did the same technique as the the main body where I sprayed them with the Red Brown all over, put in a large Green Grey area, thin line of Yellow Ochre to separate the 2 other colours then a final touch up of any over spray.


Next up I needed to define the details on the miniature as looking at it from any distance you just see a mess of colours from the camo. I know this was kind of the point of camo BUT this is a scale model remember and you do want to be able to make out what you are looking at.

The method I decided to use is called pin-washing, instead of slathering wash over the entire mini with a large brush which I have tended to do in the past I applied the wash just to the recesses with a thin brush. This was far more time consuming having to work around every panel joint but the colours of the model remained far more vibrant than if the mini had been bathed in a wash.

The paint I used was the Army painter ink "Dark Tone" which is just amazing and the Army Painter Inks are now my go to washes.

Here you can see the first part of the walker that I pin-washed vs the other arm which has yet to have it done. Hopefully you can spot which is which!


Here is both of them having been pin-washed.


Next up I did the same pin-washing to the main hull.


Which when you put them together you get.


Lastly I finally attached the leg armour plates that I talked about right at the start and the mini is looking nice and factory fresh, ready for unit markings and some wear and tear added (but keeping that new walker smell).



The final part where I do the decals and weathering will be up soon.

FlamesCon 2014 - TCOW Rides High

This weekend saw a lot of TCOW members pack their toys and make their way to the Mt Eden War Memorial Hall for this years FlamesCon, Battlefront's New Zealand Grand tournament for Flames of War. This year also saw the introduction of DUST to the mix and we had members across pretty much everything there was on offer.

Day 1 had both Early War and Late War (1 day and Grand Tournament) on the cards and there was a lot of interest in both periods with 6 tables for EW and 9 tables for LW. A variety of different forces were on display, everything from Czech tanks to JagdTigers and everything in between.



Day 2 showcased the remaining LW forces as well as some love for MW. The inaugural FlamesCon DUST tournament was also held with 12 players in total, a great turn out!!





This was my second FlamesCon and I'm always amazed at the varied and interesting forces that people take to competitions. I try and take a look over all the lists on tables just to have a few new ideas in my bag for future tournaments. 

So, rather than doing a write up of all my games which isn't really very club-like, I thought I'd just add a heap of photos and you can form your own picture of the event....which I might add was bloody awesome!

In terms of awards and winning and stuffs, over the course of the weekend TCOW members managed to secure:

EW Best Sport, DUST 1st Place, DUST Best Sport, LW GT Best Sport and, most importantly, both the DUST and LW GT Wooden Spoons!

So, without further ado, an Imgur album for your viewing pleasure!

http://imgur.com/a/aAyGT


One final note, the Mega Battle for Market Garden....AMAZING! Everyone had a heap of fun and made it an amazing event. After all was said and done, the Axis forces were victorious! ICH!!! Many thanks to Mike for taking us through the campaign and to all the players involved!

Tuesday 14 October 2014

FlamesCon Weekend

Afternoon TCOW'ers!

As you're all no doubt aware, this weekend is FlamesCon weekend and a lot of club members will be heading out to the Mt Eden War Memorial Hall to push toy soldiers around. FUNSIES!

As a result, there's isn't going to be anyone around to facilitate a club meeting so we're postponing for a fortnight. All complaints can be directed to our complaints officer, Damian Reid.....

If you're in the neighbourhood and in need of something to do, why not pop into FlamesCon and say hi! There will be a heap of demo games going on that you can try your hand at as well as previews of Battlefront's up-coming releases.

Have a read about last year's event as well:

http://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=4195

http://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=4188

Friday 10 October 2014

FoW Poll

Morning TCOW'ers,

Last week at club we were talking about what should our next FoW challenge be  once we've finished Market Garden. A couple of options were thrown around and given that TCOW is a great dictatorial democracy, we thought we should give you the choice.

I've added a poll to the top of the blog and if you choose the 'Something Else' option, add your comment below as to what you think that something else should be.

- G

Monday 6 October 2014

So many games, so little time #2: Simple painting to good effect - Part 2

Onward and upwards with this little project.

Now we have paint down on the entire mini its time to block in some camo on the main hull and guns. I have used my airbrush to put down some soft edge camo but there is nothing stopping you using a brush to do hard edge camo or some masking to do splinter/dazzle style camo.

This is the basic soft edge camo look I went for, except I went for bigger areas in a more stripe pattern.

Without an airbrush you could easily do a hard edge camo like this instead.

Or be adventurous and go for dazzle style camo.

So this is where we left the project at the end of part 1.

I first started off airbrushing some big Green Grey areas to break up the shape of the walker.




Once that was done I ran a thinner Green Ochre line where the Red Brown & Green Grey meets to give my my 3 tone camo that matches some other vehicles in my army.




I had some pretty bad over spray on the Red Brown at this point due to being only new to airbrushing myself so I went back over the Red Brown with the airbrush to fix that up. Red Brown from the Modelair range is also a specific airbrush paint so it comes out of the brush nicer and easier to control than the other 2 so leaving that till last was always the plan.



At this point I also painted the ammo storage magazines on each gun arm the P3 colour Traitor Green. 


So that is where I am at now. The big areas of the mini are all done so that just leaves the leg armour plates, picking out the details, decals and some weathering to go.

Stay tuned for part 3 in which I will sort the leg armour and go over some of the details I pick out.

Sunday 5 October 2014

Club Meeting - 5 October


Oh yeah! Another Sunday rolls around and that means its TOY SOLDIER time!

We had about 15 people all told yesterday, which given the size of the space, makes a pretty full house! A lot of guys had arranged for testing games of both FoW and DUST with FlamesCon just over the horizon. As we're still in the middle of our Market Garden campaign, Mike decided that all FoW games would apply to MG results. This means we should be in a great space for the final battle during the after-hours gaming at FlamesCon.

A quick run-down of the games were:

Dave vs. Damo - Early War, Japanese vs. Italians

A really fun game here. Dave's Japs heading at Damo's Italian tankettes....BANZAI!






Jonathan vs. Greg - LW - Germans vs. Soviets

I'm testing a list for FlamesCon having decided that I don't want to take Germans this year. Needs more tweaking!














Ryan vs. Mike - LW - Germans vs. Brit Tanks

I didn't get any photos of this one....it was over pretty quick!


Damian vs. Andrew - DUST - Axis vs. SSU

This one looked like a fun game...some heavy tanks on both sides and Winter Child flying around causing havoc and radiation...























Ryan and I also gave Monkey a run with his Rangers against our respective Axis forces. Monkeys Rangers definitely led the way there! Heaps of infantry can definitely sort out walkers.

We also have a group trying out the new Relic Knights game. I understand this Kickstarter shrouded in mystery as it took years to deliver. Looked like fun though...




















So, another club meeting in the bag. There won't be a meeting in a fortnight as most of us will be attending FlamesCon....expect a big write up for that one!

- G

Friday 3 October 2014

Oh so DUST-y

So, last night El Presidente, The Bludgelord, Monkey and I all convened at Monkey's place in the Ranui ghetto to get some DUST on! 100 point games and just really going at it to learn the rules before FlamesCon (yes, I'm slowly being talked into playing the Sunday DUST tourney).

Some really great games and a heap of smack talk as you can imagine.

Monkey and his Rangers lead by Bazooka Joe took on Dan and his Axis with Lara in charge.




They looked like they were having a pretty good time and from what we heard over at the other table the normal course of events prevailed....


Damo and his Wolfpack of KV-47's backed up by some Ribbitski Snipers and Steel Fist infantry came at my Axis lot, predominantly infantry bur backed up by a Wotan AR (with my Ludwig standing in) and a Captured Pounder.

The Wolfpack headed down one flank while the Snipers guarded the objectives.



Now, due to some stupidity on my part (what else is new, right?) I wasnt shooting at the walker suits as I'd forgotten they were bloody INFANTRY not WALKERS! Duuuuh! Rookie! So once I'd remembered that, I started blasting away at them...by then the damage had been done though. I was down to my 2 walkers and a SINGLE infantry man....

So, I did what any good commander would do...I concentrated fire on the remaining flanking KV-47 from Wotan and Pounder while he RAN LIKE HELL for the open left hand objective! Result....no snipers could hit me and I won....barely!

Damage Resilient....well...what a great little ability this is, especially if you can roll symbols like a BOSS like Damo was! KV-47's still on the table when they, realistically, shouldnt have been.

All in all, a great night gaming....here's some more pictures!