Firestorm Bagration Campaign - Games Three and Four

Game 3 Tankovy Vs Panzer Company - Free For All 

For my (Dave) next attack, we headed south to put pressure on the flank.  I attacked the region of Karpilov, which meant I faced 0 firestorm troops, but had access to a Sturmovik and some great big artillery. I again got Free for All, the campaign seems waited to mostly play Free For All so we might have to do something about mixing it up a bit.

Panzer Comapny 2 Panzer IV's 4x Panzer IV's 5x Panzer IV's King Tiger 4x Nebs

Tankovy HQ T-34/85 10x T-34/85 10x T-34/85 4x BA-10 1x 152mm Artillery + Observer (Firestorm Troops) Limited Sturmokiv (Firestorm Troops)

EW AAR - Finnish Jääkärikomppania v Japanese Hohei Chutai - Breakthrough

So myself and Winner decided we'd have a small early war game, he was using his Japs, I was using my Finns - this is a highly non historical match up!

We rolled up breakthrough and Dave elected to night attack. Our lists were.

Making a Display Board For My Japanese Army

Today I finished making this display board for my 7th Hohei Chutai, keep reading for the steps involved.

Firestorm Bagration Campaign Games One and Two

Game 1 MSPAR VS Panzer Company - Free for All

Hello All and welcome to the start of our Firestorm Bagration campaign to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the campaign. We have started on the 26th (4 days after the start of the campaign) as we are playing the short campaign and that starts on the 26th June 1944. Myself and Paul began the firestorm campaign with my Soviets attacking into Berezino from Tolochin to cut off the salient Alex had attacked Winner from (See game two).  I got two firestorm troops to help my MSPAR in the form of T-34/85's and T-34/76's, Paul got a platoon of Panzer Greniders. We rolled up Free For All (a common mission for us for the first weekend!) and got playing.

Panzer Company 2 HQ Panzer IV's 4 Panzer IV's 5 Panzer IV's King Tiger 4 Nebs Full Armoured Greniders + Faust (Firestorm Troops)

Medium Assault Gun Regiment HQ T-34/85 4 SU-85M 4 SU-85M 10 T34/85 6 Heavy Mortars + Observer 1 Section Assault Gun Recon 3 T-34/85 + Tank Riders (Firestorm Troops) 5 T-34/76 + Tank Riders (Firestorm Troops)

Early War Italians and the Welsh Open

Hello everyone!

I've been busy for the last month since I went to Brighton for the awesome event there but I've found the time, here and there to get ready for my next event: The Welsh Open!

Off we go to war again!

There are lots of people going up from Bournemouth (as Robin Spence mentioned on the above Battlefront forum thread, nine of us) and quite a few people I met at Breakthrough Assault II and Brighton Bash so I'm looking forward to some awesome games with everyone, even everyone I know as I've not had a chance to play many games at all yet. (No early war games at all!)

Project Finland - Early War List Discussion

Hello readers. 

I thought I'd share my thoughts on how I'm looking to develop my Finnish for EW. 

I guess the first thing to say is that I have no experience of EW, other that a lot of people telling me it's pretty different to MW and LW. Oh and you need to be able to deal with FA7...

70th Anniversary of Operation Bagration

Hello All

Today marks the 70th anniversary of Operation Bagration. I think with the 70th anniversary of D-Day Bagration might be a little bit forgotten about, but in real terms this was just as if not more important than the D-Day operations. The Germans lost between 400,000 and 500,000 men killed or captured and that was a lost they could never recover from and they never regained the initative on the Eastern Front.

To mark this anniversary we are going to play the Firestorm Bagration campaign. We are playing the short campaign which starts on the 26 June, so expect to see the first AAR out on that day. We want to keep it fairly themed so we are only going to use Grey Wolf and Read Bear books and any PDF's that are themed around the Eastern Front during the battle.

EW AAR - German Light Panzers vs Soivet Light Tanks - Breakthrough

Hello All  In our continuing build up to the Welsh Open I got in a game against Robin's Light Panzers. We rolled up Breakthrough and as I auto attacked Robin had the fun of mobile reserves... but as Robin pointed out you can play missions like this in tournaments so you might as well get some experience!  I was trying out my new list with mobile artillery with 76m obr 1936, these bad boys are AT 10 and range 32 inches and were what I hoped would give it the punch the Hen and Chick T-26's can lack.

Robin's Light Panzer Company HQ - Panzer III + Panzer II (Early) 3 Panzer III's 3 Panzer II (Early) + 2 Panzer I's 3 Panzer II (Early) + 2 Panzer I's 3 Panzer II (Early) + 2 Panzer I's 2 8-Rads 2 Flak 8.8 (Confident Trained)

Ben's Light Soviet Tank Battalion HQ T-26 8 T-26 8 T-26 8 T-26 9 Kht-26 5 DshK AA Guns 4 76mm obr 1936

Finnish Artillery Group (Winter)

Hi all and here’s another update for my fighting Finn’s

This time it’s the artillery (if you hadn’t guessed from the title). This is the first platoon (or platoons as I did both together) from the Finnish winter special range that was delayed – I’ll admit I’ve been frustrated waiting for these guys (as I’ve mentioned all over the internet numerous times) but they are worth the wait.

Beyond the Foxholes Episode 14

Hello All

Welcome to Beyond The Foxholes Episode 14

We join Ben, Adam and Winner Dave as they talk all things Flames of War

In Act 1 we go through what we have been up too, a little bit of Battlefront news and a look at the new Remagen book & it's place in the current tournament "Meta"

Then in Act 2 we go through the Winner Dave's Mail Bag and look at some commonly overlooked rules.

Then finally in Act 3 we round out the episode with 10.1 and a look at direct fire smoke and the up and coming Welsh Open.

A day out at Wessex Wargames Club!

My First Trip to the Wessex Wargames Society!

So with work happening more and more in Southampton, and me not being able to get many games of anything in at the moment I started looking for a club to visit when i'm free and not busy in my hectic life and i came across this one!

The Wessex Wargames Society

They have a good website that gives all the information needed about the club here.

and a old forum for chatting where people responded to my requests for information within hours here!

and a newer forum also accessible from the main website above. Both forums seem to interact nicely with my android phone too so i could browse and organize games on the go!

The building the club meets at with really good parking and disabled access. Inside it's nice and airy and the club stocks a tuck shop for snacks and drinks over the day.

Bridge at Remagen Review

Hi there, it's 1945 and the allies are advancing into Germany, the US 9th army have managed to capture the bridge at Remagen...

I  placed this review I wrote elsewhere, but thought I'd share it with you guys here, hope you find it usefull

The first thing to notice is that we've moved back to the western front, why is this interesting? Well the last set of soft back LW were all linked to the Ardennes campaign, this book along with the previous - Desperate measures are not linked by geography, but by time - it's 1945 and the Reich is collapsing!

AAR - Early War - Japanese Hohei Chutai V Soviet Heavy Tankovy Batalon- Fighting Withdrawal

As you may have seen I painted up 9 T-35's for our good friend Army Dave for the Welsh Open. Having got them finished and having never used a T-35 before it seemed rude not to have a quick game before they were packed up and sent to Dave. So myself and Winner Dave (yes we have a lot of Daves) continue our Japanese-Russo battles, we rolled up Fighting Withdrawal and set about playing the game.

Japanese Infantry (FV) HQ + Banner Full Infantry Platoon Full Infantry Platoon 3 Type-89 Tanks 3 Type-89 Tanks 2 Type-38 75mm Guns 2 Type-41 75mm Guns

Soviet Heavy Tank Batalion HQ T-35 4 T-35s 2 T-35s 2 T-35s 9 KhT-26 Sporadic I-153

T-35 Horde!

Hello All

During a conversation with our good friend Army Dave at Art of War he brought up that he was thinking about doing a T-35 horde. We drunkenly wrote a list and then Dave asked "How long do you think it would take to paint?" 

My reply was not long, after all I have painted a lot of Soviets now, I pretty much have it down to a fine art. Well a couple of weeks later I have 9 T-35's, 9 Kht-26's and a plane arrive at my door step and a painting deadline to make!

Zvezda T-26 Review and Painting

Hello All

Ok this is possibly a big post covering two areas I tend to avoid, product reviews and painting.

So why am I doing this? Frankly I was being camera happy! So the t-26's are for my winter Finns, they seem a glass cannon with a FA of 1 - but that works in EW! The gun is decent though, just the unreliable and limited vision.

AAR - Early War - Japanese Hohei Chutai v British Jock Column - Encounter

Alex and I got together for our first Early War game together, making it my third in total. It was nice to face something other than Ben's tank horde and I was really hoping to get to use Japanese in the style they were intended. As I'd just finished my Italian buildings they featured...Japanese v Brits in Italy...that happened right? We rolled Hasty attack, I chose to attack and attack at night...nice :)

Hohei Chutai Company HQ with Regimental Standard Full Hohei Platoons Full Hohei Platoons 3 Type-89 Tanks 3 Type-89 Tanks 2 Type-38 75mm Guns 2 Type-41 75mm Guns

Jock Colloum HQ Motor Platoon + 2 AT Rifles Motor Platoon + 2 AT Rifles Carrier Platoon Carrier Platoon 3 Crusadiers 4 47/32 Portee 4 18/25 Pounders 2 Bofors Guns

The board and with objectives.

Finnish Tank Hunters (Winter)

Hello all, another update for my winter Finns - the tank hunters. 

Though I'm planning to double them up as pioneers. I'm able to do this I feel as the models just lend themselves to it, all sculpted with strange bits and pieces of equipment - really if there was a flamethrower model they'd be perfect.

To make sure they can run as EW pioneers I needed an extra 4 man base than what comes in the two blisters, thankfully with a few spare from the Jääkäri platoon blisters I can mix them in easily.

Red Army Tankovy Conscript T34 Army Tactics

Today we have a guest post from Robin Spence. Robin has been playing Soviet tanks for almost a decade and he's forgotten more about playing Soviet tanks than I will ever know! So Robin take it away.

Hi All

Having used these chaps for a number of years I thought I would write down my thoughts on their use. Hopefully it may help somebody who is thinking of running them.

The conscript Red Army Mid War T34 army from Eastern Front, my favourite army of the war. Totally unsubtle. Lots of Rusting hulks grinding the Axis scum under their tracks LOL Gaming the army under Flames of War is great fun.