EISENHORN!

EISENHORN! 

Finally.

That is all. It's not a great picture. Just proving I've done it. :) He looks great though and I'm really happy with how he came out. Feels like a bit of a monkey off my back and will mean I can get stuck into some other things that need doing.

ValleyCon!
ValleyCon. It was a great weekend - I went 2 (+ a bye) - 2 and came 5th overall, which would be one of the better finishes I've had in a FoW comp ever. I was even top of the table at the end of day 1 with Tank (which says more to me about the state of V4 than anything else). And he promptly kicked me in the proverbials in round 4 (although it was a helluva game and close in the end!) and I had to play McBeth in the last round. ;) That was a great game too and while both our dice were up and down like yoyos it was closer than the 6-3 would say. Much like my game with Tank, there was a point where I *could* have won it but the dice didn't go my way. It happens and it was a great game to finish on. My game with Scotty was the one in the weekend where someone has a rough time in the game when all my die rolls stick (and if you ask him about the turn where he got penetrating hits on 12 vehicles, killed 2 and I remounted the other 10 he'll probably cry a bit) and Pel and I had a damned good bust up which was largely dominated by the two of us being a bit slow on the uptake and missing some really obvious plays!

I'm not going to go into any more details because I was so busy playing I didn't even bother to stop and take notes or photos! But suffice to say that I had four great games and learned a lot about running my Italian armour. I enjoyed using the More Missions and found that picking Manoeuver as my battle plan all weekend largely met the goal of getting asymetric games and open flanks where I hoped the otherwise weak Italian AT would be effective. I think next time I get the Italians out it'll be as an infantry force, as I'm keen to try that out but first I'm going to borrow the Desert Rats book from one of the lads and check out an Australian Rifle Company as I'd like to see if I can use them for a change. This might mean acquiring some more Sentinels from Eureka to proxy out as Sherman Vs which would be super cool.

There were a couple of interesting thoughts for the weekend from a gameplay perspective. Some of the balancing still seems a little off in V4. I've mentioned some of the iffy Italian command cards before but it was the mobile AT that made me wonder this weekend.  4 M10s cost 32 but 4 Marder III 7.62s cost half that, the same as 4 Semoventes. The cost of M10s seems excessively high (perhaps overvaluing the marginal utility of very high AT) and the equivalence of Marders and Semoventes doesn't feel right at all. The Semoventes are paying for a bombardment ability, which is largely a distraction from their primary role, and they're not so much better armoured (and more poorly armed) than a Marder III. Secondly, I'm still quite convinced that Italians are over-statted but that's a rant for another day.

Next Time
Some TY I think. I have some M60s that have been screaming out for a final coat of paint and I've finally got my Cobras finished so they should get some paint. I've found a completely non-standard colour scheme for the camo (because it feels like I should, given the MASSTER) and I'm quite excited about it.