Slow going but progress on some things!

It's been a slow week - already done a bit much socialising and playing video games and not a lot of hobbying. I have finally finished the first sister in my Imperial Agents Sororitas squad and I'm pretty happy with how she came out. 

She still needs basing (there are tufts inbound from the UK) and some transfers on the tabard but that'll happen when I do the whole squad. It was good to go through this one from beginning to end as now I have the order of operations that gets me to the end without TOO much repainting white... 

I've also started on getting my Early War Germans up and rolling. I started with these two tournament objectives that I picked up at Panzerschreck last year. They're going to be actual 88s (because you can't play EW without them!!) and I had enough models lying around in the bits box to crew them:

I've also started on the insane task of cleaning off my Early War Germans to repaint them. At least I thought it was insane till I borrowed Blogger McBeth's ultrasonic cleaner and ho boy. You can see how well it's worked on a couple of the models on those 88 bases and it's worked even better on the tank hulls. In one case, I think it took off nearly 20-year-old primer! 

There's still a dozen Panzer IIs, some self-propelled guns, some trucks and a bunch of infantry to do but I'm optimistic that it'll be fairly easy over the next little while. 

Next Time

It's our club's annual event so there'll be a late blog with some how it went and hopefully some good photos of the Flames comp and anything else pretty I see over the weekend! 

Testing Brigade Panthers

 So with ValleyCon25 a mere two weeks away, I booked in a couple of practice games to make sure that my proposed Brigade Panther Company was as bad as I thought. Here's my advanced secret tech (as I am wont to do every time this rolls around) for our Flames of War event: 

Core

• HQ Brigade Panther (Late)
• 3 Brigade Panther (Late)
• 3 Brigade Panther (Late)
• 3 Brigade Panzer IV/70 
• 4 Brigade Wirbelwind

Support

• 4 Volkshetzer
• Full Ardennes Assault Platoon
•  SdKfz 250 Recce Platoon
• Lucky
  

I'm musing on swapping out the Hetzers and the 250 Recce for 4 Panzer IVs but I do love a Hetzer and the rare occasions where a Spearhead move would come in handy will be pretty awesome. Hard to know right now...

Anyway, I played a game of Scouts Out with McBeth Jr Sr running a French tank company with no infantry and 13 as the best AT. This felt like a game where sending my Panthers up the guts was the right answer since I should be able to facetank AT 12 76mm guns... 

So we shall start with a photo of my first save of the game:

My COs Panther blown to bits by some M18 Hellcats. Because I can facetank 76mm guns right? I popped a Hellcat in reply but ho boy what a trade that wasn't.

He jumped into a new tank and promptly bailed out the following round to more Hellcat shots. From there, I pushed my remaining Panthers forward supported by the 250s (!) who removed the M18s from consideration from the game. The French HQ exchanged ineffective fire with my Volkshetzers.

Having seen off the M18s, I sent the 250s to distract the remaining Sherman 76s before any French reserves arrived. I also pushed my reserve Panthers forward, getting ready to shove Panthers onto both objectives - they're just on the left of the photo below:

This next pic was taken about turn 6 when the game fell apart for me. The HQ Shermans sold themselves to pop a pair of Panthers (four shots, two hits, two ones for saves, two successful firepowers) before my Panzer IV/70s sent them to the shadow realm exposing the front objective.

At the top of this photo you can also see my response to the arrival of French reinforcements where I retreated slightly after I lost another Panther to rolling ones. After I destroyed the 76mm Sherman in response, a couple of 75mm Shermans made the brave run through a forest onto the flanks of those two Panthers and the result can be seen in the picture below - two bailed out Panthers...!

The last photo is me making a cheeky shove to grab the objective, relying on range and smoky wrecks to keep that Wirbelwind alive:

 

But McBeth Jr Sr managed to get enough shots to hit it and break my company. I probably could have pushed on another turn but my Volkshetzers were about to get 76mmed and my IV/70s were too far back to really impact the game. 

So it mostly worked as intended, except for my staggering ability to roll ones when I really didn't need or want to. It was a useful reminder that I shouldn't trust my dice either... I think I like the idea of having this many Panthers. It is a lot of fun to be cruising around with arguably the best tank in the game but with some of the most hamstringing crews that Germans can field. It's a really good challenge. Playing it well is really rewarding.

My second game, with McBeth Jr Jr, went according to the plan suggested by McBeth Jr Sr - where it was Panther v. Panther, playing more conservatively was the go. McBeth Jr Jr was running a Mixed Panzer Company with Panthers and Jagdpanzer IV/70s and the realisation was whichever one of us started to collapse first would probably go down. We played Scouts Out again and this time it was McBeth Jr Jr whose armour saves were not where they needed to be. My firepower rolls weren't good either but they were made up for by a series of failing 5+ Remount and Last Stand rolls that meant my Panthers emerged victorious. 

It was a useful series of lessons. Am I prepared for how wildly swingy Brigade is going to be? Not really, but I am looking forward to it!

Next Time

I'll be working on finishing my Sororitas squad and kicking into a new/old project - repainting my Panzer Is and Panzer IIs for Early War...

Hot rides...

Been slowly grinding away at Immolators for the past couple of weeks and here we are:

 

 That, dear readers, is too much white. And if GW hadn't thrown Contrast Paint into the world then it would have been even more miserable. I have seen a couple of designs since that had a white turret and top plate on a black hull and, in hindsight, I could have done that. All in all though, happy enough with how they came out. I suspect each time I get them out of the box, I'll find more patches of white I want to tidy up and that's kind of okay.

 I really love the way the Aethermatic Blue came out of the statues for a real pop of colour and it was definitely a good idea I stole off the internet. I'm happy that I didn't put too much colour into the glass and while it's frosted (because you really have to spray some varnish on the model to get the paint to stick) I think it looks good being that simple. Didn't enjoy painting it though...

Lessons? Review the assembly guide before you start painting. I had the good sense to leave the gun mounts and the stained glass parts out before I started painting but I should have left the altar off the back and in pieces too and probably left the pilot's torso out but given what a pig getting all the parts glued into the cockpit and lining those up with the pilot were not easy at all.

The Immolator kit has been an exercise in frustration to be sure. There are some kits that go together like a dream and are so easy it's not funny (see Battlefront's Jagdtiger kit for an example) but this one feels like it fought me every step of the way.

Next Time

The Sisters squad that'll be riding in these Immolators with Inquisitor Greyfax are underway now and hopefully will get smashed through a lot faster than this insanity...