Target Locked On! at the Club

There's some interest at the local club from a couple of players in a game of Target Locked On! at some point in the not too distant future, which is great as I now have plenty of 1/600th scale aircraft to bring along and a good handle on the rules, albeit a slightly rusty one as I haven't played a game since the summer holidays. I'm thinking of using my Cold War Soviet aircraft against the Chinese aircraft for a few 'what if?' games, followed by the Flashpoint: Taiwan option once we've mastered the mechanisms. We also have a talented graphic designer on hand, who has just worked up a new and much improved version of the turn templates and counters, so that the games will really look great!

What's Next for What a Tanker?

I'm enjoying the modelling for What a Tanker! and have been planning to expand my tank forces to cover more than just the Eastern Front. I originally thought about assembling a troop of British Shermans or Cromwells and may well do so, but I've now decided to go for a Battle of the Bulge American approach instead. I only have one Armourfast Sherman M4A2 left over from my Soviet tank project, together with some assorted spare parts for an M4A3 (76mm), so I've had to splash out on a new selection of kits for the USA.

These include an Italeri M4A3 (76mm) box and an Armourfast M4A3 75mm box, so which give me some options to kick start the project, with some further kits and accessory bits to follow.

In the meantime, I also want to finish the last of the Russian and German tanks, then get the Cruel Seas S-boats assembled and painted, so the What a Tanker! US tanks will have to wait a little bit longer before they get underway. I've neglected the Cruel Seas project of late, which is something that I really need to sort out, as I'm sure there will be more club games to take part in soon and I would like to be able to bring along my own boats. The one game I have played was great fun and it would be a shame if I just left the project high and dry, especially when it's still fresh at the club.

What a Tanker! Winter Whitewash

It's my day off so I've started on the winter whitewash camouflage, using the tried and tested drybrush and splodge technique. The KV's have only had a light overbrush, as the aim is to have a washed out effect, but one of the T34/76 tanks has had a more overall white stipple for a more effective whitewash camouflage look. The whole lot will get a second wash in my Future gunge mix to tone it down before I then highlight the camouflage white bits. 

I glued together one of the Armourfast Mark IV F/G models last night, then undercoated it in Halfords grey primer. This has now had an  experimental overall matt white wet coat followed by a top down, overhead toot with Halfords white primer, ready for a wash in the gunge once it's all dried out. I'm not sure if this approach will work but it's worth trying out, as the effect I'm after may well be a good way to paint tanks in overall whitewashed winter camouflage, rather than the drybrush approach I've been using so far?

Bag the Blenheims Play Testing

I'm setting up a play test game for a couple of weeks time at the club, in order to nail down the Bag the Blenheims scenario for the Lard Day in March. I still need to work up the card deck for this but I'm hoping to get that done this week, along with laminating the aircraft record sheets, briefings and help sheets. I already have three players signed up for playtest and I'm sure one or two more will join in once I've set a firm date. Tally Ho!

Ruined Russian Farmstead

I've quickly assembled and painted some 20mm Red Vectors buildings for the What a Tanker! game on Tuesday, so that's there's a bit more cover for the tanks to hide behind. This lasercut set is available from Minibits and is sold as a ruined Russian village, but it's more of a farmstead if you only have the single set. You can also get it in an un-ruined format, which I may well do later on, as well as a ruined factory that would be great for urban themed scenarios:

http://minibits.net/red-vectors/20mm/wwii/

This lot was done really quickly using spray paints and some PVA, filler and acrylic paste mix to texture the bases and model the snow on what's left of the rooves. I also chopped up some of the frames and added them as collapsed timbers inside the houses and the barns, just to add a bit of a scenic effect. I was originally planning to wash and drybrush the woodwork but I can't be bothered, as I reckon they look fine just as they are?

Armourfast Panzer Mark IV F/G's

These new Armourfast Mark IV's arrived in the post today, so they will be the next thing to hit the workbench once the current convoy of Russian tanks has trundled over the horizon. I'm going to try a different approach to painting these, which I originally experimented with when I painted my Pegasus Tiger II's, namely a grey undercoat followed by an all over heavy white camouflage wet brush. 

This is the effect I'm trying to replicate.

I did think of undercoating them in matt black, then wet brushing with panzer grey before the whitewash, but that wouldn't be historically accurate as by 1942 most tanks would be supplied in factory dunkelgelb. I'm aiming for a  more uniform winter camouflage effect with this approach, rather than the washed out streaking on the rest of the What a Tanker! panzers that I've already painted.

What a Tanker! Wash and Go

I've now wet brushed the Russian tanks in Flames of War Russian Green and then washed them in my usual mix of Future, Nuln Oil, Gryphon Sepia and Agrax Earthshade, ready for some drybrush highlighting  with a 50:50 mix of FoW Russian Green and Vallejo Yellow Ochre tomorrow. I will then be able to add the white camouflage stippling, striping and splodging, which is my favourite bit assuming it actually looks right by the end. I've also found a lone Pegasus SU-85 kit that was a leftover from last years What a Tanker! project, so I'll see if I can glue it together and possibly even get it painted for the game?

Pegasus KV-1

I've now finished building the last of the Russian tanks for the game on Tuesday, with a really nice Pegasus KV-1e now ready to be painted alongside the KV-2 and T-34's. I'm hoping to get this done over the next couple of days, so that they can be used in the game and also so that I can move on to either the Cruel Seas boats or perhaps some more tanks for What a Tanker!, having well and truly caught the Airfix bug once again. I'm thinking of either a troop of late war British tanks, a Sherman Firefly and Sherman V's, or a handful of US M4A3 Shermans for the Ardennes? I already have the British tanks, albeit the Armourfast M4 models and have sent off for some detailing sets from EWM, so that's the most likely option at the moment.  

What a Tanker! Solo

I'm off work today due to the snow, so I thought I'd make the most of it and set up a solo game of What a Tanker! to get myself back up to speed with the rules. In the first game, which I played as the Long Ball scenario with an SU-100 against a Mark IV, the Russians managed to brew up the Panzer with a direct frontal hit. To even the score, I trundled a Tiger I onto the table which proceeded to trade shots with the SU-100, with some temporary damage inflicted to both vehicles. I was surprised that the Tiger didn't knock out the SU-100 sooner but luck was very much with the Russians!

In the end, the firepower of the Tiger overcame the armour of the SU-100, which was destroyed but not before the crew bailed out. I really enjoyed both games and will probably set up another one for the kids at some point over the weekend. I think that 1/72nd scale is the perfect size for this set of rules, allowing for some not unrealistic ranges and plenty of manoeuvring. I'm also a convert to Tank Destroyers, which in the case of the SU-100 have a very handy TANK DESTROYER aim dice bonus and a FAST bonus too.  

Bandits Over Berlin Plan B

I now know that I will have four players taking part in the Bag the Hun Bandits Over Berlin morning game at Come and Have a Go if you think your Lard Enough!, so have been thinking about adjusting  the scenario to give each player a section rather than a pair of aircraft. The thinking behind this is that, if they have played before it will be a bit too easy and would potentially become a two on two game, rather than a full on swirling dogfight. This would be a bit boring and might not last very long either, so it's not really a good idea to stick with Plan A.

I thought about just giving the players two pairs of aircraft but decided in the end to go with a schwarm or section, which they can  split into pairs if they wish. I've produced an amended version of the players briefings for the Allies and Luftwaffe, with the Me262 and Meteor still operating as a pair because they are a bit more tricky to fly and very powerful, not to mention the fact that I've only got two of each anyway. Apart from the jets, the RAF have also been bumped off the playlist unless I can be bothered to paint another couple of Tempests?