The weekend is in sight which means its time for Flames of War
Friday and today we'll be taking a look at another of the plastic FOW box
sets, the Soviet
Tank Killer Company.
Just like the Panzer IVH box we looked at a few weeks ago the Tank Killer box set uses the new
tooling set-up which gives fantastic crisp details and a really
precise fit.
The sprues contain components for 4 different assault gun variants: the
SU-85; SU-85M, SU-100 and SU-100M, which means its a highly versatile set and
will make a total of 5 assault guns.
All the versions share the same lower hull and tracks and
there's 2 different upper hulls and gun options. The SU-85 variant has its
own upper hull, gun copula and barrel, whereas the other 3 variants use the
second upper hull and gun cupola. The components for the different variants are
keyed, which makes it easy to select the correct parts and there's also a step
by step assembly guide you can refer to.
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This Flames
of War Friday we're taking a look at the latest plastic kit for
Flames of War, the brand new Panzer
IV H Platoon.
The Panzer IV H was the most widely produced of all the Panzer IV variants,
which over 2700 were produced between April 1943 and July 1944 and therefore
was its a very common tank used in both Mid War and Late War
German armies.
The Panzer IV H Platoon Box includes:
- 5 plastic Panzer IV H sprues
- 1 plastic Tank Commander sprue
- 1 Panzer IV H decal sheet
- 10 Rare Earth Magnets
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Its Flames
of War Friday time and this week we're on tour!
Last Friday afternoon I headed round to Battlefront HQ to
meet the team and check out the studio. The one problem being that in my
enthusiasm in being surrounded by so much awesome Flames
of War and Dust
Tactics stuff I managed to completely forget to take any photos, so we've
borrowed some from Battlefront's website.
First up was the awesome playtesting area, filled up with really high quality
terrain tables! Battlefront do a lot of playtesting to ensure that their rules
are as balanced and fun to play as possible and have a group of veteran players
conducting weekly sessions at HQ as well as other groups around the world.
The playtesting tables are all modular boards which have been constructed out
of foam, which has allowed for both raised and recessed terrain features and are
further supplemented with individual terrain pieces from the Battlefield in
a Box series.
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After a glorious Waitangi Day filled with sunshine & BBQ we're back in
the office for for another Flames
of War Friday. This week I've been working on the test models for
my Japanese infantry.
Proper Preparation Prevents…
Whenever you're starting a new painting project, especially a large project
such as an infantry company its always a good idea to do some test models first
to try out the colours and techniques which you're going to use. Otherwise you
could run into problems halfway through and have to strip the paint and start
over again.
So I've taken a selection of the models from the Hohei
Chutai and started my test run.
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It's that time of the week again,Flames
of War Friday and today I'm cracking open my Hohei
Chutai for a closer look.
Like all the Flames of War Infantry Company boxes, the Hohei Chutai box is
packed with figures, 108 in total! Thats 4 Command teams,
18 Rifle Teams, 6 Light Mortar Teams and an optional
Regimental Standard, enough for 2 full-sized platoons and
company HQ.
Also included are the various bases which you'll need for your teams, as well
as some inserts to fill the base holes underneath the models which
lie flat.
There's a really good variety of different poses, including prone troops and
sergeants, light machine guns, models aiming their guns as well as charging
forward. This means that it will be really simple to assemble the teams so that
each one is characterful and unique.
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Welcome to the first Flames
of War Friday for 2014.
The start of the year is the perfect time to start thinking about a new army
project, since you should be nice and refreshed from the holidays and hopefully
were lucky enough to get some awesome tabletop gaming presents for
Christmas.
My “Flames of War”::http://www.mightyape.com.au/…-Gaming/All/
for this year is an early war Japanese Army and this week I've been taking some
time to plan out the project.
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The holidays are a perfect time for getting stuck into some painting, so in
this week's Flames
of War Friday we're taking a look at how to paint Ambush
Camouflage using the AK
Interactive Late War Paint Set
Step One: Priming & Basecoating
As usual the first step is to assemble and prime your model. For Flames of
War models which include metal parts, such as the Hollywood Tiger which
I painted, I would recommend using a spray primer as these tend to adhere
better to the metal parts.
For the basecoat firstly I applied some pre-shading
underneath the side skits, around the road wheels and turret by airbrushing a
mixture of Dunkelgelb aus'44 DG III and light grey. Then I airbrushed
the whole tank with the Dunkelgelb aus'44 DG III downwards at a
45 degree angle. This method gives fast shading to the recessed areas of
the tank.
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Welcome to the final Flames
of War Friday before Christmas, and this week we're taking a look
at the Flames of War Paint
sets which just arrived this week.
The Flames of War Paint sets are the easiest way to pick up
the colours you need to paint your army, specifically chosen to match the
historical versions as closely as possible and produced by one of the
world's best acrylic paint manufacturers Vallejo.
This means it's also really easy to match single colours when you need to
restock your paints as the colour names and codes are the same in the
Vallejo range.
The Quartermasters
Paint Set should be your first point of call, as it contains the main base
colours used for detail work on multiple different armies, infantry and tanks,
such as Gun Metal, Flat Flesh and Beige Brown.
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While Christmas in Australia means BBQs and jandal weather, as anyone
who's watched Band of
Brothers would know Christmas in Europe means snow!
That's why this week's Flames
of War Friday is dedicated to collecting winter themed armies.
Choosing a Winter Army
There's a number of different options if you're looking to collect a winter
themed army, including the early
war Finnish forces of the winter war with the Soviet Union.
However perhaps the most iconic winter battle of World War 2 was the Battle
of the Buldge of December 1944, so a great unit to start with is the US
Rifle Company (Winter). Then add some additional units, such as artillery,
jeeps or an Armoured
Rifle Platoon (Winter) and you're army is well on the way.
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Today is “Flames of War Friday”::http://www.mightyape.com.au/…-War-Fridays!
This week I've gone back to the Stugs I painted in a previous post to
add some mud and extra camouflage.
I'm a big fan of painting up a whole army to a table-top standard and then
going back to add extra detail like weathering, mud effects and the like. This
approach gets your army ready for games faster and helps keep you motivated to
paint as well.
Try rewarding yourself once you've finished painting a unit by doing some
extra detail work on a tank or painting up a single show-piece model or
objective.
So for the Stugs I added some dust effects and earth
effects from the AK Interactive
range, applying them to the lower edges of the hull and horizontal surfaces
on top of the tank and then using some white
spirit to soften the edges.
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