Wednesday, July 23, 2014

At Long Last, an Update! Necrons and Krauts

Hello, loyal follower...s? I haven't updated in a couple of months, just haven't had much drive until recently. I don't have much word content at the moment, but enjoy some pictures!

The Necrons belong to my wife, some of them from my friend Derek. The ones that are originally Ria's are the ones with Purple stuff on 'em, while Derek's are from a wide time period, during which he experimented with different techniques and paint schemes, etc. etc. So it's a very eclectic look, at the moment.

 
Hell hath no fury like the vast robot armies of a woman scorned!

 
Legions (well, like 72) of Warriors! Observe their many different colour patterns etc.

 
Stalwart Immortals do their thing, etc. I don't know if you can see it, but it's a nice blend of new plastics and old metal models, with the old models upgraded with the new weapon arms. They blend pretty seamlessly.

 
Flaaaayed ones! 

The pinker, more uniform ones are Derek's, while Ria decided that her Flayed ones preferred a more varied diet. The one on the right is wearing an Ork, while two spaces to the left is a Flayed One that ate a Tau.

 
ehhh some Lords and a named character or other, with some scratch built Crypteks behind them.

 
A catacomb and or annihilation barge! I don't know the difference, tbh. Necrons aren't really my thing.

 
Ahhh yes, and a terrifying... Thing! Treeeemmmmble before it's wraaaath!

 
I wish I had an airbrush, you can do some really cool stuff with the glow effects.

 
"Face the enemy, Sergeant!"

 
"There's just too many of them!"
"They won't die!"
"Game over, man, game over!"

And now finally, my WWII Germans! I love Flames of War, and it's only recently that I found a paint scheme for the tanks that I really liked. Pictured below is my Panzerkompanie: Panzer IVs spearheaded by fearsome Panther tanks, backed up by StuGs and Wespe Self Propelled Artillery, and a mechanized Panzergrenadier company (in halftracks)


 
StuG Assault Guns, collected from all the various starter sets I've gotten from this and the previous edition. The Germans made a bunch of them on the Panzer III and Panzer IV chassis because it was far easier, mechanically, to build than a 'true' tank (what with the turret and all). I have a soft spot for them, historically, but it's easier to work with turreted AFVs.

 
My Scout/Recon elements. Infantry scout teams can be taken with most any german list, and these late war guys have been upgraded with Sturmgewehr Assault rifles for some added punch. The 8-wheeled vehicles there are nicknamed Pumas, and I really just got them to spice up an otherwise kind of monotonous Late War armored list.

 
Besides, they look cool. And their main guns are pretty solid for recce vehicles.

 
Company HQ. Not my best paint work, but they were among my first 15mm models ever done, wayyy back in... god, what like 2009? Geez...

 
A grenadier Mortar platoon. Intended for a straight-leg infantry company, but most of that company isn't painted, so they're just chilling here in the group shot. One of my favorite things about FoW is that you really need to use the various elements of your force together to achieve objectives/triumph. You can't just rely on one death star unit or named character to insta-win your way to victory *cough WFB* (and sometimes 40k, too)

 
MG-42 Machine Gun Platoon. Love these guys, almost any german infantry company can take two and mix them in with their other infantry platoons to really beef up their firepower.

 
The massed ranks of Panzer IVs, the German workhorse of the latter half of the war. Slightly better than the M4 Sherman and definitely better than the (basic) T-34, the German armored superiority is mostly thanks to special rules and higher levels of training/motivation than their allied counterparts. Until of course, you take into consideration...

 
The PANTHER TANK! What would have been considered a Heavy tank to the Americans was merely the superior medium tank for the Third Reich. Though they didn't produce nearly as many Panthers as they did Panzer IVs or StuGs, the Panthers were used to equip the very best Wehrmacht and SS armored formations.

 
Back when we played a lot, we didn't have too much in the way of air power in play. Still, there's no harm in coming prepared, and these quad 8cm guns have a prodigious rate of fire that can make a mockery of light vehicles and infantry formations alike.

 
"Mit donnernden Motoren, so schnell wie der Blitz,
Dem Feinde entgegen, im Panzer geschützt
Voraus den Kameraden, Im Kampfe ganz allein, (Ja ganz allein)
 So stoßen wir tief in die feindlichen Reih'n!

 
I had a fully painted Grenadier company at one point that I sold once I got my hands on the new starter set. The new plastic infantry models are MILES ahead of the old pewter ones. I'm no professional painter, but I think they turned out okay. Besides, the 3-foot rule is, as ever, in effect.

 
A slight footnote, all German infantry were granted the honorific title "Grenadier," which had been used in almost all European armies for centuries to denote Elite formations. Grenadiers were infantry, Panzergrenadiers were mounted in trucks and military cars to keep pace with the Panzers, and in FoW, Gepanzertepanzergrenadiers are Panzergrenadiers mounted in armored Halftracks.

 
That's all for now, folks. Next time: Imperial Guard, terrain and maybe something else, too!