The March of the Lorraines

After the first game of Flames of War, I determined that mobility would be very crucial for any future battles.  Over and over, foot slogging units would arrive late and far out of place.  Also, air power was proving to be absolutely devastating.

That's what prompted me to scratch build those Lorraine Carriers.

They would now get ther first test on a wonderful table set up by Paul at Draxtar Games.

We did some reworking of typical scenario conditions this time around, since I was not able to build everything that would eventually be needed.  We even tossed in Charles Du Gaulle, just to see what kind of effects that might have on this type of setup.

This does not show all of the German force, which was certainly a rapid strike force with lots of vehicles!  They were not incredibly powerful, being early war tanks, but very high numbers of fast moving threats.

The "Charlie Effect", as I now call it, basically set up a nice little drag race off to the left side of my lines.  I had to advance far down the long edge of the table to claim one of the objectives.

Speed would be essential, as the German forces would be getting reinforcements soon enough!

My Somuas and Lorraines got a nice head start with my hero's special ability.  As you can see, they offered each other mutual protection... the tanks protected the transports from other vehicles and infantry, while the Lorraines gave vital protection against attacking aircraft!!

The far off objective marker meant that the Somua unit would have a long way to go deep in enemy territory... could they reach it before all the reinforcing German armor arrived?  I was hoping to at least be in position before their arrival...

That advance was slowed somewhat by the transports, which are considered slow tracked vehicles.  I was tempted to rush the tanks forward, but that would leave them quite vulnerable to that air support.  The terrain also meant they would be bunched up in that effort to rush the objective.

I had to slow them down just enough to remain in sight of the anti-aircraft guns of the transports.

There was a road which provided a measure of protection from the entrenched German positions, but it would be a prime target for any reinforcing tank platoons, of which there were many!

Charles determined that the road would have to be used, regardless of the potential dangers.  At the same time, a small detachment of Hotchkiss tanks was sent towards the town to flank the defenders inside it.

Perhaps that move could split the attention of any arriving reinforcements...

The fight for the other objective in town became an interesting infantry and artillery duel.  The bombardments were not very effective, but the MG unit dismounted from their transport was proving to be very dangerous to the German position.  

Perhaps this could be the maneuver which would divide the attention of the Germans just enough!

Despite a continuous bombardment by the 75mm artillery, the dug in Germans could not be sufficiently pinned to cover a French advance.

Oh no!  The armor support not only arrives early, but exactly where the Souma column is most vulnerable.  It will be difficult to avoid major casualties here!

I had avoided putting too many vehicles jammed together on the road, worried about them being trapped there if the first and last tanks were to be knocked out.  Apparently that is not something that I needed to worry about.  Next time I will make more use of these 'tunnels' through the hedges.

Can the armor and infantry elements combine their advances to claim the objectives?  What role will the troops in the armored carriers play?  Find out in the next episode: Sacrifice of Heroes.

Prepare for Battle!

One more very fun miniature from Demigods Evolution.  Just like most of the other figures from the range, there are multiple options for the arms, with weapons or banners, and so on.

I also enjoyed working all the various filigree into the golds/brass finishes.  The blue marble was done to provide a nice contrasting color to reflect into those golds.

The base was pretty extensive, built up with cork and sculpey.  I put a penny next to it to give you a sense of it's size.  He's pretty big!

He's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/222151232501?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

Massive Firepower!

Lookie what we have here!!  It's the gigantic new heavy support for the Dark Nation.

This great beast is the Wendigo, and he is not shy about carrying along a set of rocket launching tubes powered by the dreaded RJ-1027 energy.

The base is a size of a DVD, which gives you a sense of the scale!  Ironically, for something so huge, the concept art and the nature of the critter itself called for a relatively restricted palette.

With one notable exception, that is.  The glow from that huge gun had to be as firey as possible, which meant that all those muted grayish browns would be the prefect foil for such object source lighting.

All the elements of contrast were available.  Light vs dark, saturated vs muted, and warm vs cool tones.  As you have heard me call it before, it is the triple play or hat trick of contrast, depending on your sport! :-)

It was nice that I could do a lot of the glow on the face, because all the deep sculpting elements could be brought out even more, and even make the face look more sinister.  Bright lights right under the face have a tendency to do that, even when it's not something as colossal as the Wendigo.

These views from above show how the base not only puts him in a 'setting' but it also stabilizes him in one place, as the thickest bark is right under the feet, where the pins are. 

Lookin' right at you!!

Now for the ultimate size comparison, with a standard hired hand on a 32mm base!

Secret Skeletons

Soon you will be seeing the massive critter that goes on this huge base, which is the size of a DVD!  For now, I thought you might like to get a look at what the base looked like before I put the Wendigo on it.

Most of it is made from the usual bark and branch method.  I have a tone of articles on that in the basing section.

What has been added to give it that Wild West feel would be some nifty skulls and skeletons from Secret Weapon miniatures.  I have put the skulls on lots of bases over the last few years, but I have not had as many of the skeletal bulls.  A giant base such as this seemed to be just right for that kind of bleached beast!

Stay tuned, as I show off the images of the gigantic completed Wendigo from Wild West Exodus.

The Army of Fire

We return to the realms of Mantic and their new Kings of War miniatures.  I have been working on a number of them, especially the Salamanders.

I have done a number of posts about them, showing what the sprues look like, etc., as well as different color schemes.

Some have been more "traditional" theme, and with lots of jungle vegetation.  This time around, I wanted to show the "Army of Ash" color set that I was visualizing for my own army.

The plan was to have a unit of the Salamanders advancing through a jungle, scorching it as they moved.

The weapons they carry really lend themselves to that firey theme, so I gave that a test run.  I really enjoyed this guy!  It was a classic contrast of the super warm and intense fluorescent oranges next to the very muted cooler colors... mostly grays.

I think this could make quite an interesting movement tray of 22-25 figures!!

The Savage Heart

This is the fourth Wereshewolf from the amazing set by Raging Heroes.

All of these figures have been very fun to paint, with dynamic poses and tons of details.

I tried to paint each one in a slightly different color scheme.  In many ways, this fourth and final miniature in the series has the most 'traditional' color scheme.

As I did with the other three figures, I tried to continue the 'built in' base rocks... that is, the angled rocks that were a part of the sculpts.  This one had a rather large rock sculpted under the hand and foot.

With the set now complete, I will take some group shots!  Stay tuned for those!

The Armored Fist

With the hurriedly constructed building drying and curing, I made some even more hastily build road sections.  The night before the test battle, I took the airbrush and some colored primers to both the buildings and the roads!

This was the result.  I didn't get too crazy with the painting at this point, because it was more about the physical size and playability factor.  Would the moveable floors hold up to the weight of the metal French gun teams and squads?  Did I match the scale of the intact buildings which one of the other players had purchased?

In fact, the colors I used to paint them was influenced by those on the intact structures.  All of this had to be done with some pictures passed to me over facebook, so I was kind of anxious when we started setting them both on the table!

Success!  The mortar team fit quite well, and did not tip over or anything like that.  The sight lines were perfect, and I was able to give each structure its own personality.  In fact, each wall of the buildings had a different characteristic.  

The lone anti-tank rifle looks for troop transports heading down the road.  Once more, those upper floors were designed to be the perfect sniper nests, so this view made me quite happy!!

Let's not forget about the roads!  While I had used my own vehicles as a size reference, I didn't have any wider footprint vehicles such as a Panzer to place on my roads as I made them, so it was a relief to see how nicely the PZ 4 fit on the sections.

Not too wide, but not too narrow!

The primary reason we wanted these sections was to create far more interesting battle scenarios.  I will describe what I created a little later.  We wanted to have the roads to help vehicles cross the board more rapidly, thus freeing up the long axis of the board to battle scenarios.

Also, destroying the roads would be a new kind of objective... even cratering them with demo teams and/or aircraft!!

The floors held up nicely to even more metal, and the sight lines worked beautifully. 

Defending a crossroads was a prime victory condition for my future scenarios, and this quick set up convinced me that I had done my job.  I was able to fit all the sandbags and tank traps around that intersection, and it easily held a 10 man squad.

As a labored away with the pink foam, hacking it apart into all those wall sections, this was the ultimate reward that I had envisioned.  To see this view was incredibly exciting for me.  A lot of hard work, well worth the effort.

I tried to create a multi tier format for the scenario.

The Germans could get 10 VP's for being within 10 inches of the center of the crossroads.  They could earn 5 VP's for every unit that exited off the Allied edge of the board (we were deployed on the short sides of the board, obviously!)  Three points were awarded to either side for unit kills, and one point for each table quarter held.

The Allies would get 15 points if they could keep that entire intersection area clear of Boche.  That meant that all the buildings would have to be emptied of German units.  Very unlikely, so it was probably going to come down to unit kills and table quarters.

There were other special deployment schemes as well.  At some point, I hope to show a genuine battle report to you!  But, it all has to start somewhere, and that's by building up a table.

Stay tuned!!!