Thursday, September 29, 2011

Animated flames and smoke markers

Why all the things on a table have to be static? Why not to make some of them animated? Tempting...?

I decided to play a little bit with batteries and LEDs to make an animated smoke marker. To make the marker I used CR1620 battery and two pulsing LEDs - red and yellow.

Below you can see a simple prototype I made, however, there are couple of things to improve. Unfortunately, yellow diode does not shine as bright as the red one. I had also a problem with the switch (actually, in the movie you see below, the yellow diode didn't turn on).

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Meet my army: Part I - SS-Assault Gun Platoon

Finally, I decided to introduce my army platoon by platoon.

I will start from my assault gun platoon. I've already presented StuGs, however, recently I decided to repaint them and add some foliage camouflage, so it is justified to bring the back again ;)

Because I usually play 2nd SS Panzer Division I can bring up to four StuGs in a single assault gun platoon. Therefore, I had to decide what vehicle numbers assign to them, as I have five of them.

First of all, I had to figure out how the numbers were assigned to StuGs in the division. I knew that all the assault guns were grouped in a single Sturmgeschützabteilung at the division-level. However, I found different numberings that were used in such units. Luckily, I found a photo of StuG III coming from the 2nd SS in Normandy with the number 132. So I decided to assign the number 100 to one of the StuGs as a Company HQ and numbers between 131 to 134 to the rest of the StuGs.

StuG IIIG guns are a pretty useful weapon in FOW. Although, they can't equal to the heavies like Panther or Tiger, they are, in my opinion, superior to typical British and American tanks (Cromwells or Shermans). Their front armor is equal to 7, which means better survivability, and their 75mm gun gives enough firepower to destroy most of the comparable enemy tanks. The situation is a little bit different if you consider assaulting infantry. In such case Panzer IVH is probably a better option (additional MG and 360 degrees of fire). However, when you command an infantry company, you will probably push your soldiers forward to attack and use StuGs as a protection from tanks and other nasty vehicles rather than assault force on its own.













September FOW Tournament at CUBE

Mirek and I have recently attended a local FOW tournament at Cube. With 12 attendees it was probably the biggest such event yet—getting local FOW players together in numbers is not unlike herding cats at times. There were 2 British, 1 American, 1 Soviet, 1 Finish, and 7 German lists present (the Finns were mine and Mirek brough his Germans). The tournament consisted of three 1500-point games around 110 minutes each with randomly selected scenarios, and Encounter, Breakthrough, and Cauldron, respectively, were selected.

Mirek: It was the biggest FOW tournament I've attended so far. The 1500-point limit was quite a problem for me. I really wanted to use my recently-painted Panzerpioniers, so I have to make odd shifts in my roster (which unfortunately turned out to be illegal - I wrongly assumed that the SS-Heavy Platoon can be a core combat platoon... sorry guys). All in all, it was fun to play, and I learnt much from my opponents (thanks!). In the last battle I had a chance to attack in the cauldron scenario for the first time. Yes you guessed correctly... It was a disaster ;)

Kondziu: I guess I don't know how to use my 1500 point Panssari list. As an effect my performance in the games was far from stellar and I barely secured two draws—one with Mirek in the first game and one in the last game—and one most heinously ignominious defeat... which at least gave me lots of time to trawl about the tables and take pictures of everyone playing. Though pictures of mine and my opponent's stuff are missing because we already cleaned up. That all came out too negative-sounding, I actually had lots of fun playing.






















Post and Photos by Kondziu