Well the FOW order arrived and at least all the bits are all there and in good order. Battlefront also included a glossy sales brochure which is handy for reference. So now I have several more FOW vehicles to paint and two 17/25pdr guns to assemble, base and paint.

Primed 5 Universal Carrier passengers black as I’m considering a different paint scheme for the figures. Placed my old 6pdr Portee in a fresh meths bath along with an older Universal Carrier. Must scrub them tonight. The Portee has lost it’s windscreen but I figure I can whip up another one with a press mold and some careful resin pouring. Some light vehicle painting and finished two UC passengers.

I must say I’m unimpressed by the customer service from Battlefront’s online store. It took them exactly a week to process and dispatch my simple $100NZ order. Evidently most of the delay was from an out of stock item that had to be recast. However I had to chase them to find this out after hearing nothing for 3 days after placing the order. Wayne Turner at Battlefront was apparently slow in getting back to me because he was ‘away yesterday afternoon’ which is a pretty lame excuse in this day and age. Do they only have one guy that deals with web orders? Does nobody else there have access to the relevant email account?

I’ve dealt with numerous companies via the Internet as detailed on this blog. Almost universally I’ve received prompt (and often personal) service and Bruce Hirst of Hirst Arts is a model of customer service. I’ve even received goods from him in 3 days, astounding considering he’s based in midwest US. Possibly I’ve been spoiled…

Battlefront’s lack of response to my emails prompted me to bitch on their forum. This resulted in a quick reply from Wayne and the post being immediately removed! Squeeky wheel gets the grease I guess, although it seems a tad shady to remove the complaint.

Battlefront have an excellent product, however I’m definitely wary of using their online store again. For now I think I’ll continue to support my local retailer (Historic Games in Newmarket), even though their stock lines can be slightly out of date.

Ben kindly lent me a dusty old bandsaw he discovered lurking in his basement recently:

Fired it up last night and it seems to handle 3-5mm MDF no worries and would probably be good for 10mm plywood. Although I can see why you had trouble cutting decking timber with it Ben. Did the blade scrag or was it just really slow work? Anyhow you can cut a reasonably small arc with it but the blade width probably dictates the size of the arc. I assume you can get thinner blades Ben? Time to Google bandsaws!

I used it to cut a few more bases for the simple WH40k rock spires I’ve been throwing together:

The painted ones were cut by hand with a hacksaw, unpainted were whipped out in 2 minutes with the bandsaw. It’ll be good for cutting some river/road sections as well.

Also spent so time re-re-organising the FOW Infantry HQ and first Infantry Platoon back onto their bases ready for painting. I need two more Infantry Platoons and some more 25pdrs to complete the force. Looks like I have some painting to do…

The 2 Universal Carrier and 2 Stuart Honeys are also primed and based and ready for detail painting.

Bummer, the AFV site has closed due to ‘high bandwidth usage’. That’s such a pity as this site about armored fighting vehicles was always a good read. They also covered a lot of WWII tanks which was handy for reference.

Assembled, patched and applied stowage to 2 Stuart ‘Honey’s and 2 Universal Carriers. Bit of filing and a wash and they’re ready to paint. I need to sort out the Infantry teams (again) and blue tack them to their bases for painting. After some soul searching I think I’ll stick to my current method of painting them as they seem adequate for the tabletop. The vehicles I’m quite happy with - which is why they’re getting bumped up the painting queue!

Just ordered $100NZ worth of FOW models. That’s:

2 x 6pdr Portee
1 x White Scout Car
1 x Quad tractor (Resin x2)
1 x 17/25pdr gun (x2)
1 x Allied Stowage

That rounds outs the Towed Anti-Tank platoon and the portee Anti-Tank platoon…although I must rescue that first Portee from the meths bath it’s been in for a while! The Armored Car and Div Cav (3 Stuart ‘Honeys’) platoons are almost painted although I’m currently adding stowage. That just leaves bucket loads of Universal Carriers to purchase and paint, and the damned Infantry platoons who are continuing to elude me on the basing front. Also picked up the ‘Desert Rats’ rulebook over the weekend for $35. All these spare monies are coming from TradeMe sales.

The Vampire Counts battled the forces of Chaos at 1500pts a piece in Pitched Battle last night. Due to a single stupid turn on my part I managed to snatch a Draw from the jaws of Victory. If I’d managed to dispatch 48 more points of Chaos (ahem, or preserved some more of my recklessly spent troops) it would have been a minor victory. All in all it was an exciting game though and I think both Generals enjoyed themselves.

The Black Coach was fielded for the first time as well. Not an ideal choice against an army that’s mostly Frenzied and/or immune to Psychology but having just assembled it I had no choice! It did manage to see off a unit of mounted Marauders and a couple of Knights.

Thing I need to do:

1) Review the Terror/Fear rules. As we read it last night the only advantage Terror has is from the 6″ ranged effect and what’s up with the whole Terror/Fear thing?

2) In future games completely ignore the Chaos Warriors. Brent fields them in one massive block that is basically unkillable. However due to their Frenzied rule and the fact that Vampire Counts can create new units on the table in the Magic phase, they are (as the web pundits point out) very easy to ‘drive’ around the tabletop. I was partially successful at this last night. My mistake was to actually try charging the Chaos Warriors once they had their back turned - when I should have just created more Zombies in front of them to drive them away from the centre. Brent will no doubt wise up to this and remove their Mark of Khorne, or split them into smaller units. Both of which are perfectly palatable options from my point of view!

3) Magic items continue to be a crap shoot. Most of the time I carry spell casting items I seem doomed to actually roll the same spell for my Necromancer(s). They are however handy for sucking away the odd dispell dice from your opponent. Tried out a few Power Stones last night as well..they were fairly ineffective in this particular game but I can see they have their uses.

4) Speaking of Dispell dice I must remember that once a Mark of Khorne unit is removed from the table their extra Dispell dice is *also* removed. We determined this last night.

Damn and that’s only like the first turn and a bit. I suspect I need to edit these photos somewhat…