Ok, I admit it: I was so jealous of an gaming friend’s recent Flames of War Army Box purchase that I just had to rush out and start a new army.
So last night I wandered up to Vagaond in Auckland City and purchased a ’88’ FlaK 36 Battery box, a Panzer IIIj box and a Vallejo DAK paints box.
German players know that’s pretty much the core of a DAK ‘Desert Fox’ Armored Company there and it won’t take much to pad it out to 1500 points. I will need at least another Panzer IIIj box before I can start add more interesting bits and bobs.
The Armored Panzergrenadier box is very attractive to me mainly because of the nifty models. However I should probably check their stats as I have a bit of a bad history of purchasing based on what I’d like to tinker with and paint rather than the tactical or strategic merit of a particular unit in the actual game! For example I’m not entirely sure they’re even an option for a DAK Armored Company…
Speaking of painting the DAK colour set is the first Vallejo paint I’ve purchased. There’s an endless stream of rapturous painters on the Flames of War forum that swear by Vallejo so I guess I should try it. Personally I’ve been painting with GW paints for years and am pretty familiar with their working properties. However their colour range does lack a good German tank colour so I figure a new army is a good time to try a new paint manufacturer. I’ll also be interested to see how Vallejo mixes with GW paint.
But before I assemble and prime any Germans I must finish my poor bloody New Zealanders.
I’ve re-jigged my original army list somewhat based on play testing against my erstwhile opponents. This current list is also mostly painted – with something like two objectives, five Infantry bases of various sizes and three Sherman III’s left to finish. It’s not the best list tournament wise, mainly because the Shermans are quite expensive considering they’re only Confident Trained while the rest of the army is Confident Veteran (being NZers), but it’ll just have to suffice!
Infantry:
New Zealand 18th Battalion Company HQ (Company HQ)
1st NZ Rifle Platoon with 3 Rifle Squads, a Light Mortar and 6 Teams with Sticky Bombs.
2nd NZ Rifle Platoon with 3 Rifle Squads, a Light Mortar.
Weapons:
Recce NZ Universal Carrier Patrol with 3 Carriers, each with an additional 0.5″ MG.
Support:
NZ Divisional Cavalry Light Tank Platoon 3 Honeys, each with a 0.5″ AA MG.
British ‘Desert Rats’ Tank Platoon 3 Sherman IIIs, each with a 0.5″ AA MG.
NZ Field Battery with 2 Gun Sections.