Well, I started collecting this Flames of War army (my first) in May 2004 and I just finished painting the main fighting force for the Garage Gamer’s last gaming evening on the 13th of June 2006. All that remains to be painted is five transports (two quad gun tractors, two 15cwt Lorries and a jeep) and a couple of objectives.
It’s hard to believe it has been over two years since I started assembling and painting this force. Particularly considering my second FOW army was purchased and assembled in the space of a month – but then Armored companys are pretty easy to put together.
Anyway, here’s a little roundup of the painted force as it stands now! The HQ platoon has appeared on the blog before and indeed they’re currently in the title bar – thanks to Jonathan for the web design suggestions btw. So they won’t make a repeat appearance here. Instead here’s overhead photos of the two finished Rifle platoons.
Every infantry base in my army was painted using this recipe and both Rifle platoons appear here with a light mortar and Boyes AT rifle team. I’ve also got a single painted PIAT team too. To be honest I find the LM teams are nearly useless, although they can fire smoke, and the Boyes teams totally useless, which is at least historically accurate! Both Rifle platoons typically field without those teams and one platoon is usually given sticky bombs as a stop-gap against any armor assaults.
The only other weapons or combat platoon I field is a Recce carrier group. I initially added this platoon simply because they’re a requirement when you field a NZer Div Cav Light tank platoon. However as Universals are dirt cheap and highly mobile fully-tracked vehicles carrying at least one MG they have turned out to be very useful on the table on more than one occasion.
In the photo you’ll notice the command Universal is flanked by two slightly off colour carriers. That’s because they were amoungst the first vehicles painted in my force and I was experimenting with some cheap art ink at the time. Turns out the ink wasn’t colour fast and bleed down to this odd grape purple colour from a chestnut brown. So at some point in the future these carriers will be stripped and repainted.
That covers the HQ, Rifle and Recce platoons. A following post will cover the Support platoons.