Tale of Two Cities

Tale of Two Cities with Joe Krone. Miniature wargaming has continued to grow over the past 10 years and the choices of which game to play continue to challenge customers for their hard earned cash. Having worked in the gaming industry since 1999 you can easily lose touch with reality so I decided to get back to my grass roots and start a new army as if I was just introduced to this hobby for the first time.

I didn't want to take this journey alone so I invited 3 of my co-workers and 4 members of the WWPD team to embark on this project. Visit the WWPD website here... The idea of this project is quite simple. We all needed to retrain our brain from the prospective of a new gamer and evaluate each purchase and addition to our army. Each participant must include the following items in their purchases and we all were trying to adhere to the same budget of around $450.

Follow The Battlefront US Staff in Tale of Two Cities

Week Six

Joe Krone...

Rob Villnave...

Dave Griffin...	Bruce Breadsley...
Follow The WWPD Team in Tale of Two Cities
Week Six Coming Soon
Steven MacLauchlan...	“Dirty” Jon Baber...
Tom de Mayo...	Joe Messerle...

Week One

Battlefront US	WWPD
Joe Krone...	Steven MacLauchlan...
Dave Griffin...	“Dirty” Jon Baber...
Rob Villnave...	Tom de Mayo...
Bruce Beardsley...	Joe Messerle...
Week Two
Battlefront US	WWPD
Joe Krone...	Steven MacLauchlan...
Dave Griffin...	“Dirty” Jon Baber...
Rob Villnave...	Tom de Mayo...
Bruce Beardsley...	Joe Messerle...
Week Three
Battlefront US	WWPD
Joe Krone...	Steven MacLauchlan...
Dave Griffin...	“Dirty” Jon Baber...
Rob Villnave...	Tom de Mayo...
Bruce Beardsley...	Joe Messerle...
Week Four
Battlefront US	WWPD
Joe Krone...	Steven MacLauchlan...
Dave Griffin...	“Dirty” Jon Baber...
Rob Villnave...	Tom de Mayo...
Bruce Beardsley...	Joe Messerle...
Week Five
Battlefront US	WWPD
Joe Krone...	Steven MacLauchlan...
Dave Griffin...	“Dirty” Jon Baber...
Rob Villnave...	Tom de Mayo...
Bruce Beardsley...	Joe Messerle...

Each Participant Must Purchase: 1x FWBX02 Achtung! - $40.00. 1x GFM110M Hobby Glue - $5.99. 1x GFT015 Premium 5" Flush Cutter - $14.99. 1x GFT026 Hobby Knife w/ extra blades - $6.99. 1x GFT029 5 Piece Diamond Micro Files - $12.99. Total: $80.96 Editor's Note: All prices are listed in US dollars. Left: The Achtung! starter set.

These items give every participant the ability to assemble their miniatures and the rules to the play the game. Not only that but each player must incorporate the miniatures from the Achtung box into their army. Upon hearing this rule, the first thing each participant did was trade their tanks that they would not be using so they could double the amount of useful tanks. Achtung comes with three Sherman tanks and two StuGs so after the swaps each player either had six Sherman tanks or four StuGs. Learn more about Achtung! here...

The Sherman Model Included in Achtung! Left: Assembled plastic Sherman; Middle: Painted Plastic Sherman; Right: Painted Resin & Metal Sherman.

Along this journey each player will establish their own purchases, create their army list, and document their procedures for assembling and painting their army. This should potentially give new players great ideas on building their forces as well as avoid any pitfalls these players may encounter. In the end, all 8 players will converge on Historicon and play a large game of Flames of War with their newly built armies.

The StuG Model Included in Achtung! Left: Assembled plastic StuG; Middle: Painted Plastic StuG; Right: Painted Resin & Metal StuG.

There will be some differences between the Battlefront Staff and the WWPD Staff. They were each given separate instructions to follow in order to give this project a more diverse look at building Flames of War armies. The Battlefront Staff are restricted to only using army lists located in the Forces Book which is included with the purchase of the hardback rulebook. Two members of the Battlefront Staff have picked the British and two members selected the Germans. The hardback rulebook must be included in the overall spending so the Battlefront staff must add $60.00 to their costs.

The WWPD Staff were given no book restrictions and were allowed to choose from any book or PDF army list. Please follow along as each participant will chronicle their idea of the hobby and show you the steps to building a great Flames Of War army. ~ Joe.