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Luke's Hobby League

Luke's Hobby League

Luke's Hobby League
All journeys start with a first step and starting a new army in Flames Of War is no different. For the Hobby League I’ve decided to go with a British Force. I love my tanks so the first thing I’m going to start with is with my tanks. My very first Flames Of War Army was a Panzer IV Company with a heavy emphasis on bringing lots of tanks and since I’m wanting to keep things new (while also familiar), I want to put an infantry company into the final 100 points. With this focus in mind what better tanks to support the infantry than the Churchill, the ideal infantry tank!

My first 50 points will go towards a Churchill Company along with some M10s to help me deal with some of that pesky heavy armour out there. Looking forwards after this is done my next lot of points will be spread around an infantry company (what kind of company I’m not sure on just yet) as well as some more support to fill in the gaps I’ll likely find as we start playing games against each other. I’ve got a nice pile of sprues (and some tea) to build away at and some fresh paints so I’ll be starting nearly the moment I stop writing this! 

Luke's Hobby League

Week 1
Over the past week I’ve been busy and my pile of sprues has gotten considerably smaller. The Stuarts and M10s are done and only a pair of Churchills to finish building (I’ll be doing this during lunch today!). With most of the building out of the way It’s time to seriously start looking at my painting schedule. My break down is a total of 14 tanks in my first 50 points and 3 weeks to paint in, this works out to around 4-5 tanks a week. While this sounds like a lot at first, breaking it up this way makes it look a lot less daunting. Owing to the number of Churchills I’ve taken I’ll be painting one platoon every week and adding in either the Stuarts or the M10s.

Luke's Hobby League

Luke's Hobby League

Week 2
This week I've been focused on base coating for a big push this week to finish my first points and get off the mark on the board. While that's been at home in the office I've gotten some more models for the next 50 points as well as sorting out my unit cards and the paints I'll need for the Poor Bloody Infantry I'll be bringing in the full list. As tempting as it is to dive head first into the Rifle Company I'll have to hold off and keep focused on my orginal plan.


Week 3

This week is a milestone for me with my first two Squadrons of tanks done. This week is the first squadron of Churchills and the Stuarts to back them up. With this I have my first 18 points on the chart.

Some of the keen eyed viewers will see some extra stowage on the side of the turret. This is an optional piece from the plastic Jeep Sprue (I happened to have some extras around) and they fit great and they’ll be great to set my tanks apart a little. I’ve added these to a few of my tanks that aren’t finished just yet  

Luke Week 3 Luke's Hobby League

The Next 25 Points

This week has seen me quite busy. With the first 50 points done (and D-Day: German launch finished too) I’ve turned towards building the rest. For the next 25 points I’ll be needing my last two M10s and I’ll be added a full platoon of 25pdrs. All of these have been built and base coated so for now it’s going to be a lot of green! With my first based unit comes the decision that needs to made on a basing style. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll have to make a final decision on that one, so it's just something I’ll be keeping in mind as I paint the infantry on the guns and with some Artillery in my list I’ll finally have an answer to dug in infantry for our next round of games. 


 

This week I took some time to truly muse over my army list and my previous games and think about why I’m taking what I am. So far I’ve played one game with my 50 points and how this game can help me figure out where I need to go with the rest of my army. As I mentioned in my previous battle report the Churchills had a heck of a time digging the infantry out of those buildings taking several turns to truly soften them up. (You can see the full battle report here...) I was also fairly lucky in that some early shots disabled an anti-tank team on the second platoon early.  As we move up towards 100 points I’m starting to see the gaps in capability and how this next 50 points is going to be spent filling them.

First up is our anti-tank. Right now I don’t have the greatest answer to the German big cats. In fact, a Tiger Company would scare the heck out of me since they're almost immune to Churchills and only the two M10s could truly threaten at range. My priority is to get that M10 platoon to full strength and reduce the risk of losing the entire thing to early shots. I suspect where ever I find enemy armour these will draw fire.

My next priority is dealing with infantry. As I said, early I got quite lucky with some of my dice rolls. With key saves being made a few lucky casualties reduced the danger to the assaulting Churchills. As more points get added I need the tools to dig infantry out of buildings I’m attacking and slow down an infantry company moving across the table. The 25pdrs fill this nicely providing this in addition to some emergency anti-tank if things truly get hairy. There have been talks about an “unofficial” 75 point series of games too so hopefully these new additions will come in handy!

My battle Report

Battle Report 2

This week marks our 75 point mile stone and I can happily say that I hit the mark. I’ve talked a couple of times now about why I’m adding the M10s and 25pdrs. My 25 points for this week was relatively simple and at the same time a little complicated. The M10s was a bit of a given seeing as I had no room for the full unit of four in the first 50 points. For my unit leader I’ve added some stowage to set him apart.

The 25 pdrs however marked the first time I’ve painted a gun, infantry and based so I had to get quite a bit of help for a few of the steps to finishing these. The guns were simple enough matching what I’ve done with the tanks so far. Next came the infantry which I had the colours for. While a little bit of a fuss due to size of the models vs the size of hands the challenge was unique and fun and provided a great warm up to when I inevitably paint more infantry. Flock was next and Chris Townley pointed me the direction I needed to go with a nice easy mix of GF9 Green Grass and Dry Straw. The last flourish was some grass tuffs I’ve had for a project that got put on hold for the Hobby League. Putting it all together was great fun, a lot more than I was expecting and the result for a first timer in this is not too shabby. 

Looking forwards at my planned list the 25pdrs have been only prelude to the infantry I’ve planned for next. With the experience I’ve gained here I can apply the lessons to the Rifle Company. This is two full platoons of Riflemen and six Universal Carriers. The carriers themselves will be simple enough (but I need to double check my decals). The key here will be pacing since I certainly won’t be able (nor want to) to sprint through the 50+ figures I’m painting. After the weekend I’ll be setting a pace of one to two teams a night every night. This should leave me plenty of time to and base the infantry who will be done all at once at the same time when everything is painted. Hopefully it all pans out.

Luke's Hobby League

Luke's Hobby League