October 21, 2017

TANKS by Galeforce 9:
The First Game On
The New Battlefield

Yesterday we played our first 2 vs 2 match of TANKS by Galeforce 9 with 150 points each player. We did not add any custom or official addon rules except for minefields and destroyable scenery:
"When a V1 rocket gets hit it eplodes giving everything in 3 inch range one critical hit.
And we use dice (the purple dice) instead of the game's normal movement markers."

After the dice decided which team was the attacker/defender and the scenery and troops was placed the table looked like this:

The battlefield in its glory


The attacking platoons
The attackers were played by the Padawan and me. Our british platoon, played by teammate, had 3 Comets, 1 Sherman V, 1 Sherman Firefly and 1 Crusader. The second platoon was played by me and had 4 Sherman 76mm and a Pershing.

The defenders ready to beginn
The defenders had 2 platoons of German tanks. The first platoon was played by Mr.Burnz and had 2 Panther, two Panzer IV and 1 Tiger (early). My Mate Olli played the other platoon that consisted 2 Panthers, 1 Panzer IV, 1 StuG 3 and 1 Tiger (early).
First blood
It felt like 80 hours until the first shots were fired but from this points the game gained more speed. It was still some kind of chaos moving and shooting 20+ tanks with some of them having a higher initiative for shooting then for moving.

The defenders crossing the river
The German tanks started to push over the river, 2 of them were already destroyed while their opponents still and no losses. As their opponensts we decided to rush into the enemy but my teammate had to leave us soon that I had to play his tank platoon to finish the game.

The first Comet is gone
The game continued and the Panthers were demonstrating their strenght easily destroying a Comet tank. One the left side you can see the lucky Crusader tank who survived a hit by the Tiger in the side over near distance with losing only one hitpoint.

The game went on but it was too late that we decided to end it. The winning side was the side with the most destroyed enemy's points and that victory went to the Padawan and me. The picture below shows the battlefield after the last round.

The battlefield after finishing the match

The game was great fun, even when it sometimes got a little chaotic, but there are still some improvements to make to smooth the gameplay but those things are already on the workbench.
And we should build something to store the decks ingame, we had to use an ironing board and a clothes drying rack for our cards.

October 18, 2017

The New Battlefield
(Work In Progress)

After some hours of work we finished the smaller piece with the bridge. The large piece got some streets and parts of an airfield but we did not finish it.

The whole battlefield
The connection piece with the 2 bridges

The center of  the new part of the battlefield

The airfield

Soviet tanks approaching the river

Time To Build
Some Scenery

 Today's mission is to continue the work on the next playfield elements for our TANKS games.


The large piece will get some streets and an airfield on the bottom, the piece in the middle will have 2 bridges above its river, and the piece on the left is some kind of simple beach that needs only some finishing touches.

At the moment we are playing on 1x1 meter, after finishing these pieces it will be 2,5x1 meters what means that we will be able for a big 2 vs 2 match with 500 points per side.

I just wanted to show how it is looking now, tonight I will post pictures of the progress we hopefully will do today.

28mm Russian Infantry And Guns
By The Plastic Soldier Company

Some years ago I ordered each one sprue of Plastic Soldier Company's 28mm Russian "Infantry in Summer uniform", "Infantry heavy weapons" and "45 mm AT gun". Then they were stored somewhere deep in a box (like most of my modelling stuff).

I recently found some time to paint them. The uniform color was the rest of my old GW Desert Yellow, the helmets got some generic green and most leather was painted with Citadel Snakebite Leather. The skintone comes from Pegasus.

The final steps before basing were some skintone washes followed by a 50/50 mix of  Armypainter strong wash and War-Ter®, and sealing the figures with Revell Aquacolor Farblos matt.

update:
In this post all minis got new heads with helmets and gasmasks

October 16, 2017

15mm Soviet Forces
For
TANKS By Galeforce 9

An old Lenin button as eye-catcher

My first army for Galeforce 9's Tanks. Well stored in this wooden box are the Soviet forces that can be played by friends of mine to get into a first game of tanks.
And they were victorious the first time they entered the battlefield (against me).

 
Stored in this box the troops will stay safe while travelling to new battlefields. The complete inlay was built with Velux isolation tape and Feldherr 10mm foam tray bottom parts and glued with UHU Alleskleber (denn Modellbau ist kriegswichtig). The red star was cut from red felt.
All models are 15mm / 1:100  scale.


 

The main force of the Soviet troops is the T34 tank, which is playable in the two mainversions of it.  All that has to be done is to change the turret to use the T34/76 or the T34/85. The models are from Plasticsoldier Company and went well together.

All of the Soviet tanks were painted with Revell Aquacolor Olivgrün, then came some heavy drybrushing with Pegasus Olivgrün followed by a lighter drybrush with Revell Aquacolor Olivgrau. The tracks were painted in Revell Aquacolor Rost followed by adding some Pegasus Edelstahl.
The final step before adding decals and sealing the model was to wash the model with a 50/50 mix of  GW Nuln Oil and War-Ter®. All decals came from the sparebook and are 1/72 scale.

(update: I gave the pictures and the tanks a last look for tonight and it seems that I did not use the colors I mentioned above.)


The next two models were build from one Battlefront SU-100 kit with some sparetracks from the PSC T34 box and a scratchbuilt chassis. The colors I used were the same as on the other tanks, the second camouflage color is Revell Aquacolor Khakibraun (or Dark Earth). 


Last but not least comes a big one, Zvezda's model of the IS-2 tank. I cut the old hatch and added one from the sparebox. It is a nice kit but the inner side of the tracks have no details except for their teeth.

Now with the finished Soviet tank platoon it's time to get another platoon finished. My US tanks, 4 Sherman 75/76mm and a Pershing are ready for a paintjob but I am not sure if I have enough paint or have to join my local dealer to get new colors. And my first British Shermans need only some more decals and sealing but the decals I use are so fraking thin and fragile.