Slow Dancer at Mayhem in the Mountains

So,

I am finally recovered from the long road trip this past weekend to attend Mayhem in the Mountains with DrunkenSamurai. Our trip started at 4:13 am on Friday, with Drunken's car loaded with terrain and a whole pantry full of food (packed by Mrs. DrunkenSamurai) we headed out to the song of Slow Dancer by Robert Plant. The trip was pretty uneventful and we arrived in Parker Colorado around 6:00pm Colorado time.

First up was to check in with my friends, the Goodmans & Carr's and them Drunken and I headed for Collectormania in Parker. We met up with Tim McKnight & Aaron Hunt to hand off the events shirts and then Drunken and I headed back to crash for the night.

Saturday saw us up at the shop to set terrain up and I snapped few pictures of the tables. I brought the Amon Hen & Mirkwood table from GitD and the rest of the tables were built by the local LotR group in the last few weeks.

First up my Amon Hen table from GitD.

Next was a table put together by Aaron Hunt to represent the town of Bree.

Here we have a Mordor table built by Russ Brown, this was one tough table to fight on!

Here is a Isengard table, this table gave me inspiration to build one for GitD 2011.

Next up we have the Shire by Tim McKnight.

Here is the Mirkwood table I brought from GitD.

So with that we got our table assignments and who we would play for the first round. I got Russ Brown on the Shire table. The First scenario was called The Foothills of Khazad Dum and was a modified Ill Met By Moonlight scenario.
Russ was playing a Minas Morgul army with two Nazgul's (one generic and the Undying) Russ was a great person to play against and I voted for him as my Favorite player in the event.
Unfortunately Russ deployed his weaker troops (Orcs!) up on the center line with his tougher troops 3" back from his baseline. Needless to say my Spiders deployed right up front and I was all over him in the first turn. Russ played a good game but by the time the Nazgul got up close to support the game was pretty much over, although he did kill the Spider Queen! So I got a Major Win and Russ actually got 3 bonus points for doing more wounds with his Hero.


My second game was against John Hess from the Chicago area, one of the other "Ringers" that traveled to the event to play. John was playing a Dol Guldur force that had nothing but Easterlings and a few Black Guard Orcs. The scenario was Reinforcements which was a modified Clash of Piquets scenario. The only chance I had was the fact I was on my Mirkwood table and I knew I had to use the terrain to my advantage.

Needless to say, I was a bit brash and rushed my Spiders up to quickly without the support of the goblins and I ended up loosing pretty bad which meant I got a Major Loss!


My third game was against Aaron Hunt and his Gondor army. Well as luck would have it my camera batteries died so I did not get a picture of Aaron or his army. We played a modified Domination scenario with three objectives. Well the game ended up as a Draw due to the fact that Aaron forgot to move his troops up to take a objective on his side of the board. Most of his army killed all but 6 Goblins in my army and he outnumbered me in the middle and I held one objective on my side. So when I rolled for the game to end it looked like Aaron won, but since he forgot to move his troops he had only one objective in the center while I had mine. So it was a Draw and I only had 6 Goblins left out of 48 models!! What a cool game!

At this point my son made it to the store and changed out my batteries and than he took a few pictures while the event was going on, here is DrunkenSamurai (In Orange Shirt & Green Hat!) playing against Will's "Ice Dwarf's".

Russ Brown & Tim McKnight fighting it out on the Amon Hen table.

Here is Rob Farallo & Downtown Frank Brown doing battle.

Chris Langland Easterlings vs Aaron Hunt's Gondor force.

Not sure who's Isengard force fighting against Corey O'Brian's Goblin hoard.

Corey (On the Left!) smiling while his Goblins kill something!

Here I am (on the left) not liking what is happening, must have been getting beaten up!

DrunkenSamurai trying to figure out how to deal with the Mordor table.

Well after three rounds I was 1 Major Win, 1 Major Loss & a Draw, not to bad, not great, but not bad. After the three games all of us went to Old Chicago for Pizza & Beers. Can't tell you what we talked about (and I was not drinking!) but it was a great time. And Keith did not fall asleep at all during dinner, way to go Keith the Hobbit!

Sunday came and we were back at the shop for game 4, The Artifact, which is a modified Seize the Prize scenario that GitD introduced 3 years ago. I got Rob Farallo and his Easterling force. Having played this scenario many times (I mean many times in three years) I had this scenario figured out. To make things even better, we played this on the Isengard table which meant that the artifact was in between the two large pits, so I knew where the fight would happen.
Rob was a great guy and he had a tough army, but since I played this scenario many times I knew what I had to do. Needless to say I flanked his army with a few spiders and proceeded to take apart his force.
Rob had a few Kataphrakt's and that's what I decided had to die first so that he could not get off the table with the artifact.
I also liked that Rob painted his army vary similar to the movie Easterlings which was also the same way I painted mine.

Well after the dust settled, I walked away with a Major Win and was feeling pretty good about how the army was doing. But than I realized that I was sitting pretty far at the top of the rankings which meant I could draw Chris L or Frank Brown in the last round.

Well as luck would have it I got Chris Langland and his Easterling force on the wide open Mordor table! Now Chris has been out to the GitD a couple of times but i never got to play against him. So with that we squared of in a Kill them all scenario called Red Horn Pass.
It was a tough game and I ended up making a few errors that lead to Chris winning the game with a Major Win while I took a Major Loss! Good Game Chris.
So after the game came the awards presentation and the announcement of the Durin's Axe painting competition which I entered 3 entries, a Goblin Shaman, a Morannon Orc Captain and the Meats Back on the Menu diorama.

Now I have one negative thing about this event and it was the two tools that were judging the painting for the armies and the paint competition. First off they did not really look at any models in the armies and from what I heard they graded everyone low. Secondly the choice's for the Durin's Axe was a little wonky. I did not make the cut and was beaten by Chris Langlands Gandalf that was okay, Drunken Samurai Saurmon took 2nd and a Undying model that looked like a 6 year old dry brushed it! Clearly these "judges" had no frickin clue and I would love to see some of there models! Hell I think they may need glass's!

Anyhow I ended up winning the Diorama since I was the only one that entered! it felt like a hollow victory since no one else entered.

Now Keith got to the main announcements and I was surprised to see that I won Best Appearance for my army. I also came in second in the Sportsmenship and I was 4th overall! The results can be seen here. DrunkenSamurai took 8th overall. So not too bad for the Arizonians, although I know DrunkenSamurai wish's he did better.

So to celebrate Drunken & I went to dinner at the Chill's in Parker that has some very interesting looking Chill's out front. We than headed back to crash for the night so we could get up early on Monday, which we did at 4:00am again. This time the Road Trip song was Rush, Finding my way Home! Not too much to say about the return trip, we both just wanted to get home.

So to wrap it up, it was a great trip and a great run event, I look forward to going again next year.

TK

Back from Mayhem in the Mountains

Well back from Mayhem in the Mountains in Parker Colorado, had a great time! I came in 4th overall and got Best Appearance with my army. Also won the Durin's Axe for my Diorama.

Will post more details in a few days, tired and need to eat and crash, so stay tuned for pictures and a full report. By the way, thanks to Robert Brightwell, he and I drove his car up to Parker and back.

TK

Mayhem in the Mountains

So,

Next weekend Drunkensamurai and I are headed up to Colorado to play in Mayhem in the Mountains, a Lord of the Rings tourney that my buddy Keith is running. You see I talked Keith into setting up a LotR event much like Gathering in the Desert while at Adepticon this year. Really it was an easy thing to do when Keith had a few beers in him!

Anyway, I also talked Drunkensamurai into driving up and playing in the event. So next Friday we load up his car and head up to Parker Colorado for some LotR action. Nice thing about this event is that besides the locals and Drunken & I, Frank Brown and a few other "Ringers" are coming into town for this event.

So with myself committed to going to the event, the next thing was what to take to play? Well I could go ultra competitive or I could go with fun. So I went with something sort of both, the list is called Denizens of Mirkwood and is shown below.

I thought I would keep the army list under wraps, but heck, I am just going to have some fun and I am curious on how well the army will do. I have played a few games with it so far and I have to Major Wins under my belt. One was against Tom O's Gondor force and the other was against Jerry's Corsairs list. I think it will be a fun set of games.


Besides the LotR tourney, Keith is running the Durins Axe painting competition, which is much like the Red Dragons we run at GitD. Below are two out of the three entries that I plan on entering. First up a Goblin Shaman.


The other is a Morannon Orc Captain that was going to be part of the above force but I dropped him from the list.

My other entry is still being worked on and it is for the Diorama entry and it is called "Meats back on the Menu Boys!". Once it is done I will post a few pictures.

Anyhow, I will have full coverage of the trip and the event next week after I get back, so stay tuned...

TK

Old Glory M3A1 Stuart assembly.

So,

In my last post, I mentioned that I went crazy and started a new Flames of War army. I went with Old Glory Miniatures for my tanks and unfortunately their site had no pictures of the tanks, so I was taking a chance on ordering them. A few years ago I assembled and painted a few Old Glory German tanks for my buddy Tom, and I was not impressed with these models. They all looked like they had been stepped on and smashed. They just did not look right to me, but with Battlefront Miniatures getting ready to raise prices, I took a chance on Old Glory and hoped my previous encounter with the models was a fluke.

Now below is a picture of what the real M3A1 Stuart looks like.


And here is a shot of what you get from Old Glory, notice there is no instructions in the bag.


So when I got the minis I did what most people do, I went to the Internet to see if there was some sort of instructions for assembly. Guess what? There wasn't, so I decided to do one here on my blog. I also know a buddy of mine (Jerry) purchased these same models and will need help with them.

So lets take a look at what is in the bag, below is a shot with everything laid out, you get three vehicles per bag and most parts are pretty clear as to what and where they go. But there is a few pieces that I had no clue of what they were for.

Here are some of the pieces that were unclear, on the top right are some sort of barrels, on the top left are some sort of storage box and the center are the hatch's for the turret.


First up was gluing the tracks to the hull, this was pretty easy since they only go on one way. I used thick super glue and clamped the tracks to the hull while the glue set up. There was very little flash on the hull and some minor flash on the tracks that was easy to clean up.

Next up came the turret assembly with the main gun. The turret front has a hole for the gun & mantel to line up, although I did have to trim the mounting pin on the mantel down as well as file some of the front of the turret down to get a flush fit.

Here is a shot of the Hatch's and turret, you will notice that there are 6 hatch's, 2 for each turret. The hatch's on the left are for the left hatch and the 3 hatch's on the right go on the the right side.


Now next up is mounting the machine gun on the turret, you will notice on the right is the MG and you have to carefully cut it off the sprue. I also used a 1/32" drill to make a small hole for the MG to mount to. I had to look at real pictures on the M3A1 to find out where it has mounted. Come to find out it mounts to the back of the turret. The Drill bit is pointing at the spot.
Here you can see it better, it is the tube stuck on the back of the turret behind the right hatch.

Here is how it looks once mounted on the turret. I am not sure about the piece sticking off the bottom so I left it on.

After the MG was mounted I secured the gun mantle to the front. Something I had to look at real pictures was how the gun mounts. Did the MG on the mantle go on the right or left? Well it goes on the left side, also the gun mantle has a very unique front that is larger on the top than the bottom, if you mount it the other way it looks like it is too big on the bottom and to small on the top. It's hard to see in these pictures, so just mount it with the MG on the left if your looking at it from the front end.



So here is what you should have at this time, looks pretty much done, but wait there is more!

What are these parts and where do they go? Well it seems that the barrel looking things on the left are extra fuel barrels. Most pictures you do not see them on the tank, but early non war pictures and other scale models show them on the vehicles. On the right are extra storage bins that go towards the rear which I will show you.

First up the fuel barrels, I painted the areas where these mount too.
Here is what they look like mounted in place.

Next up the extra storage bins, well once again looking at real pictures, these mount to the rear on both sides in the area painted red.
So here is a shot from the rear showing you how they mount. You will notice that the storage box has a slant that should be facing towards the rear of the tank.
And here is a side shot with them in place towards the rear deck of the tank.

So there you have it, a quick lesson on how to assemble the Old Glory M3A1 Stuart Tank.


I have to say, that these Old Glory models did not have any of the same issues like the ones I did for Tom. In fact I like these better than the Battlefront minis M3A1's, I am very happy that I purchased these vehicles.

Next up will be the assembly on the M3 Lee tanks I purchased from Old Glory, so stay tuned...

TK

Operation TORCH

So, a few blog post ago I talked about my growing Flames of War DAK army and I also said I was going to show off some pictures of it. Well I never got around to doing that, but I will so hold on since I am about to add two more armies to my Flames of War collection!

A few of us here in Phoenix have started building Mid-War Desert War armies (DAK, 8th Army, Americans, Italians) for FoW. I only have my DAK which means I can only play a few of my friends (I do not like to play out of period or fight the same armies against each other.) So I had been thinking of building another army so I can play a few other folks in our little group.

Now I have always loved the Desert War of WWII and it may have to do with all the stories my Grandfather told me since he was in Operation Torch. Well a few years ago I picked up this awesome book by Rick Atkinson called An Army at Dawn, The War in North Africa, 1942-1943. This is an awesome book and I only got through half of the book. Well about 4 weeks ago I grabbed the book of the shelf and started to re-read it again. Now with our little group playing FoW in North Africa, this book fueled the passion to build an American force for FoW.



The only problem was which army do I start to collect and seeing how funds are extremely tight, how do I acquire said army? As some know too, Battlefront has either, or is going to raise their prices on their products. So what is a gamer to do???

Well enter Old Glory Miniatures and their wonderful Army Deals! Some of the guys were about to order a few things for Robs Civil War game for Black Powder. So armed with a 40% off deal I set out to purchase a army. I had decided that I wanted an American Tank Company but with a twist. You see during Operation TORCH, the US sent various armoured vehicles (aka Tanks) to fight the Germans. Most of these were the Sherman's, but other smaller tanks were sent such as the M3 A1 Stuart Tanks. Now as luck would have it, when the Americans went to unload the Sherman Tanks, they found that the access hatch to unload them was 4" too small and the bigger tanks could not fit. So I thought why not use some M3A1's for my tank company!

So there you go, a light tank company is born, below is a shot of all the vehicles that I acquired. (4 packs of 3 M3A1 Stuarts, 2 packs of M3 Lees, 2 packs of T19 mobile artillery and a few M3 75mm guns). This will be the basis for my Tank Company.

But wait, it does not stop there! You see, the 40% off suckered me into buying a Motorised Rifle company for the Americans as well! So below is the total haul form the OG order! Now I did also order a few 105cm Artillery guns for my DAK troops, but for the most part it is all Americans baby!
So there you go, a glimpse into madness that is my FoW addiction. I plan on showing the assembly and painting of this army as well, so stay tuned for that...

TK

Sixguns Ablazing!

So yesterday I was invited to a friends house for some Legends of the Old West gaming for a sort of LotOW Campaign day. A few of the usual suspects (Rob B, Mike G, Tom O) were also invited out as well. There was a total of 8 of us playing various Posse's, I took an Outlaw gang called El Rojo Diablos.


My Desperado leader named William Blackhart who started out with a Heavy Pistol and a knife.


Next up are two Kids, on the left is TJ and on the right is Billy, both armed with Sixgun's and knives.

I also had 4 Toughs to start but ended up with 5 Toughs at the end. Starting on the right is Cisco with a Rifle, Bart, Red, Whittey and Slick were all armed with Sixgun's and knives.


I had one Rowdie which was Lawrence with a Shotgun and knife.



After my second game, I Hired a Mexican Bandido named Jose' and had him for my last two games.


We each got in 4 games against each other and we used the Posse with the highest Infamy rating to determine who would play who from round to round.

First game I played was Jailbreak against Rob E friend Mike. He was playing a Lawmen Posse. I was the attacker trying to rescue Billy from jail. Well I lost with everyone in the Posse having to test for injuries.

Second game was against Rob E playing his Cowboys in the Bar Room Brawl scenario. After my Rojo Diablos beat the Cowpokes to a bloody pulp I had a win.

Third game was against Mike G and his awesome looking Lawmen Posse playing another Jail Break scenario. This time I was able to at least get into the jail and look for the keys but ended up having to bail out and Head for the hills since the Lawmen were dropping my Posse like no ones business.

Last game was against Tom O's Desperado posse. We rolled up the High Noon scenario and set about shooting each other up! In the end I made him Head for the Hills and came out of the scenario as the winner. By the way, Tom's Posse and mine were the highest Infamy ratings and it was a battle for 1st & 2nd place.

Well after the battle Tom edged me out in Infamy with a rating of 111 to my 107! So even though I won, I still lost! But all in all it was a great day of gaming with some great guys.

TK