Finns!

by Dirty Jon

I've recently been working on my Flames of War Early War Finns as I found them particularly interesting when Rising Sun came out.  In this article, I will take a look at what I have gathered at this point and discuss some plans for building out my collection moving forward.  Below, see all the stuff I have painted up for the Finns.

This is all of my painted Finns.  More on the way...

I started the army with a Jääkäri Rifle Platoon (Winter) (FI721).  You can see my article on these here.  In addition, I quickly purchased another blister just like it, but I still need to find time to get it painted.  Each blister comes with an additional command stand, so I should be set for the compulsory units.

Next, I decided to go with a couple of standard infantry support options - the HMG platoon and the ubiquitous 81mm mortar platoon.  The Machine-gun Platoon (Winter) (FI724) gives you four HMGs with a command, and the Mortar Platoon (Winter) (FI725) gives some close artillery support.  These are pretty standard in most armies.  What is really cool is that the HMGs can be combat attached out to my rifle platoons -- I love flexibility.

HMGs all finished.

I found both units to be relatively flash-free and easy to paint.  The pre-aligned holes do present a bit of a problem in lining up the assistant gunner with the HMGs, but I just slapped them in one of the holes and went with it.  I bet you didn't even notice, did you?  The packs do come with blanks that can fill in for un-used holes, which is a nice touch.

Blanks provided to fill holes.

All done and ready for final basing.

I put these guys all on the bases from the beginning so that I could get the colors right.  I primed with a light grey primer, then heavily dry-brushed the whole stand with white.  Next, I did an inking, followed up by another lighter white drybrush.  After that, I painted up all the other details on the figures.

I really do not like the plain snowdrift look to most winter bases.  For my look, I used a mix of light and medium ballast for the first layer to hide the holes and mounting points.  After finishing with the painting, I applied some snow flock.  After sealing, I used some Silfor tufts in a dead-grass looking color.  After the tufts were dry, I dabbed on a little white glue and sprinkled some snow on the tufts to complete the look.

I used the provided blanks to fill in under the guys on the ground.

So, the belt is a little far away.  Meh.  I didn't feel like messing with the base.  Maybe he is just re-loading?

The mortar platoon was just what I expected, having done these for two other nations by now.  I did find that two-thirds of the figures on each base were the same, so I made sure to move the mortar and the placement of the figures around a bit.  I assume that with the Axis Minor Powers, this is to be expected.  I used some different color changes on both platoons to mix up the look a bit.  If you look closely, you see some variation in the pants and gloves.

I also have a Panssari Christie Platoon for the Finns, which I reviewed here.  This is a nice, beefy, mobile unit that allows for some tactical maneuvering.  Like most infantry lists in Early War, the Finns are lacking in AT assets in just about every way.  Five tanks running around with AT 7 and a 4+ Firepower is nothing to sneeze at and could provide some headaches for Russian tanks.  The addition of the Tank Escorts allows this unit to take on some limited Assault work as well.  Again, flexibility.

One thing that was weird, is that I HAD to take the Light Infantry Company or Jääkärikomppania to get the Christie tanks.  Now, these were the skiing, assaulting, Finnish troops specializing in general bad-assery, so  I guess that's ok. 

To round out the models I have so far, I added in a Fokker CX.  I thought this was a good idea because Steven sent this to me for review air is just so awesome and provides yet another anti-tank asset that is scarce in Early War.  Also, its a bi-plane, which is just great looking.

This model also came in pretty free of flash and painted up nice and looks great with the included decals.  The price we pay for this being a bi-plane is that, well, it's a bi-plane -- the assembly is fairly frustrating, especially since the top wing is metal.  The landing gear is pretty fiddly as well -- I cannot imagine having to do three of these back in 2nd Edition.  Bleh.

This little guy has some pretty nasty stats for such an innocent looking plane.  This should really help keep those Soviets from getting too bunched up.  Also, it intercepts just like a FW190 in this game, so there ya go!

So, where the heck does all that leave us?  Well, I'm glad you asked!

Right now, we sit at near 1100 points with five platoons of Fearless Veteran infantry and Confident Trained tanks.  If I attach out the HMGs, we are looking at just four platoons.  I think this is fairly likely, so I want to add in at least two more platoons.  In looking at where to add to this list, I came up with the following:

I really like to have two mobile assets, and adding in the T-26s supplies this.  I also get to put in some Recce, going with a small Scout Platoon.  This will be used to lift Gone to Ground or to guard a flank or objective in a pinch.  Lastly, I added in some AT guns to keep tanks at bay.  I thought about adding in just a big Scout platoon and the T-26s, but I didn't want to paint more infantry than necessary didn't want to end up with just a ton of infantry to push around the table with no AT gun support.  I like AT guns, dammit!

This is certainly not a tournament list, but will give me something cool to bust out and play on a Winter table.  It sets the stage for me to expand out into a Mid and a Late War list with the Finns.  Captured T-34s, anyone?

Models provided by Battlefront Miniatures