FOW LW Tournament - Toywiz October 2017

I headed down to Nanuet, NY to participate in a tournament run by Troy Baker and Ordo Malleus.  Its been a while since I've gotten a game with these guys since they manage to schedule their tournaments during every wedding I've been forced to attend over the past 2 years.  And there have been many weddings.  As my Friend "Matt Varnish" and his Canadian cohorts know, I've been unable to attend Canadian Nationals for 3 consecutive years due to weddings on Labor day weekend.

But the good news is that I'm running out of friends who haven't been married yet.....so I may have more time to do the important things....like painting models, and fighting with toy soldiers.

Some shots of the store:

The Tournament would be played in three rounds, and I brought my airborne, along with their over sized but pretty tray.  It would be the second time I had played Brit airborne in a tournament and I had learned some lessons from last time. I hoped they would pay off.

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Making an Urban Display Board in 15mm

One of my first articles for WWPD was on building my British Airborne Company.  Having bought more infantry than anyone would ever need, and having it sit in my closet for 2 years, I decided to try and start working on it.  Years have past, and much has been done, but one major project eluded me:  a display board for this army.  Below is the finished product, but I will be trying to walk you through how I got it to look like this.  I don't profess to be as good as many terrain makers as I have seen, but hopefully I can give you a little inspiration and a few easy steps you can build off of.  

I started, as one always should, with a rough plan.  I already have a carrying tray that fits these pieces of pink foam (with some modifications before construction.) I made the frame out of scrap wood that I sanded, cut and fit together, follower by sanding and staining. I won't be showing that part however, just the assembly of the main display piece.

The original idea was to use a few ruined buildings I had partially painted, or at least primed, as centerpieces or accent pieces for a destroyed intersection.  But these are valuable pieces, and I found they were too tall for my purposes.  Their ability to hide guys inside of them work great in game terms, but not so much in display terms.  And they take up enormous space on the display itself, making it more unwieldy than I intend.  I resolved instead to use balsa wood and craft sticks to glue together my own wrecked buildings. (you see the scraps of wood in the foreground.

Some of my weapons of choice:

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Bolt Action - My US Anti-Tank Force for MOAB

By Patch,

Some of you may be aware that I have painted up a force of US Airborne (guide here) and I have been looking forward to fielding them in the biggest Sydney event of the year being MOAB in October. I have been dithering around on listing for awhile now and was almost settled on an all vet Paratrooper force however was just not happy with it. A few days ago I decided to go for something different and field a regular Gilder force instead.

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A Trip Back in Time; Normandy 2017 By Glenn Goddard

Ed Note: Glenn Goddard is a huge friend of WWPD has provided this excellent article and pictures for you to enjoy!

As a player of FOW since 2003, and posting when I have time, on the forums (Baghdaddy), I thought you might enjoy hearing about my latest adventure.  Some people are lucky and then there is me, the luckiest guy in the world.  No, I am not talking about my die rolls at last year’s Nationals, I am talking about the fact that I was invited to be part of the U.S. Army contingent who jump into Normandy every year to re-create the D-Day jump by the American Airborne troops.  I expect most military veterans and gamers dream of going to the annual celebration of one of the most epic battles in history, the Allied invasion of Normandy to liberate France and defeat the Nazi regime.

Ed Note: I did the jump at Nijmegen and the subsequent walk to Arnhem many years ago and it was a blast!

Our first day involved a commemoration ceremony at Carentan.  We started at the site of the "Cabbage Patch".  This was an epic battle between the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division and the 2nd Fallschimjager (German airborne).  This battle of Carentan was finally settled by a hand grenade and bayonet charge by the American paratroopers at great cost.  Read about the battle here.

At the ceremony, the French Government awarded several of the American veterans and one French Resistance veteran the Legion of Merit.  It was amazing to see the veterans, most of whom are in their 90s.  You really get perspective when you realize that there won't be many of these veterans left soon.  I should note that we had representatives from all the Allied nations plus German Soldiers.  Some might think it strange to have Germans at a ceremony like this, but what better way to demonstrate that we will never fight each other again than to be unified in commemoration.  After laying wreaths and a flyover by four C-130s, we then marched through the center of town with bands playing.  It was pretty cool and almost every structure in the town remains just as they were in World War Two.

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Going Deep; Building a Commonwealth Lists from the Bulge

By Mitch Reed

With the addition of the Commonwealth in Battlefront's upcoming Battle of the Bulge  I wanted to take a deeper look at the lists provided in the book and select two that I may play in a Bulge themed tournament.  My first army in Flames of War was the Canadians, I even painted them with the “greener” battledress and when I expanded my collection to play other commonwealth lists I made the choice to but new figures and paint their battledress brown, so I guess you can say I am dedicated.  This expanded even further when I collected an entire airborne army, and even more when built and painted an entire force just for the Mediterranean in Mid-War.  I must have about 15 Churchill tanks, and even more Cromwell’s and I always look for great lists in which to get these forces on the table.
For this article I plan to use a 1500 point total, and only select forces in which I have models.  I will try to pick a list that is both fun to play and somewhat competitive.  I know a lot of folks feel there is a “science” into picking a list, perhaps there is, however I am going to pick something I would bring to the table, not necessarily for a tournament.

7th Armoured Division: The Desert Rats

I have played the Desert Rats in the past; I liked the Reluctant/Veteran list from the Overlord book.  In this list you can put a ton of Cromwell’s on the table and with the “Cautions not Stupid” rule I was able to overcome the low motivation rating at certain times.
This is a pricey list, especially with what I plan to take.

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