What's Your Objective? Part 2

In Whats Your Objective? Part 1 we reviewed how important it was to have objectives and what resources are available to gamers who want to either buy pre-made objectives or build their own.  In todays article I will be showing you how I build an objective from inspiration to table ready using items if found in my bits box.

Inspiration
When ever I get in the objective building mood it usually starts with inspiration from some source.  Inspiration can come from a variety of places. Battlefront did a Secret Santa a while back where staff built objectives from scratch.  All of them turned out great and clearly each member of the  staff drew on a different source for their inspiration.  This included Hell Boy, a damsel in distress, Pimp my Ride, and a trip to the beach.  The Battlefront article shows that objectives don't have to be serious all the time, you can really be creative and have fun with them as well.  Here is another gallery of custom objectives I found online which are unique.

For todays drew my inspiration from, surprise surprise, Stalingrad.  Specifically civilians trying to navigate the ruins.  When I build my objectives I like them to look like they are part of the terrain and having civilians trying to make their way through the rubble add life to a ruined city fight.  I am going to call this one "Escape from Stalingrad".

Resources
Like many of you I have boxes of bits laying around my hobby room. I frequently access these bits when tinkering with models and when building my objectives.  Objectives are a great way to use up all those extra goodies you get when you purchase miniatures. Especially Battlefront who is really good about having lots of extra stuff in their boxes and blisters.

When I built those Greek Refugee objectives I had purchased a bunch of civilians from Peter Pig and had some left over so I will be using the figures up for this objective. I also had a bunch of loose Soviet troops.  I am going to add one to the objective as a guide/ protector for the civilians.   We are going to top that off with a couple random barrels from Baueda's WWII Accessories Range and other odds that I have laying around.

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Operation Sea Lion Fiction!

We've been absolutely blown away by the community's embracing of our Sea Lion campaign!  We were especially surprised at the amount of Fiction that sprang forth from the players' as they got into the alternate setting!  Below are a few highlights.  Apologies if I've left anyone out- post in the comments and I will update!

Bridges by Tom de Mayo.  A ragtag group of Home Guard defend a crucial village from a German assault.  Click Here to Download.

Operation Rob Roy by Jeff Kautz.  A daring rescue mission is launched by Free Soviet forces in an attempt to rescue an important British officer.  Read Part One. Read Part Two.

Letters From Cletus by Ferb at Ferb's Fighting Forces.  A Country boy writes letters from the front lines in Southern England.  Part One.  Part Two.  Part Three.

The Hungarian First Army by Ben at Breakthrough Assault.  The tale of the Hungarian army as they cross the channel and set foot on English Soil.  Part One.  Part Two.

And of course, we'd be remiss to not make mention of Patrick Gribble's excellent BBC-style topical updates, incorporating all the recent Battle Reports and map conditions.  These are visible in an ongoing fashion on the Operation Sea Lion News Page.

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German Heavy Tank Company vs. Irish Guards Tank Company

Dan and I got together at FTW Games to play a game among the 40K crowd. I went back to my beloved Irish Guards and Dan showed up with the Heavy Tank Company. This would be very tough for the Irish. Luckily, we got Fighting Withdrawal and Dan was the attacker - this made my fleeing in terror look like strategy!

Dan's German Heavy Tank Company CiC - 1 Tiger I E 2iC - 1 Tiger I E 1st Tiger Platoon - 2 Tiger I E 2nd Tiger Platoon - 2 Tiger I E 4 Panzer IV H 2 Whirblewinds

Jon's Irish Guards Tank Company CiC - Sherman 2iC - Sherman 1st Tank Platoon - 3 Shermans + 1 Firefly Vc 2nd Tank Platoon - 3 Shermans + 1 Firefly Vc Anti-Tank Platoon - 4 M10 Achilles Recce Patrol - 3 Stuarts Recce Patrol - 2 Daimler Is + 2 Dingos (ate my babies!) Column Patrol - 3 Universal Carriers

SETUP AND DEPLOYMENT

A tank platoon guards the two closest objectives. The 2iC and CiC guard the far one.

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Battlefield in a Box: Train Station

It's about that time again!  Let me drool over some new Battlefield in a Box terrain from Battlefront Miniatures!  Today we're looking at the new Train Station.  As usual, everything comes fully painted and ready to play right out of the box!  At the time of writing I can't find a listed price, but based on the cost of the Church, I'd expect $40 USD.  Since you all probably know how much I love this entire series, I will spare you a wordy review and instead let the pictures do the talking.

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Somethin' Else Sunday: Viking Bondi

WWPD has talked on both the podcast and the forum about trying other stuff on Sundays.  I present for your amusement my Vikings for Gripping Beast's SAGA!

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Decoy Panthers

Just a quick post today. Jon gave me 2 Panthers from the boxes of Plastic Soldier Company Panthers he picked up so I could paint them up for my Reds. Quite pleased with how they came out!

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EW Poles vs German Fallschirmjägers Pincer AAR

Guest post by the inimitable Anatoli from Anatoli's Game Room.


The second Early War battle played last weekend, this battle was fought with the same Polish army that I used against Andreas Slovaks. David, my opponent, was playing German Fallschirmsjägers - another army that is missing from the Blitzkrieg book.

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Episode 37 and After Hours Now Available!

Episode 37 is now Live!  The dudes are back in action and ready to chat about a variety of topics!  On the table are Recon, Tank Destroyers, Diablo, Disney, and terrain!  Plenty of silly antics, of course, and lots of crunchy bits too!  We also make completely baseless guesses to the content of Devil's Charge (note- they are a bit outlandish!)




Episode 37: After Hours is also Live!  After recording episode 37 and a long day, the dudes are instantly goofy!  They talk more Tank Destroyers (Seriously, Luke can make a cheesy list!), movies, their upcoming tournaments and more!  Jon also tells the ballad of the Crunk Cups that were not to be! 

edit: Sorry guys, it seems like the metadata is not set correctly so After Hours is still not showing up as a Podcast in iTunes.  This seems to be much more complicated than I thought but we've got top men on it.  Top men.  Anyhow, if you select the track, right click, and go to "Get Info", you can then click the Options tab and select "Podcast" in the Media Type dropdown.  


Terribly sorry, I will try my best to get to the bottom of this!

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What's Your Objective? Part 1

Editor's Note: Introducing the fabulous Craig Baxter of Frozen Gamer AK who's agreed to write some regular articles for us!
Thanks to WWPD.net I got back into Flames of War about two and a half years ago.  I had played previously on and off again prior to that in a tournament that was held annually at “Brimfrost”, our now defunct local convention, and occasionally if there was club play.  Flames of War gaming seemed to cease when one of the pillars in our gaming community and subsequently the owner of most the 15mm terrain moved to Colorado.  The Flames of War community more or less dissolved.  I continued to collect 15mm World War Two and played a lot of Blitzkrieg Commander.  When I got back into Flames of War I had plenty of figures, but I was lacking one major piece required for every game, objectives.  Since other rule systems don’t use objectives like Flames of War do I didn’t have any readily available for use.

Other than collecting your army, objectives are arguably the most important models you put on the table each time you play Flames of War.  Since Flames of War missions and scenarios are based around the taking and holding of objectives, failure to have an objective can result in an inability to play, or at least some improvisation that looks awkward on the tabletop.  I have seen the stray artillery piece, two medium bases of random figures back to back and even cut out paper used when someone doesn’t have or forgets their objectives.  While this can work in a pinch, it also detracts from all the hard work you and your opponent put into painting your armies and building your terrain.

Every time I start a new army I build new objectives for that force.  I like to have my objectives match the army’s style and theme.  From the uniforms to the flock, I build my objectives to be a part of the force to ensure they look like they belong with the army they go with and the part of the war they should be in.  I also like my objectives to be dynamic or themed to give them character.   Objectives don't have to be boring.

My Mid War Germans for example are based around a Stalingrad 1942 theme.  So the bases are intended to resemble rubble and urban debris, the uniforms match the uniforms of the Army, and any extra bits I find or attempt to resemble items found in the besieged city.

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New Subscription Format for After Hours + More Premium Content

Guys, let me start by saying a HUGE thank you to everyone who's purchased After Hours up to now. It's been a big success, and we have a ton of fun recording it- we hope you have fun listening!

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE

For a while now I've known a major decision point was approaching. Our current service (e-junkie) is reaching a point where we are going to need to rethink where the files are hosted, and while they've been fine to work with- I think it's time to move forward. There are a number of concerns that we've heard from you all, such as:
1) clunky interface. No good way to buy more than one episode that isn't a royal pain.
2) lack of meta data means the MP3s never show up as podcasts, putting additional work on you
3) you have to manually go download the episode which is inconvenient

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