My sons first own tank and some other news!

My 3 years old son has wanted to have my tanks as his toys so I bought him one (not to use as a toy though!). Just built it with him and now I will teach him how to paint it.

This serves in two ways:
1. I may one day have a gaming buddy without leaving home.
2. As I'm a trained to use AT weapons in military, I may start teaching him some tricks and to identify different tanks and types.

He's so going to grow to be a good panssarintorjuntamies!
*Proud father*

In the other news!

I today got my order of fourth Jagdtiger and a Begleit Assault Platoon. This one I'm going to build to be my Carius so I'm going to give it some extra touches that will give him off at the battlefield.

Planned modifications are quite straight from the "Bridge at Remagen" -book, an MG to the back deck for AA usage and partial removal of side skirts. I may do some other modifications too but I haven't desided anything yet.

Also I'm quite not sure how I can do a camouflage that I've chosen with normal brushes, I don't have airbrush at my disposal nor do I have an access to use one. The camouflage has been chosen deliberately to be very different from my other tanks.

Pre-planned camouflage for Carius

One idea for the Begleits, though I may not use as many as four.

Hope you like the ideas. All comments and helps regarding painting, and conversion ideas are more than welcomed!

EDIT: Current stage of Jagdtigers conversions. Some changes possible. All ideas are welcomed!

Talvisota: AAR/Picture dump! WARNING: VERY PICTURE HEAVY!

WARNING THIS POST IS VERY PICTURE HEAVY!

So the tournament has come and gone. Here are some highlights from the event and pictures.

The army that I finally decided to take with me was 2./512. sPzJgAbt from Bridge at Remagen.

It was very nicely organized tournament with enough time to really play our games with 1900 points per side, though with some exceptions... ;) The boards where very good looking and had some thight places but also some open areas, which my big cats liked a lot.

I'd like to thank the organizers and all the players for having a very good time and some really enjoyable games!!

Day 1

Game 1: Free-For-All
Opponent: Säkki/US Parachute Rifle Company
Result: 6-1 for US

Game 2: Hasty Attack
Opponent: Earnest/FIN Jalkaväkikomppania
Result: 4-3 for FIN

Game 3: No Retreat
Opponent: Popo/GER SS Wiking Panzergrenadierkompanie
Result: 4-3 for GER/2./512.sPzJgAbt

Carius lost

Day 2

Game 4: Breakthrough
Opponent: Sappi/USSR Guards Heavy Tank Batallion
Result: 6-1 for GER (game ended at the start of turn two)

Game 5: Dust Up
Opponent: Humie/FIN Jääkärikomppania
Result: 6-1 for FIN

Aftermath:

First day was an uphill struggle with two missions with deployments on long edges witch I really can't do with only 4 platoons.

First game was a pure blood bath that I could have played smarter. I made an idiot desition to assault with 2 KTs and Carius. There was just way too much bodies in my way. Should have stayed back and use Carius' ability to yake out single targets from long range. Also exposing my KTs flanks to those Hellcats was purely a placement error which resulted into a dead platoon.

Second game was much better and it was a close call that I could have won. It all culminated to Carius being bailed and not able to contest an objective and two company moral rolls which I passed with 6s,  all to frustrate my opponent. Although everything worked as planned and my both flanks worked a horrendous casualities to the enemy, it was the T-34/85s that saved the day for Finns as my reluctant panzergrenadiers were reluctant to assault them...

Third game was much easier with short table edge deployment although I lost Carius to a lucky shooting from 105mm artillery. I was able to first block an attack from one side and then from the other and shoot away enough enemy platoons to force his company to break. I think the "Man-of-the-Match" in this one were my half-tracks giving me supporting fire everywhere I needed.

Second day started with a blast when I got to face a Guards Heavy Tank Company. My opponent desided to have 9 KV-1s tanks and 5 KV-1s(flame) tanks on board and tried to double time with all but flame tanks which tried to mess with my plan. Without saying it went wrong for my opponent. He lost 10 tanks in one round of shooting. Two Soviet companies destroyed and at the start of second round he failed his 3+ company moral when he rolled 2...

We then played another game with him to see if another strategy would have helped but it ended to same result, but only with one dead JT thanks to failed motivation due to double bail out.

Last game was pretty much a waiting game as neither of us had any real offensive power at the start. For about four rounds whe just exchanged artillery/JT/KT/aircrafts. But then we got started. We both had some uphills and downhills with attacks and shooting and my opponents Sturmis had some very bizzare luck against 2(!) of my JTs, I only managed to bail his Sturmis!! In the end the all started to collapse when I lost both of my KTs. I then opted to try to assault his Pioneeri platoon with JT platoon and 2iC but thanks to very bad armor saves (both rolled 1s!) I lost the fight and my third platoon. And as you can guess, reluctant motivation plays its hand and my company breaks.

Final Results:

Player               Overall Score
JussiV                        23
Gorzag                       22
Nysse                        22
Trekkeri                      21
Earnest                      19
Guardsman                 18
Vonrichthofen              18
Säkki                         18
popo                          16
Halkomahooli             15
Tumppi                      15
Värri                          13
Monni                        12
Sappi                         12

Picture dump:

Carius is dead, first time ever! :(

 

That was fast...

More pictures here:
- http://www.nopat.fi/2015/sotapelit/flames-of-war/talvisota-fow-turnauksen-kuvasaldoa/
- http://maalaus.blogspot.fi/2015/02/winter-war-tournament.html

Thanks for reading.