German Vehicles, New Terrain

 Post Operation Sting, I am still focused on Bolt Action. In fact right after the event some three weeks back back, Aaron and I got brain storming on our team army for Adepticon 2015.  The event is a side by side 1600 point per side event,(or so I am told pre-registration, so subject to change)  We are running  Late War Eastern Front, German Army made up of Waffen SS, and Panzergrenadier Units.

 My side of the force contains 3 Vehicles, 2- 9 man squads, an HQ and a Sniper team, I have couple different version of the army at 1000 points so everything I am  building for 800 points in the Team format will work great with next years run playing Germany. The first unit I built was the Sd.Kfz 7/1 Quad Flak in my Tank slot. Given American Air Power at Operation Sting, this thing has 4 autocannons can also totally shred infantry and softskin vehicles, while its got the "open top" liability and makes a juicy target its takes the focus off my other units which is fine.

 The kit itself is $45 and the gun comes with a full trailer and separate mount so its a pretty good deal as you see in the following pictures, I can set the up as a tow and use it as artillery piece if I want my tank slot for something else. For this list is one the half track but the options are a good bargain.
The kit itself is definitely not one of warlords best, clearly an older kit it took alot of work and I ended replacing all the gun barrels and some other cast bits that were just really poor, I also took the time to magnetize the gun base, both actually guns so they swivel from 45 -180 degrees and of course the gun spins 360 degrees on truck bed and trailer mount. I also laid out a bit of stowage on the deployed setup of the vehicle.

 The next vehicle is my transport Krupp Protze Kfz.69, this is a 1/48 Tamiya Kit with tons of detail it took quite of bit of time to build as its got about 10X the pieces of your standard Warlord resin vehicle. This kit also cams with Pak 36 gun in tow with Trailer as well , I havent built that yet but will when I get the full 1000+ plus fielded...Here I show the truck towing the Quad Flak.

 In Game its a transport for one of my Squads to get them where they need to be quick, I was kind of kicking myself for not getting Kfz.70 version which have the box back and holds the right amount of guys. with build the truck is 6 man vehicle my squad is 9...for abstract gaming purposes I dont think it matters.

Finally the vehicle is probably the most popular German vehicle in the Bolt Action game. The Sd.Ffz 234/2 Puma, a special purpose vehicle , the Germans actually only managed to make a hundred of them during the war, its frequency in Bolt Action gaming is akin to say a Panzer IV that they manage to crank out almost 9000 of through out the war.

Gamewise the Puma hits the sweet spot of good armor, great firepower and has the "reece" ability making it one of the better vehicles in game considering the point costs of things like Panthers and Tigers,  I be remiss not fielding one. Although I was tempted to run one of the variants , I already has this kit from late last year.

Speaking of the kit this one is very easy build my only grip is the cast metal gun is pretty poor as well, I may pick the new plastic version coming out this month after seeing the preview shots..also this version at 1/56 scale feels a bit small...so whether this actual vehicle ends up in my army remains to be seen.  As you seen on my here I added about 1/2 dozen bits of stowage.

If you notice in my post title I mention "Terrain" I also put together two of Warlord recent terrain offering both repackaged Italeri kits , The Stone Walls box and the Wrecked House kit. You can see both in the earlier photos, If you go to the Italeri  site you can see both were made as 1/72 (20mm) kits while the walls work great, and Ill be picking up a second box, the building while a cool, easy build- feels way to small especially against the WG village kits or my scratch terrain. I was hoping to use this kit to kit bash some larger eastern european city buildings for our army display but it looks like we will need to go another route. As it stands the kit will make a nice command post solo terrain piece but its doent really fit into the village set up on my board like I was hoping. 

Overall I am well on my way, I've got 18 guys to clean and base then I can practicing and playing. 

Adepticon 2015 doesnt hold a ton of variety for me this year due to time I am putting in on this, Bolt Action events are it for me this year, unless I hit a demos or pick up games of something or using existing stuff I already have.  There was talk of doing some Empire of the Dead or Saga but I just wont have the time. I'll be talking more about Adepitcon at it new location and what I am up to when the cart goes live on Monday November 24th, until then that's what's up for me on the gaming front.

Couple shots of the Quad Flak deployed...Cool.