Rant: Unpainted Models and Proxying Etiquette

Hi everyone, I know it's been a while since I posted on this little blog, which makes it all the more upsetting to me that what has finally motivated me to write is something that is a bit negative. I have still been playing as much as possible, which is a little tougher now that I have a puppy, but I don't feel like my hobby life has been suffering too much. What has affected the blog is something that I have found to be an ever-increasing problem in my club.

I started this blog mainly as a way to catalog and share battle reports. I love reading battle reports and seeing great pictures of models slugging it out on the tabletop. Lately, however, I haven't been able to provide anything like that to the community because of widespread problems with players not using models that make for good battle reports. So today I wanted to discuss my opinions on painting and proxying etiquette.

New Years Resolutions

Hi everyone, hope your holiday season was fruitful. Now that we're back in the swing of things I thought I needed to show a little love to the blog. This year I want to make a few New Years Resolutions, a la the WWPD crew, to help focus my hobby goals for the year. It'll be interesting to look back in December and see where I end up, but no matter what I think this will be fun.

Recent gaming, battle was pretty anti-climactic so I won't be posting a full write-up

So, without further delay:

Scratch-Made Fortifications

Hi everyone, I'm back with a quick article that demonstrates how I made some scratch-built fortifications that don't necessarily approach Battlefield in a Box quality, but will certainly get the job done and look good on the tabletop!

Not this extensive, but I didn't have slave labor like the Germans did

List Construction Part 2 - Building Competitive Lists

Welcome back! Now that I've given you my thoughts on list construction for beginners, which has been especially apt since I've been helping a bunch of people learn the game recently, I want to delve into what i look for in a competitive list. I'll just get this out of the way now: tournaments are a blast no matter what army you play. Don't think that I'm discounting fun, flavorful lists. Frankly, Flames of War is balanced enough to give almost any list a chance to win games. But! There is definitely an art/science balance that needs to be considered if you're looking to win tournaments.

"We don't have time for 'fluff'"

Some Thoughts on List Construction - Part 1: Beginners

Hi everyone. In a recent tournament a few players had armies whose deficiencies in list construction became woefully apparent, as either their match-ups or the missions themselves conspired against them. I want to use this space to give a few of my thoughts on list construction as it relates to the tournament scene and as it relates to new players. At the end I'll list example armies that I faced and how they could have been improved. This is Part 1 of this series, where we'll focus on list construction for beginners.

Detailing Tanks

Hey everyone, today I thought I'd share just a few of my thoughts on detailing tanks/vehicles in Flames of War. These are just the basic effects I try to apply to every tank regardless of nationality, and my thought process behind them.

First, I use the details on the tanks as a chance to apply some contrasting colors to the overall scheme. One of the easiest ways to do this is painting rusted metal effects on exhaust pipes, damaged areas of the hull, or anywhere else that metal may have been exposed to moisture. The best color to use for this is some sort of reddish-brown color. Battlefront recommends using Cavalry Brown, but I tend to mix up a slightly darker version of that:

 Rear of a Sturmtiger.