Cameron's Hobby League

Cameron's Hobby League Hello I’m Cameron and this is my first ever experience with Flames of War. I picked a Soviet Force based entirely on the promise from the Fortress Europe book that I would be able to overwhelm my opponents with hordes of tanks. Which sounded very appealing.  My first 50 hobby league points are going to be spent building the core formation of my army. With a couple of hero T34 companies, a hero T70 company, and a supporting KV-1s company of three.

This week of Hobby League was very productive for me. I managed to assemble all 50 points of my starting force. The intimidating stack of sprues that I started off with has been transformed into my first 15 Soviet tanks. I’ve now got a lot of experience putting together T34s, both with 85mm and 76mm guns (the 85mm are definitely my favourite so far!). Putting together the KV-1s tanks and the little T70s was a nice change of pace and I’m really looking forward to putting more models together for my next 25 points. With my tanks assembled it’s time to start collecting paints and getting them battle ready. I still haven’t decided what colour scheme to go with for my force but I want something that is going to stand out on the battlefield and properly show off the might of the Soviets!"

This week saw the start of my painting. I've base coated five of the T34s so far and should get the rest done this weekend! After starting the base coat I'm even more excited to start the actual painting for the tanks and I've got a few different ideas for how I want them to look. But that's a project for next week!

Base coating my tanks by hand ended up taking too long, so I invested in a spray can which was a huge help! Base coating my remaining T34, T70, and KV-1s tanks took almost no time at all. Now my first 50 points are all primed and ready for their paintjob.

Only a few days to go and I'll be sending my Soviets into their first battle! My first matchup is against Andrew and his American force. This will be my first ever Flames Of War battle and I'm really looking forward to seeing how my army actually plays.  Right now my force has an HQ of a 85mm T34, with two T34 hero companies of 4 tanks each, and a hero T70 company with 3. I have a support group of 3 KV-1s tanks finishing it out. My T34s have a healthy mix of 76mm and 85mm guns which I hope should be able to deal with anything Andrew throws at me. But at the end of the day it's just the first battle! If things do go terribly for my army then I can always mix things up for next time, with another 25 points to play with as well.   In preparation of the battle I want to get as many of my tanks painted as I can over the weekend. I've managed to find my old selection of modeling paints (surprisingly still good!) and brushes from when I last wargamed more than 10 years ago and I'm looking forward to diving back into it.

This week I started work properly on the next 25 points of my Soviet force! This means 4 Katyushas and 3 SU-85s. I'm hoping that these let me deal with enemy tanks better and the Katyushas give me a bit of a different way to deal with infantry. I need all the help I can get at this point since both battles I've done so far in the Hobby League have not gone well for me.  So far I've put together 3 of the Katyushas and the first of the SU-85s! It's been a nice break from putting together T34s.