The great Winston Spencer Churchill once said "This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end. But is is perhaps, the end of the beginning." I know how he felt since I have finally got around to painting my British 8th Army! Now that task is out of the way I can finally get down to the business of getting some games in!
The painting experience for this project was a completely new one. As can be seen from the normal activity on my blog I'm usually painting 28mm miniatures so the climb down to 15mm was certainly a challenge. These pictures are probably not the best to showcase my work as the lighting was poor and I took them in a hurry but there is a surprising amount of detail on the figures to contend with.
As Flames of War is a historical game you also have to bear in mind that colour schemes and the like are pretty dictated to you by the historical precedent. Granted I'm sure you could paint everything however you see fit if that's how you roll but certainly for my part I felt the pull towards at least attempting to gain some historical accuracy. Perhaps that is the history buff in me but it could also be the sense you get from historical games that their raison d'etre is recreating a setting and a feeling. As misfortune would have it I lost my Vajello paints and rather than fork out to replace them I decided to substitute the colours with what I figured was the closest match in my current Citadel collection. I might not have got things spot on but I'm reasonably satisfied with the overall finish when the army is laid out together.
As you can see from all the shots the army is very sizeable! I have to confess I have no idea how many points it comes to as I've not really concerned myself at all with the rules in favour of just getting some paint on all the models. I'm glad the project is done as it was starting to take on a gruelling undertone akin to a chore. I think there are a number of reasons for this and they are lessons I shall try to carry over onto future projects. First and foremost I have only ever played a single simple game of Flames of War and that was quite literally years ago. Aside from some trucks getting shelled by mortars and killing most of the occupants I don't recall much from that game including whether or not my opponent and I finished it!
This means I have primarily been engaged in a modelling project. Whilst I do have the rulebooks and have glanced at them once or twice, in real terms I have no working knowledge of the game system. More importantly I have not been playing games and this is often the best factor for motivation towards getting your forces ready. Tie this in with having a lot of "creativity" stifled by units requiring to be built and painted in particular ways and the project hasn't had the same level of satisfaction as I would normally take from say painting 40k or Fantasy miniatures.
Never the less I am very glad to have completed the army I have invested in! All that remains is to get some games in and prove that it was all worthwhile! I'm looking forward to a change of pace from the Games Workshop ruleset and will post my thoughts as and when I have some experience. As a final parting shot I will give a quick review of the Battlefoam Flames of War bag I picked up to cart this army around in!
The bag itself is quite pleasing to the eye. You may notice the Velcro patch above the Flames of War logo which if you choose to invest in is there so you can put your armies motif onto the carry case. A nifty little feature but less attractive when you consider the patch itself will set you back approximately £10 and the reason mine is still blank!
Another nifty feature is all the little pockets that line the bag have been constructed to fit all of the official Flames of War gaming aids which is certainly very handy for taking everything you need in one case! The front flap just about fits the hardback rulebook or the a hardback intelligence handbook but sadly not both without over stretching the flap. Never the less carrying 2 hardbacks about is probably not what the majority of gamers do and I can see why some people invest in the much smaller soft back reference versions of the rules.
The star of the show for the bag however is the foam and loading system. All of the miniatures are stored upright in trays that have had their slots configured to fit all different base sizes for the Flames of War game system. I have comfortably fit my entire army into this case with a little more room to expand should I ever feel the need to do so, which is pretty impressive! Of particular note is that you can unzip the bag to give you access to one tray at a time or bring the zips right down to let you remove multiple trays at once. The bag is solid even when you do this so although it is a canvas material the hard inner lining keeps the structure rigid enough to ensure things aren't going to spill out of the bag just because you've opened it up.
All in all I am very impressed with the product especially since it cost me about the same as a Games Workshop Army Case. Considering as the price is about the same the build quality, foam and durability is vastly superior which will certainly have me looking at Battlefoam's other products for my future transport requirements.
That's it for now! I should expect I will be back soon with a review of the new Ogre Kindgoms book or a battle report of my very first game of Flames of War! Tally-ho!
