The spoils of this put a little money in my pocket, so off I wandered to try and find something to buy. Lots and lots of options at a show this size, however nothing was really jumping out at me. I spotted a stall that was selling something I had been waiting for coming out - Plastic Soldier Company's M5 Halftrack. At the same time, a conversation with young David who was checking out the Tigers on offer from the same company, turned towards the amount of Jerry armour he has - specifically the number of Tigers and Panthers...
Now, my current Flames of War Highland Division force does include a platoon of 6pdr A/t Guns (4 of them - I need another two guns and two Loyds Carriers to round this out), along with my Shermans (which include a Firefly). Not a great deal of anti tank firepower when faced with a veritable German Armoured Division!
One of the things I had considered adding to this had been a 17pdr Anti Tank platoon - but one of the design concepts behind my army is that it is from Operation Totalise, so everything is fully mechanised. All my current units have transports, with a blog on the infantry's APC's to follow. So, I wouldn't just need the guns, but the transport as well. Which, on top of the 2 packets of BR521 for the guns, would have required 5 blisters of BR201 (total cost for the unit, £37.50 for the Halftracks and £26 for the guns - £63.50!!!!).
That's a lot of cash for a small unit!
I was glad to see then, that the plastic M5 Halftracks were out and that they come in a pack of 5. This, along with a discount on the guns, meant I spent £38.50 for the whole unit. Quite a saving!
One thing that's nice about the blisters of guns is that they include the large bases and the command team for the platoon. I base all of my vehicles, so I will need to pick up another 2 large bases to mount the M5's on (I've 3 left over from previously). For these I order from Warbases who were present at the show but I thought I had enough spares. C'est la guerre!
Alongside these purchases, one of the stalls had some 1/144 scale Revel Hawker Typhoon Mk.1b kits for a whole £2 each. So I grabbed one of these as well!
This will give me a little bit of air support to take out those pesky big cats as well! The kit includes basic decals and a flight stand. I've never painted any aircraft, so this will be a bit of a task - getting those invasion stripes right is going to be interesting!
I also picked up some more Flat Earth Vallejo paint, as I use it for basing and have gone through quite a bit, and some laser cut wood strips.
I've a vague idea of how I could turn these into dug in markers for my army, but that's going to be a bit of a future project for when I have a wider selection of basing materials.
So basically, an example of how the stuff you buy is sometimes dictated to you by external factors!
Sounds good, some nice purchases J. That was the only drawback about doing the BnB no chance to see what anyone was buying or catch any bargains on the BnB myself. Not sure how many cats he will be able to field at a time? We will see!
ReplyDeleteNice post
Cheers
Paul
Cheers Paul, Young David had said he had picked up some FoW stuff as well, but I didn't even see that! Number of tanks depends on the points value, but one of the downsides of FoW is that the rules just give the Germans full platoons - not taking into account attrition and the fact few units were ever at full strength!
ReplyDeleteAye it does sound pretty out.
ReplyDeleteI have heard if a few people just doing full strength SS units. Or heavy panzer units. I'm sure we will work it right.
Yeah, the rule books themselves don't seem to take any account of availability. I suppose they have to sell models...
ReplyDeleteProbably better playing scenarios anyway!