Felix, Author at Felix's Gaming Pages

Building the LVT-4 Buffalo Amtrac

There aren’t too many parts to this model, so I thought it would be a simple build, but in the end I made a mistake which meant having to start again.

The problem arose when adding the tracks to the main hull. Unlike when building Flames of War resin models which include notches for the tracks, the LVT-4 Buffalo tracks had no way of indicating where they were placed on the hull.

Doing a dry run I thought I had it right, but when I came to place the rear mudguards I realised I had them on too far back! So I had to remove the tracks, then attach the rear mudguards before replacing the tracks.

Apart from that, the rest of the model went together really easily.

The next step will be a white undercoat.

Painting the Scorpion

For Christmas I was kindly given not only the Team Yankee Iron Maiden book I also got a box of the newly released 15mm British Scorpion or Scimitar Troop.

I have been thinking about the paint scheme for my Scorpions and Scimitars.

One choice would be to paint them as part of the BAOR tracked reconnaissance regiment. The kind of scheme they would have in 1985 just as war broke out.

Another choice was to paint them, if they had been fighting World War III for a while, possibly even after a limited nuclear exchange. The inspiration for this scheme is of course GDW’s Twilight 2000 background. These could be BAOR vehicles struggling to find their way home or another perspective could be the remnants of the British Army attempting to maintain control in a Britain broken apart by the nuclear exchange.

Another possibility was to use my own British Civil War background and paint them as Royalist forces, or as their Republican opposition.

In the end though I started them off, with a base coat of a spray of Chieftain Green paint.

Due to poor light I didn’t quite get the coverage I was expecting.

However I do think once I have added the black camouflage and given the model a dark wash, then this won’t matter so much.

Centurion Mk 5 – Team Yankee

Centurion Mk 5

The Centurion, introduced in 1945, was the primary British main battle tank of the post-Second World War period. It is widely considered to be one of the most successful post-war tank designs, remaining in production into the 1960s, and seeing combat in the front lines into the 1980s.

According to this source, in 1981, the BAOR had 300 Centurion main battle tanks in reserve.

You can imagine that if World War III had started as imagined in the book by Harold Coyle that the British Army would want to use all the tanks they had access to when faced with the might of the armoured formations of the Warsaw Pact.

So though the Iron Maiden rules don’t cover the Centurion tank and no (British) models have been released I still thought it would be nice to have some Centurions on the gaming table.

So I ordered and purchased a couple of Sho’T models from the Flames of War Fate of a Nation range and will paint them up as British Army Centurions for use in Team Yankee games.

Centurion Mk 5

These look like really nice models.

Centurion Mk 5

Another possibility was to use my own British Civil War background and use them as Royalist forces, or as their Republican opposition.

I did consider getting the ANZAC Centurion Mk 5s from the Vietnam range, but they don’t have skirts. After operating for a few weeks in Vietnam, the tanks crews soon learned to remove the protective armoured side skirts from both sides of the tank, to prevent the vegetation and mud from building up between the track and the mudguards.

I did think that in a World War III scenario such modifications or battle damage would still mean the models could be used, but as the Israeli Sho’T models already come with skirts, I decided to use them.

So are you using Centurions in your Team Yankee games?

Building the 15mm British Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked) – Team Yankee

For Christmas I was kindly given not only the Team Yankee Iron Maiden book I also got a box of the newly released 15mm British Scorpion or Scimitar Troop.

The British Army Of the Rhine had three tracked reconnaissance regiments. The recce troops of the first two were equipped entirely with Scimitar reconnaissance vehicles, while the recce troops of the third mixed Scimitars and Scorpions together.

The box contains four sprues and unit cards for use with Team Yankee. Each sprue allows you to build either a Scorpion or a Scimitar. I have made them up as two Scorpions and two Scimitars.

Here are the two Scorpions.

The FV101 Scorpion is a British armoured reconnaissance vehicle. It was the lead vehicle and the fire support type in the Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked), CVR(T), family of seven armoured vehicles. Manufactured by Alvis, it was introduced into service with the British Army in 1973 and served until 1994.

Starting to build them they go together really nicely. Unlike “proper” plastic kits, these have a smaller number of parts. The tracks for example are in one piece, whereas the Airfix 1/72nd Scorpion had separate wheels and tracks.

As I mentioned in a previous post I added some ball bearings to the models to add weight.

For one of the Scimitars I added a commander figure and some extra stowage.

The FV107 Scimitar is a similar armoured reconnaissance vehicle (sometimes classed as a light tank) also used by the British Army. It was manufactured by Alvis in Coventry. It is very similar to the FV101 Scorpion, but mounts a high velocity 30 mm L21 RARDEN cannon instead of a 76 mm gun. It was issued to Royal Armoured Corps armoured regiments in the reconnaissance role.

Here are the two Scimitars.

I gave the models a white undercoat and the next stage will be a basecoat of Team Yankee Chieftain Green.

Cleaning the LVT-4 Buffalo Amtrac

I have started working on my Warlord LVT-4 Buffalo Amtrac for Bolt Action. The LVT-4 is a 1/56th scale 28mm resin and metal kit and comes in a box with a picture of the completed model on the front.

Bolt Action Commando LVT-4 Buffalo Amtrac

The Landing Vehicle Tracked (LVT) is an amphibious warfare vehicle and amphibious landing craft, introduced by the United States Navy. The Marine Corps and Army used several LVT models during World War II. Five hundred were provided to the British Army. Originally intended solely as cargo carriers for ship to shore operations, they evolved into assault troop and fire support vehicles.

The model comprises four resin parts, the hull, two tracks and the rear ramp.

Landing Vehicle Tracked (LVT)

There are metal components for the mudguards, benches and machine guns.

Landing Vehicle Tracked (LVT)

The resin pieces were nice clean castings with virtually no flash and minimal casting “plugs” that needed to be removed. I did very little cleaning, and as I went over the castings I was impressed with the quality of the castings.

I washed the resin in warm soapy water to remove any remaining mould lubricant.

Landing Vehicle Tracked (LVT)

The next stage will be glueing the pieces together.

I am in the process of building a Commando team to fight alongside my partisans for games of Bolt Action. The force is taking its time to put together, but now I have transport for them.

As well as this model, the Commandos plastic boxed set I also have a couple of blisters, a Mortar Team and the Vickers MMG Team.

Heavier

One of the things I dislike about the new plastic 15mm kits from Battlefront is the lack of weight the models have compared to older metal kits and even the resin ones have.

With my recent addition of Team Yankee British Scorpion and Scimitar tanks I started to think about I could make them heavier.

My initial choice was some lead (or lead-free) weights of some kind, there isn’t much space in the models so any extra weight would need to be quite dense (so heavy weight but not very big). The obvious choice was fishing weights, but I couldn’t find any that were small enough for the models.

Another idea was some lead sheet, again small, but heavy.

In the end I compromised and went with Weldtite 5/32-inch British Made Case Hardened Bearings – 750 Pieces which I ordered from Amazon.

These are very small and just under 4mm in diameter.

I glued them into the hulls of the light tanks with some super glue before checking there were no loose bearings. I then glued the hull together.

They are not really heavy, but certainly better than they were and I fell less likely to be blown over by a strong breath in a game of Team Yankee.

So do you add weights to your plastic tanks and if you do, what method do you use?

15mm British Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked) – Team Yankee

For Christmas I was kindly given not only the Team Yankee Iron Maiden book I also got a box of the newly released 15mm British Scorpion or Scimitar Troop.

FV107 Scimitar

This is the box art which shows two Scorpions and two Scimitars patrolling (probably) a West German town.

The box contains four sprues and unit cards for use with Team Yankee. Each sprue allows you to build either a Scorpion or a Scimitar.

Starting to build them they go together really nicely.

More soon…

Cut the chatter, Red 2. Accelerate to attack speed!

In 1977 I queued around the market square in Cambridge to go and see this new film at the Victoria Cinema, which was called Star Wars.

There was something about that quiet start, the Lucasfilm logo, the text, “a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away” and then BANG, the John Williams main theme hits you right away.

I remember thinking what a wonderful film. I never really did Star Wars as others did at that time, I didn’t buy the action figures, but that memory of the lost droids, the princess, the massive ships, the little fighters and, no it’s not a moon…. has stayed with me.

Speed up to 2015 and the release of The Force Awakens, there was some trepidation (I had seen the three prequels) but that same style of beginning gave me a little shiver and reminded what it was like nearly forty years earlier!

I guess like a lot of people, even if you don’t think you are, I am pretty much a Star Wars fan!

So this year, after much thought, I did get the starter boxed set for the Fantasy Flight Games X-Wing Miniatures game.

It’s a great way to start playing the game, you get all the counters and three lovely pre-painted ships.

This has been out for a while now, originally released back in 2012, but I didn’t get it for nearly four years. Some of my hesitation was that I have always loved the simplicity of GZG’s Full Thrust and had once used the mechanics to create a Star Wars fighter version. I had used Full Thrust for games involving Star Trek ships and then the simple rules worked really well.

Another part of me was conscious of the cost of the game, the boxed set’s retail price was nearly £40 and the ships were all about £15. It felt like you needed to spend a lot of money for a decent game. Having said that I did quite like the idea of getting a game complete with painted models.

So I was pleased to receive the game as a present and started playing games with the single X-Wing and the two TIE fighters.

The first few games I had were with the quick play rules, which were easy to pick up, fast to play and fun.

Then it was time for the full rules, which were a lot easier and simpler to pick up than I thought they would be. The main difference was actions. This made the game much more strategic and required you to really plan what you were going to do.

Having enjoyed a few games with the full rules I decided it was time to get some more ships. What I found was that the models on Amazon were cheaper than other stores and of course with Amazon Prime they arrived the next day!

The first reinforcements I got were a B-Wing for the Rebel Alliance and a TIE Bomber for the Imperials. The packs were also rather misleading, as you get quite a bit in them. The B-Wing pack looks like this…

…but this is what you actually get inside.

There are lots of cards and punched card counters as well as the model and the base.

These were very different ships to those included in the starter set, slower, less manoeuvrable, however they packed a much heavier punch and could take a lot more damage than say the flimsy TIE Fighters.

I did pop into my local branch of Forbidden Planet and was not surprised to find the range there, somewhat limited, but virtually everything was full price, except the lowly TIE fighter which was on special, so I got another, to boost the Imperial forces.

Overall I really like the game, I like how you can keep it very simple, or you can add more complex elements such as actions, cards and asteroids! Looking to expand my forces with more models over 2017.