Jan 2011 - A Month in Review

T-90 tanks in review...


Instead of a 2011 Year In Review, I've decided to chronicle my FOW/Hobby progress as the calendar turns. I've found that I forget to mention many things in the Year in Review post in December simply due to the passage of time. Let's see if I can make a Month in Review a regular post.


New Releases--

The month of January saw BF releasing blisters to fill out their Early War Blitzkrieg line for Germans, BEF and France. The Polish Armored Train is still nowhere in sight. Blitzkrieg was released in August and I think any exictement was tempered by BF trickling out the blisters necessary to complete a Battle of Poland / France army. Looking around other blogs, I see players went to other 15mm manufacturers to finish up their EW armies.

Compare the Blitzkrieg release schedule to that of Stalin's Europe. In January, the Sherman 76 Tankovy and Panzer IV/70(V) boxes, indivdual Sherman 76, Panther G, Hungarian Assault Pioneer Platoon and the Zrinyi II. These releases added to those in November and December allow a person to make basically any force they want out of the book.

So in 3 months, Stalin's Europe is basically done. Blitzkrieg still has blisters coming out in February, which is 6+ months after the book hit the shelves.

In defense of BF, the Blitzkrieg book required a huge amount of new sculpts to be produced. Any LW and MW book have the standard grenaiders, strelkovy, riflemen, Panther, Tiger, Panzer IV, T-34, etc to form the backbone of any lists. EW needed new tanks, new infantryman, new AT guns and so on and so forth. If BF had waited and released everything at once, there's only a handful of LGS who'd can order that much stuff. My own LGS now orders FOW by request. FOW is just very small piece of its business and its BF distributor raised the minimum order amount too.

If you're an Eastern Front fan, like myself, it was a good month for minis.


Games--

The month and new year started with several misfires, while I attempted to get a game in. It was looking rather bleak until the Indefatigable Paul braved our continuous game of phone tag and maneuvered a rendevous at Brookhurst Hobbies this past Sunday.

The 654th Schwere Jagdpanzer Abteilung faced off against a Guard's Heavy Armor Regiment. A good time was had by all and shall be chronicled in a forthcoming AAR.


Hobby--

I weathered, decaled and sealed 2x Old Glory M4A2 Soviet Shermans, 3x Old Glory BA-10's and 4x Old Glory BA-64's. (need to take pics for blog)

White-washed 3x BF Pz IIIE's for the Barbarossa 2012 project. (to be posted in upcoming entry)

WI279 issue is late....again. It arrived the day after I sent an e-mail to WI asking what happened to the mag. Weather problems on the East Coast and in Europe delayed the issue. At least WI communicates by responding to e-mail inquiries. WI280 is following the trend of being late that WI278 and WI279 started.


Tourneys--

No SoCal tourneys scheduled for 2011 yet. The LoCal (San Diego) group put on a 3-game LW in Jan, and have scheduled a 2-day event for April. NoCal (Bay Area/Sacramento) group has a big schedlue of tourneys throughout the year.

I saw Tim K at Brookhurst. He left open the possibility of a SoCal (non-convention) tourney for May, but plans are up in the there.


Well, there it is. A good month for putting the final touches on vehicles, some exciting new releases from BF and a FOW game with Paul.

Thanks for visiting and see you next time.