Canadian 1st Parachute Battalion

       In an effort to balance out the heavy Axis lean my current Bolt Action gaming group has developed, I had been planning an Allied army since just after I started playing regularly, but with tournament practise and a complete lack of funds, it was an idea that didn't gain much traction. This post isn't going to be about that Allied army project, that will come in the next couple of weeks, this is about a side project of it that I got a little bit carried away with.

       The Allied army I have gone for is the Canada and this left me with a few issues in terms of joining in some of the narrative themed games we have been discussing. While the Canadians were very much at the front of the Allied push and were every bit as important as the other big nations involved, they don't seem to be at the forefront of the public's imagination, so finding out what engagements they were involved in just seems a little bit more of a struggle than for the British or Americans.So when the guys in the gaming group mentioned they would like to do Operation Market Garden at some point in the future I was fairly sure I would be stuck on the German side as it was a British mission. Then my research came up  trumps. The Canadians did have a parachute army, the 1st Parachute Battalion, and they fought as part of the British 6th Airbourne Division, although my research doesn't seem to think they were in the part that did the Operation itself, that's close enough for me to blag it.

       My current Canadian Parachute members. It's only 500 points at the moment and I don't plan on adding to it in the immediate future, but it is big enough and useful enough that I can get involved in any future game, or be able to add to it quickly enough to get involved at the very least. At some point; I need to work up the bravery to do the battalion and rank badges on the arms, but other than that I am fairly pleased with them.

The Canadian Paras raid a German radar station.

 As ever; anything factually wrong will be rectified as soon as I am aware.

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Ash Waste Vehicles

       So here I am, a complete post-apocalypse, Mad Max rip-off, sell out, but I'm really enjoying the models. . . 

      These are from Ramshackle Games, and although they look a lot like they are kits, and the website will sell you them as such, don't let all that fool you! What I love about this range is it is basically just a catalogue of vehicle bits, with a category that is just packs of parts, that with a bit of work, that look good together. Having said all that negative sounding stuff, I have to say I absolutely loved the whole process, there is a lot of filing and green stuff to part parts actually stay together and fill voids, but when the point of these vehicles is that they are bolted together from scavenged parts I really don't care. 

      The only parts of the models that aren't included in the packs are the guns, which are spare plastic GW ones that otherwise live in my bits box forever.

        As I always try to build something with an eventual use in mind, these were built to play an old GW expansion to the Necromunda rules, Ash Wastes. I suppose it was basically what the old Gorka Morka players got when they kept asking for a use for their old Vehicles. So these rules allow you to mount your gang on bikes, cars and bigger transports, put guns on them and see what happens.

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Plan C. The dreaded third in the trilogy.

      This will be my last post on my attempts to become a competitive gamer, after this I can go back to being a bit more random in what I paint and what goes up on here; although there will be a lot more bolt action to come, so be warned.

      These are the units that make up the list I submitted last weekend for checking, before the tournament this Saturday;

       The shock change in this list from the last two that I used; I replaced out the Fallschirmjager with Panzergrenadiers. My army building style is far more about the fluff and getting the army looking right than it is about the optimum list (hence why my team nickname is the Unicorn) and the completely fallschirmjager theme worked to a tee in my head, but the problem with tournament comps are that somewhere along the line making a fair list has to come before letting the players take whatever they want, with this tournament using the pre-made 'theatre selectors' that Warlord Games have put in the back of each nation's army book. The reason this became a problem for me was that I wanted to move my flamethrower team into a squad instead of having them as a fragile team, and free up some points for something a bit harder hitting, but I can only do that if I swap theatres. So my fallschirmjager have been swapped, man for man, for panzergrenadiers, the stats are exactly the same, the options are exactly the same, the only difference are the models.
       I have only played the one game with this list and my luck was atrocious, but I am still pretty pleased with how it has come together. I have had enough practice with each of it's forebears to know what my weaknesses are, and what my strengths are, so hopefully it will be good enough that I can just go and enjoy myself on the day.

 My new pioneer squad, the cause of all my problems.

       This trailer has absolutely no effect on the game, and is completely unnecessary, but my fluff is all about this being a self-contained force whose job is to harass the allies as they advance into Germany, so I figured the unit needed somewhere to carry their spare ammo, supplies and anything else they might need along the way, and if all else fails, it will make a good objective marker. The model is a Corgi toy, a quick paint job later to bring it in line with the ret of my armour and I am really pleased with it.

Normal service will resume later in the week with something completely different.
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Fallschirmjager platoon; Plan B

      Between tournament practise and my laptop now finally being truly dead, keeping up this little blog has taken a bit of a back seat, but it will endure as I have a lot of new stuff to share over the next few months, and I am really enjoying this little project.

      So, here is Plan B of my tournament list; a tweaked new plan with most of the basics still in place. This is still meant to be more fluffy than it is hardcore, but my aim in the list is to have one where I can enjoy the day and not just be slapped about left right and centre.

      As you can see from the photo the list is basically the same. The differences are; dropping out a SDKFZ 251/1 in favour of the cheaper (but unarmoured and un-gunned) SDKFZ 7, and dropping the panzerschreck team in favour of a flamethrower team and a schwimmwagon. The points difference between the big transports helped bulk up my two bigger squads and give them some staying power, while I found the panzerschreck team were too expensive and too vulnerable in a list like this and just didn't have the hitting power they needed to keep up. The flamethrower team and their vehicle have also been a lot of fun to play with.

SDKFZ 7 

 Schwimmwagon and flamethrower team

       This last couple of photos are snap shots taken during practise games. The general rule amongst my normal opponents is that if the board isn't covered in burning wrecks its probably not me playing.

 This made me nervous for a while, until he missed and attacked his own infantry . . .

One more burning wreck away from being a normal turn two here.

     Without giving too much away, next post will be Plan C, the list I have actually submitted. I thought about doing that post today but I to understand how I got to it I think you need to see this intermediary one.

      Also this blog was 1 on Friday. Just a little annoyed I hadn't planned far enough ahead to do something for it, but thank you to everyone that still take time out of their day to read whatever it is I had in my head and decided to share with you.

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