World of Tanks

Well I figure its about time I make a post about this stupid game. And by stupid I mean the game is awesome. The reason I say stupid is because its really hurting my painting time.

The cool thing about this game is that you don't just get in a tank and go...well you do...but you start in not much more then a tractor with a machine gun.

As you play you earn experience and money. Each tank has a tech tree. You use experience to improve everything on your tank. Once you have the tech you spend your money to upgrade something on your tank. Eventually you will gain enough experience to purchase the next tank on a countries tech tree's. So, there are sort of 2 tech trees. Each country has one for all the tanks you can get. And then each tank has one for all its upgrades.

I recent addition to the game which is crazy cool, is Clan Wars. The game has clans like every other online game, but now clans can actually battle for territory. They have a map of Europe. Each clan can own territory and attack other territories. Victory is decide by in game clan battles.  I'm already in a Clan with my fellow flames of war players and the WWPD guys.

What i've discovered now is that you can do custom paint skins.  The problem is no one else can see them, and if you make a paint scheme for a panther....all your panthers look the same.

What they need to figure out is what we used to do in Nascar.  We could paint individual cars, and then you could download packages.  But somehow individual skins were picked up.  So all cars didn't look the same.  Then you could do clan paint schemes and individual tank numbering.  The game is always in development and still growing so we shall see what happens.

They even keep individual stats on every player in every tank you've played in....crazy.

Give it a try, you won't regret it.  Its FREE!  But be warned...My painting has really suffered.
http://www.worldoftanks.com/

Calgary Military Museum

The Boy

So, between WoT's and other stuff I haven't been doing much painting lately.  On top of that I went to Calgary this past week.  One thing I did while I was there was go to the Museum of the Regiments...Which isn't the Museum of the Regiments anymore.

Calgary used to have 3 military museums.  Basically an army, navy (why there is a navy museum in the middle of the prairies I'll never know) and air force.  And they used to be spread out all over the city.  What they've done is brought all 3 together into one giant military museum.  I hadn't been there since this has been done, and I also know more about what I'm looking at now.

I applogize for the pictures.  some will be good some bad.  I took them all with my phone.  I didn't take my real camera because I didn't really plan on going there.

And please feel free to correct me if I got something wrong.

Out side they had some vehicles.  2 of them I had no idea what they were.  Since my forte' is WWII, I was sure they were post war tanks.  One of them looked like a Russian tank, but couldn't fathom why they would have a soviet tank.  They had no plaques outside to tell you want kinds of vehicles they were either.  Indeed one of them is a Soviet T-72, and the other one is a Centurion.

Churchill

Firefly

Centurion

Bren Carrier & the Boy

the Boy & a Soviet T-72

Pretty cool

You know, I've seen these tanks before, and I work with models of them every day, but I've forgotten how big they really are.  Even the firefly seems huge.  I can't imagine how big a Konigstiger would be in real life.

They also had a couple of AT guns outside.

6 Pounder

17 Pounder

Lots of cool stuff inside.  Including a very cool Diorama of another firefly that was apparently actually in Italy.

One thing that caught my eye in particular is the patches on the infantry uniforms.  The 3rd Canadian infantry division is prominent in FoW.  A couple of books show to paint 3rd Canadians with a blue formation patch on their shoulder.  The uniforms of the Calgary Highlanders at this museum also have these blue formation patches.  The only problem is the Highlanders were part of the 2nd Canadian.  So, who is wrong?  the Museum or Battlefront?  Seeing how BF already screwed up colours on the 4th Canadian decals, I wouldn't be surprised.  After about 30 seconds of digging turns out BF is wrong.  The 2nd Canadian Infantry division patches are blue.  The 3rd Canadian infantry division patches are suppose to be Grey.




















Lots of cool artifacts.





















































































Navel and Air Museum stuff.  Super Cool.  Even some Nazi artifacts taken from a German Sub.

Rules Nazi Episode IlI - Applying Hits

This may seem straight forward, but this is one thing I've seen done wrong in 90% of games. How to apply hits and roll for saves. I've also come up with a very easy way to keep track of hits before you make saves. All this assumes we all know some what of how shooting works.

What I'll start with is how to figure out what you need to hit. We all know, or should know, that this number is based on your opponents skill. But sometimes people forget that they are shooting at the entire platoon and not individual units.

I saw this question come up on the FoW forum so I thought I would add it in. You only need to hit the easiest unit in the whole platoon you can legally shoot at.

Look at the picture to the right. A Veteran Pioneer platoon is dug in and gone to ground. In addition they are over 16" from the IS-2's. Normally the Soviet tanks would need a 7 to hit. This is impossible. However, one of the pioneer teams has moved and is within 16". So, because of this the entire platoon can be hit with 4's.

I now know I need 4's to hit, its time to roll dice. What I like to do (as do most others) is make sure I have 2 colours of dice.

Lets assume the IS-2's moved and they want to shoot with their main gun because of the fire power test need to destroy dug in troops. The tanks will then roll 1 main gun and 2 MG dice each. Roll one colour of dice for the main gun and one for the MG's all at the same time. ALL ONLY NEEDING 4's.

Here is where the mistake happens. Because its the defender who applies hits, I find most people roll for saves and then pick which teams are dead. Incorrect-o, and yes it does matter.

So, what i've come up with is the defender takes all the dice that are hits, and places them next to each unit that is to take a hit.

You can see in the picture the 3 MG hits went to the unit within 16" because that is as far as the MG's can shoot. But the Main guns, get applied to 2 other teams. You can see on those dice that they still hit on 4's even though a 7 was technically needed for those individual teams. The one team has given away the platoons position.

Now that you can see which teams are hit, the defender roll's saves for each team INDIVIDUALLY. Then you can take away the dice for that team. Or roll that dice if a fire power is needed. This works especially well if you are rolling a lot of dice or different kinds of weapons. Either the defender can't remember what hits he applied to what units or he is picking who dies after he saves.

As I said this really matters, especially if different types of teams are hit or HQ teams. All to often defenders pick destroyed units after saves, and the HQ is the last unit to die.   Even if you are guarding an object, and only 1 or 2 teams are in range to contest.  The defender doesn't have a choice if these teams die or not...only if they get hits.  And if there are enough hits for every team in the platoon, they have to take a hit.  If those teams fail their save...too bad so sad.

Just Remember: You only need to hit the easiest team for a whole platoon and the Defender picks where hits are applied, not who fails their saves or who dies.