The Thrill of Shopping and the Agony of Defeat

With my 1500 point army list and credit card in hand I went off to my friendly local gaming store (FLGS). This store carries a big selection of Flames of War and is usually well stocked. They also carry a nice selection of supporting items: JR and Musket Miniatures buildings, Miniature Building Authority, Vallejo paint, etc. So I start looking through the racks for my Heavy Mortar Company and…they had none! This was quite a disappointment to say they least.

Then, I was going to purchase one more T-34 tank to be my Battalion HQ. I wanted the Stalingrad turret variant since it would look different than the 5 tanks that come in the box. After looking through all the racks (again) all I found were the T-34’s I already had or the ChTz and up armored variants. Foiled again! Then I started thinking that the Mariya Oktyabrskaya "special character" tank would make a nice Battalion HQ. When I was playing GW games, I would often use special character models as non-special commanders. I figured, why not do the same here? In the end I left the store with Mariya and some Soviet Stowage. Can you ever have too much stowage?

Disappointed, I decided to drive further and go my next closest FLGS. This store doesn’t have the selection of the first; but, I really wanted the Heavy Mortars. Sadly, this store also did not have the Heavy Mortars. At this point, I didn’t want to leave empty handed so I bought the Afrika handbook. I think my final purchase for the army (the 8 light tanks and mortars) will be via mail order because of the discount and the selection.

Once I got home I started assembling the Mariya tank and I noticed that one of the dismounted crew members comes with a map. YES! I can do another vignette, this time the tank crew will be resting and figuring out why they are lost. I plan on painting the tank when the replacement track for the SU arrives. I will post pictures when it is finished.