Review: Battlefront Romanian Cavalry (RO708)

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I recently finished up my EW 1550 Romanians force. However I have some Romanian Cavalry and I couldn't resist painting them up.

I haven't painted a horse in 15mm for years and it took me a while to find my old paints and work out which ones to use. The ochre colour hasn't aged well and the 3 horses I painted that colour didn't turn out very well.

Review:
Battlefront only make one blister of Romanian Cavalry but it is a great blister. RO708 contains 4 large bases, one medium base, and 18 cavalry including 1 officer figure. The riders are split in 2 with the waist down moulded onto the horse. The torso needs to be glued into the legs.

The riders contained very little flash, there was only the normal mould lines on the helmet and legs. The horses had a mould lines behind the rider and on the mien and reins. Like all horse models I have ever seen, there was a large amount of flash under the horses legs. This is completely normal and easy to clean up.

In FOW:
In my EW list, I can take a unit of recce cav which is a command base plus 3 other bases. I therefore just painted up enough for this unit.

I have played against cavalry in FOW but never used cavalry myself. They move 10 inches, can gallop another 4 inches and then charge. This along with a recce move, makes them a very fast moving unit.

I am looking forward to using them to see what they can do.

Painting:
I followed my normal scheme for the riders. The horse I painted a variety of browns, chestnuts and ochre. I then applied a army painter strong tone wash.

On to the pictures. I hope you enjoyed this review.

Commander

Entire Unit

Unit in Line

Command stand.

Unit from the rear.

AAR: Romanian Infantry vs Gep. Panzergrenadiers (EW).

As I have been painting up my Romanian army, Mitch - one of my local gaming mates has been painting up his own. As I am yet to blood my new army, I asked him to share an AAR of his recent game against another local gaming mate - Ross. What follows is Mitch's pics and comments. I have only formatted the pics slightly and added the occasional unhelpful editors comments.  :)

The Guys played EW Romanian Infantry and Gep. Panzergrenadiers in Free for all.

thanks to Mitch and Ross for sharing!

The table at setup.

Ross' 1st roll for priority air. (Ed - They would be on in version 4).

Hunting for German recon, this engagement lasted several turns with the R2s finally knocking out the last German armoured car.

And Ross' 2nd roll for priority air

Ross prepares to assault my left flank.

It is starting to get tense as Ross cleaned out my infantry in the Forrest.

German air finally arrives only to miss it's target (Ed - The placement was so well measured. How could it miss?!?!)

The armoured cars and R2 tanks close in on Ross' objective. At this point I've also managed to range in on his infantry to keep them pinned down. (Ed - Note the objective precariously perched on the rail line).

On the other side, Ross has made it onto a Romanian objective (Ed - The Chaffee) but Romanian firepower manages to save the day and break the attacking platoon.

The Armour has cleared German resistance and have closed in on the objective.

Tanks move on the 2ic

Meanwhile the same fate meets the 1ic and the Germans are broken. 6-1 to the Romanians.

I hope you enjoyed this report.

Painting: Battlefront Romanian Mortars

Finally, the 10th and final unit for my EW Romanians. This is a unit of Mortars.

Again, these were painted by a friend who sold me the army. Like the earlier HMGs, I have simply rebased these to match my army.

Not much more to detail here. Onto the pictures. I will be shortly sharing some puctures of the entire army.

Mortar Platoon.

Close up.

Front View.

Rear view

In Column

In line

Painting: Battlefront Romanian TAC Schneider 47mm guns (RO501) - Part 2.

This is the 2nd batch of these beauties I have painted. The first batch of 6 was painted a while back and can be found here. Please follow this 2nd link for my full review of the Battlefront RO501 blister and a brief history of the TAC Schneider 47mm gun.

Today I add 3 more guns to the gun line. I really only need 8 of these for EW (Two platoons of four) but the 9 can be used for LW. I might expand into that period later.

Like the first batch, these are from the battlefront blister RO501. The blister comes with 3 guns - each with 4 crew and a command stand. I have again elected to just use 3 of the 4 crew. Like the previous two blisters, this was a simple clean up and assemble. There was very little flash and the guns are only 3 simple pieces each.

And with no further ado, the pictures. I hope you enjoy them!

Painting: Battlefront Romanian Infantry Platoon (RO702) - Part II.

One of my first Romanian posts here covered a batch of infantry stands I made up from loose unpainted Romanian Battlefront figures from a friends left overs.

Since then, I have painted a full platoon of Battlefront Romanian infantry from the blister RO702 here. Please follow this link for a review of this pack.

Now that the bulk of my army is painted, I cracked open another blister of RO702 and finished off the first platoon. Like the blister I reviewed above, this batch was a joy to paint.

I also have a spotter that I forgot to paint when I painted up my artillery. So, it was also included in this batch.

Anyway, enough rabbiting on from me, here are the pictures. I hope you enjoy.

Romanians forward!

In column

Rear View.

Force arrayed.

Strangely artistic pose.

Painting: Battlefront Romanian Heavy Machine Guns.

ZB-53. Photo from www.wikipedia.com

History: 
The 7.92mm ZB-53 was manufactured by the Czechoslovakian firm Zbrojovka Brno. The prototype was created and tested in 1936. It was a truly versatile weapon as it was mounted in both Czechoslovakian and British manufactured tanks and used in a variety of forms for infantry and Cavalry units.. In Britain it was made under the licence name Besa. Like many of it's contemporary manufactured machine guns, the ZB-53 was belt-fed, gas operated and air-cooled.

In early 1941, the Romanian army issued the 7.92mm Zb-53 to front line Romanian Machine Gun units. Infantry companies and Cavalry companies were issued with two machine gun platoons each.

Romanian Machine Gun on the Eastern Front. Photo from www.wikipedia.com.

Game Play:
There can be a place in all infantry companies for a high rate of fire weapon to stop infantry and cavalry charges. For most armies, this is MG or HMG teams. Equally it can be AA guns or vehicle machine guns. The Romanians can make special use of HMG as their national rule allows them to fire gun teams over infantry teams that also fired. A very useful rule as it can allow the HMGs to be deployed back from the front line in safety but still able to fully participate in the fire-fight.

Painting:
A friend of mine painted up two stands of HMGs and a commander. They are nicely painted albeit in a different style to mine. I have re-based them to maximise the chances of them matching my units.

I hope you enjoy!

More Again Decals From the Front

Following on from yesterdays BA10s, today I present the completed Romanian R-2 Tanks. These have also been lingering on my painting desk.

I reviewed the models originally here. Later I posted the fully painted, but not decalled models here

As you will have noticed, I am coming to the end of my Romanian EW project. These R-2 tanks have been the highlight to date. The models, despite being older were easy to put together, they were fun to paint and I think are the best looking unit in the army.

On to the photos. Enjoy!!