Flames of War: My Japanese Army

   After debating getting into FoW for over 8 months, I finally did it.  I decided to go for the newest army, the Japanese.  The setting for these Early War troops is Manchuria where the Russians ans Japanese had some fairly large skirmishes/ battles in 1939 before events elsewhere in the world drew there attention away from the region. To full-fill a need to support the new LGS, get some points for use in the store and on the tables and to have fun with a new gaming system I dove in head first.  I looked in the Army book (Rising Sun) and found that the Japanese, although first in the book shared equal space with the Poles and the Finns.  Also, it seems that the models haven't all even been released yet.  But, based on the army book, I bought the basic units I could always use as primary or support troops.

I got 1 x Hohei Chutai ( Rifle Company with organic mortars)
     
2 x Medium Tank boxes which despite the label actually gives you more than a platoon of tanks.  Japanese platoons were 3-4 tanks usually.  So with two boxes I have a company of Type 89 tanks.  Fairly easy to assemble with the exception of the rear (anti-flip??) rail.  They look awesome assembled.

1 x Light Tank box of Type 95s. I was initially going to buy more of these and less mediums,but the of the units in the army book, only one required two platoons of light tanks.  Most require more medium tanks.  Anyways, I can always get more later.  I think bring a whopping 15 tanks total to a battle already will be a shock for my opponent.  Now remember these are early war, so its not like these things are going to take a great beating.  I think they will pop pretty quickly when the AT rounds come a whizzing by.  However, the special abilites for the Japanese are quite interesting and give a bunch of support to low-visibility (night) attacks and options to continue fighting even after the tanks are destroyed or bogged down.
     
And lastly 1 x MG Platoon.  Only because, the infantry company apparently doesn't have them.  Well upon opening the Chutai I found that they actually did have squad MGs, but nothing on a tripod, so it was worth it.  Now I have a unit that can provide suppressive fire for advancing infantry and tanks to flank the enemy.
      

The one unit I didn't buy, because it wasn't listed in the TO+E was the Nikuhaku Teams (Human bullet)  Basically foot AT lancers.  I can trade out one squad per platoon for these bad boys I think and through a little banzai double move close with and destroy enemy tanks fairly easily.  Got to go back to the store and pick up some of those.


So thoughts on cavalry and trucks...both of which are available to the Japanese so far.  Im not sure the trucks would help much.  With the Banzai charge movement and the other advantages granted Japanese movements, Im not sure they would be helpful other than easy targets for the enemy to shoot at.  The cavalry would be cool, but I kind of dread having to paint them.  I painted a lot of cavalry when working on my Japanese samurai...not looking to do that again anytime soon.

In a couple weeks, I believe Infantry Gun and Artillery boxes will be coming out, so I think I will need at least the Inf Gun.  Otherwise, I got everything assembled and primed.  Now to sift through my paints and pick my color scheme.  I think it will be fairly close to the box pictures for historical accuracy.

Before Priming

Type 95s

Type 89 Left side

Type 89 Right side

Rifle squads

Mortars