Tournament Prep Done

 Whew - the painting's done for this saturdays "Throcktober" tournament.  It a nice little haul for my glacial painting rate.

 First up is a four gun battery of US 155's, which are just the ticket to pry open the tops of those nasty late war big german cats.

 A little AT support in the form of a M-18 tank destroyer platoon.  These guys are a bit of a glass cannon as they have no real armor (except against small arms) but are very fast.  Never fielded them before so lets see how they work out.

 Lastly, some odds and ends - 4 jeeps 'cause you can't have too many, and air observer, a staff and command team for another artillery unit and a Jumbo Sherman.  I have been dithering about on my exact list and have received some input for a certain Mr Rhia that I need a tank platoon with a jumbo.  Since Mr Rhia will forget more about FOW than I'll ever know, his advice is well worth taking.

All that's left to do with these guys is hit them with some matte varnish and they're good-to-go.

The tournament is an interesting event - It's a 24 person late war themed team-based event "Race to Berlin" where 12 allied players (6 US/Brit, 6 Soviets) fight against 12 germans in a
historically based scenario event.  Since it's really late war, I suspect there will be lots of big cats fielded by the germans, which can be tough nuts to crack.  The event is being held at Huzzah Hobbies in VA and will be my fourth FOW tournament.  It sounds like a lot of fun.  The tournament is being organized by Sean Sarah who has put a great deal of effort and enthusiasm into it - I'm grateful for his efforts.

As with all curmudgeons, I rarely change my way of doing things hobby style, so when I do, it's a big deal (to me).  I had bought the pictured surface primer at least a year ago and never used it.  I gave it a go for the everything pictured above except the 155 unit and was extremely please with the results.  The brush on primer allowed me to compress two steps (priming then main color painting into one) and provided an excellent shade of olive green.  I highly recommend the product.  Sometimes labels can be hard to read so the product is:
Vallejo Surface Primer
US Olive Drab
#73.608