Sunday 31 July 2011

Nearly finished the german FoW army, no not quite!

Well there I was thinking that I had about finished the German side of things for Flames of War.

I got pretty close it has to be said, but I had to purchase that one extra blister didn't I. Well to be honest it was three blisters I actually purchased, a section of PaK38 anti tank guns, a section of Pak 36 anti tank guns and a section of Fallschirmjager PaK 36 anti tank guns, which were all assembled and painted in quite a quick time frame it has to be said.

I had made a bit of a start on the six infantry bases I am using from the Infantry Aces blister pack, but real life kept getting in the way, then a bout of flu, which was diaganosed as 'man flu' by the wife until she caught it, then is was proper flu, typical.

The illness may have slowed down the painting, but it did not stop me from going on-line to buy more stuff, so I now have a blister of Fallschirmjager heavy mortars to get cracking on, not too bad a build job and as the boxes are getting very nearly full to bursting, I am definitely slowing down with the Germans, although I have now worked out what I need to purchase to have an early war force. The list of early war tanks is not that long and so I am going to build a Light/Medium tank company which I will be able to use for mid war as well, and with those tanks purchased, all space in both my German carry cases will be used, so a good place to stop.

Stop with the German that is, I have also bought a few more bits and pieces recently for the US army, although the blisters I have bought this last week are for building to enter the 'Iron Cross' painting competition at the Official Flames of War European Grand Tournament in Nottingham on the 3rd and 4th September, where I will be all weekend long as I am helping out at the event.

I feel the urge to enter some models at this competition, to be honest I think this will be my one and only shot at this doing something like this in this scale as the old eyesight is not what it used to be.

I will write up a blog of what I intend to build and enter in a couple of weeks when I have finally decided, I have a few idea's I am just not 100% on them yet.

Sunday 10 July 2011

The final push...

Now that the last of the current batch of scenery is finished for the Battlefront Miniatures Official Flames of War GT, and ready to be taken back to head office in Nottingham later this week, its time for a final push to get the brushes going and get the last of my German models painted and packed away. Or at least get them all finished before I have the chance to buy anything more!

I have been so busy doing the scenery for Battlefront this last week, and with all the other work and meetings for the GCN over the last couple of weeks, it has really eaten into my time, so my own model work ground to a full stop, granted I did 'refresh' the straight out of the box paint jobs for the new 'Battlefield in a Box' sets, the Monastery and Vine Yards last week but that was the sum total.

I plan to have a session or two this week which will see all the part painted FoW models completely finished, although there are now two new additions, 'groan', not more models bought, afraid so, but only two blisters this time, a Bergpanther recovery vehicle and a Russian T34/85, nope I am not starting a new Russian army, this is a one off model for use in one of the Panzergrenadier lists for a 'looted panzer platoon', cool doing only the one tank is easy.

Although when I get the rest of the scenery finished for Battlefront, assuming that I am given some more that is, and when the last of my German models are packed away I need to get cracking and get back on track with some other work that I have either to finish or to start.

There is the Airfix Saturn 5, which has been sat assembled, sprayed gloss white and awaiting all the detail painting since last February, that model is ready for the masking to be applied for all the metallic and black area's to be spray painted, the old Aztec airbrush will need agood clean as its not been used in over a year now.

Following on from that, I have a few 1/6th scale vinyl kits, these are 12 inch tall figures from various films, Klaatu and Gort from the old 1950s movie, The Day the earth Stood Still, a Darth Vader from Star Wars, an old vinyl kit, (in actual fact two of them), of Captain America, this kit has peaked my interest again because of the new Captain America First Avenger movie, and 'cap' has always been one of my favourite comic books characters. There are a couple of other Marvel and DC figures to build and paint that are to be for display in a local comic/model/collector shop here in Chesterfield. Plus several other injection plastic kits that I need to build of various craft from Gerry Anderson series, Thunderbird's 1 and 4 at the top of the list, among many others.

This is of course not counting any of my other war games models that need attention, its going to be a busy time between now and the Christmas holiday.

As I said its time for a final push to get some of that lot finished......

Monday 4 July 2011

Flames of War and more....

Well I am very nearly out of German Flames of War models to paint, granted I do have several models yet to finish, a couple of SDkfz 250 half tracks, two Wespe's and a half dozen Opel Blitz trucks, all of these are more than half done, plus the six small bases of infantry from the new Infantry Aces blister, and my latest and quite possibly last purchase for a while on the FoW front a Bergpanther recovery vehicle.

Unfortunately I have been a rather busy over the last couple of weeks with other things that needed priority on my attention and time. I had a load of scenery to complete for Battlefront Miniatures, thirty feet of various river sections, with another thirty feet sat in boxes in my workshop awaiting attention, in addition to that little lot I cut up a 6 foot by 4 foot door mat which makes excellent 'wheat fields' for 15mm scale, unfortunately for me I picked the hottest day of the year to carve that mat up, so I was drenched in sweat by the time I was finished, however there was a large box of fields all boxed up and ready to go back to Battlefront.

My time over the last two weeks was not going to be my own either as I also had several articles to write up for both Wargames Illustrated and White Dwarf magazines, its surprising where all the time goes when you start doing jobs like that. Although last Friday I did mange to get a bit of painting done for myself first thing. I had to take my youngest daughter Kirsty for a medical assessment at lunchtime on the far side of Sheffield following a car accident she was involved in a couple of months ago, which meant that I was not able to get much time in the workshop.

However the time I had available in the morning meant that I could do a little bit of work on the two new 15mm scenery pieces I picked up from Battlefront on Thursday, a ruined Monastary and Vineyard set from the new Cassino ranges. They are very nice straight out of the box for the price, they are only priced at £15.00 per set which is great value for money, but I wanted to add another level of detail and weathering to them, so they were duly drybrushed and painted slightly differently to the boxed versions, however I am quite happy with the finished result and they now 'tie in' much more with my other small (but growing) collection of 15mm Western European buildings and ruins.

This week will see another thirty feet of river sections completed and the 8 foot by 4 foot roll of door mat currently sat in the workshop, cut up into 'wheat fields', hopefully it will not be quite so hot when I start to carve that roll up. Variations on a theme will be the order of the day for this roll of mat, with burned and scorched sections of fields rather than just plain fields.

Mind you, its not just been scenery and assembling of FoW models I have looked at this last couple of weeks. I managed to get a game of Warmachine in at COGS two weeks ago, one of my club mates has a tourament coming up at Maelstrom Games and wanted a practice game, so out came my Menoth army. I have concluded that I am not totally satisfied with some aspects of my Protectorate army, and so I am looking to sell some of them, I do not want to get rid of everything, but I want to hit the 're set' button and start again, get rid of models I never use, (there are quite a few), and maybe get some infantry type units that I have not looked at so far, I am not completely 100% decided which way to jump and will 'wing it' as I go along.

I also managed to dust off my collection of Circle Orboros models though, These have been assembled and primed for about three years or more, but I never got around to actually painting any of them. I plan to revisit this Hordes force and add to it in the near future, as I love some of the Warp Wolf models and hopefully get some games in too.

This coming Saturday (9th July), sees me at the Mantic Games open day in Bulwell near Nottingham and I shall be at the Festival of History in Kelmarsh North Northamptomshire on Sunday 17th July in the war games marquee, manning the GCN stand.