Monday, 30 May 2011

Nearly finished the german FoW army, yeah right...

So with the eight Panzerwerfer 42s safely tucked away in the carry case, all I had left to finish painting my German army was the additional crew bases for the rocket launchers, and one large base with tank ace Mikael Wittmann, another tank crew member and a Schwimmwagon and I was done, well apart from the flight of aircraft I still require, (need to buy those first though), and the ten Panzer 4s from the Plastic Soldier Company I picked up at Triples I was done.

In fact I was so convinced that I was about finished I started to buy some 15mm scenery, I picked up a small selection of ruins and ruined buildings from Triples last weekend. Being as I needed to do some work at home I did not go down to the workshop on Monday, so I started painting the buildings, by tea time Monday, I had two of the buildings finished and packed away and the third, a large western European garage/warehouse type of thing was ready for drybrushing and detailing/washing, and I got all the work done that I need to do, heh you cannot beat time management!

Tuesday/Wednesday evening saw the dry brushing done on the large warehouse building and most of the figures for the additional crew. By Saturday I had everything completed but the Mikael Wittmann figures and vehicle, looking good.

Then of course I went to Partizan on Sunday to run a Flames of War demo, I went with a small shopping list of scenery and paint that I wanted to get, I managed to get what I wanted and a bit besides. I came home clutching about 5 feet of fully painted river sections, six feet of unpainted road sections, (I did not like the very dark colour of the pre painted road so I decided to do it myself), and two further 15mm western European buildings. I am now getting respectable amount of 15mm scenery, I still need a bit more but they will wait for the next war games show, whenever that is!

The demo games went quite well, we had about eight people playing over the day, but by about 2.00/2.15pm the show went quiet, so I had another wander around the show, which was fatal for the wallet. I had been musing about maybe increasing the number of tank hunters in my German army as was still lacking for Mid war vehicles, and had been pondering what if anything to get to rectify the shortage. So sat fully assembled and ready to be primed, (well it has rained heavily here all day) are three Marder 2s and two Marder 3s both useable for both Mid/late war periods.

This I mean it, when those five tank hunters and the plastic Panzer 4s are done, my German army is complete, apart form the aircraft that is.....

Ah well its back to the workshop tomorrow as I have sixty large and medium hills to repair and/or repaint for Battlefront Miniatures.

Friday, 27 May 2011

Even more Flames of War pt 3.

I have not done too much on my FoW models recently, been pretty busy with other stuff, most of it 'real life' and not model related. I got the Tigers and Hornisse's finished the other week and had eight Panzerwerfer 42's along with four bases of additional crew sat part painted.

Anyway after all my other running about and taking my mother to and from hospital earlier this week, I have gotten off to an absolute flyer repairing and painting 40 hills of varying sizes for Battlefront Miniatures.

In addition I also got all eight of the Panzerwerfer 42s camouflaged on Tuesday evening, I could not finishe them as planned on theTuesday evening as the GCN council meeting we had booked on SKYPE took up a fair old amount of time, however I did get all the camouflage finished before going to bed. So Wednesday evening the Devlan Mud wash was applied and Thursday evening saw the 'dirt' drybrushing applied, the decals added and a protective coat of varnish sprayed on when the decal softner was fully dry. I then proceeded to fill up more slots in the second of the German FoW army cases, its nearly full, now but not quite as I still have space for a few more Opel Blitz 3 ton trucks etc. I also need to find space in that box for the ten Plastic Soldier Company's IP Panzer 4 kits, along with a wing of German aircraft that should be that box full. My Battle Foam, FoW bag only has one slot left in it, so that will be pretty much it for the German's.

Being as I had completed all forty of the hills for Battlefront in the first batch, I took the finished scenery back to their offices in Nottingham and collected an even bigger batch of large and medium sized hills, sixty of them are now sat in boxes in my workshop awaiting attention from Tuesday onwards of next week.

All being well most of those will be finished by this time next week too.

Next job for this week is the Partizan war gaming show in Newark on Sunday where I will be running a FoW demo game, thankfully Monday is a bank holiday so I will get a lie in bed all being well.....

Thursday, 19 May 2011

Busy few weekends coming up.

I am going to be a bit busy over the next few weekends, with a show per week to attend.

First up we have Triples in Sheffield on the 21st and 22nd May, where along with a couple of my COGS club mates we will be running a participation game all weekend. We are running a small fantasy skirmish game called 'Blood Feud' played on a 2 foot x 2 foot board where each player uses a small group of models, between four and six models per team. Blood Feud is a new version of a game we used to run at show's a few years ago called 'Grave Wars', its quite a manic game although I do have to say its lots of fun, and uses teams of psychopaths, lunatics and monsters, along with a variety of other more 'sane' teams. The Rule set has been written by my COGS club colleague Dave Wise (who is the GCN project leader for the Hammerhead show) and myself. Hopefully it should be a good weekend.

Next up we have the Partizan show on Sunday 29th May at Kelham Hall in Newark. At this show I will be running a demo game of 'Flames of War', late war period for Battlefront Miniatures. This will be the first time that I have run a demo game of this system, although relatively new to the game I have managed to play loads of games over the last couple of months and I am seriously getting into the system.

Final show is on the 5th June, this is Comicon in Wrexham in North Wales, where along with other GCN council members and GCN club members were are putting on three tabletop games for the organisers. There will be a 40K game, Warhammer Fantasy Battle game and the game I will be running is a Lord of the Rings SBG game. I have not decided on a scenario yet, I need to get something sorted soon. Part of the event celebrates the 10th anniversary of the release of the Fellowship of the Ring movie, however apart from 'The Last Alliance' prologue of the movie there is not as much scope for larger battles, so I may opt for doing something from The Two Towers, the battle of the Fords of Isen, or I may just resurrect/rewrite a scenario that I put together for a Games Day game I did a few years ago for Games Workshop, I need to give this more thought, but i need to get Triples out of the way first.

Its looking like its going to be a busy few weeks, not withstanding all the scenery and terrain that I have sat here in boxes to be worked on for Battlefront Miniatures for their Official FoW GT in September, and the pile of parcels I have to pack for Fanderson Sales, to be honest I just do not have the time to go and do a 'proper' job.

Hey ho better get on as I have a pile of orders to process and pack.....

Wednesday, 11 May 2011

Even more Flames of War pt 2.

The new batch of Flames of War models are coming along nicely, although they are taking a bit longer to paint that was previously the case.

The reason for this is that I have no Army Painter Late War German Armour spray left, I ran out on the last batch, it would also appear that not many other people or stockist in the UK have any either, as everywhere you try is out of stock waiting for deliveries, even Battlefront themselves have no stock ATM.

Which meant that if I wanted these models to use any time soon that I would be reverting back to the old undercoat by brush system to do this batch of AFVs, so out came the Vallejo Middlestone bottle and I got stuck in.

This is where my earlier comment comes to the fore, had I been able to spray the batch of models it would have taken me no more than twenty minutes to do the lot, as it turned out, undercoating the fourteen vehicles by brush took me the better part of three hours! Painting the odd vehicle here and there by brush is one thing, but using the spray saves so much time, granted its more expensive to spray when compared to brush painting, but boy does it save you a lot of time.

Anyway that was Tuesday afternoons job, I gave all the vehicles heavy dry brush Tuesday night and so they were all ready for the detail painting and camouflage.

I had an hour this morning so all the metallic parts, tracks, tools etc were painted on the two Tigers, the two Hornisse and the Wespe. Not started the Panzerwerfer 42s yet though, I think that I will finish the tanks/tank hunters first then drop back onto the others.

I had a break for lunch and to write a couple of Blogs! and I now have a load of merchandise to pack for Fanderson Sales, then off to the post office when I have finished packing, I might be able to get another hour on the tanks in later on this afternoon if I am lucky and hopefully get a bit more done.

Off to the alternate Wednesday evening COGS session tonight at 7.00pm, so no more painting tonight either. I am playing a 1750 points mid war game tonight, its a practice game for my COGS buddy Richard who is taking part in a Mid War GT at Maelstrom Games in June...

Saturday, 7 May 2011

Even more Flames of War.

Well the last batch of Flames of war models were all finished, hooray!!! Packed away safely in their cases and ready for use on the table top.

Well that is that for the German army or so I thought at the time.

Unfortunately for me, I had a meeting with Battlefront Miniatures on Thursday 5th May in Nottingham, well when I say unfortunate, I actually meant for my wallet and credit card, sigh, trust me to go with cash and credit card in pocket and a list of models that I wanted. ; )

Anyway sat on the table assembled and sprayed with grey automotive primer ready for undercoating are two more Tiger 1Es, (one of them being the Michael Wittman box set), two Hornisse tank hunters, one Wespe 10.5cm self propelled gun, (to go with the three I finished last week), and eight, yes eight Panzerwerfer 42 rocket launchers, for those times on the battlefield when you just have to have the biggest of the artillery templates, ( and it is a big one), and re-rolling misses, mind you the platoon is bloody expensive if you use all of them.

Heh my club mate at COGS with his huge Russian Strelkovy Infantry army is in for a bit of a shock, I can tell you.

Once this little lot is done is that it, no way, I need to get some aircraft and I am looking at getting some Panzer 4s for the early and Mid war periods, although five of each should do me there, then both my carry cases will be full to bursting. Which means I can address the mounting US 2nd Armoured Division that is sat in boxes and blisters awaiting attention.