I'm not going to Salute this year. I'm sad about it but I can't go. Let alone the costs (toys!), there's no bring and buy (close contact crowd positioning at such things is what I believe I have spent nearly half my life training in martial arts for :), and I am the proud owner of the first Iraqi Wolf Dog puppy in Europe (weird familial connections) and don't want to leave her alone all day.
Instead my Favourite opponent ever (who shall be known as FOE from now on as he's too lazy too start blogging and so I can't easily refer to him) is trekking across the country this weekend in order to have a frenzied day playing Bolt Action and Chain of Command with the forces we've been building recently.
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| My Nerbelwerfer finally made it to me (My field gun went via Germany and still arrived sooner). |
Because of the impending clash with FO, and as we like to play a variety of scenarios and forces: I decided the painting time that was never going to be used was allocated instead to assembling as much German stuff as possible that had turned up recently. Battlefront are seemingly starting to regain stock levels and actually sells its products.
I've made a Wirbelwind. Great name, daft looking and massively overcosted/ineffective in the game ticks all my boxes. It's a battlefront model with the ubiquitous Peter Pig heads as Battlefront seemed to have forgotten to put faces on their chaps.
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| Peter Pig heads due to the faceless nature of the Battlefront ones. |
I've also made a 250/1 and a couple of 251/1's. the 251's are Plastic Soldier Company and will be used (although rarely) to allow my chaps to represent the few units who had such things in number. In Bolt Action they are expensive and suffer from a few rule based penalties that make them hard to choose, but sometimes FO will have to face the might of the mechanised mini nazis. The 250 is primarily for Chain of Command as its a good value asset and characterful.
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| I love these little things. |
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| Battlefront Gunner with a Peter Pig head and PP NCO. |
My third 251 became a 251/9 (I think that's the ambulance) using some wire hoops and a ridiculously fiddly bit of procreate tarp work. I did make a 251/10 with the pak from the 250 but it suffered a mysterious fate and was found outside, trodden into the mud sans all my detailing. Investigations have been suspended to promote household calm.
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| My Ambulance with tarp and aircraft recognition flag. Is it cheating to etch in the cross before painting to make freehand better? |
A 234/2 which is a little bit gamey in Bolt Action but I'm sure FO will cope. Nicely it comes with both turrets which I'll sort out with magnets at some point in the future. For now it's staying pokey.
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| It looks daft and I love it. It's also very good. |
My love of interesting vehicles over effective ones continues with my Bergepanther (Although they were excellent at their job) Hopefully we can house rule some use for this and others in our forthcoming CoC campaigns.
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| What more could you want: Great name, strange looking and non-violent? Refreshing. |
I also knocked up a platoon of Peter Pig heer infantry for use in both games. 3 x 10 man squads with a junior NCO with an mp40 and one mg42 each and a hauptman and his aide to command. No pictures as they're simply bare metal stuck to washers.
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| I also made a tank. And a base for it using my True Sander. Awesome. |
Excitedly someone is finally doing a Pegasus Bridge in 15mm. Check out Warbases as after salute the bridge, a couple of building and the bunker go up.
A weekend of intensive gaming should inspire me to push on.
Thanks for reading,
BALM
