15mm AT-ST for Star Wars Chain of Command

    

 One of the first things that comes to my mind when you say Star Wars is the AT-ST or chicken walker. It’s not practical or particularly well armed but it’s quintessentially Empire and as such would be vital for any SW themed tabletop game I’d want to play. The biggest draw to playing Legion was the AT-ST and how much it reminded me of my childhood toy, but the cost (and scale) helped push me into investigating any possibility in a near enough scale for 15mm. 

     Most manufacturers use 1:100 for their accompanying 15mm vehicle scales but as I didn’t intend to have too many recognisable/real world vehicles on the tabletop (who says how big this speeder is in real life) I could accept some variance around this, probably from 1:90 to 1:110 depending on the subject. Luckily all of the work had already been done for me by the previously mentioned, and frankly excellent, Rebel Scale website which has lists for all the Star Wars toys or models that are or have been available. On it I was overjoyed to find that the Micro Galaxy Squadron toys by Jazwares produced an AT-ST in 1:100 exactly. Being, accordingly, a collectors item they can go for ridiculous prices (that I don’t understand but words like chase are bandied with much reverence in the hallowed circles of fandom) but I managed to pick up two for £13 each which was reasonable.

     The plastic is hard(ish) but not brittle and comes with a weird dirty wash on them (rebelscale recommends removing this with isopropyl alcohol which worked well enough for my purposes). The details are sometimes a little soft but perfectly acceptable apart from (in my opinion) the front blasters. These are the main chin mounted weapons and had plastic filler between the two barrels (to add strength). I cut off the guns and replaced them with a plastic set (from a WW2 Flames of War American early AA Halftrack), whilst not exact and missing the barrel detail of the originals I like the look of these replacements and feel when painted they’ll fit well enough for me (field modifications if anyone quibbles).

The toy actually stands up on its own but I decided to make them a base for added stability. Luckily with a little aggressive scraping with a scalpel I managed to enlarge the gaps on the underside of the feet to perfectly fit two 5mm neodymium magnets that were partnered by a pair mounted into a 50mm Renedra round base. Hey presto a stable model that can be posed and repositioned on its base or removed entirely if needed.

I’m really happy with how it looks next to a Highlander Studios Stormtrooper and need to start the second and work out a plan for paint scheme (in classic Empire grey). I’m tempted to add some stowage and bits but I’m not sure it fits the SW look.

Thank you for taking the time to check this out I have a lot of plans for my Chain of Command Star Wars chaps and just received another two Jazwares vehicles today for scenery; which I’ll spend a few weeks getting them out of their carbonite packaging (how kids are supposed to get anything out of this packaging without breaking them is baffling - it’s almost vac-formed around it!) and get them into the production line.

Balm 

My 15mm Star Wars project

 So as briefly mentioned before I’m intending to use Star Wars miniatures to lure unsuspecting friends into playing Chain of Command (or literally anything at this point) and then if they bite try and convert them to historicals.

So I’m currently busy watching various bits of the films or series and trying to get an idea for the setting and rebel composition for my vision. My rebels are GZG RANG and I’ve started trying to add some variation by removing heads and re sculpting them.

My first efforts are a Twi’lek platoon commander, a Sullustan RPG operator and a Mon Calamari driver for the lovely GZG skimmer.

I’m quite pleased with the results, although the eyes are maybe too far forward ( a thorough scouring of MC pictures however does show variance so maybe it’s okay). I now just have to decide what colour: blue or red? Cold water or warm? I’m thinking red for this one and I’ll do a couple more infantry for variety. Thank you for taking the time to read this, I apologise for the lack of pictures, I intend to get a few more done and I’ll paint up some infantry to try and rough out my colour scheme.

Stay safe,

BeneathALeadMountain 

A gift for my wife

 I’m still busy ticking over on my projects (the constant state for many wargamers) and whilst I actually seem to be making progress I had to take a short break (from my own self induced nonsense) just before Christmas to make my wife an additional, last minute present.

Now when we got married many years ago I promised her that I’d get her a pony. I know. As I’ve been retired (against my will) for ten years or so I think a pony may well be out of my financial reach. Then I had an idea (actually I had it last year but the display case I bought from Woodland Scenics was sadly rubbish) and managed to find a suitable vessel on Etsy. On the 22nd of December the display case/bowl turned up and I set to work. I didn’t sleep much during the next couple of days but I was very pleased with the end result and more importantly so was my wife. The diorama is all scratch built and based on a 50mm ply base from Warbases attached to the supplied cork with PVA. The horse and tree are procreate and the greenery is either Silflor from Mininatur or Woodland Scenics (all of which I already had in my stores).

Whilst it’s not my usual fare I thoroughly enjoyed the sculpting process (and work best under pressure) and my wife was delighted. 

Brilliantly, for Christmas, my wife bought me some 15mm Stormtroopers (Highlander Miniatures) and my brother in law bought me some GZG Tomorrow’s War RANG troopers to be my rebels. Since then I’ve been basing and re-sculpting to add some aliens (non-humans) into the mix. Hopefully soon I’ll get some pictures up and some games played using either the original Star Wars Miniature rules, Chain of Command, Spectre Operations (a very useful toolkit system) or maybe the new Tomorrow’s War ruleset that’s in development.

Stay safe

BeneathALeadMountain 

My forces for Operation Torch - or what have I been doing during COVID?

 Greetings all, I hope you are still coping with the unusual times we’re currently experiencing. Previously I’ve mentioned that my actual progress in my hobby is not very well represented by my blog posts - a mixture of frustration at computers (blogger is very hard to use on iPad recently - as I type this I cannot actually see what I’m writing and when I try and put pictures in a minute there will be swearing) and a feeling that it just isn’t that interesting. Well recently I’ve decided to give in and bore any poor reader who found their way here because if nothing else it’s a small distraction from the real world. 

Since just before Christmas I’ve been taking random boxes of 15mm tanks and vehicles I have stockpiled and trying to at least move them forward by sticking them together and basing them. I haven’t progressed to painting partly as I’ve lost my painting mojo and I was also stuck trying to match my basing colours with my chosen gaming mat (Cigar Box battle mats Arid region - it has a ground colour of a beige and pink flesh tone in it and sparse foliage scattered across it) but I think I’ve solved that problem.

For Operation Torch I wanted to collect Italians and Germans with British and Americans opposing them. My American platoon is already based along with a few vehicles like an M8 Scott, M1 Scout car as they were originally for Normandy but I decided to repurpose them and build a new platoon for Overlord at some point in the future. Not everything is finished and in some cases there a few more waiting to be built but this gives a good example of what I’m intending to have as a final force. So we have M3 Lees, early M4 Shermans, halftracks (only 1 but more to come), trucks, T30 halftracks (75mm howitzer), M1 scout car, various jeeps (spotters and a radio version) and Beeps, Portee’d anti tank guns and M3 Stuart’s. So still a number of vehicles to finish or tart up with sculpted details and crew but definite progress.

The British are the least completed (maybe started is a better term) force but if you look carefully at the pictures of the drawers I keep my WIP models in you can see 6 pounders and a couple of scout cars (you can also see some of my limited armour for VBCW including a T1 cavalry tank and some Konflikt ‘47 walkers in their original, and honestly much better, scale). I will get back to the Brits but as I had my American infantry re-headed and based it seemed sensible to focus on them to get a working allied force done.

For the Axis I have Germans and Italians. The Italians are represented by a Bersaglieri platoon (half done and charming in their pith style sun helmets and ostrich feathers) and a range of vehicles from M41 tanks and semoventes, dovunque 35 lorries and Lancia 3RO 6-ton trucks including two (one pictured) with 90mm guns mounted on them, TL-37 artillery tractors and a section of motor cycle based rifleman for a bit of mobile reserve. I could still do with some Sahariana vehicles to act as a mobile elite force but there’s easily enough for Chain of command, Bolt Action or small games of Battlegroup (the Germans will bolster their forces in bigger games). I also made a Carro commando M41 command vehicle out of one of the FoW plastic M41s. Ive also got a number of infantry guns and support weapons to base up to help give the troops a bit more punch.

For the Germans I have a good range of vehicles to support my intended two platoons of infantry. I’ve based and re-headed one platoon in trench coats (Tunisia was cold at night and very different to the sweltering deserts of ‘41)  and they will have a kradschutzen platoon added to them soon (I have the bikes but not the chaps yet) as I felt they would be very different to the other forces and give a highly mobile but fragile fighting force. The vehicles for the Germans range from Panzer III (mainly J’s) and Panzer IV’s (newly arrived in the desert and a dangerous foe), a Bison (daft and pretty unique but cheap from eBay), sdkfz 6 Diana SPG, various artillery tows (sdkfz 7 and 10’s) and scout cars and the utterly weird SdKfz 254 (minus its aerial frame at the moment as it’s thick and clunky and I think I can do better). There is also  some captured and converted Lorraine schleppers and a Tiger. For command vehicles or particular individuals I’ve sculpted crew members using Peter Pig heads to make them a little bit more ‘mine’ (the panzer commander has a cigarette if you squint at my awful photos). Where turrets aren’t attached that is because on taking them out of storage one of the magnets has become detached and they’re waiting for the glue to dry.

So that’s a pretty good overview of some of what I’ve actually done recently. There are quite a few more vehicles to build, base and in a lot of cases add some sculpted details to in order to make them a bit different. I’ve also got to finish the infantry (and buy my kradschutzen troops on foot) but I feel like I’m actually making some progress and hopefully by the time the COVID problem has become more manageable and I’m allowed to mingle again I should be able to start playing some Chain of Command, Bolt Action and Battlegroup in Tunisia. Hopefully I can also use some of the scenery and as much of the forces as possible to play the conflict in Italy (with some key scenic additions like olive groves and Italian style houses) in the future. Apologies for the picture quality and the lack of captions on the pictures but writing this up has probably taken longer than it does to build most of the forces and as I may have mentioned blogger is very hard to use at the moment (I know it’s not just me and that many other bloggers are struggling as well).

Thank you for taking the time to read this, please get in touch and ask any questions or tell me about your own forces for this theatre.

Stay safe and well

BALM

Some progress updates

 Couple of things I’ve managed to do or get photos of in the last week, nothing particularly exciting but progress nonetheless.

I bought a naval wargaming mat. I wanted another Cigar Box Battle Mat but unfortunately Northstar seem to have stopped stocking them. When I inquired I got quite a brusque reply which said no they no longer stock them and didn’t give any other options. Looking at Northstar’s site though I discovered that they now sell GeekVillain gaming mats from the U.K. (presumably its cheaper for Northstar). I bought a naval mat from them (cheaper than CBBM) and when it arrived took it outside to look at it in the sunshine.

It’s a big blue sheet. And my poor Black Seas brig that’s had to be repaired twice from dropping and crushing. 

My opinion? It’s O.K. It’s just a fleece blanket dyed blue and has none of the quality you feel you’re getting with CBBM. I know it’s only the sea and there’s only so much that can be done artistically but it still feels a bit phoned in. The slight textural pattern that is present looks more like it is due to the dye interacting with the fleeces structure rather than artistic additions. Maybe once I play a few games on it my mind will change but I still keep looking at CBBM and wishing they had a U.K. distributor. 

I also managed to get a test tree painted (having re-scraped it and filled the trunk join with Vallejo plastic putty) after noticing how scruffy they looked in the last pictures. So I took my test tree, picked up my new, much coveted can of Vallejo spray paint and sprayed it brown. Trees aren’t brown though, but unfortunately the spray I had was. A couple of minutes pass where I consider buying a grey spray paint. I decide to see what I can do and set too the trunk using my standard basing grey (GW Mechanicus Standard Grey) followed by a dry brush of Ushabti bone and a wash of Agrax Earthshade and Nuln Oil. On this one I also tried some GW Skeleton Horde contrast to bring it all together. As you can see from the picture Archimedes (Archie the rescue parrot) was in a very helpful mood during this process and I did not manage to work at peak efficiency - he’s all about parrot inclusion.

Once greenery (the non psittacine kind) has been added the base will blend into the table.

Archie in his chosen habitat. It turns out kitchen cupboards are just hollowed out trees but come full of jam and other exciting things. Open cupboards in our house with trepidation.

I also managed to paint about half my Peter Pig Chain of Command British platoon for Normandy. They seem a little dark but are painted in the Coat D’Arms British battledress triptych of paints so I know they’re correct and don’t really want to lighten them to allow for scale. Either way they are helping keep me motivated.

That’s about it (there was more but Blogger is almost unusable currently and after three re-writes and an hour of swearing I’m tired). Stay safe and well,

BALM

Into the Bocage

When I started playing WW2 games I decided (or rather my regular gaming partner and I decided) to initially focus on Normandy. Unfortunately my opponent was very slow to start collecting, veered off by buying Russians and then, sadly it seems, lost interest altogether (at one point during a game he even said “I’m bored of Normandy gaming”, I looked at the open table where Germans and Russians were fighting and realised that I was on my own). If I’d known (whilst I am really interested in Normandy) I might have chosen an easier theatre with less scenery like Africa (it’s in the works). Luckily my new gaming friends from my local club are really interested in playing D-Day onwards so nothing has really been wasted.

A key feature of Normandy gaming (at least in some sectors) is Bocage hedgerows. These are banks with thick hedge on top which create a very unique gaming experience. They are hard to cross and reduce the effectiveness of tanks by blocking line of sight, perfect from my point of view as I wanted to play games like Chain of Command which are infantry centric. Unfortunately this means that to play such games you need to build a fair bit of bocage (literally tens of feet of the stuff); something that often stops gamers totally or means that the bocage that is put on the table is just not representative (usually there is just not enough of it).

Allied troops fighting through the bocage in 1944. 

I was lucky enough to grow up in deepest, darkest Herefordshire where most lanes are lined with what is in reality bocage. I have experienced trying to get through it whilst adventuring as a child and have a realistic view of how hard this would be for adults under fire in full kit. Whilst you can buy pre-built bocage from various online sellers such as battlefront (quite costly, not particularly realistic and comes in small amounts) I’d decided I wanted to try and make my own.

Scots Guards fighting in the bocage by Terence Cuneo from Cranston Fine Arts website. This is an excellent representation of the true severity and size of the bocage country (and a beautiful painting).

I started  by using laser cut MDF from Supreme Littleness products using their 25mm wide linear terrain bases. I could have cut them myself (with considerable effort and hassle) but the ones from SL were the perfect size, affordable and had a good range of junctions to make it varied. The owner Michael was really helpful and went out of his way to provide exactly what I needed. Sometimes I’d rather spend money and support a fellow hobbyist when it reduces the work I’d need to do and the products are of such good standard.

The sheets of MDF ready to be separated and become many feet of bocage.

I bevelled the edges using a sharp knife, then cut and glued some 10mm thick blue foam I had in store to each piece and left it to dry overnight. Next day I trimmed the foam to generate a bank like profile. I then covered each section with 4ground base render (any grout or render would work I just seemed to accidentally keep buying pots of the stuff) and left it to dry. Next day I coated the pieces in Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement and covered them in sand. In some sections I added gateways using bits of 4ground fences, I also marked up some parts to be made as destroyed sections or as defensive positions for the Germans to hide in. I then sprayed the finished pieces with Citadel black spray paint. I have started twisting and forming some of the smaller Woodlands Scenic trees which would be be inserted in various places to raise the height of the hedgerow and give it a more realistic appearance. At this point I realised that I hadn’t made quite enough straight sections and got back in touch with Michael at Supreme Littleness. He rapidly sent out more straight sections which arrived promptly just before the current lockdown. 

The pieces ready to covered in 4ground base render. Note the defensive positions (writing on them in pen saved a lot of confusion later). 

Some of the final pieces before and after being covered in sand. At this point it seemed an endless task. Let’s hope it’s worth it.

So that’s where I am at the moment. The bulk of the bocage bases are done and I’m working on the extra bits (I’ve had to give up my evening workspace recently as my multi-talented wife has been busily making scrubs for our local doctors and hospital). I have a good selection of Woodland Scenics products to create the hedges and will cover this in a further post (a clever way to say I don’t yet know what I’m going to do yet).

Not the most exciting post or pictures but I’m getting quite excited to play on a proper Normandy table soon. I’ve also started forming and basing trees to help make my table more aesthetically pleasing and I’ll post about these too soon.

Hope you are all safe and well

BALM

Some 15mm additions.

I've done quite a bit during my recent hiatus. With the weather being awful (spray painting and pictures are currently impossible) I thought I'd put up a couple of pictures of german units I'd finished.



My FoW Whitman Tiger, painted to reward its performance in the battle of the secret stug (see its kill ring). The law of gaming meant its next performance was useless with it being destroyed almost instantaneously.

Again but without the warming sunshine. The turret is magnetised, the crew member sculpted by me.

My 250/1. Built for CoC as its an excellent support choice. The customised Peter Pig and FoW crew are one piece and are removable. The tarpaulin is procreate.

I've also more recently finished my 88 flak and a Grille H (a weird and charming little vehicle that packs a massive punch in BA). I've (at the time of typing) just based the 88 crew and will get them done soon.

Battlefront or FoW 88 flak gun. Carefully put together, painted in camouflage and then obscured with model scenery. I seem to really enjoy making my own life more complicated.

I'll do another base for the wheels and an ammo stack (and maybe a little dug out for the spotter). Plenty of room for the crew to (hopefully) stand behind.

 

The Grille's crew have (like all my chaps) been re-headed with Peter Pig heads. It's a nice, characterful unit that is suitable for my opponents favourite gaming theatre - the eastern front.

Plenty more bite size updates to come as I try to get back up to speed with pictures and progress of my summer; including 15 and 28mm, some new 15mm settings - AVBCW and a whole new project in a new scale - WW2 6mm.

As ever thank you for taking the time,

BALM.

Pictures from our games of Chain of Command

     A few more pictures from our January gaming binge. Probably not in any order. I've only just got the rules square(ish) in my mind, remembering to take photographs and make notes instead of being excited about tiny metal men is still a problem.

     Set up for a head to head match to check we had the rules straight. The little red dice are the russian's patrol marker and the large orange d20's are their JOPs. Unhelpfully I seem to have removed my dice and put some scenic JOPs down. Extremely close together. Had it gone wrong I was risking a cascading collapse in force morale if over run. Stereotypical German efficiency (and stunning generalship - of course) however meant the Germans were victorious. Their ability to concentrate withering (if not always that effective - Nuffle be praised) fire on a tightly concentrated front can hold back a numerically superior foe like the russians - sometimes.

Russians swarm over the outnumbered but staunch germans. Urk! an unpainted  bit of scenery - the shame

Disbelieving flapping of rule book fails to reward my opponent with the rulings he was looking for.

     An interesting and contentious moment. Playing the probe scenario I managed to sneak a patrol marker out on a flank. By the time my opponent noticed it was too late. Slight grumpiness and much angry shaking of the rule book later, plus some measuring and thinking and I managed to prove that he could have stopped it but would have had to react straight away to effectively deny the flank. This was the first time either of us had used such "game legal" but unsporting behaviour so I wasn't too shocked when he didn't see it coming. I deployed my recon 250 asset and with the second phase drove it straight to his table edge achieving my forces victory conditions. 

     Brilliant moment of gaming genius - absolutely rubbish game experience, especially for him (at least one of my miniatures had made it onto the table), we'd spent all the time setting up for almost nothing. It was a campaign ladder game though, and my focus was on getting as many chaps to the next scenario alive.

A cross between a deep rumbling noise (what I think a tiger sounds like) and the Jaws theme tune are playing in my head at this point.

      I actually spent all my 10 points of assets on a Tiger. Neither of us are power gamers and the only reason I have it was because it had a schwimmwagen with it and I'm that obsessed. I was faced with what I knew would be an overwhelming Soviet force containing at least one tank and chaps dug into a building complex that I'd have to take and hold. In a desperate gamble I select my undercoated kitty. We don't tell each other what we've selected as we don't see that the opponent should know until they turn up. I stated "vehicle coming on at point y and performed all necessary rolls/movement/noises as I placed it in the edge of the treeline behind a vast range of soft cover from the occupied buildings".  A few more phases and the kitty was moving up with infantry squads in support.

The Tiger opens up and my opponent realises his mistake.

     A russian ATR pops up by the wall (using a CoC dice) and completely fails to hit. Ivan's predilection for fortifying liquids has left him lucky not to have blown his own leg off. Armour values aren't asked after and the tiger rumbles slowly on. Another russian phase and a squad appears by the wall and proceeds to hose the approaching grenadiers waiting at the hedge line for the command to assault. The tiger's mmg opens up on them and they suffer some shock. I declare I'm going to fire the main gun. My opponent points out I'd have to had pivoted my "Stug" to do that and accept the modifiers, and in a gentlemanly way asked me if I'd like to take back my turn and re-do it including the pivot. I am bewildered, then realisation slowly dawns. I reach forward and slowly rotate the turret slightly to the left. My opponent says "Ah" and "Sh%t". 

     The 88 spanks the squad and goes on in further phases to batter the other defenders in the surrounding buildings, supports the charging infantry and ultimately tips the scales in my favour. At one point my opponent nearly closes with it and attempts to demo charge it. His rolls come up short (even I was hoping he'd do it - it was very cinematic and russian) and the reds are done for.

     His fault wasn't in mis-identifying the tank (although it is, quite rudely, just a dunkelgelb blob) I think he was just so engrossed in his own troops and plans that he'd assumed I wouldn't squander all my support on one thing (and we'd been playing for almost three days straight - never play on the home ground of an insomniac).

      This meritorious action has accelerated the kitty's position in the painting motor-pool. Thank you for taking the time,

BALM.

Moving Mountains.....

Having had a busy December and an exhausted January I did manage to do a fair bit of sticking, sculpting and procrastinating ( I can sit and stare at one figure I like/am painting/just can't get to work for a disturbing amount of time. I'd like to think the meds are responsible but I think it's mostly just me) but didn't managed to get anything online. From a truly full to capacity hobby room (the door opened - just) to being too shaky to take a decent photo even with magic intelligent cameras, I didn't post. I slipped a disc (and mangled some other muscles) in January 2014 and it was November before I could walk a few feet again. Now upright, if not particularly nimble yet, I feel more positive towards hobby progress.

I'm about to sacrifice my private lead mountains site in order to move into a shared office with my wife (who needs and deserves the space more) which will mean that everything has to be packed and compressed in a tardis like nature. Physics will have to obey because I only have so much house. eBay may be busy. I still intend to continue with bits but what little functionality I have will be plowed into making a better work room for us both to be productive in initially.

I did however finally get a game in with my regular opponent. Or rather 8 games over three days. Chain of Command on the Eastern front. We played a few individual games and then a simple ladder campaign. I've got quite a lot of pics but I thought I'd put up a few random ones too, and I'll try and post some more soon with specific sequences from games.

Russian farmland is the setting for our first game. The dice are our patrol markers playing short edge to short edge with the Germans (me) defending the farmhouse and Wirbelwind stationed outside.

My Germans deploy from a Opel Blitz JOP into some lovely (opponent made) area terrain.

My Stug - still not finished but performed well when called on. Nearly everything we used was painted this time, and with the scenery, it really improved the feel of the game.

Russians advancing steadily. And continuously.

More Germans, a different JOP and another bit of hedge.

Found on my old phone memory card (thought lost)

A Ultra Marine Chaplain I painstakingly freehanded as an additional Crimbo present for my nephew who was getting into 40k.

Have no idea why I don't have a picture of him completed. 

Thanks for taking the time. With a new workspace coming and slightly better health I intend to continue my purge and assault on my lead mountain this year. If anyone wants to buy serious amounts of squats in 28mm drop me a line. Oh and I've fallen foul of the beauty of GHQ 6mm.

BALM