Blogging time could be hobby time.

It seems that I am doomed to face the particular human problem of having too little time. The few snatched moments I get to spend staring at tiny metal men I spend doing just that. As this blog is intended as a long term diary of my progress, it is predominantly about allowing me to easily check on what I've done in the past. That some people read it is brilliant, even if, like me, it's just another insomniac in the early hours trying to bore themselves to sleep.

So since D-Day I've been quite productive I just haven't documented anything. This will be a not so brief list and I'll try and get pics up in the next week.

Warlord plastics for Normandy Pacific Firefight:

I've put together seven USMC chaps, each in three poses (Standing/Crouching/Prone or crawling) and they just need some final kit additions and detail sculpting (sleeves, trouser detail etc) to get the three poses as close to identical as my sanity will allow. This is an interesting point: I'll admit I can be meticulous (My words) or obsessive (My FOE's words (paraphrasing and editing for language)) and I still don't know how far I'm going to push myself in the attempt to get each pose looking like the same character. The camo is complex and life too short. We'll have to see. When it stops raining I'm going to spray them up in PSC's Olive drab and try and do one chap (three poses) a night. Check out a painting guide on Bolt Action.net . As an alternative I'm also going to start sticking the Japanese together and I've earmarked spare bits from both for a side project. Which is.....

Wargames Factory Zombie survivors - Men:

Originally I'd intended to buy both the men and the women box set and make up a couple of converted sets to paint and sell on eBay. This is generally the only way I can afford to have my hobby (on the scale I like it:). 

I want to say that "I Hate" these models. They have angered me. My hobby should be relaxing. It should be noted that I've previously fallen out with their Vikings too: So it could be me.

They are hard to mix the parts as they are not really universal and any unique poses will take cutting and re-positioning and sometimes sculpting. For me, if I'd bought a box of 30 chaps for a zombie game I would be looking for characters not clones. I know design isn't that easy and It's not that bad: they are cheap and will allow you to quickly form a character pool for something like ATZ:FFO. I would just like them to be a bit easier to use (and I intend to use 15mm and sculpt my own characters if needed).. 

One interesting point is the weapon choices. I realise that we are no longer the only real country but the weapon choices are, in my mind, firstly America-centric (Which is fine as zombies there is better than zombies here) ands the ratios are bizarre. There are few shotguns but tons of assault rifles, which is great for America/Middle Eastern/Ex-USSR stuff but not great for us Brits. Yes there are SA80's (or whatever the current version is) but who needs ten of each. Chainsaws: As a aboriculturist I love the machines of spinning doom. They'd be unwieldy, are hard to use (I've seen bulked up gym lovers find using a saw all day or even a few hours, too much), they are noisy: you don't want more zombies, but they are as iconic and plain ridiculous as ninja's in black, vikings with horned helms and chanbara (which I love). But they are cool. I'd liked to have seen MP5's, shotgun variations but I have the bits from other stuff and I'm going to get creative. 

These are low on my priority list. I do however want to get them out of my hobby mine as they are taking up valuable space; so that may motivate me.

15mm WW2 Germans for BA and CoC:

I've painted the pandashrek for the basic platoon (finishing it for CoC) and replaced the leader. The original chap will still be useful he just isn't what I was looking for.

I've done a few more supports for CoC; including a MMG, Medics, Compound charge, a goliath and team and some other bits and bobs with a few left to do.

My 251 Ambulance made from a PSC 251 and procreate.

PSC are having a painting competition and I'm considering entering. It's not my best painting but I hope the scratchbuilding will help.

I have no specific use for it but it's another weird german non-combative vehicle to add to my motorpool.

I've painted my Wirbelwind and my 251 Ambulance and have the majority of the rest basecoated. I'm still not really sure I'm doing it right but at least they getting done. I've also modified my basing scheme and I'm really happy with it; I'll cover this in the finished platoon pictures I'll take as soon a it's sunny again.

Currently my 15mm mojo is flowing, I just need to maintain it through my hundreds of FJ's.

Other 15mm stuff:

Cafe Gondree by 4ground. Which is nice.

15mm 4ground fences and walls: I finally gave in and assembled these packs. I'd been unsure whether to leave them and use them in fixed positions on landscaped bases for my church etc. I gave in and figured if I needed more I would have to buy them. I sanded a bevel onto the bases (outside, wearing a mask with a dust extracting sander - MDF is no fun) and whilst taking a day out at my mums (makes alaska seem densely populated) I added sand and basecoated them in light grey. I've now just got to find colour schemes I like.

If a bridge could be sexy....

  In other 4ground news they sent my replacement chimneys for my farmhouse and were kind enough to give me one of their memorial sets. Stunning customer service like GW in the eighties/early nineties. Buy their things. They are awesome and whilst I enjoy modelling and intend to scratchbuild some buildings the time saved and quality achieved in 4grounds new builds are hard to ignore. Next up I'll save for the beneouville bridge and hotel complex. Whilst contacting customer services about my chimneys I took the opppurtunity to slip in some ninja-esque questions and can (maybe even) exclusively reveal that higher walls, a manor house and detailed stick on roof sheets to hide the roof tabs are on their way to 15mm. All good stuff.

My farm has just made me want more. So glad I'm not playing in 28mm.

Peter Pig cowboys for gunslinger: I'm still undecided between this scale as its cheap and compact and can be charming enough, or 28mm because of these. In the mean time I've done up a few chaps to use as prettier markers for the excellent Gunslinger by avalon hill. I've played it a couple of times recently and thought it may interest some people who have never heard of a diceless skirmish game. I'll attack this when it's too damp to spraypaint.

Warhammer 40K:

The first and the best. I am loving the new codex art. You get a real sense of ownership of the piece instead of feeling like a it's copied from other people.

I had lost interest in 40k due to cost and more interesting things (Chain of Command) and I may now be heading slowly back. I love my army but having not finished it due to the ridiculous nature of the conversions I was simply overwhelmed at the cost to complete it. And Chain of Command was more fun. The unbound army list options that will allow me to merge Space Marine and IG to get a better representation of the squats is quite attractive and it would allow me to use my dreads. I'm still not as excited as FOE (his eldar and space sharks are mustering) but this is more due to lack of funds and fascination with WW2 in 15mm than anything else. It would certainly be nice to have an army to use at events/clubs actually done.

I realise that's a lot with very little of interest but that's hopefully to come (I haven't even covered everything I've done but I just started boring myself). Thank you for taking the time,

BALM

What the %*@! GW? I thought we were friends.....

My BB Dwarves (I have nearly every original team) from childhood, that Blood Angel chap and a concept squat.

That's not totally what this is about but I am slightly worried about the future. To make everything better I've interspersed this with pictures of my concept models, early BB dwarves (painted in the early 90's) and some other bits.

Done overnight as a display piece in store (although the basing was done by a friend), he was returned to me as a thank you and now sits alone. Maybe he should get a touch up and head towards eBay.

More Importantly I've painted some FJ's (or at least block painted them). I'm taking a quick break from painting to write something in the effort not to ever really leave the blog empty. I've done about 16 of the 25 riflemen in base colours and when finished (hopefully tonight) will then wash them with devlan mud/badab black. They'll then be sorted into groups for colour variation in smocks/trousers/helmets.

I'm using a piece of cardboard with the groups marked in marker pen to keep on top of things and helps to visualize the final mix They're not that exciting to look at and thus I have no pictures.

 The base colour blocking part of painting is one I dread and frequently procrastinate about. After this point highlights, washes and all those interesting techniques make the miniature come to life; but up until this point I often find frustration. The moment I can 'see' how the model will look in my mind I find the whole process flows better and I enjoy it more.

My AHQ Witch Hunter WIP and a concept Necron.

Quick GW mention/worry first. I've now seen (as have most people) the pics of the upcoming 'Guard' miniatures (sometime in march/april/may/any minute now) and they are disappointing.

This is OK. I would have preferred it to look more like the FW one but I'm going to hack it up anyway and at least it will allow me to expose a squat gunner. Still the best of the lot.

Looking alot like Warzones Blood Berets. I like them but hope the kit has lots of useful parts rather than being build specific. Squats need stuff too.

It looks as if they have split the Stormtroopers away from the guard and put them in either a codex or dataslate of their own. Cunningly entitled 'tempestus' I believe the Taurox (ugly, too daft and just makes me sad), Scrap yard Ogryns (Why? and why like that?) and the stormies (but knowing GW some uber version or character buffs) will probably be available as allies to IG (or whatever they'll vainly rename them as) rather than be included as before in any way other than possibly the oft-overlooked , much competed for elites slot again. All I want is a decent guard codex. Doesn't have to be amazing, just usable and with enough variety and traditional flavour that all my painstakingly converted squats will have a place in.

This is the better Scrapgryn pictured. The other one has a ridiculous 'tache. Such a cool concept with such scope and plop..........that'll do. Let's hope the kit is more flexible than the pics suggest.

I'd like Ogryns to be available as a squad upgrade to provide muscle (read some early GW fiction) personally, I had high hopes for the new plastic ogryns but I'm disappointed so far. Hopefully the kit will be better than the PR photos make it seem but.....

It's as if they have taken their own ogres, slapped a bit of grimdarkery on it, added a upscaled bolter and gone to lunch. Nice.

They both look constipated and angry. The ripper gun as a scaled up bolter alike is a little lazy.

 So fingers crossed that GW won't ruin my favourite faction in 40k and I won't simply despair with them altogether because:

Yay! and possibly Boo. Wait 'til August to find out.

Now whilst I do have some/many problems with BA rules and more often the books and errata I do like the books. They're colourful, informative and when bought from the right place; good value. But they are full of mistakes more often than not. It doesn't matter as errata exist and you can use your own background knowledge (if you're lucky enough to have any) to adjust/fill the gaps. Complaining over, it's a fun game and has grown in popularity rapidly. Warlord has thus far done an excellent job and I'm excited about the forthcoming books Tank War and D-Day to Germany.

I've put up Tank War before but couldn't resist putting it again. I'm hoping it will just make armour slightly more complex and give them more depth, maybe a points reduction but not desperately. I've really enjoyed the bigger games I've played with infantry and armoured platoons. You end up having the armour fighting each other, surrounded by a secondary conflict with the supporting infantry forces. It worked very well. This is helped however by the increased table space provided by playing in 15mm on a large table.

Only Oct 20th or whenever after will tell if this release will redeem warlord rather irregular resource books.

This is more interesting. My forces are being made for BA and Chain of Command. Because of this and my own personal approach I'm trying to make them as realistic as any fictional WW2 units can be: in terms of resources and equipment. Anything with more information and more specific theatre selectors for BA will help greatly and this is a period I'm interested in. it's just a shame that I'm going to have to buy more books to keep playing. Warlord take a good look at the displeasure (often undeserved) that GW inspires in the flaming trolly world of the net and take heed. That path is not for you. Choose another and choose wisely. Also charge less for your Judge Dredd stuff; no one was buying it when mongoose was selling it for less, putting them in new boxes and charging more isn't going to help.

thanks

BALM

50 Shades of Dunkelgelb........

So a mere week after I'd intended to start painting my 15mm Germans and I fall foul of the main bloggers nightmare, destroyer of foundling blogs: lack of time. I haven't had time to really paint let alone take photos and write about it. I have however had one productive evening and in that time I managed to paint my first ever Historical wargaming miniature: my Marder.

In my last post my poor battered marder was shown naked and sadly she was not a pretty sight. Hours and hours (in reality one and a bit whilst watching TV) went into rebuilding her and finding a suitable crew as the battlefront ones provided were flimsy and miscast.

Doesn't look too bad from this angle....

The damage was extensive (and sloppily repaired).... 

This model is actually the reason I'm probably going to base all my vehicles. It is so misshapen and miscast that the main body is angled differently to the gun shield and the tracks. The slightly raised base allowed me some leeway to adjust how I positioned it and align it as levelly as possible. It's not great but adds to it's ramshackle charm in my eyes.

In a brief gap in the near constant and torrential rain in my locale allowed me to try out my as yet untested Plastic Soldier Company Warspray Dunkelgelb. The coat was light and dealt well with the increased moisture (from living in the south wales temperate rainforest)  with out any frosting or blobbing (tech. def.). The colour was however darker than I expected. This was the first warning sign that I may get frustrated with real world paint schemes.

As I have an airbrush but neither the space or experience/inclination to try using it for such a small job I'd previously decided to try doing the soft edge camo over the dunkelgelb using a paintbrush. This wasn't too bad and using thinned paints it was possible to slightly feather the reflective green camo. I then came to highlight the exposed dunkelgelb using my newly acquired German Armour Paint set from Battlefront. Plucked out middlestone and set to work.

I should point out that I'm a fireside modeler. I often find the only time I have for my hobby is to sit in front of my fire and TV with my wife in the evening and paint and model sociably. This is fine but can be distracting but most importantly I need to take my Daylight bulb'd lamp along with me. To see the difference that available light makes to your painting; try painting a mini in poor electric light and then take it out into bright sunlight. The variation from what you saw and think you painted and reality can be immense.

To me the middlestone paint was too bright to apply a one step highlight to the dunkelgelb basecoat. I tried a couple of times and didn't like the results so I randomly located tausept ochre, bestial brown and a very old bottle of orc flesh out of my paint supply and repainted the stripes. This was better but I'm still not sure. I know that dunkelgelb was predominantly applied in the field and as such was variable in final colour: due to how it was thinned (usually with fuel), applied and any weathering afterwards. I found that the level of complexity (and apprehension) created when simply trying to represent a real world object (in a rapidly changing environment) can be daunting. I'd stared at lots of black and white photos but they only really help from a pattern and tonal perspective. It's worth looking at the Painting Dunkelgelb article on Battlefronts site. It allayed some worries about variance.

So below is some pictures of my (nearly) finished marder. It needs a couple of small shells painted and attached, a few fine details added and then maybe another coat of dulcoat.

The added tree branch camouflage and crew wearing zeltbahn seemed necessary for me as the "gun shield'" was very thin and not even good protection from small arms accordingly.

A unnerving combination of cramped and exposed,  the only benefit I can see is that it would be easy to leave...

I'm really pleased with the first use of my micro sol and set on the Balkenkreutz. There is no tell tale decal shine now. 

Silver birch was very 'in' in the flamboyant '44 tank camouflage fashionista circles. (Not a real fact).

So that's my first finished(ish) model for my Germans. I know it's weak in game and horribly disfigured (and maybe even the wrong colour) yet I still strangely like it. I've got lots left to do and hopefully when there is a break in the drizzle (or snow later accordingly) I'll try and base-coat up some infantry and get going.

If you've managed to read that and can give any advice please comment below. 

Thanks

BALM

15mm Fallschirmjager

The Story so far...

This square of cardboard holds effectively everything I've done so far with my 15mm Bolt Action and Chain of Command German forces. It has Officers, Specialists, Riflemen, Submachine guns, Light machine guns, Mortars, recoilless rifles and a kettenkrad. It doesn't look like enough but hopefully it is all going according to plan. I've played approximately 6 or 7 games of Bolt Action and the chaps above have easily provided for my lists.

Two officers with assault rifles, L to R: Peter Pig with FG42 and Peter pig with added Stg44.

I have a range of Officers, including my Hauptmann (Captain), wielding a range of weapons from pistols and rifles to Smg's and assault rifles. Whilst forces such as 6th FJDiv. in Normandy did have a good supply of AR's I didn't want to have too many of what is often seen as a WAAC weapon choice (and used in Bolt Action in numbers much greater than were reality by tournament gamers). I have a few Stg44 armed chaps (mainly officers) and a small squad wielding the FG42 who will act as my Pioneers or assault group. The main officers for my force have had procreate Stg44's added to increase the firepower of their small squads and as fitting equipment for the brave leaders.

Peter Pig Heer LMG with procreate paratrooper smock. Intended to look like an unbuttoned 2nd ed. smock

My force is equipped to have 2 LMG's per squad. Even though they are not fantastic in Bolt Action they are at least thematically and historically appropriate and because of this I will attempt to use them as intended in my games. 

I also have specialist troopers such as a flamethrower, a Panzerknacker team (Four chaps with LMG, Smoke grenades and a compound charge), a Medic, Sniper, Spotters and two HMG's. This force was built around a 'fantasy' late war FJ unit, where everything was initially intended to be Air-droppable. Whilst I have later added some support in the form of a Marder II, A Panther G and a Stug G, the support weapons are all small and portable. In order to increase my towing and transport capabilities I modeled up a battlefront kettenkrad carrying crew.

Can't honestly say I'd like to sit pillion on a 'krad (or if it's even possible) but unfortunately it was the only way any of the FoW SS Bikers would fit. A case of artistic licence over historical accuracy.

This Kettenkrad can represent a three man crew and tow a light howitzer (LG40 10.5cm) or a crew of two and a driver (for the Spzb. 41). It's an excellent little, air portable tow that can access areas wheeled vehicles can't. I have three modeled altogether, the one above, one with just a driver and an empty one (in case my opponent wants to steal it in CoC).

Motorcycle Recce vehicle.

I adapted a Battlefront SS Motorcycle into being a FJ Recce vehicle by re-heading and sculpting para smocks onto the crew and adding some stowage and an MG42. From my limited experience this vehicle is worthwhile for the disruption and distraction it can cause as much as anything.

Looks like a normal Marder........

..........But no! It was severely deformed and I only noticed months after purchasing and opening it. Rather than battle customer services (who I have never had a problem with) I decided to 'simply' re-sculpt it. Frustrating. It will now be used, no matter how rubbish in game, as I spent too much time on it not to.

With the infantry above and a range of armoured support representing attached or assisting Panzer regiments I should be able to represent a reasonably historically correct FJ force. I've only got a couple of Zvesda trucks as I realise by this point transport was a key problem for all forces, especially the germans. They will get to use transport but not excessively unless historically relevant.

In terms of painting, the late war period couldn't be any more unhelpful. Camouflage comes into much greater use and people slap everything but the kitchen sink to tanks to increase their survivability (although accordingly this often didn't work and sometimes made it more dangerous). Complex camouflage patterns in a small scale are difficult if not impossible (Aren't they?), especially when they have to be repeated at least 100 times. What you need to do is represent the expected pattern on the miniature. This will give the viewer the impression of the camouflage you're trying to represent (but will often be actually different shapes, shades or colours to the original - to increase or decrease effects). Painting in a small scale means you have to adjust your colour choices slighty to make such small pieces stand out on the battlefield (although I am a big proponent of good camouflage and hoping your opponent forgets about your units (and you don't). My fallschirmjager, for this reason and as far as I currently know, will be quite clean and bright (at least to start with) with a range of camouflage patterns from splinter pattern and water pattern smocks and zeltbahn, to tan, field grey and blue and Italian camouflage trousers.

My biggest problem now is simply starting. I like modeling and can get quite carried away and easily distracted. I also like to at least have a rough idea for paint schemes, that I'm comfortable with, before I begin and, if working on a large project, would rather do all the painting at the same time. I have effectively created a barrier to my own success ( something I am adept at doing) but I'm quite determined (mainly because as a reward I get to do Allies next) and intend to get the spray paint out the moment the rain stops in Wales. The joke is not lost on me.

It's a heavy and exciting B'day present.....

Full of bags of buildings, walls and even elastic bands.

The Threshing barn in construction. The newer kits have interior detailing and exterior plaster/stucco work to add detail. The whole level of detail in this kit is excellent.

 I also intend to get my 4Ground farm done (I did a barn, got distracted...) and get some pictures up for people to look at. Thank you if you took the time,

BALM