Barbarossa 2: Some Progress

After the MDF madness, I started painting figures again... I had been going through another dry spell for a bit, but after constructing all that scenery I am eager to get some more miniatures finished.

And while I thought painting these Heroics and Ross would be a quick affair (not a lot of detail, right?) I did spend more time on them than I had anticipated. Once the first coat of paint went on, all kinds of details like ammo pouches appeared. In the end they turned out a lot better than I imagined.

Anyway, that's the infantry bases for my Panzerschuetzen platoon taken care of, now I'll do the last details on their halftracks. I need to order a few more bits for the command and support weapon stands, but other than that I'll have another unit slot filled in my Barbarossa army.

See you in a few days,

Happy painting and gaming!

Paint Table Saturday 7 - Back to Barbarossa

Still Saturday somewhere on the planet, so for once I'm on time :-)

With the unglued wood pile out of the way and after some reorganizing and clearing of the painting room and desk (yet again) I'm back to painting!!!

I cleaned up the Heroics and Ross infantry for my Barbarossa project, mounted them on bases and started painting. When I have completed this infantry platoon, I only have the StuKa left to paint and then I can order wave three for this army.
Aftermuch delibirations and changes of heart I'll be going for a heavy Flak battery and all the bits and vehicles needed to make an HQ for an armoured infantry company and the second platoon of infantry. That way I'll be able to choose between two army lists and have more choice between supporting assets... I'm even able to include one for the infantry list with that order: a pair of SIG33's. Five quid will allow you to buy an amazing amount of stuff at Heroics and Ross.

Happy painting and gaming!!!

MDF Madness Marathon 3 - The Finish Line

At last, very early last Monday morning (there is an upside to insomnia apparently) I glued the last of the dormers and the chimney to roof of the La Haye Sainte farmhouse, last building of my stash of 4Ground buildings... Just over a week to complete all that scenery.

OK I could have finished earlier but another purchase at Warcon 27 had me stuck behind my computer for way too much time. While faster than a real game of Bloodbowl, the PC version still takes quite a bit of time to play a single game and let's just say I played more matches than I planned (you know, just one more, then I'll stop...)

At last, no more blackened fingertips or the smelled of charred wood...

My pre Warcon 27 collection of 4Ground, the result of picking up one or two at a show over the last two years.

And now pretty much triple the size in a single day (not considering construction)

Want to know the worst of it all? I still have more stuff I "need"... the church, those corner shops,... Will the madness ever stop?

Happy painting and Gaming!!!

MDF Madness Marathon 2 - Halfway There...

... and I can't wait to get to the finish. Every bit of hobby time and the coffe breaks at work has been taken over by cutting out and glueing together a seemingly endless supply of MDF building parts.

4 of the 5 single buildings and the small outbuildings and walls from the La Haye Sainte set.

I'll be so glad when the last building is finished, I can't wait to actually paint something again :-)

Happy painting and gaming!!!

Warcon 27: Shop till You Drop!

With a only recently abandoned plan to visit Salute this year, I had a lot of money that I had been putting aside for that trip waiting to be repurposed? Did I do the sensible thing and put that money on my savings account? Or did I decide to go wild at Warcon instead?
Those were purely rethorical questions of  course...

When I left the big shopping bag in the center was filled to capacity with stuff to sell at the bring and buy, when I got back the few items left hardly filled the carrier bag at the left.

The plan was to go wild on scenery (check) and on airbrush paints. As there were no traders who had a good assortment of airbrush paints, I just went double wild on scenery... Even though I was expecting delivery of my airbrush set, I still went mostly for the 4Ground range. I already have quite a bit of it so this will give a more uniform table. Read more about it here.

Even more scenery from the Renedra range: their barn (a nice kit to practice my airbrushing on) and some packs of fences... you can never have enough fences...

When it came to figures, I didn't really plan on buying any. I have pretty much everything I need for the project that interest me at this time. Naturally I didn't go away empty handed, or what did you think? But the PSC anti tank gun set plugs one of the few remaining holes in my 15mm Russian army as they can also be built as infantry guns. Pretty much the only option I'm missing when building an infantry battlion in Flames of War.

And with Stonewall Figures running a "buy five get one free" deal on their 20mm vehicles, I had to pick up some of them. While they are not the best vehicle kits on the market I'm pretty forgiving when they go at £3.85 each. Some of them are hard if not impossible to find as model kits... Anyone see an Airfix T38 lately?

 

And being all early war vehicles they tie in nicely with Battlegroup Barbarossa. The collection is complete (for about a month or so and then Blitzkrieg is released) and I still have to play my first game... At least there are a few other club members interested in this game... Also for early war I picked up the France and Allies book for Bolt action.

And to finish the early war them I stumbled across "Britain's Wonderful Fighting Forces" in a box of old book at the Stonewall stand. No date of publication is mentioned but given the introduction mentions the declaration of war on September 3rd 1939 and no fighting is mentioned I guess this book was published during the Phoney War!!! What a find, I really like books like that.

And that leaves the bring and buy finds... Eastern Front Solitaire, still in the shrinkwrap... Bloodbowl for the PC... A bunch of sourcebooks for the Torg RPG. At just one Euro each I bought them mostly as inspiration for scenarios... a LotR Mordor Troll and last but not least one of the few Confrontation Wolfen characters missing from my collection.

So in case you are wondering, no, the Salute money didn't end up on my savings account :-)

Happy painting and gaming!!!
(I'll be stuck glueing MDF for now)

Warcon 27: Some Pictures

Here are some pictures of the Warcon 27 event in Gentbrugge (next to Ghent, Belgium) that I attended last Saturday. Bigger than any previous year but more cramped as well and a good selection of traders with a few from the UK returning after a few years absence.

The main entrance to the building, first time it was used for the event, hosting a big game table...

... the slightly too little second hand corner where I made more money than I spent...

... and a few traders too (with the smell of charred MDF filling up the corner).

The side hall, other years every club had a table you could walk around, pretty cramped conditions this year!

Our little contribution, a Flames of War table. The panzers are still smoking after my decisive victory (and some hot rolls of the dice)

The main hall, once again packed as tight as possible.

The inevitable Napoleonic game, Quatre Bras in 28mm by the Stipsicz Hussars.

The Alde Garde with a "what if" pike and shot battle in Holland in 1507...

... with a little nudge and a wink to our local fast food culture: the "frituur" (chips/fries shack) added to a corner of the battlefield. Armies marching on their stomach and all that :-)

French and Indians attacking a British fort. Dang, If only I remembered what war that was again... Ah well, a beautiful table anyway.

Market Garden: Oosterbeek

My fellow club members Lucien (back) and Henri (front) get an introduction to the Battlegroup rules.

Another great day of looking, gaming, chatting (and buying)... So, when is Warcon 28???

Happy painting and gaming!!!

MDF Madness Marathon

After yesterday's visit to Warcon 27 (more on that later) I am now looking at having to build an insane amount of 4Ground MDF scenery. My house and fingertips will be smelling of charred wood for the foreseeable future :-) 

Four sets of terraced houses, a large hotel and the La Haye Sainte set, thinking big obviously.

The La Haye Sainte set is chock full of stuff, why did they bother putting in two tiny pieces of bubblewrap in? It's not like anything would be rattling in that box without them. Notice the ziplock bag with clothespens and rubber bands... just that little extra touch.

Only Japanese trains are packed tighter than this set!

With 4 main buildings and loads of smaller buildings, walls and even a pond and sand pit I'm very happy that they are all packed seperately. Well, better get out the PVA glue and put on a Meeples and Miniatures podcast or two.

Where do I start?

More on Warcon 27 and MDF madness to follow, so stay tuned!

Happy painting glueing and gaming!

Paint Table Saturday 6

And again it has been a few weeks since the last installment... This time it were Isaac Asimov's books that kept me away from the painting table while I was rereading his series of Robot books, the first part of his history of the future as mentioned in his foreword to "Prelude to Foundation". I actually wanted to read the Foundation series again, but after that foreword I just had to go and dive into the full fourteen books. Good thing I'm missing the Empire part of the Robot/Empire/Foundation series or I still wouldn't be painting today. I did find the set on eBay and will be ordering them so in about a week it'll be bye bye brushes again I guess.

Before my reading break I finished the 6mm vehicles I was working on and I started prepping some of the 15mm vehicles I need for next Friday's game... I'll have to go back to my previous army list as there is no way I'll get those to a base coated state by then. So I'm going to continue finishing all my near complete Soviet tanks and SPGs in the next few days and then move back to my Barbarossa project for a bit. 

One other project I got around to was making a small painting station from a few bits I had laying around. Ideal to move away from the painting desk while "watching" some old war movie or enjoying the sunshine in the garden (soonish I hope) or to take along on vacation.

That's it for now, see you next time (that could take a book or nine, so be patient).

Happy painting and gaming!!!

Paint Table Saturday 5 - Back to the Paintbrush

I know, I know, nowhere near Saturday, but the picture was taken on that day... so technically it still counts. I was quite surprised to see how long ago I posted the previous update, surprising to see how long my latest painting dry spell lasted this time. But a week or two ago I started prepping some more GHQ tanks and got stuck in again. Also the missing Pz IVD hulls showed up with order number two for my Barbarossa project.

 Between taking this picture and finally posting it here, The Pz IVDs are finished, the KV-85s only need flocking and the T-34s and the two Heroics and Ross armoured cars have moved to the varnishing stage. That leaves me with the detailing (mostly the crew and passengers) of my Barbarossa halftracks.
Meanwhile the pressure is on for my next Flames of War game, I only need to paint 7 to 9 more 15mm tanks in slightly over three weeks. I'm going for no bare metal/resin/plastic or undercoat showing... A man's got to know his limitations as Harry Calahan once said :-)

Happy painting and gaming!

A Solo Play Aid for Battlegroup Kursk

I've been wanting to try out the Battlegroup rules for some time now... Because that would have to be a solo enterprise I felt that the "sudden victory" that is a result of the chit drawing system would be lost. So rather than just accepting that I would be fully aware of how badly mauled both sides are, I decided to write a small computer program to handle the chit drawing and telling me when one side or the other disengages.

I have written the code in python on the codeskulptor.org site, so if you want to give my program a try just go here. It is all still very rough so no fancy user interfaces or output or checking for wrong inputs...
Just hit the play button at the top left of the page and you will be asked to enter the sides and their battle ratings and if you want to use the Fall of the Reich counter set, any relevant output (drawing of special counters and who wins) appears on the right side. If the Barbarossa counter set is the same as Kursk and Overlord you can use the program for that as well but as I don't have that book (yet) I don't know that myself.
Also, codeskulptor does not work with Internet Explorer. It did function on my android tablet, using it in its current state is difficult though (hard to see the output of the program)

Later on I'll try to add:

• Barbarossa counter set (if different)
• Windows interface
• Possibility to view the total drawn for one side (if you want play "against" the other side)
• Indication of the number of counters drawn for both sides (so you can guesstimate who's losing)

All feedback (and bugs) welcome in the comments below.

Happy painting and gaming!

Paint Table Saturday 4 - Project completed!!!

Last week I didn't post an update because well, there really wasn't anything to write about. I spent the rest of the weekend working on my dungeon tiles, but come monday I just couldn't find the motivation to paint any more... And it stayed like that for the rest of the week. This week was only slightly better, but with one great result!

Yes, that's a gaping hole on the scenery line now!

I finally finished a project! Almost three years after the first mention of my 3D dungeon, the last tile for Dwarf King's Hold got its last coat of varnish and moved to join the rest of the tile set...

One dungeon, done and done :-)

 So what now? Back to 6mm Russians... after last week's game at the club I did some tweaking of my army list and now I have a few new platoons to paint. Some SU122s, AA half tracks and another scout car.

Happy gaming and painting!