Painting Weekend

All,

So, for all you kind souls out there that actually read, enjoy, and respond to my batreps, I greatly appreciate it, and I apologize.  I apologize because I didn't get any gaming in this past weekend.  But don't let that make you think I didn't get anything wargaming accomplished; quite the contrary, actually!  Like many of you, I presume, I have roundabout 8 million different wargaming projects lying around, in various stages of completion, with more pouring in from the mailbox on a regular basis.  This past weekend I was upstairs in the War Room, cleaning up the remnants from my "Tears of the Sun" campaign (over on the Cuba Libre blog) and pondering my next move, when... Well, there's no other way to put it, I was simply overcome with aggravation and frustration at all the crap scattered about.  My initial intent was simply to work on a couple things, then get some games in on Sunday, but once I got some momentum going, I couldn't quit, and so I worked through two whole days of knocking stuff out.

And here's what I (mostly) got done!  Little monkey hands were quite busy playing with Daddy's stuff, but not so much with helping to assemble and paint ;)

So I finished up some 10mm Modern stuff, almost exclusively from Minifigs UK.  You might recall I had a bunch of 10mm Modern stuff, then sold off pretty much all of it, and now I've returned.  I just couldn't stay away...  The big reason I sold it off was because I had a tremendous amount of stuff completed, but I hated the basing, and it was simply too much to rebase.  I do not intend on replacing everything I sold off, but I have noticed I keep buying more and more...  So, what did I finish up?

Well, here we have a store-bought attack helo, a Eurocoptor Tiger, and behind it is a 10mm Israeli force.

Then I have two Pumas.

A BMP, BTR, and T-72 for my bad guys.

An AMX-10RC and two VABs.  If you're not figuring it out yet, this is a French Foreign Legion force for Africa.

The bad guys have three Technicals, two with 12.7mm HMGs and one with 106mm recoiless rifle.

Some closeups of the Israelis, with bad guys ("Arab Insurgents," in Minifigs' speak) behind them.  I'm much, much happier with the thinner bases, though I'm not sure if I should put some grass on these or not.

More Israelis and Insurgents.

And the Israeli weapons stands (from left to right: 81mm mortars, MMG, SAM, and ATGM).

On to the Insurgents, proper.

Again.  Above them are some French recon stands.

And one more, with French SOF above them.

A look at the French SOF (Minifigs US SF or British SAS, I don't recall which).  My plan for the FFL is to have a task force with 'regular' infantry and weapons, some direct action types (the SOF), some reconnaissance and surveillance types, some mechanized troops (the AMX-10RC and two VABs, with more on the way), and some air assault troops (the Tiger and two Pumas).

The R&S troops, which are Minigs' Vietnam-era Australians.

Again.

Here we get to the French 'regular' infantry weapons stands, at least some of them.

And the rest, with the French command stand (as denoted by having three guys on it) at far right.

Some French line infantry.  I absolutely L-O-V-E these sculpts, wish someone would make some in 15mm, updated a bit (which is to say, just add some NVG mounts on the helmets and optics on the weapons), for my skirmish gaming.

Some more.

And the end of the French line infantry.

And now on to the civilian population ("Arab Civilians").

And the rest.  Dig the dudes chillin' out with the hookah.

Okay, next project.

How about some 15mm WWII stuff from Battlefront, with a bit of Eureka thrown in?  Two forces ready for some skirmishing!  On the left we have Italians, while on the right we've got a bit o'throw another shrimp on the barbie.  I'm sure my buddies Jimmi and Shaun are saying "about time Jack got to some real men." ;)

First up is the Eureka Italian MG team.  A good sculpt, though it doesn't quite fit.  These are paratroopers, not regular infantry (fucieleri).  I really like the Eureka Italian paratrooper sculpts, I'm just not sure what I'd do with them.  In any case, I need a machine gun team.  ONE machine gun team.  This is part of what I hate about Battlefront's method of business.  It's been a couple years now that I've needed one US Airborne .30 cal MG team (prone), but they only sell them in platoon packs, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna spend almost 20 bucks to get one MG team...  So I went to Eureka, but Eureka only has Italian paras and Besaglieri; I went with the paras.

Again.

And then on to the Battlefront Italians.  Good looking dudes, nice proportions, just a little boring in their poses.  I'll say the same thing about their Australians, which is a little bit of a letdown, I'm usually pretty happy with my Battlefront purchases.  Not sure whether to put some grass on these guys, either.

Again.

And one more, of the back.

On to the Aussies, we have a Vickers MG from Eureka.

Again.

Decent sculpts, a little soft on detail.  My guess is these are older models; all the other WWII and Modern 15mm I have from Eureka are extraordinarily crisp.

Moving on to the Battlefront Aussies.  We start with the bittersweet: on the one hand, this cat with the Tommy Gun, whom I've adorned with a big, beautiful mustache, is my favorite of the group.  On the other, he's the only damn figure with a Tommy Gun!  That really burns my ass.  In any case, I'm preparing to embark on a campaign following this bunch of Aussies, and he's going to be my platoon sergeant.

Backing out a bit, you see the Plt Sgt, a rifleman, and the 2" mortar team.  I'm not in love with the fact the mortarman is carrying it, I'd rather he was kneeling or lying down with the weapon deployed.

Here you've got some riflemen, the AT Rifleman (I think that Boyes is actually a bit smaller than in real life!), and the platoon commander is at bottom right.  I believe he'll be "Leftenant Paul Hogan." ;)

Some more rifleman.  Again, the proportions are good and chunky, well detailed, but a bit samey and lacking in motion/excitement/drama.

More riflemen, with two section leaders at bottom.  I do like those poses, and I like that there's a good mix of slouch hats and helmets.

More riflemen, plus the Bren gunners at center/right.  I don't like that the bipod is folded forward on the helmeted Bren gunner; I know it was done, it just doesn't look right for me.

The two riflemen at top are the only ones that don't look right, their heads are bit small, no neck.

More riflemen.

And Paul, stoking the boys up, Webley service revolver at the ready.

The next batch...

My 6mm Shermans were already completed (used in my Blood & Guts Tunisia campaign, along with the German Panzer IVGs); they're here because I got tired of dealing with the fiddliness of turning, and keeping track of, tiny 6mm turrets, so I glued them.

But I did add some stuff: the US Army was the proud recipients of some M-10 Wolverines.

The Germans got a Tiger (just one, top right), and a platoon of Panthers...

The 'old' Panzer IVs are at far right, then I added some Stug IIIHs and some Marder IIIs.  This lot could quite conceivably carry me through the whole war with my Blood & Guts saga.

I got some more Peter Pig WWII Marines finished up.  Well, almost finished up.  I still need to get them on pennies and grass them, like the guy at left.

And I did up some US vehicle riders.

And I finally got some bespoke German casualties (bottom right), and some to use as other bad guys (desert Germans, desert Italians, and Japanese).

The Germans (Peeter Pig Early German Dead).

And the other casualty figures (Peter Pig Afrika Korps Dead).

And then, spurred on by my buddy Steve Whitesell ("Sound Officer's Call" blog), I did up some terrain!  Everything is from Novus Design studios except the jungle huts at left, which are from my buddy Jimmi at Flashpoint Minis.

First up is a concrete pillbox, with removable roof, which will get used right away in my Sicily campaign.  This is the front.

And the rear.

With the top down.

A couple supply dumps from Novus Design.

Again.

And one more.

A wooden bridge.  I'm very proud of this one, how it turned out.  I'm not very good at dry-brushing, and I certainly don't have the patience for it, but I gave it a shot and I'm very pleased with the look.  It's funny that it got here at all; I bought this about a year ago, took it out to the garage to spray prime it, dropped it, and broke it.  It sat there for quite some time before I finally got around to making the necessary repairs.  My only problem with this thing is that it's pretty big; it looks to me to be more on the 20mm side than the 15mm side, but it'll be okay, I'm just worried about using it for my 10mm troops (I usually use 15mm terrain with my 10mm stuff).

Again.

Another.

And one more.

Alright, the same time I bought the bridge, I bought some Eastern Front houses.  Again, not particularly skilled with the dry-brushing, and I probably overdid it a bit on this one, but I'm happy with the look.

Shut the front door!

Out back, chopping some wood.

Oh wait, I guess that other one was the back door...

And with the roof off.

The next building.  So I dry-brushed the walls, fence, and chimney, but I block painted and washed the roof and dirt.

The rear.

Other side.  Looking here, I'm kinda wishing I would have dry-brushed the chimney...

The front.

With the top off.

And my last house (for now).

The back door.

Other side.

The front door.

And with the roof off.

My new hootches from Jimmi.  Got these done up right quick, received on Saturday, painted and washed on Sunday.

Another look.

And one more.

Oops, a sneak peak of a bunch more 10mm vehicles, primed and waiting patiently for their paintjobs.

Some pots, urns, and shrines from Flashpoint (Jimmi, if you're reading, what do I do with that roof there?), as well as some 15mm Montagnards to do up.

More 15mm Novus Design goodness, the train station, primed.  I do have a problem though: if you look at the 2nd floor insert, it's badly warped.  How do I fix this?

And here's the 15mm Novus hotel.  At right is a bunch of bamboo and trees from Flashpoint, still in the bag.

**UPDATE: I got all the Flashpoint jungle based up.  I need to paint the two shrines (bottom left and bottom right), and flock the bamboo and tree bases.

Some trees.  I used Flames of War bases.

One of the shrines.

And the real reason for my order: some bamboo!!!  It looks awesome, I can't wait to get it on the table!!!

More trees and bamboo.

The other shrine.  Okay, they're pretty much identical, and some work to do.

But look at that bamboo!

It was kinda a pain in my ass, but man it looks good.

And one more.

Man I got a lot done, but still so much more to do.  But don't worry, I'll be playing some games this coming weekend and posting the batreps ASAP, just not sure where I'm headed.  I'm ready to start my Aussies in North Africa, I'm ready to start Blood & Guts in Sicily (to include some armor vs armor games using Treadheads, from my buddy Steve/Wolfhag), I need to finish KG Klink in Fall of France, I want to get back to Cuba Libre in Cronistria for a faux-Market Garden concept I've been thinking on, back to South Leon for my 10mm FFL troops above, back to South Leon for some more 15mm SOF stuff, aaaaaaaaahhhh!!!

V/R,
Jack

Quick Update - One Project Done, Lots More to Go

All,

The past three weeks (including this one) have been a wargaming desert, just too much family stuff going on, so I have gotten zero games in, but I have gotten some painting done, and even knocked out a pretty ambitious project (two weeks from start to finish!).  If you're so inclined, and if you're reading this I assume you are, let's have a look.

First up, I've had a hankering to do some simple American Civil War gaming.  It's true that I already have some ACW stuff, but it's crap, no other way to explain it.  It was one of the very first wargaming projects I ever did: I ordered some 10mm command, infantry, cavalry, and guns from GHQ.  Nice figures, but expensive and don't fit with anyone else's stuff.  I didn't know much about rules or basing, screwed both up multiple times, only ever actually played one game, with my late father.  At the time I was apparently into ridiculous levels of battlefield friction and so I played some set I got from a buddy, something I'd never heard of before and haven't heard of since.  To make a long story short, the Old Man and I sat around an 8' x 6' table very sparsely populated with my half-assed painted and based troops, and watched them do very little for the next six hours.  You had to roll every time you issued orders, and there were a lot of failed orders, and lots of blunders that had regiments marching to and fro, everywhere but where you told them to go.

So ACW lay dead in my house for about six years, then I found a solution: the boardgame "Battlecry! 150th Anniversary Edition".  I looked at it online for about three weeks, not really wanting to drop $150 on the game and shipping, but then, on a lark, fortune smile on me.  The family and I were out having lunch with my mother in a part of town we don't often find ourselves in, and after lunch I spied a nearby "Hobbytown USA" I'd never been in before.  The ladies waited in the car as the boys and I strolled in, and BAM, there it was, a copy of Battlecry, for SIXTY BUCKS!  I took it home, cleaned up the minis, primed them, and got to work.  They're not beautiful, definitely not my best work: I gave them simple block paintjobs, then I finally tried the vaunted "Dip" method, with very mixed results, then I matt sprayed them and it frosted some.  Lastly, and this is my only complaint about the game/minis, I put the flags on, and they are absolute crap!  The next day I had to spend a couple hours supergluing them back on...  In any case, I present to you my setup for Battlecry (and already scheming about replacing the plastic minis with 10mm Old Glory troops from Connie and Russ).

The whole setup. I was gonna say Federals at top and Confederates at bottom, but you've probably already worked that out ;)  Each side has three Generals, three cavalry units (three mounted troopers each), three artillery batteries (three men and a gun each), and ten infantry units (four men each).  I say cavalry and infantry units because the scenarios for the game, of which 30 (30!) are included, move freely between regiments and brigades for different battles.

Again.

And other side.

The Confederate Generals.

Confederate artillery.

Confederate cavalry.  Here you get a look at the fact that I went with straight gray for most Confederate uniforms (and blue for the Union), then tried to add little embellishments, such as a different colored kepi, different colored trousers, a trouser stripe, a patch on top of the kepi, etc..., to add a bit of individuality to the different units.

And the rebel infantry.

Now on to the Union troops, looking at the cavalry.

The Union generals.

Union artillery.

And Union infantry.  While I haven't gotten any 'proper' wargames in, we are playing several games of Battlecry this weekend, I'll see if I can post some pics/simple batreps.

Okay, so I actually finished another, smaller, project as well.  Long-time followers of the blog know I'm not really into Sci-Fi stuff; the one caveat to the at would be Star Wars stuff, but I've never figured out a compelling, fun way to play games with heroes that you know are not going to die in a game.  I.e., in A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, you knew Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie weren't going to die, and since you know they can't die, it kinda makes it hard for them to lose, and fun games aren't made from scenarios where one side cannot lose (in my opinion).

In any case, please forgive my divergent rant: just because I don't like Sci-Fi stuff doesn't mean my boys don't.  So as I was sauntering through Hobbytown USA with my big box of Battlecry, something caught the boys' eye...

I really don't know what I'm doing with this stuff, or even what I'm supposed to do.  The boys spotted some plastic Space Marines and so I bought them and painted them up.  I know, pretty weird and pretty weak paint jobs.  I gotta tell ya: at first I was getting into it, came up with all kind of cool paintjob ideas.  Hell, I was going to give each of the ten dudes different, unique paintjobs, but that quickly went out the window.  As I sat down to get into it I quickly learned, I get no joy from painting these guys.  After priming them black I tried several different schemes, then finally just went and bought some yellow and burgundy paint and did the minimalist crap you see here.  I had real problems painting such vast expanses of plastic; I'm used to painting 3, 6, 10, and 15mm troops, and it probably sounds funny to you guys, but the pure volume of trying to cover one of these things with paint was aggravating the hell out of me, and I was having real problems with paint coverage.  From 3-15mm I never have to apply more than one coat of anything, but here I was having to do two and three coats over the black primer.  Anyway, I got them painted and matt sprayed, and while I don't think much of them, the boys (particularly the 4-year old) are overjoyed.  And that's enough for me ;)

A look at the yellow team.

And the burgundy team.

Another look.

Different angle.

Another.

And the last look.

So, two projects done, more to go.  I really had a lot of fun with my "Blood & Guts" campaign in North Africa (here on the Blackhawkhet blog) and I'm eagerly looking forward to taking my GIs and tanks to Sicily and Italy, so I've been making quite a bit of purchases and (so far) a little bit of painting in order to get ready for that.

Everything I need to get on to Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944.  Top left is an aquarium set of Roman ruins, just below that are a couple of Battlefront Italian houses, at top right are some Battlefront vineyards, below them are a couple of Novus Design supply dumps, at bottom right is a bunker (not sure who's, got it off Ebay), at left are some Battlefront Italian infantry, and at bottom left is some 6mm armor: a Tiger, five Panthers, five Marders, five Stugs, and five M-10 Wolverines.

I'm very happy with the ruins, not too big, not too small.  The vineyards are nice, not sure I need those bases, as are the house, which have removable roofs, though I'm not a fan of the interiors being black.

The ammo dumps, so far only primed desert yellow and after my 8-year old painted the dirt, and the bunker is primed gray.

The Italian infantry, primed desert yellow.

And the GHQ micro-armor, which really can take me all the way to the end of the war, so long as I'm okay with my Panzer IVs (used in North Africa) not getting shurzen.

What is this?  Another side project???

Here's some more Italians, which will be painted a bit differently than the guys for Sicily...

And their Aussie opponents!  The other half of this platoon, which is Battlefront, is getting some reinforcements from Eureka Miniatures (the Vickers at top), will be painted up for some New Guinea action.

I also bought some of the PSC Cold War Soviet infantry and having been slowly painting them up.

'Regular,' boring, old-fashioned Soviets for the Cold War.

And some Naval infantry.

So sorry, things have gotten away from me in terms of gaming, just not enough time, but next weekend I'll be finishing off (at least the ground portion) of my US Marines in the Dutch East Indies, then we'll see what else I get into.  I need to finish my Israeli War of Independence, Kampfgruppe Klink in France, and get back to Cuba Libre, plus Mr. Travers has really got me intrigued with his tiny wargames concept:

https://shaun-wargaming-minis.blogspot.com/2017/07/portable-play-in-document-box-or-very.html?m=1

Between he and Steve (over at "Sound Officer's Call" blog), I'm really itching to play some WWII Eastern Front at the company/battalion level, and I think this would be perfect.  I'm thinking to finish up KG Klink, then have the unit's Executive Officer, Major Schultz, get promoted and take over his own kampfgruppe, just in time for Barbarossa.  Sexy, yes!?

V/R,
Jack