Zvezda Stug battery

I picked up a couple of early war Stugs for my Flames of War German army along with an Sdkfz 222 to act as a spotter. These are the sweet little Zvezda 1:100 kits, I think they are very nice.

A bunch of awesome stuff

Well, I have a bunch of cool stuff to put up today. For Christmas I got the European Farm set in 20mm from 4Ground (the laser cut and pre-painted mdf models) and last weekend I finally put it together. Several observations: first, this is an excellent product - internal and external details are great, buildings are multiple levels and come apart, etc.. Second, it was fun to put together, instructions were clear and everything fit perfectly. Third, great company to work with. My box set ended up short one of the buildings (the grey farmhouse) so the missus wrote to them (since she bought it for me) and the house is winging it's way over now. I subbed the the white farmhouse (bought previously) to hold down the SW corner in the photo.

The second goody in the pictures is the AWESOME game mat that I just received from Cigarbox. This is printed on a fleece like fabric, and it is just beautiful. They are pricey (mine ended up 85CDN), but the guys at Cigarbox are superb. With 3 chums at the club we ordered 4 mats - so he gave us a discount and comped the postage from the US. Really, how awesome is that?!?!?! Really pleased with this purchase.

Finally - in the foreground are two battalions of Imperial Guard Grenadiers by Zvezda in 1/72 that I worked up over the last two weeks. Great figs, as one expects from Zvezda, I did these in preparation for one or more Waterloo games this year. It is the 200 year anniversary, after all.

Russian artillery battery

Here we have a 1/72 Russian Napoleonic artillery battery. Figs are from Zvezda and are outstanding (even if the painting is not!). I think I just have some Guard infantry and commanders to do and then will be ready to run some CCN games.

Russian Napoleonic infantry in 1/72

I have 5 boxes of the Zvezda Russian Guard infantry, so I can do entire units in a single pose - like to have my Naps in parade dress! I also realize that I should cut off the plume if they are to be line troops, but seems like such a shame to do so.

Stuka and 88 for Bolt Action

Next week I will run another WW2 scenario using Bolt Action - these rules are simple and fun, easy to pick up and run at the club. I will run the Across the Meuse - Sedan scenario from the Skirmish Campaigns scenario book on the 1940 Meuse campaign. These books are generally excellent, and this one is simply outstanding.

For this scenario, I needed an 88 flak gun and Stuka support, as well as a bunch of bunkers for the French defenders. The 88 and Stuka are from Zvezda's new Art of Tactic range and are excellent, simple models. The bunkers I made from 6 of the many empty Minifigs clamshell packs kicking around with my reusable packing material. Hey - the price was right!

Napoleonic Russians and Dragoons

Last week I started on Napoleonic Russians - I have quite a horde of Zvezda and Strelets picked up in a job lot earlier this year. These are very nice figures, I did some Guards infantry and Cuirassiers by Zvezda, and a unit of British Dragoons by Hat that have been patiently waiting their turn in my painting queue for about 6 months.

First Swedes and Cossacks

Over the past couple of weeks I finished a box of Zvezda 1/72 Cossacks for my Swedish GNW army, includes irregular mounted:

Foot (cool drummers) and artillery (on a cart)

Plus a box of Swedish infantry (enough for two units of foot) and some Russian dragoons painted as Swedish horse:

They are all based on 40mm squares, which makes things easy and accommodates anywhere from 4 to 6 foot figs comfortably on a base.

I am now back to Napoleonic Spanish for an interlude, then perhaps some more Swedes if they show up...

Sudanese and a new project: The Great Northern War

I finished a combined bow and spear unit of Old Glory Sudanese for the El Cid project- I am close to finishing the Almoravids and just need to finish off a few units of Christians.

And on a trip to Banff last week I stopped in at the Compustore in Red Deer where Will was having a big 1/72 sale. So I bought his entire Zvezda Great Northern War range to start a new project for Maurice. I'm starting with Swedes, here are the first batch of figs which I think came out very nicely. Mark wants to use 40mm frontages, which in my opinion will work better with 6 figs per base, double ranked. I based these first few figs 4 and 6 to a 40mm square- what do you think? Remember that a unit will be made of 4 bases (either 16 or 24 figs)?

1/72 Napoleonics and Hott

Over the last 2 weeks I finished these first elements of my Hott (Hordes of the Things) army for the Fall EDBAG campaign. The theme is the "Warband of the Winter Witch" inspired partly by Narnia and partly a function of what I had kicking around in my bits boxes. There is obviously a winter theme here, my first time basing with snow. I thought it turned out okay. The General is a Kislev Ice Queen mounted on a High Elf White Lion, she will be a Magician - General element. Also on the table here are two warbands (Crusader Berzerkers and Thralls from their Viking range) and two shooters (Crusader Bondi with bow, also from their Viking range). The other half of the army is primed and waiting for my next 28mm whim.

I also dug back into my 1/72 Napoleonics after playing a game of GW-Waterloo (meh- some nice ideas and a beautiful book, but a few glaring play problems that obviously didn't get shaken out with sufficient playtesting. Two that come to mind: cavalry cannot counter-charge enemy cavalry, so my French dragoons were best able to take a charge from lancers by standing and firing their musketoons. Huh? Also, the ground scale is fucked. Musket range is 18" but infantry only move 4" per turn. Do the math, it means we catch a lot of musketballs before closing...I digress...) So I am now inspired to play some Lasalle, I am working on a few units needed to run the La Haye Sainte scenario from the book. Here I have some nice but too-spiffy looking French Legere infantry (Zvezda)
 

And the Tiger tanks of the Napoleonic Wars, Cuirassiers! These guys are by Strelets and I really like them. Strelets look like poo on the sprue but paint up brilliantly with lots of character and excellent oversized details.. a lot like metals.

 

I still have some British dragoons and rocket troops to finish, then we are ready to go.