What did Santa bring?

My haul this year included a new camera- a Samsung compact smart camera that is probably too smart for me, and cost well above what I spend. But it's lovely, thank you to the missus, and I hope it will improve the quality of the photos on my blog- and in doing so cast a better light on the shortcomings of my painting ability! Also received was a copy of War and Conquest

3 boxes of Sarmatian cataphracts

CC:N Spanish Expansion (great game!)

Here are the first photos from the new camera. The models are WF cavalry cobbled together from bits of Germans, Saxons, Persian and Celtic sprues and meant to be Gothic for my late Roman project (starting in 2013). I also experimented with some new basing materials including leftover grout for the base (too coarse, I think DAB or polyfilla is better), new Javis flock (too green methinks- will have to work on the blend) and GW tufts under the horses. The tufts are potentially useful but you really have to apply them to flat surfaces, so I used them right underneath the horse.

Year in review coming up on New Year's Day. Happy Holidays everyone!

WW2: Fireball Forward!

I have gone on a bit of a WW2 kick recently after watching Band of Brothers again. I picked up an intriguing new set of rules for small unit battles called Fireball Forward (http://fireballforward.com) which has some really interesting ideas and mechanics. So I painted up a few teams of 20mm Germans (hard plastic Plastic Soldier Company) and US Airborne (Italeri) to try out a few scenarios:

In the background of these pics are entrenchments made from cork and modelling clay, plus paper cutouts of the 105mm battery for the first scenario for Easy Company behind the lines at Utah in 1944. I solo playtested a few times and I think these rules rock..some really good ideas and interesting game play decisions...check out the YouTube tutorial if you are interested.

Oh yes, and Merry Christmas to you all! Have fun and play safe over the holidays.

Command and Colors Napoleonics: Corunna

I rarely photograph the games I host, I just can't get organized to bring a camera and frankly, would rather not be messing around with one one a game night. So instead I took this opportunity to take some shots of my 1/72 Command and Colors game of the Corunna scenario from the box game. I am pleased with the terrain, which includes a brand new 4" Hotz Command mat, JR Miniatures 6mm rivers, terrainmaker hill hexes, and nice 4" hex resin villages that I picked up in the last club auction. (Each is a single piece, they were a real chore to paint!).

This looks like a fun scenario, French attacking the British rearguard during Moore's retreat from Portugal in 1809. British muskets in tough terrain behind a river, the French will need to draw a good hand to have a decent crack at it, I reckon. But CC:N often surprises me. One of my favorite all time games, I must say.

And finishing with the obligatory cat photo, this time fat Charley squeezing under the cupboard where a warm air vent gently heats his backside.

WW2 Valiant

I painted a handful of Valiant 1/72 GIs for a change. I really like these models, too bad they don't mix with anything else in either size or proportion. That wouldn't be a problem if Valiant did a complete range, but so far they only have late war Western Front covered. Booh.

Thinking of out of scale, oversized figures....

Does my butt look big in this?

Big and Small

 I finished the German forces for a WW2 scenario "Buron" which will pit the 12SS versus Canadians (North Nova Scotia Highlanders) in Normandy. The vehicles are GHQ and I used Adler infantry which are quite good. I will likely run a game using FFT3 at the club next week.

 

I also painted a box of 54mm Austrians between vehicles (see here, a 1/285 Sdkfz at the feet of 1/32 Austrian grenadiers - looks like Tonka toy) as part of trade with one of the guys at the club.

They were quite refreshing to paint after a few weeks of 1/72 and smaller. Great models.

GNW Swedes complete!

I just finished the last couple of regiments for my 1/72 GNW Swedish army for Maurice. Here are two regiments of foot (Strelets) with 3 artillery batteries (Zvezda):

My good friend Mark Wall found the flags on a blog by a fella named Wayne Turner  (http://www.khanage.net.nz/page1.php). Thank you Wayne, these are fantastic!

And the centerpiece, the commander in chief Charles XII himself, carried on a litter due to a foot injury. What a great model, Strelets again:

DBA Ancient Britons

I finished a Corvus Belli DBA army this week, this one has been on my to-do list for about 2 years. These are great figs, even though they take a lot of clean-up due to flash. I look forward to playing these guys one day, I love the combination of warband and mounted. Suits my play style.

I also completed another Swedish regiment for GNW Maurice, this is getting close, just another regiment of foot or two, some arty and Charles himself then it's done.

Microarmour

Well, a new addiction has started. After selling off some projects that had not seen the light of day for a few years, I splurged on some GHQ microarmour. I bought some from my chum Kevin and the rest from the Sentrybox- close to 40 blisters in all - focusing on late war Italy and NW Europe. Here are the first few stands of Shermans with a few Stuarts, Fireflys and M-10s in the mix.

On the workbench now are also a 15mm Ancient British DBA armies and 1/72 GNW Swedes. Not enough free hours in the day!

Some Picoarmor

Between painting Swedish regiments for the Great Northern War Maurice project, I dug into my 3mm (1/600) picoarmor to put together a few extra bits to fill out a scenario for the next game night. This stuff is just lovely, shame I am such a lousy photographer (not that I am much of painter either..). I did a battalion of Crusaders, terrain, some air support (Hurricanes and CR.42s) and a few Italian support units.