2015, that was the year that was

Howdy folks, 

Well, 2015 is drawing to a close and it feels only right that I should look back, reminisce and get all retrospective. It's been a strange year of ups, downs and hilariously over ambitious goals; having switched jobs earlier in the year, gotten married and gone on honeymoon my spare time has been at a premium and I haven't been able to get a great deal of stuff done over the past year. I've been a little better recently finding some time to finish off the Panthers I started a few mo this back (photos to follow), painting a trio of King Tigers (again, photos to follow) and starting work on one or two other things, but my output and consistency has still been sporadic at best.

Consequently I'm going to try and be a little more structured this year and come up smaller, more manageable and easily achievable, objectives on a monthly basis. This should, I hope, allow me to works towards goals while also breaking them into manageable chunks and giving a greater sense of achievement because I'm actually doing what I set out to do. At least, that's the plan. 

So, for January, I'm turning my attention to the Autumn of 1944 and the German defence of The Netherlands. The local FoW community are running the first tournament of the year towards the end of January, a typical 1750 points late war affair, and not only will I be attending but I'll be dragging a certain Gav along with me. Gav will be using my 101st Airborne paratroopers, completed quite some time ago, and I will be taking, after a little thought, a detachment from 559 Schwere Panzerjägerabteilung. The bulk of the vehicle work was completed some time ago, thought in my youthful innocence I painted the crewmen field grey instead of black so will need to correct that, however a few support units are required to turn a collection of tank destroyers into a playable force. The objectives are as follows. . .

1. Correct the uniforms and rank markings of the StuG, Jagdpanther and Wirbelwind crewmen.

2. Finish off a 10.5cm howitzer battery; these are roughly 80% completed, just need to add a few final details, finish painting the guns and apply basing foliage.

3. Paint a battery of 8.8cm AA guns; these have had the basing mud finished and they've been base coated but need everything else done.

4. Paint a security platoon; like 8.8cm guns, these are base coated and the basing mud has been applied.

The above must be completed by the 23rd of January, so I've probably got a bit of a fight got on my hands, but having a few simple objectives and the goal of getting to a tournament in just over three weeks ought to keep me focused and on target.

Until next time, whenever that may be, and I hope you all have a great New Years!

Progress demands sacrafice

Good evening folks,

Time for another update, still not as frequently as I'd like but probably more frequently than you're used to. Which is nice. . .

So first of all I've made a little progress with Si's challenge. A tiny little bit progress, but progress none the less. At this rate I'll have finished the first one by my thirtieth birthday.



I've also been working away on a trio of Panther Gs for my late war Germans. Not a lot left to do now, probably just weathering and national crosses on the back of the turrets then I can call them done.







Finally, and perhaps most excitingly, I've got my mini rulebooks back from being re-bound. Really pleased with how these turned out, and they'll be infinitely more useful now that they will stay at the required page.



Thats all for now folks, thanks for stopping by.

We're gonna need a bigger bloke. . .

Friend, readers, countrymen. . .

Belated greeting to you all. Blogspot, rather smugly, informs me it has been five months sine I last posted and in that time a huge amount has happened. I've switched jobs, got married and visited the Midlands over the past few months. All of this has eaten into my hobby time to the point where I even enjoyed spray painting plant pots for table decorations.

Fear not, though, for I am back to defend my honour from the one known as Simon. He has challenged me to paint a single Bolt Action figure per month. Why has he lain down such a challenge? Quite simply, to get back at me for manipulating him into something new and hobby related. In fairness, I've had Bolt Action for months but simply done nothing with it. What do I have? I'm glad you asked.

A starter set and a core box of both US Airborne and German FJ, to give me a couple of cheeky wee Market Garden themed forces. Unfortunately, Warlord have gone for a Normandy feel with their figures so a little converting will be required before I can paint them up, but I needn't rush as I'm only expected to do one a month.

And just so I don't post an update without any painted figures, have a couple of Panther Gs!

These are the start of my generic FoW Panzerbrigade force, suitable of pretty much anything after Normandy. Got a few more near enough done, so hopefully I can finish marking and weathering those in the not too distant future.

Peace out folks! 

A pack of Panzers

Greetings readers,

Once again my ability to plan has been surpassed by my inability to follow a plan, as I've discovered I only have a tiny drizzle of Typhus Corrosion left in the pot. This has killed any sort of painted mud based activities, such as defences and infantry basing, so I broke out the PSC Panzer IVs and had at it.

Having perused the order of battle for the Normandy campaign I settled on the 9th Panzer division for my armoured elements, and I went for these guys as I figured not many other people would. They didn't have the prestige of the Panzer Lehr, the experience of the 2nd or the funky toys of the 21st, but the 9th were still a capable and well equipped formation before the invasion. 

Having researched a little further, I discovered that these guys were an extremely fresh formation, having spent about six months rebuilding outside Paris having been shattered on the eastern front. This meant that they would have had a lot of brand new equipment mixed in with some older kit that they'd "liberated" from their R&R area. With this in mind, I wanted a slightly unusual colour scheme that hinted at some serious time being taken in unifying the division's paint jobs. A quick internet search turned up this picture. . .



A suitably inspiring colour scheme which I've modified a little, resulting in these. . .



The start of first platoon, second company, 9th Panzerregiment.

Close ups. . .



















Next up will be some half tracks of some description. 

Thanks for looking, folks.

Nesting instinct

Thanks mate, you know where I am if you need my services :P

Quick update here, been pottering away on a few things at once and I have some finished items to show for it! 


8cm mortar nests.


HMG nests


HMG pillbox bunker


Test minefield (signs are still to be detailed)

As you can see, my fortifications are coming along nicely and next up to the painting table will be a few trench lines as they should be very quick and easy to bash out.

I've also realised that the waffenarbe on the infantry platoon I completed last week was totally inappropriate for the actual platoon; I'd given them the bright green piping of Panzergrenadiers, but Panzergrenadier platoons are MG not rifle/MG teams (one LMG per base, not one per squad). As a result I've had to change the shoulder boards and I took the opportunity to not bother with waffenarbe, going for rank boards without coloured piping. By doing this I can multi-purpose my support elements like mortars and anti-tank guns and use such platoons as both grenadier and panzergrenadier units, meaning I don't need duplicate units that only vary by what coloured stripes are on their shoulders.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hans, are we the bad guys?

Greetings folks,


After my detour into Britishness, its back to the Germans.


The first of three panzergrenadier platoons for my Normandy 9th Panzerdivision forces, I've got both trucks and half tracks lined up for them to give me the option of both armoured and conventional panzergrenadiers but won't be painting the vehicles for a bit. The infantry, however, are all done and dusted.


Platoon.


Command team.


First squad


Second squad.


Third squad.

Next up I'll be going on the defensive, building up a large collection of fortifications for the Normandy Festungkompanie lists. Some of these are quite recent, others are a bit older.


HMG pillbox and nests.


8 cm mortar pits.


5cm PaK 38 bunker with removable defilade walls.


3.7cm PaK 36 nests.


8" trench sections (got four of these primed)


Random trench sections (bends are 4", command post is 5" and inner curve is 3")


Barbed wire section, first of about two dozen I'll need to make.


Not sure what I'll pain up first, probably the array of nests as they should be quite quick and easy to do.

One does not simply build an Open Fire Sherman

Greetings readers,

It has been a couple of weeks since I've updated, been busy with real life and multiple different project running simultaneously. As a follow up to the last post, I've been cataloguing and constructing a veritable bucket load of fortifications in preparation for some serious painting action in the future, and I've also got a platoon of Heer Grenadiers on the painting table (they're almost done, probably to the point where WiP shots are basically pointless). 

Today, however, I'm showing off something different. In addition to the up-coming Firestorm Cean campaign, there is a possibility my local club may be running a Market Garden campaign. Now, Market Garden has always been one of my favourite campaigns of WW2; the hopeless optimism, the insane heroism and the sheer variety of forces involved (and thats just the Germans) makes for an exciting setting with a lot of scope for cool scenarios and awesome armies. Having previously inventoried by backlog of FoW stuff I discovered I have rather a lot of British stuff, and my original intention had been to keep things fairly generic on the infantry side of things and use my large array of Shermans to represent a number of different units. After thinking it over, I realised this was a stupid idea as it was robbing me of the opportunity to field a single, truly massive, force for excessive mega gaming. 

Enter the Irish Guards Battlegroup. As it stands just now, I have a full armoured squadron with two rifle platoons in support and a full infantry company with two armoured troops in support. This gives me a total of six Sherman troops and five rifle platoons as well as full command sections for both and the obligatory JOE Vandaleur. I also have some MGs and mortars with carriers, Stuarts and M10s on the way. I've been working away on the first Sherman troop, trying to blend the Open Fire Shermans with the older (and far better) resin tanks, going mad with stowage and camo netting as well as a few tank riders.



These are ready for painting, once they've had a quick wash, and will likely be next on the desk once I finish the grenadiers. I've also converted up a couple of specialist tanks to fill out the squadron, a dozer Sherman and an ARV.









Thanks for looking folks, see you next time! 

The best laid plans. . .

Greeting readers,

It it is often said that no plan survives contact with the enemy, and I think its safe to say I'm my own worst enemy. After making grand declarations about my intentions for the coming year my local FoW ranger announced his intent to run a blood big D-Day game at the local club in early June (to coincide with D-Day, obviously) so I now find myself preparing to defend Fortress Europe. 

Don't really have any plan as such, just going to paint a selection of stuff and see what happens. On that note, I've finished my first fortification, a 7.5cm Feldkanone bunker.

And a scale shot with a German command team.

Currently working on a selection of nests, trenches, traps and other horrible ways to defeat those pesky Allies. And if I get bored of those, I've always got 10,000 points or so of Heer and SS to paint. 

Cheers for now!

Four down, many more to go. . .

Greetings readers.

Been busy over the past couple of days finishing the Ishermans, and I can now happilly say they are done! Lots of picture in this update.







The company 2iC tank







1st platoon's commander







1st platoon's 3rd tank



The whole of first platoon

I must say, I was feeling pretty chuffed with myself for completing four tanks this month, then I turned around and saw this sitting behind me. . .



Yeah, still a long way to go unfortunately. Think I might do the Sho'ts next. There is only two of them.

Thanks for looking!