American Battlegroup 1944.

Its done.

6 weeks worth of work (I am not the fastest painter around and contrary to popular view about wargamers I do have some semblance of a life) and I have finally finished my US battlegroup.

Its about 3000 pts or so for Blitzkrieg Commander, and I have tried to keep things fairly historically accurate when it comes to the OOB. I say fairly, as I am sure there are lots of discrepancies, and I tried to balance historical accuracy with the points and restrictions of the BKC army list.

Armored Infantry Battalion


Anti-Tank Company

Armored battalion with AA support.

Battlegroup CO stand

Infantry HQ stands

Air Observer in gunless Sherman and Artillery Observer in Jeep

Hope you have enjoyed looking at them half as much as I have enjoyed painting them. Now I have got to get round to playing with them!

German Battlegroup is go.

I've got a few days off work and am putting them to good use (although I am not sure my wife would agree) by having finished my American battlegroup (lots of pics to come later tonight) and making a start on my new German battlegroup I picked up from Pendraken at Salute last weekend. Lovely models, although I can attest to the fact they don't take kindly to being dropped from 5ft up onto concrete. Scratch 1 Tiger. Oh well it was a good excuse to order some more bits from Pendraken for completeness sake.

Here's my first attempt, 3 Panthers and a Tiger. Fairly pleased with the attempt at camo schemes - they do look better in real life than in the pics, which make the camo look a little less subtle than I think it does in real life. They are also yet to be weathered ( Iknow how some of the guys on the BKC forum love their muddy tracks!) as I have left my tub of Basetex at my mates house after spending therday there painting and gaming yesterday. :(

Decals are a mix of Dom's Decals and some I got from an eBay shop called 1/144 Direct.

A new project- German battlegroup

Just got back from Salute, had a great time, but didn't spend as much money as I thought I would. Probably because Forgeworld didn't bring any Epic stuff with them to the show which put paid to my idea of buying a Epic Tau army (for the moment).


What I did come away with is 1.35kg (yes I weighed it when I got home!) of Pendraken loveliness. The start of my new German battlegroup for Blitzkrieg Commander- about 3500 pts worth.



For anyone who pays attention you will notice that I haven't posted a blog entry declaring my US battlegroup finished.

Well that's coz its not! Have 3 infantry stands and 6 halftracks to paint, then its over and I will post a photo extravaganza for anyone who actually cares!

The end is in sight!

Haven't updated in a while, and was thinking of holding off till the last few bits arrived from Pendraken, but I couldn't resist playing with my new studio again, and wanted to show off what I have done since last time.
Basically the army is finished- as it stands its at around 2500 points or so for Blitzkrieg Commander. I have a few bits awaiting delivery, so that I can field another 3 stands of infantry to make a full battalion, and a few additional M3 halftracks to provide transport for them all. Ive also got a couple of AA vehicles to come and some additional Dodge radio trucks to add to my HQ bases (which have still yet to be done, hence no pics!). Can't wait for them to arrive as I am getting 10mm withdrawal. Then I can move on to the Germans! Salute could be expensive this year!

Anyway enough blathering, here's the pics.


L to R- Armoured battalion HQ, Forward Air Controller in gunless Sherman M4, Command Stand, Forward Artillery Observer.



Armoured battalion- 3 companies each of 2 Sherman 75s and 1 Sherman 76 platoons, 1 company of M5 Stuart light tanks, 1 platoon of Sherman 105s and 1 company of M10 tank destroyers. I guess technically the M10s are part of an anti tank battalion, but I couldn't be arsed to photograph them separately!




This is my Armoured Infantry battalions 37mm anti tank gun support. I like these Pendraken M3s with the canvas tilts on as they are a nice way to make the M3s used for towing look different from the infantry's transport.

Home Studio Experiments.

At last, I have got round to buying myself a home studio for miniature photography. I bought this funky little kit from Amazon.

I'm really really chuffed with it, it takes seconds to put up, comes with 4 coloured back drops (white, black, blue and red) and best of all it all folds away into its own self contained little bag (formed by the soft box itself). Genius! Only criticisms is that the tripod it comes with is probably a wee bit flimsy if you have a huge heavy DSLR like I do- compact cameras and the budget DSLRs should be OK though, and the lights aren't particularly bright. Bright enough for miniature photography but maybe not for some other uses. A cheap alternative is a pair of halogen builders lamps. I may treat myself to some as a back up.

Anyway here's a couple of test shots with it- these were done with a little bit of added flash. Still without my flashgun (will this saga ever end!) I used the onboard flash but masked it with some tissue paper to soften it- it seems to have worked well.

First up is part of my US army battlegroup for Blitzkrieg Commander - there are still quite a lot to finish basing and varnishing, but seeing as on Sunday I sprained my thumb that may have to wait a couple of days! I reckon the pics have come out well, and I am very pleased with the paint jobs so far.







Next is a few Wild West figures I did for one of our Legends of the Old West game- a great fun system, and some nice characterful Wargames Foundry minis. I painted these at speed as it was looking like for once, everyone in my gaming group was bringing a painted posse to the session. I'm fairly pleased with how these turned out- they don't hold up to close scrutiny but they held their own on the table top.

Painting Frenzy Pt2

The relatives have all gone home, and the wife is in the bath, my son in bed, so time to take some pics of some of the work in progress.

First up the Shermans that i posted pre weathering and decals a few entries back.


The weather was dry and not freezing today so I nipped pout and gave a tentative first coat with Dullcoat to matt the gloss varnish down. I say tentative because in the past I have nightmares with mat varnish and have turned lovely painted 28mm figures into frosty white looking lumps of upset. Anyway, these guys are the first fully painted, weathered, based and varnished vehicles for my BKC US army. Im really pleased with them, especially the weathering and decals (of which you cant really see many due to the positioning of the models- doh!).


Next up is a couple of my recent Minifigs order- a M10 and a couple of jeeps. They are painted, varnished and decal'd but yet to be weathered, based and mat coated. If you can excuse that, you can get a vague idea of what they look like and where they might be heading.




And last but not least- my first company of infantry. These are Pendraken infantry with one or two Minifigs dotted in for variety- they mix fairly well in my opinion.
I initially wasn't happy with how these turned out- I'm used to painting 6mm and 28mm and to suddenly paint at 10/12mm was a wee bit of a shock to the system. What saved these in my eyes was a liberal splashing all over (sounds like Brut) of the new Citadel Washes (Devlan Mud iirc). I reckon it does a great job at this scale. Obviously these are yet to be based etc, but the figures themselves are finished saved for the varnishing.






On the photography front (not sure if anyone is really interested in this bit) I decided to dispense with my nice zooms this time and use my first lens I ever bought. A Canon 50mm 1.8f. Its the cheapest lens in the Canon range and for the money is fantastic. Sure the build quality is piss poor (I broke my first one of these so I guess this isn't really the first lens I ever bought!)having a body made mostly of plastic, but the optics are great and in fact it works really well for taking pics of miniatures. Maybe I don't need to buy that Macro lens after all- more money for miniatures.
Still need a lightbox though- this was a jerry rigged affair again with 2 mismatched light sources. I would also like to bounce a bit of flash around, but seeing as my Sigma flash is still broken and still awaiting a new hot shoe. I think I could be waiting for ever though, as of yet despite emailing Sigma about 10 times I have had no reply. Apparently the part is buyable and costs $15! A replacement flashgun will set me back £200 quid. Not happy at all.

Painting frenzy

Spent the last few days in a bit of a frenzy of activity.


My orders from Pendraken and Minifigs arrived on Monday and I have been a whirl of superglue and paint since then.

The Pendraken stuff arrived very quickly and I must say the quality of the figures far exceeded my expectations. I don't know why but I had been led to believe that they were of significantly inferior quality to Minifigs and far smaller. This doesn't appear to be the case. Side by siding the M3 Scout cars from Minifigs and Pendraken there is a massive difference in quality and detail. They are almost identical in size, and while the Minifig Scout car is crisp, the lack of detail compared to the Pendraken one is very obvious. The Pendraken Scout car is superb, and has masses of detail, right down to fuel cans and baggage hanging from the sides. The other thing to say is that the Minifig models seem a lot more complex in construction- I was left scratching my head at the bits that came with the jeep models, and had no idea where to stick most of the strange bits that came with it. Saying that they do look great! The Minifigs order took twice as long as the Pendraken one to arrive and was incomplete- not enough jeeps and scout cars in the packs. I think when I move onto my German project i am going to stick with Pendraken- they are much cheaper, better customer service and the models are just as nice. I am particularly impressed with the Pendraken infantry- while the Minifigs infantry are probably more realistically proportioned, they lack the animation and character that the Pendraken ones do.

So far the painting tally is 6 Shermans, 3 Stuarts, 2 Jeeps, M3 Scout car, Dodge light truck, 3 57mm guns, 3 stands of infantry and a MG section. Still got quite a bit to go, and have some more bits on order with Minifigs (some Sherman 76s, 105s and M10s). I also need a few more infantry models from Pendraken to get my infantry stands up to 12 and detail my CO/HQ bases. The transfers from Minifigs really set the vehicles off, Im very pleased with them. I will try and post some pics when I have got them based after this weekend (relatives staying this weekend so no painting for me). Only trouble is they are all smothered in gloss varnish at present, and I am really nervous given the weather of Dullcoating them- I have had some disasters in the past with spray matt varnish and damp cold weather!

Blitzkrieg Commander Demo Game

Today I put on a game of BKC for my gaming group. Strictly speaking this is untrue as due to us awaiting the release of the new edition of BKC, we just used the Cold War Commander rule set instead. It has to be said it worked extremely well, and the 5 of us really enjoyed it.
We used my friends Rapid Fire armies they have been collecting for a few years now, hence why if you look at the pics carefully the bases look a bit weird- we just blue tacked the individual miniatures onto appropriate sized bases
.
The game was a meeting engagement of Brits Vs Germans in July 1944, fought around a small French town. It was a very close affair with the Germans reaching the town quickly and securing the buildings but finding themselves flanked on their left very quickly but counterflanking on the right. The Brits won by a very narrow margin and everyone went away happy.


I was very happy with the way the board looked- my new roads worked a treat, and Adams other scenery really looked great. Now I cant wait for my Minifig and Pendraken orders to turn up so I can finish off my Americans.



NB- photos were taken with my new phone, a Nokia E71- fantastic smartphone with Blackberry-esque functions. Camera aint up to much though, but thats about the only downside.

Flexible Roads

Saw a great tutorial to make flexible rubber roads the other day and thought I would like to give it a go.

Check this link out- How to make flexible roads


I used dish cloths as my backing fabric (you can see the reverse of one in the photo), and Cerafix Decorators Caulk (Brown) from B&Q. 10 dish cloths for 30p in Asda and the Caulk was £1.89 for a large cartridge (too large to fit my standard size cartridge gun). Not sure how much 1 cartirdge will make- so far Ive done 4 1/2 foot of road and only used about a 1/5 of the tube.


The cool thing is if they get bent or warped you can iron it (reverse side obviously, otherwise your Mrs might murder you). They really are very flexible and seem pretty robust. Equivalent flexible roads will cost you around £30 for 6ft or so.



Also notice my now fully painted and based Sherman in the photo- still waiting for the bloody decals from Minfigs, hence why I haven't matt varnished the gloss varnish coat, who still haven't posted out my order 9 days after making it. Not happy with that to be honest.

A new scale, a new addiction...

All the talk on the forums at Specialist Military Publishing, home of Blitzkrieg Commander and Cold War Commander, of a new version of BKC has got my juices flowing. My gaming group have a ton of 12mm World War 2 stuff that they use for Rapid Fire. They have tried to get me interested a number of times, but a mixture of other projects getting in the way, and me not being a huge fan of the rule set, has meant that the few 12mm models I had were stuck in a box somewhere and done nothing with.

That was until this week, when I dug them out and decided to start another new project, an American army for BKC! I was very inspired by some other forum members work on similar projects, mainly NikHarwood , and Tony Barr's work.

So far I have painted 2 companies of Shermans ( I had to convert a British Firefly model I had, but that was made easier by the fact that one of my Sherman 75s had 2 MGs and 2 main guns in the pack) and a single lonely Stuart tank. I am awaiting some more stuff from Minifigs to add to it, and most importantly a sheet of transfer. I will leave off the weathering and mud until I have put those on.

And they are off....

Well here goes a selection of my first proper blog posts.

I'm off work today - spent most of last night with terrible stomach cramps and nausea. Had a nice long lie in, and feel a little better so decided to have a play with this here blog type thingy.

Decided to up some pics of my Cold War Commander armies and the start of my possible new addiction- Blitzkrieg Commander. A great series of games that give fun and fast play as well as realistic outcomes. Check out the website- http://www.blitzkrieg-commander.com/default.aspx . Nice forum community to boot!

Anyway as you probably don't know, my other hobby is photography, and much as I love my kit, today has shown its shortcomings. I need some decent lighting, soft box and even a macro lens. Today's bodge job is passable I guess, but I am a bit of a perfectionist and a techie so I am not really very happy with the results.

For anyone interested I shoot using a Canon 40d, these shots were done with a Canon 28-105mm lens, which is a nice cheap walk about lens. Its done a passable job but I really would like a macro lens if I am going to be getting into this blogging lark.