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!

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

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!

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.

The start of my Iranians

My current CWC project is the Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s. Ive got the Iraqis so obviously next choice has to be the other side. Ive tried to theme both armies slightly, which probably means they aren't too historically correct- the Iraqis are mainly Soviet and French equipment, while the Iranians are American and British stuff.

The other difficulty I have found for Middle Eastern conflicts is colour schemes- everything seems to be some shade of sand coloured pain oddly enough! I found some pictures of a brown and sand coloured camo scheme on a blog of military equipment- I'm not sure how widespread or accurate its usage was for this particular conflict, but to be honest I don't really care! It makes it easier to recognise forces for my old eyes.


















A battalion of Iranian Chieftain tanks. From my readings it seems that Chieftains weren't in that much abundance during the conflict, particularly the later years, but once again I don't overly care- I love Chieftains, I love the miniatures (GHQ again) and they are a nasty force to face on the battlefield. I'm not a power gamer honest!



















A company of M60A1 Pattons- what a cracking model this one is, hats off to GHQ again. I have some on back order from Wargames Emporium , but as usual with most stuff I order from there they have run out. Not that I am knocking them- they give great service and are really nice guys. Plus the postage is cheap as chips compared to 99% of miniature companies (no names mentioned Foundry).





Ive yet to buy the rest, as I am doing it in stages so my wife doesn't get too annoyed with me spending all our money. I expect I will finish it off when I go to Salute at the end of March.

Iraqis in 6mm.

Here's a selection of pictures from today of my Iraqi army in 6mm for Cold War Commander.
Miniatures are a mix of CinC and GHQ- if I remember correctly, the tanks and infantry are all GHQ but the rest are CinC.













Command group with a company of mechanised infantry. Infantry look a wee bit shiny, as I had a varnish disaster and had to go back with some gloss to rescue them. The weathers been too wet to go back and dull coat them again.
















A company of T-72's- lovely looking tanks.



An assortment- BM21 rocket artillery, Shilka anti aircraft guns, some AML-60s and some BRDM with Sagger ATGWs.










Its a great little army, and has the advantage of multi uses- I use it for late Iran/Iraq war, early Gulf War 1, and with a wee bit of imagination, Warsaw Pact armies for the late 1980s. Currently can field around 4000 points (not taken pictures of the T-62s and T55s and the hordes of infantry and other AFVs).