Works in Progress

 Lots going on at my hobby station of late! Nothing actually completed, but work progresses on a number of projects per the pictures to follow. 

These are 3D printed Universal Carriers for my 2023 WW2 Greeks project. I found them on Etsy for a steal. What arrived were nice crisp sculpts, though of two different types of Carrier, but I can work with that. They were crew-less though, so I found some spare Soviet infantry and started hacking away and whilst the end result looks somewhat crude up close-and-unpainted (Crew's helmets look close enough to those worn by the Greeks to me.), I think they'll do just fine on the tabletop from 3 feet! I also needed "pintle-mounted Bren Guns" on them so sourced some nice metal bren guns from The Assault Group in the UK, trimmed a paper clip down to stick them upon and drilled holes for the pintle mounts to settle into on the Carriers. Finished result I think looks good enough for gaming! 

*More on said Greeks in a future post.

Sticking with the vehicles theme here's a German Panzer IV Ausf-H that is primed and ready for paint. I plan to add this as an alternative tank option to my Late War Winter Germans collection featured previously. "Where's the era appropriate Schurtzen?" I hear you ask in my addled schizoid brain, well dear reader those are going to be built and painted separately for ease of assembly and painting. 

Along with the tank, featured here are three Soviet riflemen that I had bits left over to build after crafting the Carrier crews shown above. Thought it would be good to have a few spares in squads where I didn't include a Light Machine Gun toting fellow. They need some basing pumice adding then priming prior to being ready for paint.

A less exciting option - these are some mdf tree bases I found on Etsy. After our last game in my previous post, I realised that I need not only more fencing and trees themselves, but also some better defined bases for the trees I do have so they stand out more for gaming purposes. (Line of sight, etc) So far these have been assembled, gritted with sand from a Monterrey area beach, sprayed dark brown then highlighted with a lighter brown craft paint. All that's left is to apply snow, though I'm trying to figure out how best to go about this step in an effort not to use up all of my Woodland Scenics  snow flock but still applying enough for the bases to look good on my Winter table set-up? I'll see what I can come up with.

Last up is a second batch of mdf fencing for much talked about Winter setup. (I did not feature the first set, for some reason, though honestly they are not really exciting enough to feature in their own post, right?) Simple 2-piece kits that I found in an online sale years ago. They have been primed the same dark brown as the tree bases and given a light dusting of white spray paint. Next step will be to pick out the vertical posts with dark brown and then apply snow effects and the odd grass tuft. Densmol was right, one needs far more than just one set of fencing on a 6x4 foot table!

No progress made on my Dieppe Canadians as I've not been in much of a mindset for painting lately, but I feel that'll change next week, so hope to have something new and actually "finished" to show off soon!

Stay well out there.

A Return to Blogging and the Hobby in General in 2019

Those who'll read this and that have followed my blog for a while will have noticed that I've been a bit absent from the blogging community for over 4 months. This is due in part to utter and complete hobby burnout, learning to live and feel comfortable in new digs and also the inclusion of a new special person in my life (Lady-loves tend to take up quite a bit of one's time during the initial stages of a burgeoning relationship.).

But, I return! As well as the hobby content within this, my first post of 2019, I've also played a couple games with the Estimable Stew (Write-ups from these games can be found here and here at Stew's blog, A Terrible Loss of Lead and Wealth.) which were excellent fun and it seems slowly but surely my hobby mojo is returning.

On to the stuff you actually want to read and see:

If you remember those WW2 Kriegsmarines I had begun painting for my good friend Densmol, then I commend you. If not, then it doesn’t matter cos there they are and in all their finery. The sculpts are by Warlord games and come packed with detail and character. I did a bit of research into WW2 German Kriegsmarine uniforms and so forth and it seems they varied quite a bit with some wearing their classic dark blue sailors uniforms, others the grey wet weather gear, whilst others have what I think are darker grey jackets. Even the inclusion of some combat helmets in their iconic naval light green/grey is a fun addition on these sculpts.  My fav of the bunch by far though was the squad officer with his bearded features and sporting a pipe!

They painted up rather swiftly and were enjoyable to boot – painting soldiers who are not uniform in dress is far more fun than trying to do a unit of repetitively-uniformed soldiers. Densmol requested some sort of urban effects on the bases as well (Due to the Kriegs’ featuring in iconic city-fighting accounts.) so I attempted to make fallen brick walls out of discarded sprue frames and poured some sand and tiny rocks here and there. Not perfect as the bricks are too big to realistically be masonry for this scale, but at arm’s length or on the tabletop it’ll do. Regardless, Densmol seemed very pleased with his German sailors, so that in the end means job done, right?

Once in hand, Densmol was then eager to get a game of Bolt Action in with his new unit, so we both drew up quick 1000 point lists, rolled up a mission (Manhunt in this case) and got playing. Didn’t get too many pics as we were enjoying a beer or two and some tasty Irish whiskey, but in the end the game ended on turn 2 as a draw due to Densmol forgetting that he had to “capture” my senior officer and not riddle him with umpteen assault rifle shots. *facepalm* Regardless, we had fun and the evening was enlivened further with a trip to my local bar.

My wee "horde" of Winter Soviet Regulars. 2 platoons so I could surprise Densmol with TWO T34/85 tanks! (Forgive the shamefully unpainted one on the right, it had been assembled about 10 mins prior to Densmol's arrival especially for this game!)

Densmol in reply brought an infantry horde of his own. A hodge-podge of inexperienced Kriegs and Luftwaffe troops along with a Kfz222 Armoured car, flame thrower (That missed at point blank range!?) and a crack elite SS squad (Last squad at the back of this pic) ALL armed with Panzerfausts.

The table set-up. Wish lighting in my place was better, but o well. This is a sneak peak of what my Winter display is going to look like. I still have snowy coniferous trees to base up and another small shack to paint. I also plan to buy or make some fencing for the roads and perhaps add a small pond and some blasted tree trunks for placing around those artillery craters at the back. Also, those felt roads... Think I'll be replacing them with some sturdier options in the future cos they were just annoyingly sticking to bases, etc.

The one pic that managed to get taken of the actual game. :)
Densmol's Medium Machine Gun team takes a heavy Anti-Tank gun shot and is obliterated. :)

Next up, something else I started painting in December. Until then…

Commissions (Densmol - Part 1)

My good mate Densmol gave me these to paint 4-5 months ago and I've really been procrastinating on getting them off my painting desk up until this week. but I decided I needed to remedy that so have gotten half way through already.

These are 28mm WW2 German Kriegsmarine. Naval servicemen put into use as ground troops once Hitler's half-arsed navy was no longer viable. In war, they tended to be rather untrained, but extremely stubborn to budge in the field and fought bravely against a superior opponent.

The minis are by Warlord Games and are a very characterful lot with a good mix of uniforms and water-proof jackets and trousers, helmets and caps. So far, it's been fun painting such a motley crew!

The squad Leader with the pipe and beard was already shown in a past post I believe and once the full squad of 10 are done, I'll do a post with better pictures, but these are the first 5.

D-Day Event

Last month my LGS (Ogre’s Den in Orangevale, California) held an all-day D-Day Bolt Action WW2 event with umpteen players all eager to help recreate this most epic moment of the Second World War.

With multiple players bringing armies to represent both attackers and defenders of the conflict, there really was a LOT to see along with some amazingly well constructed terrain pieces (As the pics will show). As any who’ve followed my blog for at least a little while will know, I do not have a Western Front army for Bolt Action (Mine currently being restricted to Winter Eastern Front games) so I was lucky enough to borrow one from my good pal Densmol and was assigned as a defender on one of the gorgeous beach tables with my partner for the day, Andrew. We were to face the US Ranger landings – us having only 1000 points each and each of the THREE Rangers generals able to make lists of 1500! *this was going to be a heck of a tough, tough game*

This was the beautiful Beach Landing table (Actually two tables long). The top half represented the British landings, whilst the bottom half was where Andrew and I defended against the American landings. *Please note, each table was not allowed to affect the other, so no shooting across tables, etc.*

Other tables described the other action that went on during that storied day – a beach landing by the British on the table next to mine, paratroop drops by both American and Commonwealth forces who were attempting to take out some Flak 88 gun-nests that were providing supporting artillery fire on the beaches and a Commando beach-landing into a German-held French town (Town’s name escapes me now.). Each table looked fab and it sounded like everyone attending had as much fun as I did.

As usual with my battle reports, I’ll keep the blurb brief and leave it to the pics to tell the story with brief commentary beneath. Suffice to say, as history describes for us, the Allied players lived up to their namesakes on almost all of the tables and took the day. But goodness the carnage! Full props to the organisers for designing fun and difficult scenario rules and to Joe the owner of Ogre’s Den for hosting. I believe the next big event will be later in the year where the shop will be running a “Battle of the Bulge” event – perhaps I can use my Winter Germans in an appropriate setting afterall? J

Andrew and I set up our forces, largely consisting of inexperienced Osttrupen and Strafbattalion squads!

This Pak40 Anti-tank gun was the MVP for my force. Long range shots sank 3 landing craft destroying or drowning 6 or 7  squads, vehicles and Officers.

This was the objective area that my force had to defend at all costs. 

Lovely looking trenches with my Straf lads hiding out back and my regular Grenadiers up front, ready to take the brunt of the assault.

 

Meanwhile, over on the Airlanding tables, Flak88's are being defended by both German paratroops and regular Grenadiers. Densmol ran his Fallschirmjagers on one of these tables and I beleive managed to hold off his attacker, though lost his Flak88 in the process. 

There were three 88's on the airlanding table.

The 88's had an ability to be able to fire directly at targets on their own tables or choose to allow the Beach defenders to use them instead to call down a possible indirect artillery barrage. When I got the option to try to call one down, mine failed to hit a bloody thing, but Andrew managed to do some damage to a landing craft and the troops inside on one of his attempts.

The allied preparatory bombardments were rather brutal with both Andrew and I seeing casualties and pin markers aplenty strewn about our forces. The Uphill battle had begun.

So much suppression by those huge naval guns. 

And then the landing craft arrive and start disgorging their desperate cargoes - right into hails of Machine Gun fire by the terrified German defenders.

Each of the black dice represents a Forward Artillery Observer or mortar trying to zero in their nasty payloads on the beleaguered defenders. Yikes.

The Brits on the other beach looked like a bloody swarm.... 

This was my view and I did my best to tackle my immediate opponent's advance, hoping that whittling him down would make it easier to bring to bear whatever I had left against our other two opponents. No, it didn't work.

Already the difference in troop quality (Veteran Rangers and mostly Inexperienced Germans) tells. Glad both Andrew and I brought along a Captain each to help shift our otherwise pinned boys.

Even through all the MG fire, the Rangers start making headway.

And drop a smoke bombardment on my MVP Pak40! No fair.

Commandos assault this town.

Hot Para on Para action.

Off table barrages and mortar bombardments all seem to drop at once and suddenly our center line looks horrifyingly bare! I try to rush my Straffbattlion up to shore the gap. 

Conveniently placed measuring tape will block the objective, right?

Suddenly I am left with three of my squads having barely two members each! Thankful I kept that Captain around to make them pass morale tests!

Fortune favours the bold! I've managed to kill enough stuff on my side to snuff out my immediate opponent's attack, but goodness, there are still enough Rangers in the center advancing!

And so many of them pouring through gaps made in our barbed wire obstacles!

Andrew also is seeing significant troop losses now, we just can't hold on. 

The end game.

I charge those pesky yanks to show them what for. And win.

But it doesn't matter - in the center, Rangers pour over the cliffs and kill everyone in the trenches.

It's not a pretty sigh for the Germans.

Andrew's last stand goes.... poorly. We have lost the beaches and surrender, well, what's left of our forces surrender. 

The 88's all three, were destroyed on the other tables.

One of the attendees set up this nifty display of headwear and uniforms. 

Write-up was a bit of a while coming together, but I've had some stuff come along in my personal life (Trip to the UK, Promotion at work, looking for a place to live.) so hobby has really been on the back burner in general really. Some purchases have been made, namely buying into Burrows and Badgers and I'm waiting on delivery of the new starter set for Relic Knights 2nd Ed sometime in August. Will the buying ever end? I'll try to get some paint on minis some time soon to show off. Thanks for reading.

D-Day

74 years ago, the largest amphibious landing in history commenced as hundreds of thousands of brave Allied military personnel landed on the shores of Normandy with the intention of pushing the German defenders out of France.

In 10 days, my local LGS (Ogre's Den in Orangevale, CA) is holding an event to commemorate D-Day and I intend to attend along with my good pal Densmol. As my own Bolt Action armies are unsuitable for Western Europe in early June I had to borrow an army from Densmol's growing Germans collection, so I'll be fielding some Regular Heer with some Inexperienced Kreigsmarine (Sailors), Strafbattalion (Military inmates) and a tonne of Light and Medium Machineguns to defend the Normandy beaches.

Densmol's collection though didn't extend far enough to fill out a full 1000 point list, so he purchased the Kreigsmarine and said that I'm welcome to include them, but I had to paint them up first along with a Captain (See below) and Medic.

Here I present to you my force's Captain - I included him in my list as I am all too sure that my poor squads are going to be suffering a LOT of bombardments early in the game and his extra command bonuses will help remove any pins that ensue. The model was a freebie included with an order from and is by Warlord Games. (Though I can't seem to find him on their website?) Nice one piece sculpt with a few annoying moldlines running right down the face of the sculpt, but otherwise a simple one to paint up. Because time is of the essence I didn't put too much effort into this one, but I think he looks like a good tabletop job. He'll be staying with Densmol after the event as a thankyou for lending me an army (again).

Of course the errant bit of fluff on his cap peak somehow was not noticed until I am at work editing these pics... le sigh.

Please forgive the lighting in the pics, my tiny cheap photo box seems to only have one brightness setting and I've yet to work out a way to diffuse those LEDs. (I'm thinking perhaps a strip of wax paper?)

Next on the painting desk will be the Kreigsmarines. I've already blocked in 75% of there base colours, but so far they have been excellent sculpts to work with and have varied uniforms which will make painting them up for more enjoyable.