British 8th Army HQ and others (WIP - part 3)

Last night saw me slapping decals on these and calling them good enough for tabletop. Like my other Desert pieces I'll be returning to these to add a little weathering and antennas where applicable.

*Have to say I am not impressed by Battlefront's decals. Far too big compared to the reference pictures I found and I had a hard time making the blasted things fit on the truck fenders, ending up having to cut them down a little and even then they didn't fit well.*

1iC's White's Scout Car, 2iC's Jeep and the Mortar section's Morris 15cwt trucks. 

At first these weren't fun to paint, but once past the base colours, they became a blast. 

Here's the Commander's stand again and his transport version. Lighting in the pic is a bit pants, but if you look closely you can see his dog in the back of the transport, just behind the driver. Thought that would be a nice touch to key the vehicle in with the HQ all the more.

The first Norcal Flames of War tournament of the year was on Saturday - a 1200 point Mid War Infantry only (No armoured vehicles or Divisional Support allowed). I had an okay time, finished joint bottom (Though missed out on Best Presentation and Best Sport by a point or so.) and realised that British Rifle Company lists just don't work well without those supporting armoured and artillery elements. I also forgot to Night Attack all three rounds.... which was pretty much indicative of my day. No pics as I was too busy playing terribly.

Last bit I wanted to talk about was that the 6MMRPC pledge challenge thingie is almost over. I'm pretty proud of the fact that I kept to the rules and only a couple days ago used up my second and final Joker/getoutofjailfree deal (Bought some ACW infantry...), posted more than required and painted regularly. My mountain of unpainted stuff still doesn't look all that smaller, but I know it is, so I guess that would mean I succeeded at least a little. I think I'll post up a round up of the whole 6 month's work come the start of February.

Fencing (Part 1 - WiP and fallen foe)

Previously shown 4Ground 15mm fences are slowly getting a light brown coat on the actual fence posts and some static grass where applicable.
Whilst at it, I had the wonderful idea of adding a little character to a stand or two and started by adding a fallen Panzergrenadier, recently mowed down by smallarms fire as he attempted to run and hop the fence. Still a small smear of blood to add as though he had one last attempt to pull himself over, even though he was already riddled with lead, but otherwise I call this done.

The corpse is made from a Peter Pig Surrendering German. I had to re-position his arms a little and cut off his base, but otherwise he's stock. I realised this morning that I need to repaint his boots brown though. Shame on me for not researching prior to paint! 

A solitary hand outstretched..... last vain attempt to get away from the damned Tommies.

I have another idea for one of the other fence pieces, far less morbid, but that will happen later.

Where were your evolved sensibilities then? (Part 3 - No Hope WIP)

I previewed this sculpt a while back and based and primed it white, then stuck it on a shelf as I was too scared to tackle so much detail on such a large sculpt! 

Well, last night I said an inward "Bugger it" and started slapping on some colours to this bad boy. It's a sculpt jam-packed with detail and amazingly well done detail at that. The sculptor researched many many horrible poxes and buboes and so forth when he was developing this model, including how dead and rotted flesh sloughs from the bone were a bloated corpse to shamble about in unlife. The horns are my least favourite part of the model as I think they look like strange "Donnie Darko" rabbit ears. I kept them on though to be true to the original sculpt.

Base colours slapped onto the main body. Start with green, but the finished effect should end up a pale green-grey. 

First round of washes. The lighting is harsh so in this photo, all the detail and depth to the colours in the creases and open sores and tears in the flesh are not showing up, 

I also finished up the Piat and Light mortar teams so now I'm fully painted for Saturday's tournament. Looking forward to seeing if I can actually place for once. :)

And lastly, this is Meathook my cat, here to brighten up your day and cast a pox on your enemies with her baleful gaze.

British Pioneer Platoon Transports (Part 2 - Jeep+Trailer)

Another update already?!

Tis true. Trying to get stuff off my desk and make sure I have everything ready for next weekend’s tournament.

Not my best work, but these Jeep+trailer stands round out my Pioneer Platoon. Drivers are absent as these are actually American models and so came with the obvious American drivers which I can’t use. Obviously.

I've since given these a spray with the dullcoat.

you can hardly see it in this pic - but hidden by the windscreen is a propped up tommy gun. The thing was already broken in the blister pack when it arrived, so I clipped a piece of paperclip and hey-presto (!) only the super vigilant will realise I made a ham-fisted attmept at repairing the gun! :P

Really nice sculpts with loads of character. Will be scrounging about on the NorcalFlamesofWar forum to see if anyone has any spare generic Brit drivers methinks.

Last two pieces required for this tournament are these two stands – a Piat team and a Light Mortar team for my 3^rd platoon of infantry. Decided I can’t be arsed to paint up a whole platoon in one go so will be using my trusty Commandos as they are pretty much the same minis, minus these two stands to round out the platoon to the required 9 stands.

Used some of the Battlefront "Rural" theme'd bases for these and will do the remainder of the platoon with the same. They're okay - very much made for the new plastic infantry, the irregular sized pegs on the metal infantry need a lot of trimming, etc to fit in the base holes.

Next up on the desk? No idea – but I’ve a hankering to paint something overwhelmingly different and nasty of a sudden…

British Pioneer Platoon transports (Part 1 - 15CWT Truck)

I had originally painted this truck a while back as a generic "no-markings" truck so I could use it in whatever list, Mid or Late War. After since painting up my Pioneer troops, I instead decided it would be better used as the platoon's truck transport.

After a small amount of research, decals slapped on and some impatient free-hand painted unit markings I think this one's ready to roll my Engineers up so they can clear out barbed wire and clear minefields.

I still have to finish two jeep+trailer combos to complete the transport options for this platoon, they are currently around 50% done.

Swift Review of my 2014

I've read (And enjoyed) quite a few posts on you lot reviewing your 2014 hobby year and thought I'd do a quick one myself so I could take stock of where I'm at right now:

I painted about 2/3's of what I painted last year and attended 1 more tournament.

I looked back at my first post of 2013 and didn't see any real Hobby "resolutions", so I'll just say I did them all. Sorted.

There. That was swift, wasn't it? :)

What have I been doing now? Well, I finally sat and finished up weathering the British desert platoons I'd previously show-cased with their nifty decals slapped on. I'm REALLY happy with how these turned out and feel they are my best work yet at this scale. I'd really appreciate any and all criticisms on how they look too. (Pics are not the best as my phone camera just wouldn't play ball when these were taken...)

The platoon on Reconnaissance in North Africa. 

Platoon Commander, Lieutenant Reginald Temple-Barnes went on after the war to become a successful agent in Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Some closeups of the painted "76" unit marking and weathering.

On this side, the squadron marking looks boss.

Whereas, on this side it looks as though it was painted on by the natives...

Marmon Herrington #1. I wanted my Armoured Cars heavily weathered to look like they'd been out int he field for extended periods of time.

Freehand Squadron and unit markings no so bad on this one.

Marmon Herrington #2. A stowage box on it's right fender to differentiate.

I also added antennas to all three Armoured Cars.

The Squadron looking on the Atlas Mountains in Tunisia after chasing Rommel out of  Libya. 

I added weathering to the Crusaders and Universal Carriers as well, but forgot to take pics and not anywhere close to as extensively scraped up as the above. I'll add pics in on my next post.

I also did some work on the Batloid mode for my Robotech character's Veritech. Arms to come!

And then put together, added gravel and primed in brown these lovely 4Ground 15mm fences that will be smashing additions to both my WW2 and future ACW tables.

Here they are with glue drying, prior to gravel and primer. Good value for money too.

I'm not going to make any real resolutions for 2015. Play more, paint as much as I can and maybe attend one more tournament than last year. O and buy some Comet tanks when Battlefront releases them in the next couple of months!

Squadron Leader

These are the Jet and Veritech Batloid Modes for Kiska, the Squadron Leader of the team from my RPG group's Robotech game. Still have the Guardian Mode to paint up, but that'll be after I get my own character's Batloid Mode Veritech finished.