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…