A Crazy Thing Happened This Morning

A crazy thing happened this morning: I sat down to put together one of the model kits I've had laying around for a few years now and I just kept building.  Sure there were interruptions and I even had to shuttle my wife around for a few errands bet every time I came back to the kitchen I picked the glue back up and continued to stick stuff to other pieces of stuff.

This almost never happens but I'm glad it did. 

L to R: M4A3, M4 and the Pz. Kpfw K-V2

Both the M4 and M4A3 kits came with options for alternative turrets but the M4A3 came with enough parts to actually build both.   I haven't looked into what the differences between the two are (if any) but it never hurts to have options even if they are purely cosmetic.

I don't have any Bolt Action stats for the KV-2 but it shouldn't be too hard to translate something from Disposable Heroes or Victory Decision.

I've put quite a bit of paint on the Warlord minis and have even built some terrain pieces but haven't managed to take any photos of them, I'll try to get that corrected some time tomorrow.

Up next a Jagdpanther and a pair of Fw190's.

Disposable Heroes

I'm back, no really it's true.  I've even played a game that's not a board game or a card game.  I can't believe that it's been so long since I've posted or played a real life wargame.  Well that's all going to change.

Saturday night I introduced Tyler to his first miniatures wargame, Disposable Heroes.  What had started as a complex scenario based affair ended up being scaled back to an easier to learn just-shoot-everything game.  To keep things moving (you could also read that as I had forgotten most of the rules) I left out the cool toys like armour and guns.  Besides it kept the game down to the simple but important elements of movement, firing and morale.



An overview of the battlefield.

The man cave has become more of a storage area lately so I found it easier to setup in the garage.  I have to admit that the table came up very nice indeed.

A nice shot from the British side of the table. 

 

Germans start on the left and British on the Right.

 

The British ready to go.

Tyler picked up the core of the game pretty quickly and the game started to flow nice and quickly.  British and Germans were dying all over the table... well mainly around this guy:

Why can't the British LMG's work so well?

The bugger kept passing his morale tests and eventually wiped out an entire squad of British.

We were on turn three when we realised that we had been talking for most of the game and it was now 11:30pm.  We called it a draw and finished up for the night :)

I'm really keen to get the miniatures on the table again and I might even make an effort this week to finally finish off building some wooden fences (started them two years ago I think).

Anyway I'm back and reinvigorated so expect to see some more 28mm WW2 action here soon.

Cowboys and Panzers

Managed to get in a game of both Blitzkrieg Commander and Gutshot at the club last night.  Mick and I started out with Blitzkrieg Commander and we played a fairly straight forward 1,000pt all out battle, mainly because we wanted to blow the cobwebs off the rules and see how the 10mm stuff fared on the table.

Unfortunately almost all of the photos I took last night turned out rubbish as I'd forgotten to switch the macro mode off and in turn all the long range table shots come out... well rubbish.  We both forgot to bring a green game mat so we had to play using my western one so north west Europe looks a little dry in the photos but the rest of the terrain and the minis (the painted ones at least) looked fantastic on the table.

Blitzkrieg Commander (1st edition) was a blast to play.  It's close enough to Warmaster that I don't have to unlearn any of the rules from that game and the extra WW2 stuff fits into the system nicely.  Sadly the Brits, played by myself didn't start out too well against the Germans who were superbly commanded by Mick.  I handed over command to James in turn two who managed to fare better than I did but was still unable to turn the tide.  Well we've got the main mechanics down now and I feel more comfortable that next time we can manage a bigger game.  The German reinforcements will hopefully have arrived by then and I think I'll have to base the Aussies up for use until I can get some more British.

I was too busy painting WW2 stuff yesterday and forgot to quickly reread the Gutshot rulebook, so play was a little slow to start with but move along quick enough, with most players not needing to refer to the rulebook by the end of the game.  We played the Last Man Standing scenario with two characters apiece.  Each player started in a respective corner of the table and very soon the gunfight, and knife fights, began.

Game play is fast, I like the card activation, and characters seem to take a bit of a beating without being bullet sponges.  The game play feels very Battletech-ish in the way the system handles combat modifiers for movement and damage with progressive negative modifiers to movement and accuracy is also very familiar.  This is not a bad thing though.  The game is simple and play is fast, it would get boring if all you played was shootouts week in week out but scenarios run by a referee are where this game shines.  I think I'll bring this may just become our choice of "quick game at the end of the night".

I'm happy too with the cardstock buildings, they've suffered in storage but I can fix that with a little balsa wood and glue.

Cards:  the card activation for Gutshot works a treat but the rulebook does recommend using name slips in a hat of something similar.  I went with cards and just assigned a number to each character.  This worked but slowed things down a little.  I think I'll get hold of some poker chips we'll use those in future.  A white sticker on one side with the characters name in pencil should do fine.  Also removing dead guys from the deck helps and it quickly got to the point of turning four or five cards before we got to a live fella.

My two characters below, Blackie and Ol' Gray, named after their hats of course.  Ol' Gray managed take take two hits from a revolver, got spat on and cursed at (twice), got stabbed in the back with a bowie knife before being shot for the final time  Blackie didn't last much longer but he did manage to take down the gringo that snuffed out Ol' Gray.

I had a few people asking about where to get miniatures from so I think things look bright for Gutshot.  Now all I need to do is find a Marty and Doc mini, I've got an idea for a "Mad Dog Mcree" scenario.

Painting the Pendraken: Day Six (and a few)

I've been slowly working away on the Pendraken minis, and with the long awaited plasticard arriving yesterday I got to work on basing the remainder of the minis.  I should have enough bases left over to cover the extra German stuff, hopefully arriving sometime before Saturday.

Basing the HQ and CO stands proved to take a little longer than I had thought it would.  You're basically building a little diorama so I had to keep my grand ideas in check and keep the base functional and quick to build/paint.

My first attempt at 10mm miniature hacks.  The passenger has had his head removed and replaced with a commander torso (clipped off at the waist and glued to the neck of the passenger).  The radio operator has been removed from his base, he was originally kneeling on the ground, and repositioned to sit on the seat.  You can't really tell from the photos but the radio operator is missing his left leg.  I had clipped it off and was in the process of gluing it on when after dropping it on the floor for the third &%^%$-ing time I decided to just glue him in as is.

My favorite CO stand has two German officers "discussing" which way to go.  I'll model this base as a crossroads with the road sign knocked over or missing.

I'm on the home stretch now with most of the miniatures having varying degrees of paintwork and almost everything based.  I'm hoping to get all painting and basing done by Wednesday night.  This give me Thursday and Friday to put together some cardstock buildings and base up the trees.  Hedgerows may be possible, I'll glue some flock to the dark grey foam I have and see how that comes up.

More photos to come as I get stuff finished.

Painting the Pendraken: Day Four

So very tired right now so I'll just post pics, commentary will be added later... need sleep.

Painting the Pendraken: Day Three

Didn't get any more painting done this weekend.  I did manage to stop procrastinating on the base sizes and start cutting up the plasticard.  I ended up going with an almost standard BKC base recommendation.  The only difference is that I decided to base my specialist weapon teams on individual 25x25 bases.  That way I can use two bases side by side for BKC and individually for other games such as IABSM.  If moving them about gets too fiddly then a bit of tape on the bottom should hold them together (I don't think it'll be a problem though).

I'm really happy with how the miniatures look on the bases, they present very well.  Cutting the plasticard was an interesting experience.  Following the instructions that came with it I made a cut by running my hobby knife along a straight edge 3-4 times, no need to press to heavily as a straight cut is more important than a deep cut.  Turn the plasticard over so the cut is face down and pull up on one edge of the card while placing pressure down behind the cut.  The first couple times I tried to bend it I couldn't get it to snap.  Applying just a bit more pressure and *SNAP* I had two pieces of plasticard with very straight edges.  The only issue I had was where I had a few pieces where I needed to trim off 2-3mm, I needed to use pliers to bend and snap the plastic and in every case it left a wavy edge.  Nothing to worry about but just looks untidy compared to the rest.

So then out came the super glue and I'm left with what you see below.  The 2mm thick bases just the right size for my fingers to pick up a stand by the base and not the miniature.  I need to order some more to finish off the rest.

Painting the Pendraken: Day Two

Haven't done as much painting as I'd hoped (real life *sigh*) but I thought I'd post a few shots of where I'm at.  I started painting the British armour but the Tamiya olive drab goes on like green water.  It goes on almost perfectly if I use the airbrush but that's in the shed, and it makes a lot of noise, and I'm lazy... so multiple coats it is.  While they were drying I started on the German armour, I'm using Mr Hobby (H403) for these and that paint goes on very smooth and behaves much like the GW paints I've got.  I may have to get some more of this range.

I was intending to do a more subdued camo scheme on the Tigers but I thought the bigger tanks could handle a more striking scheme without it dominating the model.  I'm not completely happy with the one in the left of the photo but I'll hold reservation until after the army painter goes on.  The smaller tanks will have the subdued scheme.  The camo was built up with multiple layers of very watered down Red Brown (XF64) and Olive Green (XF58) and finally a thin darker more defined stripe was painted over the top of the layers.  I like the effect I just think my pattern just need more work.

Tomorrow I'll finish the camo and then go over and detail the equipment, hatches, grilles etc.  Once that's done I'll put the decals on and then make the decision if they need any more work.

Painting the Pendraken: Day One

Here's some shots of the first days work, nothing too special just a lot of flat colour, I'll come back and do the webbing, weapons, boots etc and when they're dry I'll give them a nice protective coat of army painter.

More tonight, should get these finished and then I'll start on the Germans.

Pendraken WW2 Miniatures Arrive

Woo hooo!  The Pendraken Miniatures arrived today, as predicted by David.

I only just noticed that the date on my camera is wrong, sigh.  The two parcels I found jammed in my letter box.  They were pretty heavy and I was a little worried about what I would find inside.  Memories of my "mooshed" Black Tree orders still haunt me.  A few of the tank cannons were a little bent but they were easy to fix.  Out of the whole order only one tank had a broken cannon and that should be easy fixed with a drill and some super glue.

 

The contents of the first package.

The contents of the second.

The first thing I noticed is that every bag has the product code written on it.  Very helpful and it made going through my order short work.  What was very impressive was that the battle pack was labelled and so in turn was every bag within that bag.

Even Monty came in a bag of his own.

The whole order.

Everything checked and accounted for with the exception of the Australian Bren gunners.  British to the left and Germans to the right.

A few shots to show the scale of the minis.  They seem to fit well with the Warmaster minis scale wise so I feel better about making terrain now knowing that it can be used in either system.

I might even get the paint out tonight and start working on the infantry, they should paint up easily enough.  Although there is plenty of detail there if I decided I want to punish myself, the infantry have chinstraps on their helmets... at 10mm!  It's crazy and impressive all at the same time.