Midweekender 3: Proof of Life and Impending Crisis!

Yes, I'm still alive... mostly lurking in the shadows of the miniature gaming sites, but keeping quiet and out of sight. It's been a long period of scattered periods of some painting and gaming in between long periods of not getting around to doing anything games related. And getting reacquainted with the local library hasn't helped on that front. I'll just put that down as historical research and getting ideas for fantasy settings.

Ah well, I shouldn't be too hard on myself about the long periods of inactivity. Since my last post I did manage to finish all the figures on the picture above, bringing the total of painted miniatures since Crisis to 191!!! Never before have I managed to paint that many in a year... let alone that nearly all of them are intended for only one project: Early WW2 in 15mm. With only a few packs of militia for AK47 (my only real Shiny Syndrome moment of the year) and a single 28mm finished (and no more started and abandoned).

Scooby, my only 28mm for the year

But lately I have been gaming a bit more, mainly X-Wing (that has kept my unpainted mini purchases down to an all time low) but through the magic of facebook I noticed that some members of a local club (The Golden Goblins) were looking at Chain of Command for some WW2 gaming. Sadly enough, after a continuous effort to get armies in 15mm for that game finished, they are of course looking to do that in 28mm... Just my luck. 

But then again, my miniatures collection is a bit of an elephant's graveyard where projects, my best mate's projects that is, come to die... Every time he does a clear out of his cave, things end up at my place. As did a box of Warlord Games German infantry and a pair of Tamiya 1/48 kits. One of the Goblins has another box of infantry that he isn't doing anything with, so I might just have to pick up a few blisters with support weapons and I'm in business (never, ever throw anything out).

So with Crisis in exactly a month from today, I have at least a few things to put on my shopping list. Earlier attempts were thwarted by traders deciding not to come this year (damn you Peter Pig and TSS) but it remains a short list.

• Kings of War Historical rules
• Republican Romans for a DBA army and a Classical Indian general on elephant to finish that DBA list
• A few 28mm German support weapon teams

And that is basically it for want/need... I expect picking up some "based on TV" figures left and right and adding to my scenery collection, but I'm planning on mostly digging through the geological layers of my hoard to get my gaming fix (DBX, Saga, Sharpe Practice)...

And for those of you who made it all the way down here, a quick video I made unboxing a game I picked up last night at the FLGS. Putting the gaming tables next ot the clearance section... I walked right into that trap :-)

Until the next unscheduled appearance!

Happy painting and gaming!!!

Midweekender 2: An End to Tumbleweed Season?

So the holidays were over and it was back to work... And I couldn't find a better way to depict my hobby activities for the month of January.

You can almost hear the wind

Even though I didn't paint anything, that didn't stop me from getting new toys. My first "testing the waters" orders from QRF arrived, giving me more support options for my French infantry platoon. A bigger AT gun, a bigger tank and a couple of MMG teams. It did take a while before they arrived, but being an after regular workhours outfit and ordering during the new year's sale period, I didn't really mind. Back to the days of "please allow up to 28 days for delivery"... you're just not used to that anymore in these days of overnight delivery internet orders.
Anyway, that order was whet drew me back to the paint table. My French force being the only 100% painted force at that time, I was determined to keep it like that. No stockpiling any French figures (in 15mm at least). And I'm pretty much there again, the Char B1 only needs a camouflage pattern and the MMGs need to be added to the bases...

And as I got back up to speed, I jumped into my pile of PSC early war Germans and earlier today I got to the point that I now have platoon worth of troops ready for the invasion of pre-emptive attack on France. As per the Battlegroup Blitzkrieg rules anyway... I'll have to add another squad and a 5cm mortar to get up to Chain of Command army lists. And after that I'll have to add some more riflemen for the larger squads of the Polish campaign.
The when the picture was taken earlier today still WIP anti tank gun crews have now joined the rest in the varnishing line.

And what better way to celebrate getting a new force ready for battle? Start a new army, what else?
This month's QRF order (that's going to become a habit I fear :-) ) saw the start of my Polish army... three TK series tankettes.
While leafing through my Battlegroup Blitzkrieg book, my eye fell on one of the historical scenarios "Orlik's cockroach" pitting these three tankettes (only one of which with a 20mm gun) against a PzIV and two Pz35(t). A nice and small introduction to the Battlegroup rules.

Aaaah, so cute!

 Anyway, once the German platoon is brought up to full strength, I'll be changing from infantry to vehicles. Not only do I have those Pz35(t) to paint, I got a bit crazy when I came across an ebay seller flogging his Zvezda kits for next to nothing... And I'm already thinking of what more I need to order (as long as I'm saving money, right? )

Welcome to the motor pool

And now that I'm back at the paint table I also have something to talk about, so it's back to blogging too.

Happy painting and gaming!!!

The Midweekender 1: Celebrations Time!

Midweekender???

No, that's not a typo... Being posted on a Wednesday you might be expecting this to be called the Midweeker, but not in my case. A few years ago I decided to make use of our 4/5 employment possibility, taking Wednesdays as my day off. Not long after that I started referring to my day off as my "Midweekend", much to the annoyance of some of my co-workers :-)
And with more than a nudge and a wink to the Beasts of War crew and their Weekender shows... you get the idea.

And no, celebrationS time isn't a typo either.

Celebration 1:

Yes, it's here at last, my 100th post!!! It only took me slightly more than seven years to get to this point, with many long silences... Right now I seem to be in a more productive period with nearly ten procent of all posts getting published in the last month alone. OK, that includes the rather pointless "Happy New Year" post I used to get the 100th post to coincide with...

Celebration 2:

Finishing a project at what is, for me in any case, warp speeds... And a planned project at that, not some impulse buy at a wargames show or something like that.

I'v always had the idea to do something with Early WW2 and with having bought the "France and the Allies" book for Bolt Action (impulse buy at the news agent) the plan to start a French force came to take form. So with Crisis 2015 approaching I made use of Peter Pig's preorder discount to get a platoon pack with an AT gun and crew and a few vehicles as support. And now, just under two months after getting my hands on them, here they are:

French Regular Platoon (Bolt Action)

• 2nd Lt with NCO (1 accompanying man): 60 pts
• Regular squad with 6 additional soldiers, 1 additional soldier with pistol, light machine gun and VB launcher: 157 pts
• 2nd squad as above: 157 pts
• 3rd squad as above: 157 pts
• Light AT gun: 25mm gun with 2 crew: 50 pts
• Tank Somua S35: 135 pts
• Armoured Car AMD Panhard 178: 115 pts

In total, 40 infantry, one gun and two vehicles for 831 points with 9 spare infantry all done, ready for action. Quite the achievement for me (for virtual pats on the back, go to the comments section :-) )

Celebration 3:

Taking the blog to the next level and embracing this multimedia fad with (drumroll please)...

Yes, I dusted off that years old, seldom used mini camcorder and tried it out to see if I could make video that would look good enough on Youtube. And I was pleasantly surprised considering its age and low specs. No fancy (or even basic) video editing at this time, that's the next hurdle to jump.

My high tech recording studio... one more tech level back and I would have to handcrank the camera!

Thanks for reading (and watching)
Happy painting and gaming!

Untill post 101

Saturday Paint Table 14: Out with the old, in with the new

A new year, a new blog post! And a completely new load of figures on my desk! I finished the French platoon, all varnished and now waiting to get flocked. The perfect job for tomorrow...

While ending my French project I had already started on the first couple of German troops and now I have cleaned up the rest of them (the few that I still had cents for to base them on). So I'll get them done together with the tracks of that Zvezda Pz38t to get a flying start for a BA German platoon later on. The guns are a bunch of Soviet infantry guns by PSC that had been abandoned after a basecoat many months ago. They are now waiting for the final coat of varnish, just a quick thing that I got out of the way.

For a slight change of pace I'll be moving away from 15mm WW2 after that and get Scooby and the gang done. They have been standing around in a basecoat since right after I bought them at Crisis (2014 I think, and hope). The other small project I want to cross of my list are the Terminator Genisys endoskeletons. I bought a box of plastic ones at Crisis last year and together with the two blisters of special weapons/"characters", so that would be 13 figures (and 4 crawlers) in total. Another limited and manageable force.
Just imagine, completing two forces only months after buying them at Crisis??? Surely the End Times must be upon us :-)

Happy painting and gaming!!!
See you next week...

All the Best for 2016!!!

Have a great new year in gaming!
Buy lots of new shiny toys!
But make sure you paint more than you buy :-)
Have lots of games and may your dice be with you!

Enjoy your hobby in 2016!