Cruel Seas - Fairmile D’s and Xmas Stash

 It’s about time to get beck to the brushes after a much needed, if somewhat different  festive break. I have had a few things lurking on the paint desk so I have been clearing these off . 

I picked up these two Fairmile D’s early last year and had them built and part painted , but I just wasn’t happy with deck colour I had gone with so they were parked. I resprayed them and started again . I am happy with the look now . They are certainly a step up from the Vospers which are pretty much kindling with a fast engine in game terms.

I added some crew figures , and some aerials , mast rigging stays etc to bring them to life some more

Overall pleased with these

I have also finished up Jason’s Napoleonic Brits in good old Shineyness

Xmas Stash brought a few interesting bits 

 

A full set of weathering pencils 

                                                          A helping hands set of holders 

 

                                                           A serious amount of static grass ! 

 

Anyway it’s back to it ! 

Cruel Seas - Targets!

This weeks progress on my cargo vessels for Cruel Seas . Last year I picked up some old skytrex stuff from a bring and buy - they are 1/1200th ,but still reasonable size. They are around 6 inches  long, and are a mix of metal and resin kits. You can still get these from Heroics and Ros . I be also complete a sprue of torpedoes , thanks for sending them over Jason . These have been done with a colour code to help differentiate which boat fired them in case of memory problems . I think we will be changing to adding a torpedo dice into the bag to have them all move together but in a random part of the turn. 

The Warlord games one is at the top for size comparison 

Cruel Seas

I have finished off the items from the Cruel Seas starter set , plus a few other bits as a number of blog guys have sent me spare sprues too - cheers chaps

extra bits added with aerial wires, crew , and flags

 So I now have 3 early and 4 later ones

I added some number decals to there 

Add caption

4 more S Boats taking me to 6  

We played a first game last week, and enjoyed it. 

I have a few other cargo ships from the lead pile left to do, and that should do this i think

Cruel Seas - E Boats

The local group has a games day tomorrow so I have been hustling along with some forces for each side. I have completed a couple of vessels for my German forces .

One each of S38 and S100 type. 

I have added some crew figures to these using some spares box Heroics and Ros 1/300th infantry figures,  cutting weapons off advancing figures to have them manning guns, and using a pointing officer figure for the commander on the bridge. I think they really add to the look.

Looking forward to trying the game out tomorrow.

Cruel Seas - a little diversion

One of the Xmas presents to myself was a Cruel Seas starter set. I had been looking to do something like this as last year I picked up a host of metal stuff from a bring and buy for bargain price. They were mostly the old skytrex stuff that is either 1/600 or 1/1200. I had picked up a sea mat from Deepcut  Studios last year  - its a good cold grey colour - just right to my mind for the North Sea.

So - first up the initial British forces - which have also kicked off my first entry in the painting challenge.

3 x Vosper type II

I have drilled through the mast at an angle to add a metal pin stay to support it and it also allows a good place to fly the ensign from.

I have staged the wakes on these with a bit of table salt for the photos - I am tempted to  model proper bases once  I have a had a game  and see how it all works.

 I have added some crew figures to these 3 - which I think really helps - some came with the set so I used them - but I think there will be suitable heroics and ros stuff in the lead pile to re-purpose too

Vopser type I MTB

the start of the merchants - this is the Tanker from the Warlord set I got - its about the size of 4 MTBs , not massive in scale terms , but it does look nice. I did have to add an extra layer of support to base I found the resin was pretty thin and was flexing a lot - I added a cardboard base which seems have done the job.

The scale for the models in Cruel Seas is billed as 1/300th which makes the smaller craft a bit easier to model and use a playing pieces. There will be a bit of scale mix and matching for larger vessels as practically and larger ship is going to need a really large table- even something the size of a liberty ship will be 35cm long .

you can see some of my other merchant ships from last years acquisition on the prep desk .- I have started on the E boats too...as we have a first game planned for the weekend