AHPC VI Enteries 5 & 6

 Christmas vacation week was very productive painting wise as I completed 79 28mm infantry figures, 1 mounted leader and three tanks.  Not too shabby.

First up are 8 28mm British Landing Party figures from Brigade Games.  This brings the total number of naval crew figures to 32 and I'll need probably another 20 or so for the Historicon game.

 Unlike the previous crew figures, I removed the metal bases from each casting before applying to the base.  While it looks much better than not doing so, it's a fairly tedious project and some greenstuff was required to repair some surgical mishaps.  Still they do look a lot better.

 Next up are 29 Native Americans and one Mounted Leader.  These figures are 28mm and from the Perry AWI range and they are simply superb figures.

 For skin tone, I used a 50/50 mix go Vallejo medium flesh and rust and think the color came out really well.

 It's hard to see from the photos but I spent a good bit of time on the details and face painting.

 Because of the poor lighting, I've finally gotten around to buying a basic photo booth and light set from Amazon so hopefully you'll see a pick up in picture quality.

 Switching from Naps / War of 1812 to WW2, next up is the start of a Soviet army for Bolt Action and/or Chain of Command.  So far I've completed 40 infantry figures a 3 tanks.

 The infantry are from the Warlord Plastic Soviet box set and to be honest aren't that good.  It was one of Warlords first ww2 plastic sets and the casting wasn't all that good.  Warlord's quality has improved dramatically in some of their more current sets.

The tanks are from Trenchworx (part of their Tanks in Manchuria Kickstarter) and are simple superb models and a joy to paint.

Bolt Action US marine Force in 28MM

 One of my last submissions to this years Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is the start of this US Marine force in 28mm Scale

34 infanterie figures and a Sherman tank were finished over a 2 day span last weekend - which is pretty darn fast!

 The bulk of the infantry (30 figures) are from the Warlord plastic box set with the rest coming from various manufactures (I forgot)

 I really like the plastics and think Warlord is finally "getting it" with regards to plastic figures - nit up to Perry standards but very much improved over Warlords earlier box sets.

 The force also includes a Sherman tank from Blitzkrieg Miniatures which was a wonderful kit to paint up

I've got a good number of support units to add to the force but am very pleased with the outcome

DAK Trucks

 A last minute addition to my Cold Wars DAk list were some Trucks to carry everyone around - these arrived a few days before the con and were finished the night before.  The models are Blitzkrieg reason kits ( four total parts) and are sold through the Perry's.  The model quality if superb and they were a snap to both assemble and paint.

I left off any insignia as these may see double duty for other purposes and scenario games - I guess one can't have too many trucks!

Cold Wars 2015: My Report

 Another Cold Wars has come and gone.  Overall, I had a great time but something shocking, troubling and just plain odd happened - I didn't buy anything from either the vendor hall or the flea market! (Insert sinister music hear).

Despite not adding to my lead pile, which has been severely depleted during the Painting Challenge, I did have a fantastic two days.  I participated in two Bolt Action tournaments (6 games total) one on Friday and the other on Saturday.  The evenings consisted of board games with the WWPD crew - essentially it was an all around geek fest.

I only took one picture (the first one in this post) and it was midway through the game I played with Judson on Friday - which we ended up as a tie.

I do want to thank the two people who organized the BA tournaments - Mike P on Friday and John B on Saturday.  Both events were a lot of fun and it's a lot of work hauling around 10-12 tables worth of terrain to put one of these things on.

For the BA tournaments I ran a DAK armored list which was centered around 3 Panzer III's.  You've seen a lot of post of the previous months of my painting up this force and the tournaments were the first time I got them on the table!

Fridays tournament was 1,250 points and I had a good showing for a first time with the force going 1-1-1 (Win, Loss, Tie).  The first game against Mike P  and his Brits was a narrow loss - Mike P is a great opponent and is a real challenge to beat - currently I have 2 losses and 1 tie to Mike in tournaments.  The next game against Eric.  Eric was a new player and was running a borrowed tank list ( 3 Shermans).  I managed to beat him to notch my only win for the day.  The last game was a classic against Judson and his Panzer I list.  Playing Judson is a real treat as he's a crafty player but one who puts fun before winning.  We played a tense game that ended in a tie.

Saturday's tournament was 1,000 points and I just paired my list back by removing the Brandenburger squad and the Sig assault gun (neither of which did anything on Friday).  This tournament went well as I went 2-0-1 and won the event on "Hanoswag" points.  This was my second tournament win and was very hard fought.  My first game was a very nice gentlemen (whose name I forget - I'm horrible with names)  against a Russian list with those giant T-35 tanks.  The scenario was Point Defense and I was lucky to win the initial die roll and choose to attack.  I managed to get a win by eliminating the few Russian infantry squads in his list so my opponent couldn't re-take the objective once I seized it.

Game two was against "Mustache Matt", who rivals Mike P for nicest "guy in gaming" and another Russian list - this time more infantry focused and with air support.  We used the new air plane rules for BA (these replace the air observer with a model that can come on the board up to 3 times).  I found the new air rules much better than the observer and a lot more "cinematic"/fun.  I managed to eek out a win.

The final game was against Gordon and his Finns - Finns are tough, real tough.  Gordon was a pleasure to play against and we had a great game.  To be honest he should have won and would have if the game ended after turn six.  Yet again, I got lucky and rolled a six to force a seventh turn and was able to take back two objectives to force a tie.  This game went down to the last die roll!

Gordon was such a nice guy that I decided to give him the prizes for first place as he really deserved them.

I also won the best Axis General award for the two day performance so, all in all, it was a good outing.

The other big news in our household belongs to my son, who competed with some friends in a major Hackathon - HackIllinois during the weekend before Cold Wars.  This event had over 180 college teams and some major corporate sponsors - Google paid for the charter bus to drive Sean's team from Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh) to the Univ of Illinois.  He had a fantastic experience at the event and his team won the Goldman Sachs Innovation award for their project.  The project involved a hack of an X-Box Kinect to use it to teach Sign language by being able to see and correct a users hand gestures for each letter.  Pretty amazing stuff as the project needed to be started and completed in just 36 hours (no sleep!).  A link to the project's page provides a better description than I can: Kinect-ASL.  Sean kind of stands out from his team mates as he's the one who looks like a offensive lineman for a football team.  He's still a tech crazy kid.  We've got him home this week for spring break and for fun he's rebuilding an old PC to operate as a server and backup unit for our house.  He'll also use it to run multiplayer games and thinks it will generate some cash to help fund whatever summer internship he gets.

More 28mm ww2 Stuff

 There are only 10 days left in the Painting Challenge and I'm running out of mini's to paint. My latest submission is some WW2 German Fallschirmjaeger and vehicles.

 18 Fallschirmjaeger painted wearing Medeterainium camo jump suits.  I think the figures are Warlord metals but I can;t remember - they've been primed and sitting in the painting queue over four years.

 A pair of Bren Carriers - one assembled as a Recce carrier for the desert and the other a general infantry team carrier for the early Pacific.

 These are Perry models and crew and are really superbly cast.  I think Blitzkrieg Miniatures makes the Brens for the Perry's.

 A M8-Scott from Warlord

 Some Fallschirmjaeger Support units

 A medic, 81mm Mortar team and a Machine gun team.

A Pak 40 (75mm) AT gun.

28mm Gurkha's & a Grant: Finished!

 My 28mm scale WW2 forces continue to expand with the addition of 21 Gurkha's and a Grant tank.  The Gurkha's are metal figures from Warlord and the Grant is a resin cast from Blitzkrieg.

 The casting quality of the Gurkha's was very low and I spent almost 6 hours cleaning them up - it's usually not a good thing when model clean up exceeds model painting time.

 A good number of these lads will see action this coming weekend at the Cold Wars Bolt Action Tournament.  There are two events, on Friday my DAK army will see the table for the first time and then Saturday it will be my Brits turn.

 The Grant tank is another superb resin cast from Blitzkrieg - these models are really nice.  We are spoilt for choice in 28mm vehicles right now with all the wonderful options from Blitzkrieg, Rubicon and others.

 I painted this up for a Pacific look but it will also bee seen with the 8th army.

Next up some 28mm Fallschirmjager's that have been primed and awaiting painting for over 4 years.

28mm WW2 Gurkha's and a M3 Grant Tank

My next project for the AHPCV is a small force of Gurkha's in 28mm scale and a M3 Grant tank.  The figures are metals from a Warlord Box set that has 21 figures (1 Officer, 2 Bren Gunners, 18 Riflemen).  The Grant tank is a Resin Model from Blitzkrieg miniatures.

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy gamer, I do have to say the casting quality of the Gurkha's is abysmal.  I spent over 6 hours cleaning flash, tailings and repairing the figures before priming them.  I like how they eventually came out but will likely stick to only Warlord plastics in the future.  Warlord's plastic kits have become superb and are well worth the investment.  The metals, well, not so much.

The M3 Grant is a superb resin kit - easy to put together and just 3 flicks of the X-acto knife's worth of clean-up work.  Both units will be painted up for service in Burma.  My current British army has dual painting theme - roughly 3/4's are Western Desert / Italy and the remaining third (the Gurkha's and some vehicles are painted for Burma).  While a bit "gamey" I can mix the forces and the different painting helps my opponent keep track of where the dreaded Gurkha's are on the board.

I've started an internal debate on which army to take the Cold Wars the DAK or the Brits

I didn't get a lot of sleep last night due to the cold - it was -20F with the wind chill.  Why?  One of the charming things about the Chesapeake Bay is it's where Canadian Geese choose to winter - we'll get a couple thousand of these waddling lawn fertilizing machines in the Broad Creek and they're not bad to have around (as long as one doesn't where dress shoes while walking through he yard!).  There is one drawback - when the temperature drops to 15F or lower they tend to honk at night and the colder it gets, they louder they are.  They were very loud last night!

28MM Wasp Flamethrower

 I've added a 28mm scaled Wasp flamethrower tank to my British force to give them a little more "punch".  The model is from Warlord and comes as a single piece resin cast with metal heads for the crew.  The casting quality was very high which was a pleasant surprise as I've had bad luck with resin vehicles from Warlord.

I went with a very simple paint job but decided to paint the carrier for use in the Pacific rather than the desert.  Most of my Brits are painted up as 8th Army in the Western Desert but they can also serve in the Pacific theater if needed.

This model was submitted as part of the "Hot" fortnight challenge over at the AHPCV

More 28mm Perry DAK

 I've added some more support units to my growing DAK 28mm DAK army for both Bolt Action and Chain of Command.  All the minis are Perry metals.

 First up a heavy machine gun team

 Next the Perry DAK command group

 A 81mm Mortar team

 And a Kettenkrad 'cause they're cool!

 I will be trying some sabot movement trays with the mortar team - hopefully it speeds up play without sacrificing the visual appeal.  Of course I still need to scenic the tray.

Analogue Painting Hobbies Update: WW2 in Multiple Scales

 A WW2 mix of submissions for the Painting Challenge last week,  in both 28mm & 15mm scales.

 First up is a DAK Pak 38 AT gun / crew plus a Kubelwagen field car in 28mm.  All of the models are from the Perry;s WW2 line with the figures being metals and the car resin.

 These will be used as part of my growing DAK army which should see it's tabletop debut at the Cold Wars BA tournament.

Next up is a US Armored Rifle Platoon in 15mm scale from Battlefront Miniatures.  All of the figures and vehicles are plastics from the new box set and I must say I was impressed with the quality.  I find painting plastics much easier than metals and these were a joy to paint up.

 Lastly another entry in 15mm WW2 from Battlefront - a German Pioneer platoon.  These are old Battlefront metals that I've had primed for painting for a few years but never got around to actually putting paint on the guys until now.

 To be honest that casts are really poor and required a lot of clean up and I found painting them to be at best a chore.  They will be fun to get on the tabletop as Pio's are always a fun unit to field.

I also tried the Battlefront rubble bases which I liked but I also was a bit lazy in finishing off - I need to go back and dress up the bases a bit.