Time for some Blog Necromancy

 I´ve been neglecting this blog again... time to attempt to raise it from the dead again.

The lure of social media has been strong and so I´ve been posting a lot of stuff on platforms like Facebook and Instagram as that seems to be the place were most people are located these days.  

And yet I am not a friend of these platforms with their endless feeds of content, with little option to filter for special fields of interest.  So after some consideration, I´ll be trying to give this blog another chance. 

Don´t expect many updates or a regular schedule... 

Here are some new sculpts I have been working on:

These will supplement my Australians for Vietnam, which were released last year and are already available in the shop:

As well as the Vietcong Sets armed with a variety of different weapons:

And to not make this just an advertising show, here are some more Work-In-Progress Afghan Captives. 

These guys popped up as a side project as I worked on more Taliban (pics coming soon). I had some reference pics with captives / hostages in my collection and after looking at them for hours I felt they deserved their own miniatures. 

These minis are also different in that I am using polymer clay here. 1 or 2 years back I bought myself some BeesPutty and tried working with Oven-hardening clay. It´s a bit different from working with epoxy putties, can be challenging especially when modelling the arms - but it is very rewarding in its own way and perfect to sculpt minis that have their arms close to their bodies such as these captives... 

or this Tank commander that I was commissioned to sculpt: 

New African & Bush War Releases

New Models are now available - two new Sets for your African Conflicts.


Generic African Riflemen with FN FAL:

Portuguese Riflemen with G3 Rifles:

New Bush War Releases and Work in Progress

Hi all,

 

as promised, I´m starting with the updates on what I´ve been up to in the last few months.

I want to start by introducing some new models I sculpted not too long ago.

Brand New Sets

 

 

African Riflemen

 

 

 African Tribal Warriors

 

 

Released a while ago, but not presented here before: 

 

 African Insurgents with Support Weapons 

African Insurgenst with AK Skirmishing

You can get these new sets at my homepage here

 

Or click on the banner: 

 

 

Work in Progress for the next batch of Releases: 

 

 

Portuguese G3 Firing

 

 

 

African Army - MachineGunners

More is in the pipeline, but you´ll have to wait a little longer for more pictures ;)

Lots of painted Taliban

Interested?  Get some at  www.enfilade.de/catalog/Taliban

Portugese Colonial Infantry - Now Painted

This Portugese Infantry unit was waiting on my workbench for a long time.
After more than 1,5 years I picked them up yesterday and painted them to a finish this morning.

If you want your own, they are available in my webshop - just hit one of the pictures, they are linked to the right spot.

New Enfilade Figures - January 2018

New Enfilade Figures are available - right in time to still count as January-Releases ;)


For our African Wargamers, we now have Machete wielding African Insurgents, up to nothing good...

In Afghanistan, heavy fighting has taken its toll, so we need some casualties to display this bitter reality on your wargaming table...

And - maybe a bit untimely regarding current events - a new Set of Women Militia is available. This new set features support weapons:

The shop has also been properly re-stocked with other sets - however, due to a wrongly labeled mould our Portugese with AR10 set will not be available for a little while. We found the mistake, corrected it, but now they still need to be produced and sent here :)


As usual, hit the Picture below to go right to the webshop:

On the Workbench - January 2018

This blog has gone silent again, hasn´t it?
Well, as usual when this happens, things have been going on behind the scenes but I didn´t feel much of an urge to take pictures, process them and put them online.

Still not feeling much like it, but at least I managed to take some shots of the various projects I have been or am working on right now.

Last week I finished these river pieces. I´ve long wanted to add some rivers to my terrain selection and finally pushed the project through after gathering some motivation and inspiration over the christmas holidays

I also worked quite a bit on Code Red (my Modern Warfare Ruleset) in the first two weeks of January. One addition to the Rules was stats for MRAPs for the Americans and Brits. 

During the work on the rules I felt the urge to add an MRAP to my collection.  There are some kits out there, and I might get one at some point, but I didn´t feel like spending money.  In the spur of the moment I remembered how other people achieve great results by scratchbuilding and started chipping away at some foam and plasticard.

  

After a few days, here we are with the scratchbuilt MRAP chassis. The CROWs is magnetized and can rotate. Right now I´m working on the wheels which are a bit of a challenge - too big, too small or too irregular and they start looking ugly.

 

On the sculpting front, I started another set of Special Forces -  these will be a Team in CQB-poses, one Pointman with a pistol (or out of ammo switching to his sidearm - you decide), a breacher with a Shotgun - and not yet started, an operator preparing a grenade or flashbang before the assault.

 

 Hope you enjoyed the small insight into my WIP stuff. 

I finished a lot more stuff in December that I did not take pictures of.  When my blogging motivation returns, I shall take some photos and put them up here. 

Until then, happy wargaming!

Tear Down this Wall! - Rebuilding Compound Walls

I had a lot of different wall sections for Middle Eastern Compounds that I made over the years -many different sizes, shapes and colors. Some mounted on tiles - my Afghan Village compounds for example - some single pieces.


I rarely used the village tiles. They turned out to be too inflexible and harder to transport and set up than necessary. All the different walls, compounds and colors didn´t really fit and they are not a good match with my new desert terrain mat.

So last week I butchered all the different walls and standardized them.

Work began by dismantling the wall sections, removing them from their bases. Most were on cardboard bases that had warped consirably due to painting, turning them into unattractive pieces.
I got rid of all the cardboard, slashed up the tiles into compounds and wall sections and began cutting PVA-bases.  The picture below shows how many walls were involved: 

Work was split over several days. At one point I had to take a break because I had a blister forming on my index finger from cutting the PVA. Fortunately I stopped soon enough and was able to continue working the next day when the irritation had gone.

After all the bases were prepared, I started mounting them. At that point, I had standardized their size, but you can still see the very different colors - Most of the walls were kept raw white and not even painted. Shame on my past self ;)   Terrain was never my strong suit.

After gluing, sanding and priming the pieces, I commenced painting and treated the wall sections with the airbrush.

After everything had dried, the sand received some treatment with drybrushing and washes. Finally, I added some flock and let all of it dry.  After a few hours of work, I had transformed all the ugly pieces to a new standard:

Ironically as I looked for space to store them neatly, I discovered more wall sections that I had missed on the first search. But I´m done with walls for the near future, they´ll either follow at a later point or find their way right into the bin.

Code Red - Blocking Detachment (Game 2)

In our last game, the Opfor units suffered a resounding defeat at the hands of a US mechanized detachment suppressing and outflanking them in a forward defense position.

After this rather one-sided game, we decided to play the game in reversed roles. I would take over Opfor and have my friend attack.

I have to admit I was a bit anxious - after all, I had to prove that the forces and setup were balanced and that the shortcoming of both sides could be overcome....

Code Red - Blocking Detachment (Game 1)

Last weekend we didn´t only play By Fire and Sword, but also got some playtesting done for Code Red. 

This report covers the first of three playtest games. The games were quickly thrown together, without much thought about balance, dramatic scenarios or somesuch.  

We threw a US Mechanized Formation against a Russian-Style Force using my Soviet Cold War models. Somewhere in the Desert, a US Intervention force was pushing along a valley to reach a strategic refinery that had to be defended by the local authorities.  Let´s call our Russians OPFOR for the remainder of this report.

We wanted to test Vehicles some more, so both factions got vehicles. Unfortunately I forgot to give the Americans some spare AT weapons on their infantry squads -  it turned out to be an interesting tactical challenge to work with what you got.  

As they lay dead

Just a quickie today - finished three Insurgent Casualties today which will be part of the next batch of releases.

New SpecOps available

Today I put the new Special Forces sets online at Enfilade Figures.

Two new sets have entered the shop:  Another group of Special Forces in Light Gear in skirmishing poses and a pair of Snipers. 

Klick on the banner to go to the shop if you want to get them :)

Cacadores - AR10 Portugese

They´ve been requested for a long time and I finally got around to sculpt them:  Portugese AR-10 Riflemen for the Bush Wars in Angola and Mozambique.

Wonder Women - New Women Militia Preview

New miniatures coming up - the next batch of masters is ready and getting packed up for casting.

Among them:  New Women Militia  / Militiawomen  / whatever they are called ;)

I still find that I struggle a bit more with female faces, but there is a small and steady improvement - my personal favorite is the kneeling figure with the beret.

You think you´re Special...

After a lot of Fantasy and painting in 28mm, it´s time to turn back to Sculpting and Modern in 20mm. Progress has been slow on the latest set of miniatures, but I´m finally coming close to sending a new batch into production.

Here´s the first pack of the Summer 2017 releases coming up in the next weeks I hope:

With this set I want to provide an addition to the already existing set of Special Operatives in Light Gear.

Christmas Break is over!

Hey all,

I took a few weeks off of wargaming, painting and sculpting during christmas and new year to spend some time with my family. But fear not, I´m back now and have already commenced work.

I´m not so much into painting right now, but I made good progress with sculpting a few new minis.
So today I want to show you another part of the new Portugese Support Weapons:

This LMG-Gunner carries a HK21 into battle and was requested by several supporters at the Guild, who helpted to bring the range into being in the first place.

 

I´ve also prepared another MG3/MG42-Gunner to provide an additional. more combat oriented pose and supply more options for gamers who already have a lot of riflemen, but few support weapons. 

Tough Girl - Another Militiawomen

You might already have seen this mini recently in a smaller version, but in case you haven´t - here she is again for you to behold, and a bit larger than on the other picture:

The Long March - YPJ Fighter

Today I´ve got another YPJ Fighter for you.

I painted Urban Camo on the mini, using varying shades of blue-grey and black to create the pattern. The base color for the uniform were Dark Sea Blue, White and Black, I created everything I needed by mixing these up into the required shades.

It´s actually not as hard as it looks, just give it a try and experiment a little :)