Mustering the Troops!

Things have just happened here,  that have somewhat changed my painting and hobby focus for the next couple of months, and derailed somewhat, my planned painting output for the Anologue Hobbies Painting Challenge...

 I have become caught up in the no doubt frantic activity to get 4000 54mm Anzac and Turk troops assembled and painting in time for their inclusion in a large diorama as part of the commemoration of Anzac Day here in New Zealand, in April, about 50 days away... 

More can be found here;  Mustering the Troops

I received my first installment of 10 models; Turkish troops, on Thursday night and have so far, just  managed to get them all trimmed and glued together...

They still need some greenstuff puty work for a little gap filling...

But other than that I am ready to start priming and painting them...

I feel a little oddly placed doing this in someways...

As a wargaming period, WWI has never been of any interest to me. Nor have I ever painting figures in such a large scale - the last things that came close to this were probably 1/32nd scale plastic toy soldiers as a kid...

And being a relatively recent (10 years ago) British Migrant here in NZ, I don't really have any direct connection to the ANZACs either...

...but I do have enormous respect for their brave efforts, all those years ago, and can equally respect the Turks for steadfastly defending their homelands, against an invading force...

But oddly enough, I think my main motiovator here, is my own desire to do this as a kind of indirect thank you, to Peter Jackson, and the Perry's, who have commisioned and produced these figures respectively... for their prior efforts, in bringing Tolkien's world of Lord of the Rings to life...

If it hadn't been for Peter's movie trilogy, and the Perry's sculpting of the range of GW figures, ... I'd probably still be living in the UK! Nor would I have been able to enjoy playing LOTR SBG for all these years now... So thank you Peter, and the Perry's!

A little voice has just chimed in, reading this over my shoulder, that I have also been given lots of encouragement from wifeypoos to get involved and do my bit... I even got away with not doing the washing up last night, to get on with the work! Long may it continue!

So, I'll wind up here, as the glue has probably dried enough for me to get back to work on the figures!

Stay tuned for more progress...

ANZAC Day, WIP and Games Club

Well ANZAC day has been and gone again. A day of to enjoy with family, and yet a time also to reflect on times past, the gallantry and valor of our service personnel in conflicts around the globe. I am not a Kiwi, being a British migrant, but I have a great respect for what these colonial troops did in their times for King and Country, frequently traveling to the other side of the world to risk, and often lose, their lives.

The day off gave me a chance to frantically assemble a whole bunch of Plastic Soldier Company Panzer III's (Ausf H). Why you might ask?

Well, a couple of weeks back I had an invitation to check out a local war-games club (Kapiti Wargames Club) that has been getting off the ground recently. The club is set up as a safe friendly environment for youngsters and mature gamers to get together and enjoy the hobby of war-gaming.

Being aimed in great part at the younger gamer, GW gaming features predominantly with both 40K and WFB being mainstays in gamers of all ages. However they have an interest in widening their gaming audience and games played.

With this in mind I offered to put on a demonstration game of Flames of War, with pal Paul, which we did last Thursday evening. The game was a simple yet colorful affair, pitching 1000 points each of British Para's dug in around a small hamlet, whilst elements of 12. SS Hitlerjugend Panzergrenadiers, tried to dislodge them.

The Para's clung on tenaciously as they always do, and a final 'do or die' charge, reminiscent of Viktor Gräbner's charge across Arnhem bridge, by the Germans, was stymied in the end.

The game generated a lot of interest from the spectators who asked heaps of questions about the game. I'd put on a mini display of the new rules books too including, the V3 set,  Earth & Steel , and Turning Tide books plus some flyers I'd put together myself, and these all met with great appreciation, in terms of appearance and quality of product.

So, we are off to do it again, and Paul, being the more experience player than I suggested that we put on a tank battle, that people can learn the rules with. Paul suggested a MidWar 1500 point game. OK thought I, I've had some boxes of PSC Panzers kicking about unopened for a while now, so I set to putting them together from Tuesday evening, and on through ANZAC day of Wednesday.

With The Longest Day, and A Bridge Too Far, playing on my portable DVD player beside me, I happily snipped trimmed and glued away, to the sound of machine-gun fire and exploding shells in my headphones.

A few breaks were taken to continue a FoW game Chris and I have been playing over the last few days, trying out the fortification rules.

Each tank took about an hour to put together, so its was a pretty full modelling day!

But now they are ready to game with, albeit without paint, but I don't think that will be too much of a problem at the club, as the typical child like standard of most of the kids models being unpainted or beginning paint-jobs for the most part. Kids typically wanting to get their figures on the table to game with, and painting them coming secondary...But thats fine as it gets them interested in the game, and gets them off their computers, Nintendos Xboxs PS3s and what have you!

So, game on for tonight, my Panzer III's against Pauls Shermans in an Italian setting. Looking forward to it.

No doubt the Panzer III's will get a lick of paint shortly too.

I'll report back with progress, and how the game goes...

From the local paper:

  As good mate Roly has commented on his blog too, good to see a 'bricks and mortar' club here on the Coast.

I'll be formally joining club tonight. Unfortunately I am not a 'facebooker' so though I can view the clubs facebook page, I can't comment or add pics or anything. I'll have to see if they set up an interactive club website or whatever. In the meantime I'll keep posts coming here as "AAR" s or "Bat reps" - choose your abbreviation!