It's been a while...

Long overdue update - Today I received my Panzer Mech miniatures from Westwind Productions!

Panzer Mech is part of the Secrets of the Third Reich Weird War range and got financed on Kickstarter a while ago. I decided to get a couple of things to expand my WW2 Brits into that territory.

First up, the Allied Sherman Mech:

 Here' s a scale comparison to a 28mm miniature:

Next up, the Bulldog Mech, an indigenous British design:

 Also quite a big boy!

Meteor jump troopers provide increased mobility:

And Terrier automated guns help with the defense:

The Kickstarter also unlocked an eclectic mix of miniatures:

And last, but not least, I grabbed a 25 pdr artillery piece from the Berlin or Bust range form the pledge manager:

I hope to get some of these things assembled soon, and I'll have an update on the Magach and my Epic Emperor;s Children soon!

New Beginnings

Hello,
as you might know I recently moved to a new place. That was the main reason why I haven't done a lot of hobby stuff lately, but now that we are settled in to our new home I have to sort out my hobby room!

(Well, I have to share it with the wife's sewing machine and knitting supplies, but that's a small price to pay, isn't it?)

I thought that would be a good opportunity to show some of my collection, although very little of it is actually finished.

Let's start with some 6mm Cold War Commander armies, i.e. Syrians, British Army of the Rhine and IDF:

Next, most of my Bolt Action armies: 8th Army, Early War Soviets, Hungarians and Late War Germans

 As you can see there is a lot to do, I need to paint/repair a lot of the 8th Army vehicles, and the Soviets should get some reinforcements soon since we are going to have a big Bolt Action battle again at the start of December. In the background you can just make out a GAZ AA, Komsomolet and some Black Tree Design infantry.
Well, and the Hungarians and Germans are not even half painted... One day I will finish the 44M TAS and Rohamloeveg in the fictitious ambush camo pattern I want.

I also plan to venture into 1/35th territory:

I love IDF armor, and the Meng Production figures are awesome! I hope I won't get too annoyed by the tracks with multiple pieces per link...

I also decided to expand my 6mm Germans for Blitzkrieg Commander:

I guess a fine drill and some steel wire are in demand to fix these barrels... Anyway, I am planning to paint those units and some infantry as part of a P500 on the German Tabletopwelt forum. This is a nifty little event they have every year in which you pledge to paint a full army with each 500 points block being finished in 6 weeks. It's a great way to get feedback and motivation, and I think this kind of "pressure" is very good to get me doing something. And since one of those Jagdtigers is already worth 280 points, I also decided to double the points per block to 1000. More about this project soon, it starts on November 1st!

Top 3 Miniature Ranges That Don't Exist (But Totally Should!)

Everybody has their personal wish list of miniatures they would love to see produced, so here is my top 3 of ranges that should exist, but don’t!

28mm Modern IDF

This is really a surprise for me. I mean, there are pretty comprehensive ranges in 6mm and 15mm, but nobody seems to care about producing 28mm Modern IDF units.Which is a shame, because the IDF has some of the most unique and iconic armored vehicles in the world: Merkavas, Nagmachon, Achzarit, Magach and more!

Oh, and I totally want need Oketz troops!

There are some bits and pieces around in 28mm, but nothing that would make me want to build a force out of it.

Who should do it? – Perry Miniatures, they have the right sense for detail and poses.


2. Weird War 1812

I never really got the appeal of Napoleonic warfare, mainly because its tactics and appearance are alien and counter-intuitive for me. Nevertheless, 1812 saw conflicts throughout the Americas and Europe, and offers a multitude of factions. Considering that this is also the year Grimm’s Fairy Tales were published for the first time, it doesn’t take much to imagine a version of this year all mixed up with mystical creatures and weird contraptions.

The closest think we have to this is Flintloque/Slaughterloo with its Napoleonic Fantasy races, but Goblins riding Dodos is maybe a little bit over the top:

I am rather thinking of something along the lines of Konflikt ’47 – offering an interesting new twist on existing armies

Who should do it? – Raging Heroes seems to be fearless enough to tackle such a project, but their scale and style might not mix well with existing ranges. So, maybe we can get a Black Powder supplement, Warlord Games?


3. Mass Effect

Like, c’mon, HOW is this not already a thing? Okay, a lot of people didn’t like ME:A, or the end of ME:3, but over all , this is such a rich universe that begs to be converted into a skirmish tabletop. Just the Council races (Humans, Salarians, Turians, Asari) offer vast differences in style and tactics, and you didn’t even start to get Krogans, Quarians and Geth in the mix. And let’s not forget the Collectors!

Sure, the license  would be expensive and/or impossible to get, but I guarantee you Kickstarter would bury you in money.


Who should do it? - Corvus Belli or Modiphius Entertainment could pull this off in an awesome way.





So, what would be your pick?

Review - Airfix 1/48th Bedford MWD

I needed another truck for my Bolt Action British, so I picked up a 1/48th scale Bedford MWD from Airfix.

First a couple of words about the original:
The Bedford MWD was the ubiquitous 15cwt truck in British service - over 200.000 have been produced during the war and it served in every theater. Also only 4x2, it had a powerful 72 hp engine and reached a top speed of 95 km/h with a range of over 400 km. It could transport a 10-man squad or up to 800 kg of material.
The early version had only canvas doors and tiny screens for the driver and passenger, earning it the nickname "pneumonia wagon". In 1943, the design was updated to have half doors and a proper windscreen, together with some changes to the engine covers and instrument layout.
In the desert they were also used as 2pdr ATG portees.

The Airfix kit comes with 95 parts on 3 grey sprues plus one clear sprue for the windshield.

It allows to build both the early and late version and several canvas configurations, so you'll have a decent amount of pieces left after you finished:

You could even further reduce the number of used parts by omitting the engine parts and some of the interior that might not be visible in the version you want to build.

The kit comes together without any issues and I only encountered two small pitfalls:
First, the tires are flattened on one side so be careful when you assemble them to make them fit correctly.
Second, the instructions skip one step when it comes to the steering wheel, but it is quite obvious how it should work.

The final product is a fine little model:

I found several pictures of MWDs in North Africa, and it seems to have been quite common to remove the side covers of the engine, so I left them off my truck, too:

I also left the hood separate to allow easy access to paint the engine:

Size-wise, it fits quite well with 28mm miniatures, mostly because the MWD is such a small truck. A Company B driver doesn't look out of place at the wheel (apart from his missing legs...):

And next to some Perry Miniatures 8th Army soldiers it still looks good:

Even in direct comparison to a Warlord Games 3-ton Bedford the scale difference isn't outrageous:

Just to put the difference between 1/48th and 1/56th scale into some numbers:
This MWD is 1.3 cm too long, 0,6 cm too high and wide.

And with a coat of sand color it is almost ready to roll!

All in all, this was fun to put together and the kit makes a very nice looking model. The scale is acceptable in my mind, and I am looking forward to finish the paint job soon!

Bolt Action Pulp Partisan Cultists

Today I'd like to share an idea for a rather unusual Bolt Action army. 

Picture from Fenris Games

I am a huge fan of Weird War settings, but sadly, there is not much interest in that at my gaming club. Generally, they are quite conservative and like to stick to the rules as they are, while I like to be more... experimental.

Anyway, after realizing that there is almost no way to get away with a British '46 army based on a late war German list (basically an excuse to build some British assault engineers and use JTFM's Tortoise as a Jagdpanther), I thought up a new concept: Cultist Partisans!

Every proper Pulp setting has a sinister cult performing strange rituals to end the world/ wake up an ancient good / summon creatures from the other side / have NSFW social gatherings.
So why not make a fun Bolt Action army based on this concept?

This is the list I envisioned:

Kingsport Irregulars (Partisans)

Second Lieutenant with SMG
+ soldier with SMG

Partisan Squad 1
NCO with SMG
Soldier with Panzerfaust
16 soldiers with rifles

Partisan Squad 2
NCO with SMG
Soldier with Panzerfaust
16 soldiers with rifles

Partisan Squad 3
NCO with SMG
11 soldiers with SMGs
Anti-tank grenades

Guerrilla Squad
NCO with SMG
11 soldiers with SMGs
Anti-tank grenades

Anti-tank Team with Bazooka

General Purpose Truck
General Purpose Truck

= 1000 points

Pretty straight-forward: Two large squads as a solid base, and two assault squads in trucks to get right in your face. Plus a little extra in case of tanks. Anyway, not the best list ever, but okay to play.

Now the fun part - miniatures!
When one thinks of cultists, the excellent Frostgrave plastic box comes to mind immediately. Combined with an abundance of left-over firearms and Molotov cocktails from different Warlord Games boxes this should be a great foundation for this army.

Of course one could just use some army trucks as transports, but if I go wacky, I go wacky all the way:

Behold Sloppy Jalopy's 1910 Type B bus - the perfect way to ride into battle in style!
For the second one I would take the Ford AA panel van from the same manufacturer:

Or I get a Mack Bulldog Model AC from Shapeways:

Or, to fit with the tongue-in-cheek approach, this little vehicle from Great Escape Games:

This army also offers some interesting options for mission objectives and markers. Fenris Games has a whole range of Mythos-inspired pieces like these:

"Sir, we need to blow up the rune stone before those lunatics complete their ritual!"

And if you are looking for some further inspiration, have a look at Osprey Publishing's books about the military struggle against the Elder Ones:

On that note: Cthulhu fhtagn!