30 day kit challenge! With a bit of a review too!

Took a day off to get over the stress of my Bussiness Math and (English) Language exam on tuesday (which I passed with an 8.25/10) and that started digging into my cabinets to go over my endless suplly of metal and resin kits. Well, not endless, but there is a lot. Some of it was bought when I just started out in the hobby, as well as much newer stuff.

Anyway, I've got a large box of resins and metals set aside, together with some painted stuff, that can be sold in the near future to fund future (and past) purchases.

Yes, past purchases.....

Last week, I actually bought some stuff again for a combined value of 150 euros (which I really should not be spending!)

• A once used 6x4 Quarantine Zone mousepad gaming mat from GameMat.EU. Seller agreed to 50 including shipping for a 70 euro excl shipping mat new in the shop. I have been looking for a nice Necromunda suitable one so I didn't want to pass this one up. A bit of long term planning as I don't really have much suitable scenery yet, but that can be remidied in time.

 

• A fellow gamer buddy of mine (one that actually is a teacher like me but still works as one) put up a lot of Americans and Afghans up for sale last week. I managed to talk him down to 100 euros for the lot, and as you can see from the photo's, they are more then worth it as the paintjobs are very, very good indeed. Beter then mine even, dare I say it. 56 figs painted to this level for this price is a steal, and I will cherish these. Yes, they are on 2 cents bases but that is not the end of the world, I'm the odd one out for using 1 cent bases anyway.

 Yeah, more goats. I haven't got a vlue where my painted goats are tbh, they are "somewhere" in the attic. They will turn up someday.

Civllians, lots and lot's of civillians, Great paintjobs, very colourful.

I'm not in need of US troops perse, but decided not to pass up on these as they will come in handy when I want to play with friends who don't have miniatures of their own. I like these Elhiems.

I can never pass up on contractors, especially well painted contractors/ "undercover" SF

Right, back to the 30 day challenge. It is currently the 20th day of the challenge (if my math is still correct) and I have added the following:

I got a free partially built and sprayed Airfix Spitfire Mk 1 with a kit lot a while back, so I took that from the box, removed the spinner, the prop and the canopy. I magnetised the nose and the prop, removed the blades, drilled a hole, inserted a flight plug, epoxied that plus 2 magnets into place, and replaced the canopy. Perfect for the BEF list. Which, if I had checked it earlier, would have told me that it wasn't in the list.....feg. Well, counts-as-Hurricane then it is!

SandS models French AHN truck - ordered when they were released, now finally built. Did notice mine are considerably less straight then the painted model on the shop listing, both my fueltanks are angled down at the front. One for Early War, the other for Late War. Currently10 Pounds eac . LINK

SandS models Toyota Hi Ace van - ordered when they were released, now finally built. One will be an Middle East ambulance, the other 2 generic civillian suitable for world wide usage. Currently 7,50 Pounds each. LINK

 Sgts Mess greenhouses and outhouses. I picked these up 2 years ago at Crisis I think, now finally cleaned them (not that there was any flash on the outside, these are superb castings!) and washed them with plenty of soap to get the release agent off. I've decided not to base these as to increase their usefulness on the table. The Greenhouse currently retails at 5.50 Pounds LINK and the Outhouse at 3.00 Pounds LINK and I can reccomend these highly. Superb castings for a very nice price.

Sgts Mess French WW1 Memorial. Completely different resin from the previous items,with a white metal figure, none the less a nice addition to any French town when built. I think I have some white metal wreaths in my bits box "somewhere" that would look nice, else I will use flower tufts to enhance this a bit. Currently retails for 4.50 Pounds. LINK Seeing that they do a British WW1 memorial as well, I will put one on the list for the next Crisis show to enhance a Britsh village for Sea Lion.

Sgts Mess Generic 1939 single decker bus of a typically British design. Superb casting, again, very few faults for a rather affordable vehicle. Will make a great troopcarrier for the BEF, Home Guard or even VBCW games. No idea what I will paint this one. Currently retails for 7.50 Pounds LINK

 Frontline Wargaming makes affordable vehicles, even if they take a bit of work to get up to specs due to the amount of resin bubbles and holes, and they can be a bit rough but once cleaned and painted they are very nice indeed. I can only give you the Frontline link LINK as the webpage does not have a direct link to the vehicle, and it is listed as C4 Dlivery Van at a cost of 4.20 Pounds. It must be severely overloaded though as it sits very low on the rear axle. Must be carrying explovives for the 5th Column or something.

I'm not quite sure who made this, I think Red Star? Long OOP, this is a M47 tank with questionale trackwork, and I drilled holes in the barrel to make it look like the real thing. It's going straight into my Yugoslavia box as I have seen some used by the Bosnians, but I will most likely make it as generic as possible. No idea what it cost, I know I picked this up years ago. Now finally built and based.

ICM Zil-157 with shelter. Half built and based, it had rested on top of a old resin kit that had partially melted and melted the plastic base of this truck as well. Rebased it and I am looking for spare parts  for it as it is a bit incomplete. Not sure if this will be green or sand, could go either way atm

Progress on the T-55 turret. It is magnetised and finished, I will fill the few holes when I need to paint this and all external fitting have been removed as this one is meant for a dug in or bunker mod. The wreck has been fitted with the T-54 turret, I just need to make a Oyumaru mould of the correct hatch and then I can start banging up the fenders etc.

I also based a metric shit ton of figures.

 Frostgrave Ice Gorrilla that when painted will work as a albino for the current rostgrave setting and the new one. Not sure if the base is too large though. The other large base is some kind of steroid mutant that I will put into my Big Trouble in Little China box. In the back are Copplestone Neo Soviets, a few will need helmets instead of fur hatsand will be painted up as Chinese remnants for Fallout/TNT games. The 20mm Police box is from Sgts Mess as well as the Cold Frame, both will make lovely add ons for a British table.

 I was gifted these African milita troops and based them asap. They will go into my Mogadishu box. All RH Models.

 Foundry (French) Partisans. Rather expensive for the amount of figures that you get, they are rather lovely, I would love some more of their MG teams to convert to other weapons like a Bren etc. LINK
9 Pounds for a pack of 10 figures. I might pick up another pack or 2 next Crisis and do head and weapon swaps with them.

A lot of Britannia MIniatures Taliban I bought off a friend. I know have plenty to a orther Alliance vs Taliban game. Also 2 Lancer figures, a fez weraing commander with a sowrd that will be my Partisan leader, and a WW1 British trooper with a pigeon that will be converted in a partisan for a Comms Team, he just needs a second person and I need a Oyumare cast of that pigeon to use as a base to make my own flying version to base up.

And that's it for now. Started a ton of things, but untill all the holes have been filled in the resin vehicles, they don't count for the challenge. So that is my job for tomorrow evening. Same goes for the figures, no spackle and no sand means they are not finished. So for now only the Spitfire counts!

I finally played another game btw, a solid game of Gaslands in the Memorial Zen Garden and Racetrack at Modhails place. Safe to say, I didn't make the finish line as Modhails mini gun ripped into my after I had spun out of control 3/4 along the track. I had the last laugh though as my rocket ammo ( I had not fired a single rocket) and my remaining molotovs detonated in a large fireball, destroying his car and burning off the remaining paintjob on Ozymandas his car (that I had put on fire twice before with molotovs). I really should have not given him a car with a HMG turret though, that is nasty.... Next game in a few weeks :)

Operation Springcleaning revisited

Or would that be End-of-Summer cleaning?


Decided this week would be about clearing and selling and closing open cases, so started cleaning last night, and sorting out the first of my BFG stuff for sale online later that night. Also bagged a few trade items and got them ready for shipping, and finally sent out my 20mm sci-fi doors off to someone who wanted to try and cast them. More on that later.


It took me a good 30 minutes to find those items though....which is a good indicator I need to clean up. Which brings me to a discussion....no, more of a chat really with Kim after dinner. As some of you may know she's not a fan of the hobby, but condones it as long as it all has its place. During her stay in the hospital however stuff had drifted into the livingroom and even the bedroom. Also, in the attic stuff is piled to the roof. So, she'd been thinking. First, I need to get the stuff out of any room other then the hobby room and the attic (fair enough) and we need to find a solution for the mess in the attic. Kim was kind enough to explain slowly and with care that the girls will need their own room eventually. They maybe twins but even they have a limit how much they want to be together. So, we need a new master bedroom, so that will be the attic.So we need new storage space. The one I have in Tilburg is not suitable for me, she says, I need something minutes away, not 45 minutes. So we are going to look for a garage or storage box locally, preferably in our own neighbourhood. Then we can transport what we need from Tilburg to there and what we don't need in the attic there as well. From that point on my gaming stuff will only be in the hobby room and the storage unit. And the hobby room will be 100% mine.


A good 15 minute chat with no arguments about the hobby, just looking at what we can do and what we can afford, not trying to change my ways, or hers. I wish we had more of those!


Well, I cleaned the stuff from the bedroom (Necrons that are not selling, so I will give them away for free, and I removed the Scrabs from their bases and into paint stripper so I can base them as singles and add them to my droid army), listed the BFG stuff and 3/4 of it sold in under an hour, then traded a Su-7 for a MiG-29 for my Serbs and a stack of Skaven sprues for a lot of 5 helicopters (of which I only need 1 for Mogadishu, the rest is trade fodder) and bought a cheap 2nd hand unused decalsheet for the NF-5 which has Dutch squadron markings on it so I can finally do a NF-5A for my Cold War Dutch army.....maybe. (The F-5's I got are from Airfix and lack the typical wingtiptanks for the Dutch....I need to find them from somewhere or look for the old Esci/Italeri kit but that sells for a fortune :( )


Tonight I will be cleaning again (and removing the stuff from the living room), and listing more stuff. I will repeat that on Friday, I cancelled my trip to the club this week. I hope to have the entire floor cleaned by the end of the week so I can get cracking on my table, but there is a awfully lot of second hand stuff that needs to be sorted.


Next week I hope to get started on basing a lot of stuff and printing off some rosters so I can keep track of who goes where and what....got 28mm Germans and 20mm Russians and Taliban to base up, as well as some character and pilot figures for my mercenaries.


And then I need to find time to clean my desk and get started with laying the keel for my next Guild challenge, this time the theme is Ambulance (aka a vehicle that transports wounded) and I've selected to scratchbuild the USNS Mercy, a hospital ship, in 1/3000th so she can sail with a Cold War convoy. I'll either scratch her completely or refurbish a oil tanker from the Navwar spares box (like the real thing). While cleaning I also found another scratchbuilt ship from years ago, the barge carrier Julius Fučík , semi finished. I'll try and finish that too, its been worked on on and off since 2009 I think.


Lots of plans!