A praise, a rant, and maybe a small cultist chant

Sorted out a ton of stuff today, for school, family and little bit of the hobby. . Based up all of my Terracotta zombies I purchased at Impact 2017, took a picture of that, then promplty converted the standard bearer into a normal one, no standard (and no hand), as these wilol function as just zombies for a Chinatown or Ronin/Daisho battle.

Just need to base the clipped head from the banner as well. Very nice figures, pity they are OOP.

Picked up my trade box today, with a Academy M35 truck, a Heller 109 B/C that actually does come with a canopy (unlike the last trade) and has the iconic early mouth style intake. Ad a dual seat Skyraider, because..... why not. Only cost me 2 kits and shipping in return.

I also passed my First Aid exam yesterday, most of it went swimmingly other then the imitated torn leg muscle ( never been a sports guy and never had anyone near me have this happen to them, so besides a coldpack and giving them some painkillers there wasn't much I could actually...I just needed to be more confident in my respsonse. Same went for a guy with a painful ear, and it hurt inside his head. No bugs, no hits, just a red ear and pain in his head. I gave him some painkillers as well and told him to see his doctor if it was still the same tomorrow. Actually I was supposed to give him a hotpack for his ear, but just painkillers would do fine too. Bandaging, CPR, AED use, staying calm and informative to the victim, no problems there.

Fun though, sitting in a room full of very nervous people, you could smell the fear :D

But yeah, I passed, and as a gift for me doing so I'm buying a ticket to Militrack for the sunday show and to see actual, functioning WW2 German vehicles. My favourite desert Stug rebuild is coming too, I can't wait to see it live and his Marder next year.

Then we come to my Grubby Tanks order I arrived today. As youy may or may not know, I've stopped buying his resin vehicles as the casting quality is incredibly low. But his figures were fine, with the occasional mould slippage or other casting issue. Well, 1/3rd of this order has issues. Either too little metal, or excessive metal build up on faces and arms, some mould slippage and then there is this  in the Russian officer pack.

Yes, he really is that flat...... :(

Already emailed him, again, about the defects. At this rate every order I make has defects, and sure, they will get replaced, but this really should not be necessary to begin with.

More tomorrow :)

It really helps to read an army list BEFORE you build stuff, you know?

So, in between my studies, I've managed to build and base 2 Russian 45mm M1937 AT guns for my Partisans, one on the move and 1 in position, after getting inspired.

Apolagies for the shitty quality pictures....still using just my phone....

 Gun on the move in to (or out of?) position. Most pics I've seen of it being manhandled is with 2 people at the front of the gun and 1 in the back steering it....I think? Put a muzzle cap on it to keep the dirt out plus 2 cases of shells. I have no gun crew yet so these are just stand ins. It's my (current) standard towing base (which is T shaped) with the back end held in place by a pin, to keep it level with whatever is towing or pulling it. I thought about adding lift handles on the legs, but stopped after adding doing the tow hooks on both guns. I just want to have these done so I can move on to the next lot.

I've added some extra reinforcement between the shield and the base of the gun as for some odd reason both guns had the mounting pin bent and split and even after bending it back and using glue, the gunshield sat at a tilted angle. Not anymore :)  The in situ gun is placed on my favourite Y shaped base. This way I can easily add and remove troops and keep them as close to the gun as possible.

So, all good then, innit?

Nope. I got inspired by seeing pics of the Partisan 37mm AT gun in action:

....and assumed that the 45mm one would be the upgrade for the Partisans. I assumed wrongly :(

The basic gun is the 37mm (for which I can use a captured PaK36 or 37mm M1930 - for wargaming purposes the same gun) and the upgrade is the 47mmL32

Technically speaking a licence built Böhler. Drat. I don't have those in my stash. No, ffs.......

Well, not to fear!

After comparing the stats of both guns, they have a identical HE and AP value, so there is no problem using them as is.

Crisis averted! Now get these suckers painted up asap.

PS: The guns are PSC 4 in a box Russian AT guns (45mm 1937, 45mm 1942 and the Infantry gun) and the spare barrels can be used for bunkers or other purposes. The Partisans are from the Kelly's Heroes range from Grubby Tanks.

Past and Presents

First up: thx guys. I appreciate your comments on the previous post, it means a lot to me. I'm looking forward to my new job, I hope to sign the paperwork next week to finalise everything. Scared shitless, but hey.

Hobbywise, I'm really pushing myself. I received 2nd hand Britannia WW2 japanese, dug out my lot of once bought Taliban, unpacked my latest order from Grubby tanks of 2 bags of Soviet and Yugoslav partisans and cleaning, sanding and basing the lot of them. I just want to get them all cleaned and based before my new job starts.

 Partisan all based and sanded, Japanese all based up and ready for filler on the bases, and some Taliban already sanded. I'm using mostly 1 euro cents, but the comms unit and the HMG are getting 2nd choice MDF bases....I can always drill in a hole later to mount a magnet.

 Ol cast Britannia tank (but even that has a few bubbles on the running gear that I need to fix) and my first fully based HMGs. Crew is seperate for casualty removal.

 Taliban waiting their turn for filler and sand.

Everything I fillered tonight, now in the process of adding sand, all Taliban that one, including some Tier 1's.

And in the mail yesterday, a gift, stickers for the Gaslands dice:

...so I put my blank dice to good use. Now to build more cars.

So far I've found 3 interested locals, trying to arrange a date soon for a playtest. Good for motivation.

Also good for motivation was this....a local chap was selling over 100 kits in one go, I sent him a wanted list and I managed to get almost everything I wanted, bar 5 kits.

4 T-72M1's for my Republican Guard, 1 T-55 for a roadside, wheelless wreck that I will make as generic as possible, M60A3 for reasons, Anti tank on=bstalces for Normandy, Caesar SiG-33 for my germans, Zil-157 for use as a civillian truck, US 2,5 ton truck in a bag on top.....most likely a late war captured one for my Germans, more boxes of bombs, racks and gunpods, 2 boxes of 105mm British Light Field Guns, for again, reasons,  and several ICM kits, some to become civives, others to become command and militia vehicles. I have another big box to pick up next week, trading old GW tat for that. Also in the mail is a 1/720 Prinz Eugen (to get proper naval artillery support for a future Kurland book perhaps?), a 1/700 Japanese Destroyer for reasons and finally, my first Revell T-55 which will be modded quite a bit.

So busy, so much to do but really enjoying myself. Stay tuned for more!

Grubby Update

Some of you will have read my review on a Grubby Tanks order I made back in September, and the sub par cast Panzerjager 1's I got, and sent back. After shotting off a couple of emails for updates the last and only reply I got was early November, that the box had been received and he would get on it the next day. And then silence.

FFW to a now locked conversation on the Guild about his service being a bit spotty, and I decided to send him another email to see if I could get a final reply from him when I told him I just wanted to spend the refund on more miniatures. I got a reply the next morning at 3:30 (doesn't this man ever sleep?) that he thought he had sent replacements, but that he now wasn't sure anymore, but I only needed to send in a order, and pay for what I want minus the refund and free shipping.

Well, ehm, that was quick, butI had not given what I wanted much thought. I've been eyeing his Kelly Heroes range, but he doesn't do jeep crews that I want for my Greif unit and my only (future) want is (more) Partizans due to Piers long interest in Prinz Eugen and my love for hit and run attacks, so I just ordered one of all of his Russian and Yugoslavian partisans to give me something to do. I just got confirmation for that order and the agreed price, so sent my payment and now it's fingers crossed.

Now, where do I find the time to paint 30 partisans?

Where's the earthshattering kaboom?!

In short, I'm in a foul mood :D. For the past few days I'm having a lot of problems walking as my knee really, really hurts, I really should rest it more the coming week. I've noticed I've become easier to anger, and quicker to reply when I think something is not right.

This week, I had received my Britannia (Grubby Tanks) order and found all of the metal castings to be ok instead of one who had a mould shift right across his face.....but I will behead him and replace his head. The resin castings however......

Yes, I can spend time filling each and every single hole there is. I had high hopes that the bad casts from 4 years ago were a thing of the past but clearly they are not. The other Panzerjager was just as bad. I sent a email to Grubby explaining that I was not happy with the castings, slept a night over it, and then sent him another email that I would be returning the casts to him. I have not had a reply yet.

Yes, they are not expensive, but I've had plenty of casts from small to large businesses that are not expensive and bubble free. With a half decent vacuum chamber you can prevent 99% of the airbubbles, or so I'm told.

And today I took a trip to the Scale Model Convention - a weekend long event in Veldhoven and actually the first modelling event I have ever attended. I picked up 2 Panzerjager IV Lang and a SdKfz 140 kit I had traded for online, met up with our American expat Britt, spotted some familiar faces from Crisis that I could not put a name to, and had a nice walk around to find the Mig Ammo Filter for German Yellow and Dark Green. And no matter how well I looked, I could not find it! I only saw 3 stands carry Mig Ammo and none of them had Filters with them. So for trials I grabbed AK Interactive Nato Tanks and Light Filter for Wood to try them out, and I will be going over the Crisis listings this week to find traders who possibly could sell the Mig Ammo filters that I need.

Other then that the trading corner was a bit too much of the same thing? Couple of companies with tools, couple of companies with plints, couple of companies with paper stuff, couple of companies with tons of kits and paints..... I'm guessing I'm spoiled by Crisis and the great diversity that is on offer. Here....not so much. Hidden in the back I did find Mark from MBM, I grabbed a seat there for 15 minutes to rest my knee and talk to his gf about the selling season and Belgian things in general. I did buy a kit off him, Italeri T-34/76 m42 in the seal for only 5 euros. Will make a great wreck.

There were some offers kit kit sellers (most had 20% off) but I seem to have gotten used to the low prices of the trading sites as most seemed to be double or more of what I would pay on the groups. And there were massive price differences too, 1 chap was selling Modelcraft kits for 3,50-5 euros, and the stand across them had all the same boxes plastsred with 10 euro pricetags. It was a bit ridiculous at times.

2 traders or older kits had been placed opposite of each other but I seemed to find a lot of kits without a pricetag, or asking for more then I wanted to pay for them. All the way in the back, stuffed in a small discount box, I found a 1/144 Ju-88, B-25 and B-29 that I picked up for 10 euros total. When I turned around I was shocked to see a whole stack of 1/144 kist at the other seller, with the same B-29 having a 17,50 euro pricetag on it. Again, ridiculous.

In the end, not counting the pre-paid trade, I spent 15 euros on kits. The Ju-88 and the B-25 are for Battlegroup, and I have no clue what to do with the B-29. I guess I wasn't thinking when I bought that. 9 euros for 2 pots of filter, and my final purchase was a Mininatur box of Horse Tails for 4 euros (discounted from 15 euros) in a discount bin somewhere. Not many people had discount bins, and most in it wasn't even worth the prices they charged for it.

But this was just 1 hall! The other hall had row after row after row of modellers showing off projects or working on them, and a area beside that for all the people competing for prizes. The latter was pretty crowded when I got there so I'll grab a few pictures off the net of the ones I liked :)

In no particular order....I just picked the ones that gave me ideas :)

With that, the show was over for me, just too much pain. I actually arrived home in a empty house, Kim and the kids had gone downtown for a walk and a drink. So I took a few minutes to go over the stuff I had picked up.

And then found out one of the Hasegawa Jagdpanzer IV Lang was already started and all of the steel roadwheels were missing!!! Fuck! No such thing was mentioned by the seller.

After a good 45 minutes on Messenger, telling him of the problem, telling him again what was missing for more then 8 times! (he kept repeating the question: "What is missing exactly?") Showed him pics and all. First he said it was a packing error by Hasegawa (You have got to be joking mate!) and then he admitted he had already started it. He has now promised me to send the 4 steel roadwheels from the Revell kit so we'll see what happens when those arrive. I need those wheels to adapt the PSC Panzer IV chassis.

And thus ends my weekend. Kids will be at my parents for most of the week, I'm expecting a call from either the UWV or Maatwerk with an update, but other then that not much is planned. If my knee can take it, it might be a good time to leave my room behind for a minute and get cracking with making space in the back end of the attic to put up my spare cabinet and use it for all of the spare kits I have. Atm, with so many packed up, I'm rather clueless to what I have in stock and what can or cannot be sold off. I need to sort that. Anything else I find that can be sold before Crisis is a bonus.