AK-47 Militia Build - Dir, the 1st T-34 Rebel Tank PIP

 No kids for Christmas, and meds making sure I'm not hungry I just spent the day sorting stuff, cleaning and grabbing the occasional small snack, no Xmas dinner this year, or tomorrow. Well, there was but that is now in the freezer.

And then I took an hour or so for myself this evening to grab some washes to paint Dir, the 1st T-34 tank for the Militia (Rebel) Build. I did not get as far as on Rumh, but that is ok as I need to do some more prep work and putty pushin on the third anyway and what work remains (white markings and barrel, crew,tracks etc) can be done when I paint that. At my current rate that will be somewhere next year I think.

Dir (درع) means Shield in Arabic. The crew are....for lack of a better word, "conscripted volunteers"

The 2nd T-34 (and third tank for this unit) will be īmān (إيمان) which means Faith.

So Spear, Shield and Faith. Tank is a Battlefront T-34 that I got in a joblot. I hope that explains why this and the other T-34 have their commanders cuppola glued on the loaders side. For a fantasy like this it is perfectly fine....

...Crap, now I feel I should equip some of the spear guys with a shield......dammit. Oh well, still more than 20 days left I suppose....

AK-47 Militia Build - Rumh, the Su-100 Rebel Tank PIP

 I don't have a lot of time today so focussed purely on getting the tank as far as my enevrgy could take it. It needs markings (which need to be weathered) and I need to write the name on the barrel. Then do the trackwork and some parts of the base. Final detailing after the basing.

 

Rumh (رمح) is Arabic for Pike (the weapon, not the fish). Backstory is that the Militia "found" this and other T-34 based tanks in a outdoor long term storage base in some backwater on the coastline. She's not pretty, but she runs (for now) and the gun works. 

AK-47 Militia Build - The Old Gun PIP

 I grabbed a plastic German 105mm gun from the Battlefront spares box after grabbig these photos off of the Internet.

These are from the Syrian Civil War and are a rebel gun circe early 2015. Although you would think it is a German 105mm, it is not. It's a Yugoslavian one and some details are different......but not enough to bother with for this build.

After posing, basing and giving it a coat of primer and having that harden nicely, a solid hour of work gets me to here:

Once the crew is finished, I'll base them together, do the base and add the lanyard for firing the gun. 

AK-47 Militia Build - The Basics

 Time to get my thumb out as the deadline is Jan 17th. 

 

 All the infantry bases are ready for primer, the vehicles still need some work and/or a base. 

12 bases of regular Militia = 84 pts

2 bases of RPG Militia = 28 pts

1 base of HMG Militia = 14 pts

1 base of Mortar Militia = 20 pts

1 Militia Towed Gun with Tow = 30 pts

3 Militia Tanks = 180 pts

2 Militia Trucks with AA = 60 pts

All bases are magetised.

AK-47 Air Support Group Build - Finished!

 This MiG-19W as flown by Polkovnik Abdelmajid ar-Arkoub against the <redacted> in 1973. This aircraft was assigned to the 2nd Fighter Bomber Interceptor Recce squadron "The One and Only" of the Wadiyan Airforce.

12 of these were donated as a goodwill gesture by the NVA of the DDR, with 11 arriving in December of 1971 as deck cargo on the MV Käthe Niederkirchner (1 fell off after a unfortunate incident involging seagulls). They were quickly repainted in Wadiyan Desert Camouflage and updated to their standards, giving it the "W" moniker. After a 6 month workup the squadron became active in mid 1972, and quickly beloved by the population surrounding of the Base aérienne 3 "Capitaine El-Raffiki". 

Highly rated by their pilots, the aircraft flew several succesfull missions against <redacted> and racked up a impressive kill list. Many enemy fighter aircraft and installations were destroyed, and any UN claims about destroyed hospitals, goat farms and orphanages are pure propaganda.

"1-358" was lost after the Crew Chief had the bright idea to speed up the roasting of Shawarma by using the exhaust of one of the engines. This worked like a charm, till he accidentally kicked off the brakes and slammed his head on the gunsight, knocking him out (allegedly). "1-358" then sped up between the semi closed shelter doors, ripping off part of the wings, speeding across the airbase before coming to a halt at the local goat farm next to the base. And exploding in a pretty spectacular fashion. Shame about the prize goat Fatima II and her many, many offspring, but she was great with some hummus and garlic sauce in the end. To this date that area still smells like delicious grilled goat. 

It was a fun build. I could have done a lot more but deadlines are deadlines, so this is where it ends.

  

Ak-47 Air Support Group Build - Putting on some colour

 I wanted to grab my airbrush....but I can't find them.

Fine, I'll use spraycans....but I can't find my AK Putty. 

Fine, I'll order some online so it is here tomorrow. None left in the entire country.

Fine, I'll use masking tape and just get very annoyed. And then the first spray came out powdery.

For the love of.....


Anyway, much frustration later the basics are done.

Tomorrow gloss up so I can add the decals, then modify them. Try and do the basic cokcpit and any other details I have time for. 

AK-47 Air Support Group Build - Wadiyan Close Air Support

 This one is running till November 9th so I'm getting a bit short on time. I had planned to do a MiG-15 but I can't find the bloody box.....typical.

Went into the attic and grabbed a Tamiya 1/100 MiG-19. Partially built it so I can fill the gaps with filler tomorrow and clean it up. Need to go out and find those plugs that go with my flightstands, but that is for tomorrow.

With some time left over I did another once over my decals box to see which one I can modify for Wadiya. Now, there are no known markings for Wadiya, so anything goes. As I have a lot of spare NVA decals, I decided to go with that and use them as the basis. A bit of work in Paint using the colours of Wadiya and there you go. I have a nice pile of 1/300 black or white stars around here as well. This should work. In theory....

Bacon Buddies

 Pig pen for Nam and AK-47 (though pork in a Islamic country.....yeah, let's ignore that bit)

15mm pigs from Peter Pig, scrap MDF base, some matches, ribbed card and plastic H0 Faller fencing, cut down a bit to fit in better with 15mm. My first time trying out wet mud and earth paste from AK that I picked up for The Last War. Works like a treat I say. Not much else to say, need to make a few more village items, but maybe better to focus on a few figgies now.

Finishing a quickbuild (9 months later) - 15mm Fishing Boat (or Mistery Machine)

 I finished the fishing boat I started in August of last year, see here: Quickbuild Fishing Boat

I added a mast, resin tires, more netting and then the top light broke off, then reprimed it and it sat abandoned in a box for 8 months, until refound during one of my many, many cleanups (though it never seems to get much cleaner, funny that).

Spent 2 sessions painting it and getting it ready for pictures, and yet again I realised while checking the pictures on my PC that I had inadvertently painted a somewhat familiar scheme.

Just a bit less bright than this....

Also, I need to make a few docks, I should prep some of the big blocks of wood I have with filler to make concrete piers or something.

 Anyhoo....

"One of the many small fishing boats fishing for sardines off of the coast of Wadiya, KG 3 is nice and bright with the usual eyes on the bow to ward off bad luck. To date, she has never burned down and only dragged a naval mine once"

She is one of a set of 4 boats from Kibri, set 39160 which can be had for about 20-ish euros per 4. 

Monument Groupbuild - The Roundabout Monument

 

In 1906, the first roundabout was built in Wadiya, starting a world wide craze and the obvious lie that the British created the first Roundabout in 1907. Its creation was documented in The Wadiyah Times on opening day April 1st 1906, sadly the records were lost when the paper burned down in 1965.

To commemorate the 50th year since its creation, a large monument was erected in the middle of the roundabout in 1966. This did create a sharp increase in donkey related fatalities, something the Department of Tobacco, Donkeys and Firearms strongly denies. 

This was my backup entry after I wrecked the original one. I hope to get that fixed somewhere in the future. Dimensionally it is overly large and I left off most scale specific items on this, so it is also playable for 28mm. I've made a "after the Revolution" copy as well to use after the loss of a game or to recapture it. Just for funsies. I'll post up the other entries as well after the deadline expires. 

 

 

The Special Objective - a AK-47 Group Build - "The Red Herring Fish Factory"

 

And it is done, the Red Herring Fish Factory Special Objective. 

 

Situated in in the coastal city of Aladinea, Republic of Wadiya, the factory supplies the beautiful people of Wadiya with work for 20 men and a few children. Most of the cans are exported to the Sovjet Union, where they are used to stock up air raid shelters with delicious and nutritious seafood. It is not exported to Western countries due to biased claims and market protection schemes. Listeria never killed anyone in Wadiya, so it is 110% safe. Very Aladeen. 

 

The original factory was started in the early 1900's by the French in their colonial days. This factory later burned down. In WW1 a new cannery was erected to supply the French army during the war. The building was finished in 1919 and subsequently burned down in the riots during the coup d'etat of 1927.

A new factory was built shortly before WW2 and this supplied canned fish to the Axis powers. This was then bombed by the British Royal Air Force in 1944 and burned down. In what can only be described as sheer tenacity, another factory was built a few years after the war and as mentioned, supplied canned fish to the Sovjet Union. Shortly after taking these pictures, a unfortunate incident happend and the factory burned down. Again. The resulting explosion of fish pulp and oil flung the massive Red Herring sign across the bay and right onto the yacht of the Admiral of the Wadiyan Navy, Abdel Ranka, killing him and seven of his mistresses. Admiral Abdel Ranka was posthumously declared a Hero of Wadiya and mentioned in the Guiness Book of Records as the man who caught the biggest herring on record. Again, very Aladeen.

And that's it. A complete scratchbuild, a core of foam coated in card, with some scrap lasercut card from other projects, lead wire, some magnets, and a 3D printed VW Beetle. A nice mix of old and new techniques (to me). Some things worked, others not so much. The signs are magnetised (else it would not fit in the storage box, plus that gives extra space to mount a AA gun or a glorious flag) and I've already started work on additonal pieces so I can use it for other games as well. Hope you like :)