Cangames 2026 - Random Table Shots

Howdy folks,

As has been tradition for myself for sometime now, the past weekend was attendance at Cangames time! A great way to pass the long weekend, and this year was no exception, in fact I think the Con was even better this year. Not only did I build up the courage (and fight procrastination) to run a game, it was fully attended and then some...more on that in a later post.

This post is all about the 'random' table shots that I was able to grab...the games and tables that I was able to fit in between the schedule. It felt like there was an increase in games overall, and the miniature table top was no different in that respect. There were some classic, some that I wasn't familiar with, and some new favourites.

Hope you enjoy the pics.

Force on Force (FoF) has become somewhat of a classic staple at Cangames, and there ware folks who travel from abroad to make it just for the FoF. Chris ran another scenario this year, I wasn't able to get in on the game, but this one looks like a different setting compared to years past. Chris runs his FoF in 20mm scale and always has a very dynamic scenario for players.

Ed and Andrew came in from the Maritimes for the day and topped it off with running a 15mm Rapid Fire Ost Front scenario. I tried this one out last year, and really liked the ruleset. I think this scenario is a similar Soviet push against German defenses, but in this case was a little more dynamic with added defense in depth that challenged both players to maximize resources and priorities - do the Sov's get bogged down in mop up or push for the objective prioritizing the threat; do the Germans commit all at once or whittle the Sov's down.

Michael Ball and The Face of Battle was a staple in my 'early' years of attending Cangames, and while he had taken a break from the Con, last year he returned with version 2 of his ruleset. His table is always a treat to look at. I believe he runs his games at 20mm, and in this case we're looking at D-Day-esque adventures.

Last year, Duncan had run a Korean War scenario with B-29's getting bounced hard by North Korean Migs...it was an excellent scenario, and he brought it back this year. The table was pretty straight forward and lots of top gun excitement by everyone. This is the Mig Alley expansion to Blood Red Skies by Warlord Games. The models are great, and hey...who doesn't love a good air combat game?

Chris also ran a couple of serials of The Walking Dead in 28mm. Again, a very popular setting and a lot of fun was had by folks.

Brian always runs a game or two at the Con. This year he had a Pirates inspired game, not sure the ruleset, but the minis looked excellent.

Painting Update - 02 Hundred Hours

Howdy folks,

I hope all is well in your slice of the world. I am sitting her listening to the sound of the wind and sadly seeing all of my snow disappear. Just a quick post today, but wanted to share some progress that I have been making with the Grey For Now games 02 Hundred Hours starter box.

I had posted a while back my absolute joy in having completed the SAS commandos from the starter box, and can happily say that I think I am half way through the German side. Admittedly the progress has been a little slow, with more time taken that I would have liked to square away the painting scheme that I wanted to follow for the German sentries. Yes, I did go down an OCD rabbit hole, but at the same time I found a few excellent blogs and tutorials that I have adapted. As you will see in the pics, I have a mix of early war to late-ish war patterns for my troops. I had never tried early war before, so that was a great exercise and opportunity to use other colours for my Germans beside Vallejo 830.

As much as my OCD was struggling with the paint scheme decision, hands down the activity that took a large amount of time...and literal skin...was the assembly process. The figures are excellent, there is so much detail opportunities in each one. Very very frustrating was the finnicky nature of some of the components, i.e. gun slings breaking, dog leashes being nearly impossible to salvage let alone take off the sprue without any breakage.

I hope you enjoy the pics...more to follow in the future. One thing I will say, these figs as frustrating as they were to assemble are just excellent and were a really great palette cleanser from my Marvel Crisis Protocol push.

Cheers.

Group shot so far…

Two troops kitted up as Military Police…

Not part of the starter box, available separately…German sentry rising late for watch.

Trying out a few different uniform schemes.

German NCO in late-war uniform…and a couple of dogs (there are 6 available in the starter set)

German officers…with and without greatcoat. The figure on the right, I elected to paint-up emulating Henry Cavill’s character from “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare”. The game allows for a commando being dressed undercover with various conditions and movement options. I painted this one up using the coat gets from the raid to liberate Apple.

A few more shots of Herr Cavill. I took one of the arms from the SAS sprues that was sporting a sten smg and I ended up adding a suppressor to go along with the characterization from the movie.

2026's Trek up Mt. Shame

Painted

15mm         0    

28mm+       16, +12

Terrain        0

  

Bought        0

Progress   +16

Last Painting Update of 2025 - horde of Battlefront Minis

Happy pending New Year everyone,

I wasn't sure that I would get this last post of the year in or not...I don't really have a posting plan or anything like that so it is very much "take it as it goes". With that in mind, I did want to throw a few more pics into the internets. These are a smattering of boxes that I picked up some time ago at an excellent discount and thought they would be perfect for my future Afropian campaign in the role of Petoriastan Defence Force (PDF) ala 1950’s and 60’s.

The jeeps, I elected to paint them up as local police and/or military police. I ended up hand painting some tactical symbols and recognition markings (bit more in those later). Overall, I figure that if I keep up with the PDF theme and get enough units I could then set them up even earlier…maybe mid ww2 or somesuch.

Anyhow, a quick post for your end-year. Take care all!

Painted

1/200               4 

15mm          130, +45    

28mm+          38

Terrain           1

  

Bought        42

Progress   +131

Painting Update - US Airborne Artillery

Howdy everyone,

Here's hoping that the Winter season is finding you warm and well. We have a fairly decent amount of snow on the ground...not the most we've ever had, but certainly the best start to a Winter in some time. In this case, we had some wild temperature variations leading into November, but once Winter decided to show up it has been here to stay. We even had some -20 and more temps that we don't normally see until late-December or mid-January.

Anywho, I recently finished up the Battlefront US Parachute 75mm Artillery Battery. To be honest, I had started this box last year when I was pushing through my US paras, and I finished one of the guns and left the other 3 on the table. Well, a bunch of months later and I got around to finishing this battery in its entirety.

I think they'll find a home in WW2 and some post settings...maybe the Afropian frontier beckons?

I hope you enjoy the pics (only a few this time).

Running up that Lead/Plastic Hill...

Painted

1/200             4 

15mm          85, +20    

28mm+        36

Terrain           1

  

Bought        42

Progress   +84

Painting Update - Battlefront Shermans

Howdy everyone,

I hope all is well on your side of the internets, here’s to keeping the plague at bay. Here is a quick post on some more painting that I was able to get finished over the summer. These Shermans are from the Battlefront Open Fire starter box that I had bought years ago. The same box that one of my US airborne infantry platoons came from. If I remember correctly, I think the box came with two platoons/troops of Shermans, but to be honest, after I put these four together I was pretty damned frustrated with these models that I threw the other frames off to the side and gave them no mind.

For this group, I decided to have no markings…this way they could feel at home in any setting…WW2 or post-war or the Afropia region. I did enjoy figuring out the stowage and extra improvised armour thanks to extra track. While the assembly was a major headache, they painted up really well. I am almost convinced that I should grab that last frame and put them together…we’ll see where that takes me.

Anywho, please enjoy the pics.

Running up that Lead/Plastic Hill...

Painted

1/200             4 

15mm          65, +6    

28mm+        36

Terrain           1

Fabricated

     

Bought        42

Progress   +64

Painting Update - Six pack of Assault Guns

Howdy everyone,

I hope November is finding everyone well. It was great to see the snow hit relatively early this year, and not as great to see it go away...although there is a little left on the ground and the temperatures are at least within the norms. As the current year has gone by I see that my blog-fu or steadfastness has waned a little with less posts than I would like. Rest assured, I have continued painting...perhaps at a lower rate, but I am still wading through the crowd on the painting table.

I wanted to throw a quick post at the internets with some models that I completed earlier this year. These are a bunch of SU85's that my buddy Duncan gave to me which he had 3d printed. They were very clean and didn't present any annoying lines and whatnot. I elected to paint them up moreso for post-WW2 than a pure Soviet WW2 unit. 

So, with that as my intent, I went with an olive brown/brown violet base. If I'm honest, I had them socked away for a bit, pulled them out and had SU-122 on the brain and thought, hey I can just paint these up for some possible Cubans as part of Team Yankee Red Dawn...research corrected me rather quickly, but I still painted them up that way. Not only will they serve as fine proxies should I need, but I thought they would do well in the Afropian theatre of operations. Some post-45 Soviet military aid to a developing nation in dire need of a solid ride for their imperious leader.

I hope you enjoy the pics. Cheers.

Running up that Lead/Plastic Hill...

Painted

1/200             4 

15mm          59, +6    

28mm+        36

Terrain           1

Fabricated

     

Bought        42, +6 (I recently bought some Marvel Crisis Protocol figs on sale...couldn't resist). 

Progress   +58

Painting Update - more 02 Hundred

Howdy folks,

I hope all is well on your respective fronts. I will admit the past month or so has been very busy and hasn't given me the chance to post as much as I had initially planned to, hopefully next month will be kinder with that.

Anywho, as the title says, this is a quick update on my painting progress with my 02 Hundred Hours purchases that I made at this years CanGames. I have already finished all of the SAS figures from the starter box, here, and I thought I would keep up with the other Allied troops that I bought. For this post, I present for you, a blister pack that looks to be an assortment from Artizan Miniatures range of WW2 British and Commonwealth.

These have been packaged up for Grey for Now, but looking at Artizan's website, the blister I bought is sourced from SWW115 and SWW118. These are meant for the North Africa expansion and are SAS reinforcements and when I saw them, I figured what the hell...I'll get them, try out the game, and probably pull the trigger on expansions later.

While the starter box and Wargames Atlantic contributions are plastic, these SAS reinforcement figures are metal...so the detail is there, but not as crisp as the plastic sculpts, but they do have some good weightiness to them.

Anyhow, inspired by some Osprey pics and Rogue Heroes stills, I painted them up in what I guess is somewhat classic look...I did not flock the bases as I had originally intended. After I had painted up the bases and added some wash, I thought they were strong enough on their own.

I hope you enjoy the pics.

 

Running up that Lead/Plastic Hill...

Painted

1/200             4 

15mm          53    

28mm+        36, +4

Terrain           1

Fabricated

     

Bought      +36 

Progress   +58