Completed Projects

I have been a slacker when it comes to posting. I have played many gaming sessions. Mostly Bolt Action and Empire of the Dead. I have played some DBA as well. Including DBA in Ottawa while on a business trip! How about that??!

I've been hard at work on a few things:

This is your standard Deuce and a half. From West Wind's Berlin or Bust line. 

Sherman from Warlord. I want to start building tank platoons. Decided I needed to go with 28mm rather than the 1/48th scale that I was using. 

Couple of Pak40s also from West Wind. I didn't realize there were TWO in the pack until I started to put them together. So I opted for two different color schemes. One your basic German gray.

Lastly, I couldn't resist Uncle 'Thulu from West Wind. He will be my faction leader for Empire of the Dead. I run a Darkfire Faction. Next game this guy will be able to summon zombies! 

(Soon to be) On the Bench

Or on Brian's bench at least.

I joined in another Baueda kickstarter. Because I love Claudio's work. I picked up a DBA Army of Norse Irish (III/46). I need to base them and get them to Brian.

Jon L. was putting in an order for some WWII. I jumped in to get a Berlin or Bust Pak 40 and crew along with a deuce and a half. This will give my germans some needed artillery and my Americans a truck to pull their AT gun around. 

Lastly, some additional US Navy SEALS. These will complement my original Seal Team 6. These guys are awesome. One of them has bolt cutters and a sledge hammer on his back for breaching. Love it. Can't wait to see these. 

Sherman Finished!

 I put some muddy weathering and the dull coat on the Sherman this morning. I am really very happy with how it came out overall. Prime, basecoat, wash, highlight, weather. Those are the steps. I wish I had a bigger decal to lay over the engine vents in the back. But I don't and I am not going to worry about it. I cannot wait to get this thing on the field.

In the picture on the right, I see a tiny problem. There is a vent on the turret that is showing the primer I used. I finished up a can of Army Painter Desert Yellow and you can see it. I will not make that mistake again. I always have primed black. I will start doing that again.

Last note. After I put the decals on, I applied a wash to dirty them up. I left some spotty areas. Those, I think, were quickly fixed by the mud spray effect.

Let me know your thoughts!

Sherman WIP +1

I just finished putting a wash on the Sherman.

Next step is a highlight with a mix of Violet Brown and Desert Yellow on the hull and turret. OOO....I can see some spots on the wheels and tracks that I need to touch up. Son of a biscuit! The wash is drying as I type. I think it looks good. I am going to wash the tracks in a more muddy color - sepia.

I really like the sandbags and other small bits of stowage I have.

WIP: 1:48 scale Sherman

It took me awhile to put together, but I put the treads on over the weekend and primed this 1/48 scale Sherman Tank from Hobby Boss.

The stowage is from a kit by Verlinden. If you look inside the hull in the top picture, you can see the washers I added to make the model a little heavier. I like the size of the 1/48 models for 28mm games. The lightness of the plastic just worries me a little. So I like to weight them down.

I am still on disability from having a blood clot so I will start applying the base coat today. I am waiting on some Army Painter Strong Tone ink to be delivered for the wash.

The Verlinden kit was great. I have a ton of parts left over. The sandbags were easy to manipulate. I love the spare tank tread. I should have taken a rear view...the back has a couple of gas cans and a bucket. But the best part from the kit may have been the antenna. Because the kit asks you to heat up some plastic. Pfft - no way.

Finished US Infantry

I just finished up basing and applying transfers to 20 US Infantry for Bolt Action.

They were painted by Brian out of Pair-A-Dice games in Rochester, NY. Brian did an amazing job! I based them and applied the shoulder patches (flag and rank insignia). I've decided I need glasses on a more permanent basis. :)

The basing was pretty easy. Rock mix, paint and highlight. Static grass. Tuft. I did add a metal washer to the bottom of the Warlord base to give it some weight. The plastic is too light. I find that I knock these things all over the place.

I like the flowers on this guy. I have a set of these. I only added them to a few of the minis. These are white, others are in yellow. I think they make for a nice change of pace from the standard tuft of grass.

Battle Report: Bolt Action Sunday, April 21, 2013

Jon L. and I got in a game of Bolt Action on two Sundays ago. It was Germans vs. Americans for a "Control the Crossroads" scenario. We rolled for table edge, we ended up ignoring one half of Jon's table.

At the end of turn 1, I had deployed on the southern road into the town. I had an armored car make it all the way across the crossroads and start executing a K-turn. My goal was complete fields of fire on that road. My PAK team was set up on the right house in the foreground. I had placed the motorcycle with sidecar to block anything coming out of the fields/bocage to its left.

And Jon had come in from the western road. Notice Jon's Stuart in the middle of the road. He has mortar and machine guns on the hills looking down into the town.

Turn 2: I continue deploying. I have a squad in the house on the left with a panzerfaust thinking about that tank in the front yard. Armored car is right where I want him. MG team in the middle of the road controls that side. Infantry next to the MG is going to sprint across the crossroads next turn and get into the house on the far left. This all starts to unravel when the mortar team at the bottom of the page and the squad in front of it start taking fire.

Jon moves up. He pushes his infantry forward on both sides of the road. The Stuart and supporting teams open up and start dishing out pins and deaths.

I pull a squad back to defend the rear. You can see the pins stacking up on the one squad. Mortar team is almost dead. The squad with the pins was funny, the kept successfully promoting new leaders. It lent itself to funny jokes in bad German accents. :)

Jon has two squads in the foreground. They are causing a lot of trouble. The motorcycle with sidecar is dead. Such a cool model but I find that the jeeps and the motorcycle are quick to die. Jon has also moved into the house on the top of the picture. 

Only one picture for this next round. Armored car starts hitting the Stuart. That's it really.

Pak is KIA. Every one of my units has a pin marker. Not good. Plus side is that the MG in the road is just waiting for the unit in the far house to pop out.

Stuart taking hits. One stinking pin marker on one of the two units in the woods to my rear. 

The armored car destroyed the Stuart. This was the one bright spot of the battle. There was also a point where the Stuart FUBARed and killed one of Jon's infantry. That effectively DOUBLED my kill count. :(

Jon broke from the woods and just tore me up. I pulled the armored car down to try to help. It didn't. The rout was on. Americans take the crossroads. 

All in all, I do like this game. I like the rule set. Not overly complicated. I think I had a decent plan. I left the motorcycle exposed. That was a mistake. I maybe should have brought the Pak up instead of leaving it behind. Hard to tell. Bad die rolls and a couple of pins and it starts to go bad in a hurry.

WIP: 28mm Modern MRAP

I can't remember where I bought this mini. But I thought I would update from a Humvee since the MRAP is currently the replacement in Afghanistan for the Humvee. The model is not the greatest. I am not sure if it was a bad mold or what. But I am not that good of a modeller to correct the imperfections.

I am, once again, using Sgt. Scream's method/color scheme. The shot on the left shows a primed, sepia washed and then dry brushed with the Vallejo's DESERT YELLOW (70977) with two parts Vallejo's BEIGE (70917) mix that Chris recommends.

Over on the right, you see the MRAP primed with The Armypainters' primer called DESERT YELLOW and washed with Vallejo's Sepia Wash. I am not brave enough for Chris' oil based wash. The sepia seems to do the trick.

The place that I got this from put the gunner in for free for me. As I look at these pictures, I may have to carve him out of there. He looks too futuristic to me.

Battle Report: Bolt Action January 20, 2013

Jon L. organized a Winter Games Day at his church in Henrietta yesterday. I got in another fun game of Bolt Action. We played a 2 on 2 game. I brought my American Airborne supplemented by another airborne unit of Jon's. My partners had British troops. We were playing against Gary C. and Bo as the Germans. The scenario was for the Germans to "hold until relieved" the crossroads in the middle of the town. Here's a shot of the initial deployment:

My forces are deployed on the bottom quadrant (if you will). Bo had an infantry unit hiding in the leftmost house on the far side of the road. There is an observer and a MG team in the right most house on the far side of the road too.

We essentially played two games on the same board. We weren't really all that integrated in our attacks. It was me against Bo. My plan was to run around the left flank, let my mortar team do its job and then clear houses and Bo's mortar.

Turn 2 or 3 on the right. I have a command stand on the corner of the near house. These are working as observers for my mortar. I have an MG team in the house too. Infantry is in cover except from the mortar. Mortar mechanics are interesting. It takes a 6 to hit the first time. If the target does not move it goes to a 5 and so on. If you hit, from then on, it hits on a 2. As long as the target doesn't move.

I think I missed a picture. My mortars hit. Bo's mortar kept missing. I hit the house with Bo's infantry. Resulting in a pin marker. Pinning is a dynamic part of the rules that can be your friend or enemy. You have to rally from it. And you take -1 penalties for every marker when shooting. Bo took out my MG team in the house. My infantry teams landed some hits. I effectively took his team  out of commission. I kept the pressure on.

This is a close up of the current turn. Bo did manage to take out some of my Airborne. But I continue the press.

You can see the pin markers stacking up on Bo. The funny side action is in the foremost house on the right. Bo ran a command section at my mortar. They are between the houses. I moved a bazooka team into the house. They are literally right on top of Bo's unit. Neither of us could hit each other! It was funny.

I missed another shot here. I took out the unit in the house finally. Bo actually rolled double 6s which is a FUBAR role. The unit ran from the house into the crossroads and were cut down by my allies. I also took at a MG team that Gary backed out of the house. Another instance of getting some pin markers down. I took out the mortar team. Then I started running towards the crossroads. This was the final turn. We actually failed the objective. We did not take the crossroads. I needed another turn.

I really like this game. 2 on 2 bogged down a little bit with the dice pulls. We could have easily played it as 2, 1 x 1 games. I am really looking forward to playing this more.

WIP: US Modern Vehicles Final

Thanks to Chris over at Small Scale Operations for the reminder that I never posted the final pictures of the US Modern vehicles I was working on!

I used Chris' paint scheme on these. I think it worked out very well. Keep in mind, these are the first things I have painted in 20 years. So be gentle with me. :)

Click the pictures to see them on a bigger scale. No decals on the humvees. I couldn't find enough surface area to use. And I am too shaky to free hand a chevron.

You can go here to see these minis in action. I was rushing to get these ready for the AK47 game in the battle report.

AK47 Battle Report: November 10, 2012

I got together with Gary, Mark and Mike on November 11, 2012 to play AK47. Gary had cooked up a scenario for us that allowed me to bring my US Marines. We basically ended up playing two 2 on 2 games on the same table. (Gary's table is about a football field in length).

I am still very much in the learning phase of AK47. This picture shows me trying to correct my mistake of driving into the town. I could have easily gone toe to toe with Gary's Africans but do to my stupidity with movement, I spent a lot of the game inching my way across the table.

The picture on the right shows my continuing blunders with movement. I went up on the hill on the left. My strategy from the jump was flawed. Take the hill. Take the town. It should have been, take the fight to them. Go AROUND the hill and the town. Gary blew up an infantry stand with an artillery strike. My Abrams tank was a reserve unit and I tried to get him into action as quickly as possible.

Here comes Gary's horde. They finally make it across the river. I am still trying to get my Bradley's out of the town. Gawd.

I did NOT get any pictures of the corner to the top left of these pictures. I actually had a helicopter on the board that spent a lot of time trying (successfully) to light up one of Gary's infantry stands.

Just in time for the time clock to expire, I finally start doing some damage. The Abrams is hammering away. The humvees are too. The Bradleys have caused a rout. It was not looking good for Gary's troops. :)

I definitely want to play on a smaller table. 3x3. Maybe 4x4. I really like the AK47 rule set. I love the random chaos it creates. I want to amp that up by closing the quarters a bit.

WIP: US Modern Marines

The figures are Modern US Marines from Rebel Minis. I bought an infantry pack and a command pack. (I also bought a pack of contractors but those will be saved for later.) I primed the minis with Army Painter Desert Yellow.

After priming, I gave them all a wash of Vallejo Sepia Wash (73300).

The first layer is a mix of 60% (ish) Vallejo British Tank Crew (321 Panzer Ace) and 40% (ish) Vallejo White (951 Model Colour). I am borrowing the scheme from a description on the Eureka forums for Moderns. I was trying for a dark sand look, almost clay. Almost gray. And I did a highlight. Very rough, I know I overlapped onto equipment, etc. But I like the shade from the wash. So I am sticking with it.

Next, I will do the packs and gear. I have a scheme for those as well.

WIP: Modern US Vehicles IV

I applied the first dry brush highlight. I say first because I am already thinking about a final highlight of a lighter color just to pick off the edges.

I used a 1:1 mix of Vallejo Iraqi Sand (819) and Pale Sand (837).

And I am still following (mostly) Sgt. Scream/Chris's scheme. I like it. I am not sure the pictures are doing it justice. But these models look like they belong in the desert or even Afghanistan to me. Tomorrow, I will try to hit the black. Tracks and tires. And the weaponry.

I am planning on playing some Bolt Action tomorrow! Can't wait.

WIP: Modern US Vehicles III

The second layer is a 2:1 mix of Vallejo Beige (917) and Vallejo Desert Yellow (977).

I used a heavy dry brush technique. I can already see the difference between the completed tank and these models. The heavy handed dry brush lets more of the wash show.

Again, just the first coat. I need to paint the stowage and the treads/tires. And highlight.

Next step is the first true highlight layer.