Spray paint

Got a can of plastic soldier company's spray paint with a view to using it to mass paint my russians quickly, was a bit worried, as the paint is for use on larger scale models, and also is designed to be used as a primer and base coat all in one, that it might obliterate the detail on my 1/285th models.
So i gave it a try on a c-in-c t34 and while i was at it i had a can of battlefront's middlestone spray for german armour knocking around so gave that a go on a ghq stug as well.

  They came out pretty well. Coverage is good and i didn't lose any of the fine detail.This is going to really speed up painting large numbers of tanks. One word of caution if you try it is when you first spray don't panic as it looks like a lot of the detail is gone but as the paint dries it returns.

ISU-152

Here is a soviet heavy SU regiment equipped with isu-152's,
just right for suppressing german 88's. 

At Last!!

A post!
been a while since i last posted, things have been up and down, but everything is better with tanks so here is some pictures of what i've been upto
Got my hands on some GHQ models and i have to say they might not be cheap but you can certainly tell the difference.
befitting these quality models i tried stepping up the painting with adding in some dry brushing for a first time for me. even though i'm still getting the hang of it i am pleased with the result and i shall be using it on all my painting jobs from now on.
Still cant get my static grass to stand up well though.
Jagdpanther (yet to add unit id to base) 

Brumbar

Hetzer

 more stuff coming soon hopefully

Unit ID

In a new first i based some units with static grass. I used 1mm static grass so it didn't look to tall but I'm still working on how to get it to stand up.Also with these units i printed out some unit id's to go on the rear of the bases, since i play blitzkrieg commander or spearhead each base represents a platoon, it just kind of adds a little something to the story of the game at least that's what i think anyway.

                      Cromwell squadron

                                      close up of base

           Some Pz iv/70 of 116th panzer division
                             

H&R He177

I painted this up and it didn't seem quite right to me, on closer inspection in some books i noted that the model represents an early mark where;s the most numerous and version i, like the A-5 has two turrets on the upper body. So i decided to add these with modellers putty and put some machine guns made out of household paint brush bristles much better.

 

Lost my bag of flight stands somewhere in the house move so its grounded for now.As for the colour scheme i went for German day bomber colours as i see this aircraft hitting targets on the eastern front using its speed and altitude to avoid russian fighters, can never get mottling to work though must get an airbrush at some point.

Wargames illustrated 316

A  couple of different things from the WI team this time, one meh and one very interesting.
The theme this month instead of being one war or campaign is assaults from the sea. OK sort of a theme but given the different periods apart from water being involved not really connected.You  could say any battle anywhere ever is linked to any other because people fought each other using weapons , so it didn't really work never mind on to the good news SOMETHING NON HISTORICAL! WI have all ways resisted having anything sci-fi or fantasy in it so this is a major departure for them, we are talking dust here, an alternate WW2 involving alien tech. Its a 28mm minis game, I've liked the look of this for some time. bit like AT-43 which i liked alot but set in WW2 even better. It didn't seem to be catching on much but its relaunching and its made the mainstream wargamming press, hang on a minute though hasn't battlefront taken over dust? ah ha that's why its in WI (hello GW anyone?)oh well if the game is good and i really like the look of the German walkers it can't hurt, all it needs now is a proper British army to use in it.as for the rest of the mag you get a feature on battlefronts other releases this month - desperate measures for flames of war . I've been thinking of starting FOW and this mights just tip me over the edge because the German player can have anything he wants(pziv/70's backed by jagdpanthers with assault rifle inf nice) some pirates, some zulus, some boxers and the obligatory ACW but no vikings just saxons assaulting from the sea, they also show you how to make some of hobarts funnies in case you want to show the Americans how to assault a beach without risking tom hanks.
Fair mag it rolls 3 sixes on 5 d6
(Boooo i'm not in any of the pics of warfare in reading)

Wargames soldiers & strategy No70

First up is the figure review section 4 pages of pics of unpainted figures, i know you could see this on the Internet but you'd have to know where to look. This little spot might show up some ranges you didn't know of before and i do like seeing figures unpainted really shows you what you would have to work with.rick Priestley's column talks about terrain and then there is an interview with the 4ground people(2 pages) followed by a 2 page France vs Spain 16th century battle and a slightly longer piece on Pegasus bridge. next up is a piece by  teacher on how he  uses wargames to teach history, wish my teacher had done this, would have beaten writing essay's on what it felt like to be a 16th century peasant(crap i expect). A new faction for 'in her Majesty's name' comes next then its on to this months theme which is the successors of Alexander. 27 pages all told including rules for a campaign in Syria ,using dux bellorum for the period, stealing elephants and a pontic vs Rome scenario. The figure round up at the end again shows 6mm as well as the larger scales which pleases me, all though poor old heroics & ros let alone irregular don't get a look in.4 painting articles and couple of columns and with the reviews top the mag off, me thinks the painting stuff was a bit more than usual maybe drop a couple for some more history of the successors, but it seems that most wargames mags are shying away from the background history these days. i know you can just look it up on wiki or buy a book that covers it much better but still  i'm sure just  a little wouldn't hurt we aren't reading nuts or zoo here. I'm sure the readers can handle it without getting bored. overall a bit of a slip for WSS this month. in my new ranking system this mag rolls only 3 sixes out five dice

Miniature wargames 369

Reading, reading,reading. Seems like all I'm doing lately is reading gaming mags, had quite a few to catch up on from before Christmas maybe I should just stop buying them but what else do you do sat on the loo or in the bath?
After the last MW I brought I didn't think I would buy another one but a glanced at this one in smiths and saw that the sci-fi was back so I gave it a go.
Now MW is the only wargames mag in the UK that doesn't have a theme each month so the chance of it having something of interest is high but then if the theme is your period then you've scored big. I'm not sure which still I prefer. Anyway on with the mag, first few pages covers news which unfortunately in this techno gizmo age isn't news any more, then we get a 3 page article on making huts from cardboard tube, I like these build your own terrain articles, haven't done any yet but one day.
Then YES!!! 4 pages of sci-fi releases. This is what I used to buy MW for I I'm glad it's back, their are so many small sci-fi figure makers out there to many to keep track of, so it's much better that some guy does it for me. You can google historical  because you know what to put but if I've never heard of it how can I find it? This section in my eyes has always been MW selling point and with the line between historical and fantasy gaming getting more blurred all the time MW needs to keep it up. I wouldn't be surprised if WSS and WI start to follow suit as well. Next a 3 page piece on a 7th century British battle with a nice pre battle add on game to enhance the coming battle clever .
then you get a Christmas themed skirmish game oddly  enough set in Napoleonic Spain or warhammer 40k , i don't think I've seen a wh40k article outside of white dwarf for 30 years. Then you get one of those get the author to explain his thinking about his rules' articles that all the wargames seem to love right now but at 8 pages i think this one was a bit to heavy.5pages of Boer war follow some history and a scenario, and same again but featuring mongols in the Caucasus,the Caucasus is one of my favourite areas for wargaming history, Khazar's, Georgians, mongols!, army group south etc. shame its only 3 pages but its part of a series so i'll keep an eye on this. 4 page interview with mr ground zero games(second bit of sci-fi, sweet!) is up next and then a filler in on the royal mails crazy outlook on paint this is really stupid on their part, i want some plastic soldier company spray but ill have to pay to have it couriered which is almost as much as the paint itself this must be hurting online games shops and doesn't really make much sense, i don't know how many paints leak in the post but i bet it isn't many. sort of interesting piece on varnish i probably like a lot of others thought gloss varnish was stronger than matt butt apparently not go figure. The rest of the magazine is made up of reviews. one thing that you cant say about MW is that they can be brought if they think something is bad they say so that's what you need from a review.
well i have to say after the disappointment of last time this edition is much improved more like the MW of old and not like battlegames, maybe they listened to me last time although a doubt it but still ill take the credit in my own head and if in case they are listen the contents page ? since you can see the contents page on MW's website i think it would be a good idea if it actually said what each article was about not just the title and author that means nothing to me what period is it, what kind of article is it  i think that is what a contents page should tell you. 
ps google's spell check doesn't know the word google someone at corporate needs to get on that.

 

Wargames soldiers & strategy No69

Ahh WSS it's no secret that this is my favourite but does this month's offering measure up? Well let's see.
This months theme is the Cold War (not bad, my first historical wargamming was 1/300th modern tank battles back in the early nineties when Russia was still the enemy)  plenty of articles covering 21 pages which is not as heavy as WI is with its themes which depending on if you like the theme is a good/bad thing, even covers the rules available and admits that 1/300 exists in the figures ranges overview which WI does not(very often) the rest of the magazine had a medieval Scots vs English battle,2 pages. A piece on the long range desert group,3 pages. Some Napoleonic,5 pages. An ACW battle,3 pages plus 3 modelling articles and a bunch of columns and reviews . All in all a good magazine up to the usual standard my only complaints would be I don't know why they still review board games and they needed to have bunged in something for the ancients player

Wargames illustrated 314

Thought I had a reason I wanted to buy this so got it without looking inside whoops!
The main theme is Spanish war of succession, if you like horse and musket or London fashion week then you'll love this, me I like camo or chainmail so the 34 pages in 4 articles on this was a bit of a bust and to finish you off they throw in 6 more pages of ACW officer uniforms( doesn't that belong in an osprey?) .Still we get an introduction to fow latest desperate measures 4 pages just an extended advert really shame. They give you the rules to skyraiders in tour of duty( give me a b52 strike danger close , game over) 6 pages on Gettysburg (again) to keep the yanks happy, then you get an article on 18th century Belgium robbers ( actually a bit interesting) and a piece on the start to Jutland, World War One navel. There are also 3 articles just kind of like columns or blog posts sort of about wargames but not about actual games of war if you see what I mean. So all in all about a usual effort from WI. Outside of the main theme not much background history or fluff as the sci-if gamers call it and you  couldn't really say it had something for everyone .