I really like the idea of star wars armada but the cost is far too much for my meager budget. Also I note that the models are not to scale, I think you can't have the epic feel of star wars when the big ships don't dwarf the smaller ones. Doing some internet snooping I found utar ships that do in scale craft but his not producing at the moment that led me to odyssey slipways  that do 1/10000 scale ships. They are only available from one shop in America not real cheap but I got some.when they came I found them too small for my taste. So I looked on shapeways for some 1/7000 scale ships but they all were in FUD and costed just as much as armarda ships. So I decided to bite the bullet and do some 3d modelling with some help from son no1 to get started I found it quite easy. So star wars ships in 1/7000 and printed in white and strong as shapways calls it meaning a rebel assault frigate costs just £8. any way heres what i got so far i'll post back when i paint some

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 . 

BATTLEFLEET GOTHIC

Tried a small game of battlefleet gothic

 just a small battle for my first try of this game, i always liked the look of it but never got round to buying it and now that i have GW have stopped making the ships. I seam to be cursed like that, i brought at-43 just as rackham gave up and starship troopers just as mongoose dumped it.
Anyway on with the report, first the fleets:-

Chaos
1x Styx heavy cruiser
2x murder cruiser
1x slaughter cruiser

Imperial
1x overlord  battlecruiser
1x gothic cruiser
1x dictator cruiser
3x cobra destroyers

the imperials formed their cruisers up in the centre and split the cobras off to the side to attempt a flank attack, in retaliation the chaos fleet formed the murders up on the Styx opposite the imperial cruisers and sent the slaughter of to keep an eye on the cobras.                                             

Chaos moved first,the murders made full ahead towards the imperial cruisers while the Styx moved minimum distance and launched fighters while the slaughter made a run on the cobras eyeing up some easy kills.In the shooting phase only the Styx was in range and its lances bounced harmlessly off the dictator's shields.

The imperials sent their overlord and gothic forward at full speed with both ships making a 45 degree turn to unmask their starboard batteries,the dictator advanced forward at minimum speed and launched fighters and torpedoes.The cobra destroyers closed with the chaos slaughter and launched torpedoes at it.The imperial fire targeted the two murders but only manged a couple of blast markers on each the batteries failing to cause any damage.The cobras managed to get a blast marker on the slaughter with their combined batteries.                                                                           

The second chaos turn saw the murders brake into the imperial cruiser formation with the Styx trying to stay out of the way, the slaughter couldn't manoeuvre enough to get in on the cobras so kept on going.In the shooting phase the murders could use both side's batteries and worked the imperial cruisers over the gothic took the worst of it and was reduced to half damage the overlord took two hits, at least the dictator got away with only a blast marker. The Styx missed with all its fire and the slaughter only manged to destroy one cobra with is batteries and lances'.

Close up of the cruiser clash, poor old gothic on the left there smashed by two strength 10 batteries at point blank range.

 

The cobras swing onto  the slaughter's aft and the imperial cruisers just moved the minimum so they could reply to the beating they had received. Some stinky dice rolls saw the 3 cruisers only inflict 2 damage points on each of the murders and the cobras couldn't get any on the slaughter.

The 2 murders turned port and starboard respectively to come back around on the imperials and sensing victory the Styx also closed in, meanwhile the slaughter tried to use its speed to get away from the trailing cobras.Murder No1 and the Styx concentrated fire on the gothic and were rewarded with a massive explosion as it was vapourised and with some good shooting murder No.2 finished off the overlord as well.

Oh dear with 2 cruisers reduced to atoms the heart had been torn out of the imperial fleet. All that remained now was the hope off restoring some imperial honour.The dictator drew along side the Styx and the cobras continued their chase of the slaughter. Unfortunately for the imperials the dictators guns didn't score any hits on the Styx.

The murders swung around on the dictator and the Styx hung close, the slaughter also decided to close on the dictator and ignore the cobras.Lances and batteries pounded the dictator, who succumbed under the onslaught.

With no cruisers  left for the imperials the game was over, and the chaos could report to their masters that they had smashed the imperial fleet without any losses of their own.

Only after the game was over did i realise that ordinance moves in both sides turns, that fact might have helped the imperials get some hits with their torps which could have meant things went differently early on but oh well . Still i liked the game and it played quick and easy now all i need is a source of proxy ships so i can expanded the fleets.

Warfare reading (show)

Me and the boy went to warfare in reading last weekend. First thing I would say is don't drive if you can use public transport. Now we started the day an arrow shot away from rivermead, where it is held but some difficult deity saw fit to put the Thames in the way, so it took us 20 minutes to get there only to discover that the car park was full and so were all the streets In the area, so after about an hour we actually got into the show. Now it's been  3 years since I last went so I can only compare it to that. No queues this year we got straight in at 11.30, they give you a badge to wear (they do check) and first stop was the bring and buy. Hmm not as much on sale as last time and a big drop in the amount of GW (boy was miffed). Next it was into the main selling hall not quite as busy as last time, you could actually move this time. Good range of manufacturers and sellers again though much to the disgust of the boy there was a lack of GW sellers both new and second hand, their new terms having an effect I suppose. All the big games were on sale, bolt action seemed to be the biggist and thier was plastic box sets all over the place. plastic soldier company the most with their own stand and on lots of other stands too. I was a bit gutted as I was looking for some dropzone commander but apart from the two player starter there was none. Now if you haven't been to warfare before but you have other wargames shows you would think that the demo and particpation games take Center stage, no at warfare they are in a different hall further on from the hall with the sellers and with a very uneven floor, so me and the boy only gave it a quick recon, some good looking games but the school diner hall feel to it didn't make us linger. So warfare great for shopping not do good gaming a bit down on previous years and leave the car at home 

Return

Been quite a while since I last posted, that's been due to a house move. I lost my wooden shed In the garden but gained a slightly bigger brick one(upgrade!) and an office for painting but with the packing and sorting the new house out I haven't done any modelling lately . Hopefully soon I while get back to it .

Where've i gone?

a house move has caused a lack of posts and a lack of wargaming type behaviour but I'm settled in now and things are starting to happen such as this

OMWB

Progress on the tanks a bit slow I'm waiting for some paint to come. I need Vallejo Russian uniform for the British tanks after having looked it up online. Never ceases to amaze me how difficult it is to get the right shade of paint. Now i know that its a bit hard to find exact colour references for old camo schemes but the paint manufacturer's must have i good idea and why cant they call colours what they are for .I find it hard to believe there is no market for British armour late war green and don't get me started on Luftwaffe colours. If you make model paints for models make them for the models so we don't have to mix, oh and i know battlefront do sprays for armour colour i tried that once but it comes out thick and obliterated the detail.

Tanks!!!

i think I've had enough of painting planes, so I'm going to start some blitzkrieg commander late war armies. i always thought i would do late war flames of war because that's what people here play but having had the rulebook for a while and read through it it just doesn't work for me.So even if it means playing solo I'm going to do it because all my favourite vehicles are in service in 1944
Here is my first purchase just to wet my appetite.

C-in-c cromwells

C-in-c jagdpz iv70

Stormtroopers

I decided it was time to add some stormtroopers to my imperial guard army. i'm going to use wargames factory greatcoat troopers for them.
here is what you get in a box:-

 

Battletech elementals

here is a base of elementals i made to look like they are jumping

just stuck them on some thin brass rod and covered it with cotton wool, bit of paint and boing!

imperial guard

Anyone who has ever had any Mutant chronicles warzone plastic figures will know they are quite resistant to normal polystyrene cement when it comes to gluing them together, this can make constructing them quite a slow and frustrating process. I don't know what it is about them but they are made in a different kind of plastic to normal model kits, the other day i came across this in the local hardware store

This was just the job, it made constructing them a breeze and here's the result of an evenings work

 

wargames illustrated 307

just like the other mags this month WI has got a lot of Gettysburg content, including a 10 page battle report (too long!!!!)and then a 12 page battle report considering neither is of the whole battle this is overload, battle reports are good but this is too much detail for a magazine. the space could have been better used for some coverage of other periods, also featuring heavily is FOW Vietnam not surprisingly since its battlefronts latest release. now I've seen many a comment about how battlefront is trying to ram tanks where they don't belong and pretend they were there all along which i kind of agree but they do take a bit of what if to it so if they sold it as recreating the war that America wanted rather than what happened  that would make sense but nonetheless you get 3 articles on FOW tour of duty (interestingly the advert for FOW box sets shows more tanks than infantry even though they date the rules 1965-71 before any of the actual large tank battles) rest of the magazine has a look at tanks in the first world war and a brief overview of vikings couple a looks at demo games and a play through of some gunfight rules. so good if you like ACW if not avoid

A game!

 a lack of gaming has been causing withdrawal symptoms so to get a quick fix i set up a game of battletech yesterday when i had a spare hour. The forces involved were a clan Thor vs a star league Avatar and Owens.

starting positions

the star league mechs advance into the forest while the Thor jumps into cover

The avatar walks forward while the Owens makes a run for the edge to try and flank the Thor, the Thor meanwhilele lines up a shot, the Thor and avatar exchange fire but no-one hits(lousy dice)

Having lost the initiative the Thor sits still while the Owens sprint for the rear and the avatar walks into better range. The Thor scores a pulse laser and srm6 while the avatar only hits with its large laser

the Thor isn't having any luck and loses the  initiative again so jumps back but it doesn't stop the Owens from getting to the rear , the avatar closes the range.

boom the Thor blows and arm off the avatar with a ac/20 hit but takes a bunch of mrm's in the centre torso along with 2 medium and 1 large laser causing criticals and when the Owens hits in the back of the centre too its all over 3 engine hits, i think the Thor was all ways struggling when it couldn't win the initiative after the first turn but still my blood lust has been slated for now.

Miniature wargames

Managed to get into a smiths last week and get a copy of the revamped MW.
now MW and battlegames have been merged together starting with this issue, i would have to say that despite the title this is battlegames they just kept the MW title because its better known. The editor states that they will keep sci-fi and fantasy in the mag but apart some reviews of models and making a Saladin for U.N.I.T (a real vehicle not really sci-fi) its all gone only time will tell if non historical comes back i for one I'm going to miss darker horizons. I liked having all the news from the smaller manufactures gathered up in one place because I'm lazy and can't be bothered to search around the Internet for it (and anyway there's nowhere to plug my PC into in the bathroom and the wife says having an extension cable in the bath is dangerous). i understand the decision to merge the two mags it is silly for one publisher to print two wargames magazines but even though the new MW is a fine mag, nice range of articles the old MW was the only mag left that dealt with sci-fi, fantasy of a non gw variety( i suppose that should tell me that sci-fi doesn't sell) i wish the ancible still did print.
As for the mag itself its new look is good bright clean, you've got a couple of battle reports (dark ages again!) one of which does drag on a bit but i suppose since its for the new game dux bellorum it would help would be purchasers. a basic photography article (read it all before, should start listening) quite a long construction article on building a house , some rules for using toy (and i mean TOY)soldiers in a wargame, a mini campaign for the armada, some scenarios for hells highway using blitzkrieg commander(yeah!) even with the long report on dux bellorum you get dux a second time this time of the dux britanniarum variety (you can have any wargame you like as long as its the dark ages!). a piece on using 2d figures for wargaming ( this really is a Battlegames article) usual reviews with quite abit of opinion especially  against FOW (mind i like opinions good or bad) with ANOTHER dark age rule set and a book about Arthur, and i used to like the dark ages arrgh! still if you liked battlegames you'll like this mag if you where more of a MW fan you might be left a bit sad for what once was.

Pe-2

Russian Heroics& ross 1/300th PE-2

Wargames soldiers & strategy 66

just a quick review of the latest WSS, bit of coincidence that the main theme is Gettysburg like wargames illustrated.both trying to get in on the interest with the 150Th anniversary in July but if you haven't got any interest in the ACW it means its a slow month on the wargames reading scene. rest of the mag has a look at the vikings game by peter pig ( dark ages in Vogue at the moment) bit of biblical and another of the lets play articles on skirmish sangin. plus usual reviews of new figures games and books plus don't forget boardgames, and in a shock a review of some 6mm figures from rapier miniatures nice!
with the usual columns from priestley et al makes it a worth while read i recommend it