3d terrain

 Printed a piece of sci-fi terrain on my voxlab Aquila, 1time the lines from fdm printing actually help, painted quickly with some GW contrast paints

Dropzone commander

 Late to games as always , collected a 1750 point shaltari army over the last couple of years, just got round to paint it and might actually finish it. Anyway here's some of the progress with some samurai and firstborn infantry, painted with citadel contrast nighthaunt gloom for speed , not completely impressed with contrast paints especially on flat surfaces and it struggles to flow into small holes so had to do a wash of druchi purple over to get some better detail showing

Battletech

 Eridini light horse combined arms company

Airbrush

Managed to bend the needle in my airbrush so used the opportunity to get a new one

It's just a cheap one from ebay but it gets  the job done and I would recommend getting one of you can, I base coated 6 mechs in 20 mins testing it, really speeds the painting process up

Back in the ussr

Time for some Russians

3 t64 1 each of Scotia BPM H&R left to right

6 BMP1p with spandrel not swatter from BPM

1 BRDM2, 1 BRDM3, 1 BMP1,1 SA13, 1 SA8 all H&R except the BRDM2 from BPM

I base my russians at 6 afv to a battalion

So need another 15 t64 to finish the tank regiment, just need to decide which. BPM has better detail but no machine gun so it's a toss up between the other two I think

British 80's task force

A late 80's tank heavy task force for modern spearhead/coldwar commander
3 challenger from ghq,1 the hq from H&R the rest are butler printed models
2 scorpion (1 ghq 1bpm)
3 mcv80(2 ghq 1bpm)
1 fv438 bpm
2 spartan ghq
1 fv432 ghq
1 jaguar H&R
No inf yet cause H&R are closed and I don't like anybody else'
Also shows what happens when you can't remember if you bought summer or spring grass roll for basing

Japanese 1946

This time some Japanese '46 aircraft, a j4m senden pusher fighter and a couple of reverse engineered me262 known as ki201 karyu, the first is a raiden model the ki201s are H&R me262s

TA183 raiden minitures

More Luftwaffe '46 stuff, this time a FW ta183 jet, nice well detailed model

Space!

My new space mat printed on pvc from a hubel image by pixartprinting, cost £18

p59 airacomet 3d print

A bell p59 airacomet, I had this 3d printed at my local library,cost £2, the aircraft it's self was a mediocre jet but in Luftwaffe 46 the us field what ever they can, the model is ok on topside but rough on underside but is ok for the money and spray painted with Vallejo paints easy enough

H&R ar234

A pair of heroics ar234's ready to make a fast run on any bridge that needs bringing down,painted same way as ju287 below

H&R ju287

A pair of heroics ju287 bombers for lutwaffe 46 games, tried GW soulstone technical paint on the cockpits, certainly shinny but not right to me,rest Vallejo rlm paints

Butler's printed models

A selection of 1/300th vehicles from butler's printed models.
BMP-1p
Challenger1
T64BV

I will post pics when I've got them cleaned up

Here is a raiden tempest mkii
This will be part of the british contingent for a Luftwaffe '46 project I've got

Tempest mkV

No post for 4 years, not from lack of painting just not got round to posting, but lets see if I can get in going. First up a couple of raiden tempests

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