"In the (Merchant) Navy" and some excessive brainstorming

This week I have been doing a lot of thinking (not neccesarely the smartest thing for me to do) about a few things, so I wanted to blow off some steam by making a Narco/Terrorist OH-6 with rocketpods. Oh boy, did that go wrong.....very thin plastic so it kept warping, very poor fit even after cleaning, and when I had drilled the hole for the flight base plug and surrounded that with Milliput to keep everything place the 2 halves refused to fit properly and the glue seemed to do nothing other then melt the plastic, but it just would not stick. Then I tried superglue and it only got worse. When I got in to my work space this morning I looked at it once and I could cry....the halves had come apart (again) and the top had set, but crooked.  Lot's of sanding and filler will be needed before this thing will ever become presentable. One of them days I guess.

Anyways, that is not what this post is about.

I follow quite a few blogs, some post frequently, others.....not so much.  Atm my focus is on games I can play with my existing collection and games I can play with a minimum amount of figures. In that vein, and because I rediscovered my 1/3000th fleet a while back, I've been looking at the Schnell Rules for Schnell Boote (thx to Jim ). The rules look simple enough, and when I last looked at Navwar they still sell quite a few torpedoboats that can be useful.

Wow, I sure did paint a lot of ships, didn't I?

Mostly post 80's tankers in this lot, a couple of conversions and some sunken/sinking ships. They are good to go as they are, other then that I will be removing the nametags by cutting them off and stcking a label on the underside. I've noticed I find nametags in that way too visible and when I use datacards with a picture of the ship on it, they are not neccesary.

A real mish-mash of cargo ships, military ships and various other items. Again, remove (or paint over) the tabs, relabel on the underside and they are good to go. I'll just need some more tugs, cutters, small merchants and barges before I can get to work on MTB's. Anyway, they have their own laballed drawer now so when I have time, I'll get on it.

Now, the excessive thinking part.

I'll be ignoring the 28mm elephant in the room and focussing purely on the 20mm one. I like scenery. I like making scenery. How can I make the most of the storage space that I have without making specific scenery for every single environment/war I'm interested in?

It's easier then you think. (Keep in mind that my perspective is a attractive table with little details that don't get in the way of the game but enhance it. It's the exact opposite of most Warmachine/40K tables, which are a affront to my eyes with a green pooltable cloth, a house, a mountain and some trees if you are lucky.). Ok, what do you see in almost every warzone since WW1? Wrecks, oil drums, barbed wire, roadblocks, debris, dead stuff, craters, and more recently, unfinished concrete buildings. Keep the basing to a minimum (like I always do) and generic colour wise and I should have no trouble fitting everything in.

So, after yesterdays failure, I decided to do something my Aspergers makes me perfect for......build the same damned thing over and over.

Crappy plastic ones from the Academy vehicles kit, topped with dirt for dirt filled oil drums. 4 crappy plastic ones from the Hasegawa Japanese truck but not as crappy as the other ones so they are ok. Both types ned to be sanded down for sprue lines. The yellow-ish oild drums top left are from 12 years ago when I got into this Historical hobby from a Ebay vendor (one of my first purchases) and they are actually knock offs (I had no idea back then) and a bit bubbly but they will work fine. The top right ones is a box of a dozen I got half off at a sale last year. I have loads more resin knock offs somewhere as well as a box of originals, and I'll use those when I will make battlefield specific markers, like ones with a roadsign for instance.

And that's it for today. I was supposed to turn in around 22:00 and it's now just shy of 02:00, so ....yeah....oops.

Naval gazing

Oh, how easy I flutter from one thing to another. At least it's one large , repeating, vicious circle! :D

A few weeks back, after watching another episode of Jinlges gaming Atlantic fleet, and noticing he mentioned it being available for Android, I went to their website, checked out the stats and figured it could even run on this clapped out PC. 10 Paypal euros and a Steam account later I was the proud owner of Atlantic Fleet and after going through the tutorials I kinda got the hang of it. Since then I've played it an hour here, and hour there, not so much, but since starting it I'm suddenly seeing naval wargaming topics pop up on my scope. A Java Sea one on the LAF, a review of 1/300 MTB's from Navwar, stuff like that. 

Remember these? It's been 7 years now since I painted most of these, and they have sat unused ever since. I bought a Convoy rulesset a bit after that but it never clicked with me (no one seems to play it) so the models got put aside. Reading about MTB games (there are quite a few more rulessets for those) makes me think why not use those in 1/3000th instead 1/600th or 1/300th? You should be able to get more bang from your table, I'm used to painting and labelling small stuff, though I've moved away from visual tabs to stickers on the underside as to not make it stand out on the table. It's not like I'll have 30+ ships on the table anyway, and simple flip of the ship will tell me what it is anyway in case anyone is confused. I have not bought anything for this though, and I do not intend to atm! I have 2 big boxes of WW2 and Modern ships that will see the light someday, and I will read up on MTB rules first before I make a purchase of 1/3000th MTB's in the future. If such a thing is available...I haven't checked tbh cause I'm busy enough with studying and yet another sick child (now it's Emma's turn to be sick....jay...) >> just checked. Navwar does E-Boats but not S-Boats for example. I'm pretty sure I might have a few in the boxes, so I'll check that first.

Seeing as my interest is still focussed on small scale engaments for a low cost, it is on the books though. Just no idea when that will be actually.

Fluttering from that flower to the next......

I'm really smitten by Gaslands. I'm not, however, by the lack of rulesset or possibility of aquiring it at this moment (it being a future Osprey release). This is also the reason I did not pick up the counter and movement marker set at Poldercon......I have no idea if something, or anything, will change and I don't want to waste money as it is so deerly needed atm. This however hasn't stopped me from rummaging through my bits boxes to find some suitable vehicles, scenery etc to have a go at for the game....since it is basically 20mm most of my collection of scenery is suitable anyway and having watched too many user videos on Crossout MMO (which is still in BETA testing) gave me tons of ideas for suitable scenery anyway, quite a few matches my ideas on scrapyards and Eastern Europe perfectly. I'm really aiming to get the most bang per buck out of my collection.....limited space, limited funds "help" in this case.

I picked up this car to be my first build to see if I enjoy making these.... I'll convert it completely to a in your face - ramming vehicle, with all the armour on the front and none in the back. Spikes on the wheel hubs, armoured visor on the cabin, and vicious blades on the front. Maybe a magnet in the roof so in the future a weapon mount can be added just in case. Since I don't have the rules, In know nothing about points cost, effectiveness and even game legality, so this is just a fun build, nothing more.

In the back is a red mug, new to my collection of quirky mugs.....I saw it at the goodwill earlier this week and I knew I needed it. I'll let you guess why that is..... And at 40 cents, it was a steal. ;)

I tend to pick up stuff to motivate me from time to time. It could be a kit that I've always wanted for one of the armies/warbands, or a piece of hardware that relates to them. It can be the weirdest things. Recently I've been googling for a Pāsdārān head band to go around my Iranian helmet (which is just a US tin pot) and I'm guessing our national Intelligence services are keeping tabs on me now cause I've been on sites from the Middle East I've never been before. All kinds of colours, printed or embroided, quotes from every saint from the Quran it seems, and not that expensive, 11 euros per band. I'm looking for a red band with yellow or white print, yellow with black print or green with white print, but decided "not today" when I got a shipping quote for 30 euros to my location for what is essentially a 100 grams of printed cloth. And I can only find 1 online shop for them. Well, maybe some other day. No rush with either my Iranians or Iraqi's.

I did make a 2 part purchase to motivate me for my study and my German army in one go. 2 part, because I bought a basic helmet for the start, and a promise to buy a Heer helmetcover for it when I pass all tests and graduate.

Is it a real one? Yes and No. It's the post war Bundeswehr aluminium version of the M40, but has no airholes and a modern inside. Piers said it was his first helmet when he did reenacting and that it was a Spanish one so I'm assuming they used the same. Well, at 40 euros I'm not complaining....I've been after one for a couple of years now and original and copies go for much more money then I can afford. This one looks the part, and with a helmetcover none will be the wiser.

Latley, my selling-purchasing ratio has been improving, I'm really hesitant to buy much of anything really and sales have been going out in dribs and drabs. Seeing as we just bought 2 new beds (well, 1 second hand and 1 new just to make sure we could get identical beds) for the girls as well as matresses our expenses have gone through the roof a bit......but the beds are worth it. Very girly (pink) and lot's of little details, should last them a few more years, now to find a buyer for the old set so we can swap it out when the girls are at my parents for a few days.

My mood is a bit foul atm, I keep running into things and there just don't seem to be enough hours in a day to get everything done I want. Yeah, I'm a crybaby :) After school tomorrow I will start drawing lines on my workspace again and get it sorted step by step till it is cleared and it becomes easier to do my homework here. Then repeat for the rest of the week.

And with a final note, I've just bought 2 kilos of 0.6m floral wire to make trees with (2kgs is roughly 1800 strands which is about 90 trees.....). Yes, it's a bit much, but with shipping included it's way more economical to buy in bulk then per 100 strands. And to my surprise Nikki was watching the tutorial with me and she really liked them, so I think I'll sit down with her and bend a few strands with her just for fun. Kim asked if I would be willing to make 1 tree per night for the next 3 months straight, and I said nay as that is not the point :D Make some test trees, see how it goes, then make a few winter trees (basically sans foliage) and then see how I proceed with more bushy ones.

That's it really. And sell more stuff, of course....

End of times or a new beginning?

We had a lovely week, great weather, visits to the pool, the zoo and a fabulous bird of prey show (now I finally know what Johnny Rook means, as I had one race between my legs!) and are now calming down :) 1 more week with chores in and around the house and trying to grab some time for myself. Well, I can try :)

On a different but related event, just before we left, we received word that City Council will help with  daycare for the twins. Great news as we can't otherwise afford it and Kim needs the downtime badly. It does mean we lose all spending money, period. All money left over after the basics like rent, food, gas and insurance goes to the council.

What does this mean?

Well, no money for at least a year, for starters.

Is that a bad thing? Well, as long as the car and other expensive things don't break down, we have little savings and family willing to help out.

Sounds bad, but it isn't. (eternal optimist speaking)

A. Good for the kids, as they get to spend time with other kids their age and they can learn from them
B. Good for Kim, as she gets time off to help herself and as soon as therapy starts, get more help.
C. Good for me. Really? Yes, really.

Let's face it, one of my hobby problems is that I have too much stuff. Way too much. My other problem is that I spend too easily. Yes, I've cut down a lot in the last year, but still. So, lets turn this into something beneficial. I mean, no money means no soda or snacks, and that can only be good! I even ate a apple today :)

I can still sell stuff, and will continue to do so. Proceeds can only go 2 ways, either in my Paypal or straight to my bank account. Since I'm in the red, bank account is good. Paypal will only be used after  agreement with Kim for items that can fill out current and active projects only. Seems simple enough.

So, with that in mind, how does it go from now?

Well, there is plenty of stuff to do. While I was on holiday I received several packages. 1 was a bag of second hand Liberation miniatures (US Army Rangers) from Rob at the Guild that will be perfect for  for my Black Hawk Down project (I did buy them for that) after I finish the Delta's. I also received 2 motivators, a Ssh40 Russian helmet from the fifties for when I start the WW2 Russians that went for way less then militaria sites charge you, and it is practically brand new. I also received a Dutch Royal Navy sailors cap from the Eighties (not that they have changed) from a former Dutch sailor as a motivation  for my 1/3000 naval stuff.

I have enough projects to cover me for a year, so I don't see any problems, and my wife and kids will be better for it :) What is not to like? ;)

I just means that conquering the lead mountain challenge has become indefinite.

Operation Springcleaning revisited

Or would that be End-of-Summer cleaning?


Decided this week would be about clearing and selling and closing open cases, so started cleaning last night, and sorting out the first of my BFG stuff for sale online later that night. Also bagged a few trade items and got them ready for shipping, and finally sent out my 20mm sci-fi doors off to someone who wanted to try and cast them. More on that later.


It took me a good 30 minutes to find those items though....which is a good indicator I need to clean up. Which brings me to a discussion....no, more of a chat really with Kim after dinner. As some of you may know she's not a fan of the hobby, but condones it as long as it all has its place. During her stay in the hospital however stuff had drifted into the livingroom and even the bedroom. Also, in the attic stuff is piled to the roof. So, she'd been thinking. First, I need to get the stuff out of any room other then the hobby room and the attic (fair enough) and we need to find a solution for the mess in the attic. Kim was kind enough to explain slowly and with care that the girls will need their own room eventually. They maybe twins but even they have a limit how much they want to be together. So, we need a new master bedroom, so that will be the attic.So we need new storage space. The one I have in Tilburg is not suitable for me, she says, I need something minutes away, not 45 minutes. So we are going to look for a garage or storage box locally, preferably in our own neighbourhood. Then we can transport what we need from Tilburg to there and what we don't need in the attic there as well. From that point on my gaming stuff will only be in the hobby room and the storage unit. And the hobby room will be 100% mine.


A good 15 minute chat with no arguments about the hobby, just looking at what we can do and what we can afford, not trying to change my ways, or hers. I wish we had more of those!


Well, I cleaned the stuff from the bedroom (Necrons that are not selling, so I will give them away for free, and I removed the Scrabs from their bases and into paint stripper so I can base them as singles and add them to my droid army), listed the BFG stuff and 3/4 of it sold in under an hour, then traded a Su-7 for a MiG-29 for my Serbs and a stack of Skaven sprues for a lot of 5 helicopters (of which I only need 1 for Mogadishu, the rest is trade fodder) and bought a cheap 2nd hand unused decalsheet for the NF-5 which has Dutch squadron markings on it so I can finally do a NF-5A for my Cold War Dutch army.....maybe. (The F-5's I got are from Airfix and lack the typical wingtiptanks for the Dutch....I need to find them from somewhere or look for the old Esci/Italeri kit but that sells for a fortune :( )


Tonight I will be cleaning again (and removing the stuff from the living room), and listing more stuff. I will repeat that on Friday, I cancelled my trip to the club this week. I hope to have the entire floor cleaned by the end of the week so I can get cracking on my table, but there is a awfully lot of second hand stuff that needs to be sorted.


Next week I hope to get started on basing a lot of stuff and printing off some rosters so I can keep track of who goes where and what....got 28mm Germans and 20mm Russians and Taliban to base up, as well as some character and pilot figures for my mercenaries.


And then I need to find time to clean my desk and get started with laying the keel for my next Guild challenge, this time the theme is Ambulance (aka a vehicle that transports wounded) and I've selected to scratchbuild the USNS Mercy, a hospital ship, in 1/3000th so she can sail with a Cold War convoy. I'll either scratch her completely or refurbish a oil tanker from the Navwar spares box (like the real thing). While cleaning I also found another scratchbuilt ship from years ago, the barge carrier Julius Fučík , semi finished. I'll try and finish that too, its been worked on on and off since 2009 I think.


Lots of plans!

Julius Fučík - WIP 1

The JULIUS FUCIK was rolling ten degrees with a beam sea. It made life hard on the
soldiers, Captain Kherov noted, but they were doing well for landsmen. His own
crewmen were dangling over the sides with sprayguns, painting over the ship’s
Interlighter markings, preparatory to replacing them with the Lykes Lines emblem. The
soldiers were cutting away parts of the superstructure to conform with the silhouette of
the Doctor Lykes, a U.S.-flag Seabee carrier remarkably similar to the Fucik. The Soviet
ship had been built years before in Finland’s Valmet yard from plans purchased in
America. Already the elevator winch area aft had been painted completely black to match
the American line’s house colors, and a black diamond had been painted on both sides of
the superstructure. Gangs of men were changing the shape and colors of the two funnels
with prefabricated parts. The hardest job remaining was the paintwork on the hull. The
Interlighter markings were made of twentyfoot letters. Replacing them called for the use
of canvas templates, and the lettering had to be neat and exact. Worst of all, there was
no way to check the workmanship short of launching a ship’s boat, something he had
neither the time nor the inclination to do.
"How long, Comrade Captain?"
"Four hours at least. The work goes well." Kherov couldn’t hide his concern. Here they
were, mid-Atlantic, far from the usual sea lanes, but there was no telling-
"And if we are spotted by an American aircraft or ship?" General Andreyev asked.
"Then we will find out how effective our damage-control drills have been-and our
mission will be a failure." Kherov ran his hand along the polished teak rail. He’d
commanded this ship for six years, taken her into nearly every port on the North and
South Atlantic. "We’ll get some way on. The ship will ride more easily on a bow sea."

Excerpt from Red Storm Rising (Tom Clancy (1986))

Aris sent me the blueprints for this ship in November 2009, and I ran into it while cleaning my harddrive a few days ago. As I need a merchant for the scenario I'm building forces for, why not the Fučík? I will keep her in her original scheme though, not the cover she used to sail to Iceland. So the Soviet flag will fly on this one....so much for a "neutral" merchant.  ;)

Start is the same as always. Check the blueprints, check the data online in one of the many ships directories, calculate the correct sizes in 1/3000 and note what goes where and what sizes plasticcard are needed. It's not rocket science, believe me. The hardest thing you have to do is shape and sand the correct bow, for the rest the Fučík is one big box with some superstructure, a barge lift and a open stern. She's a big ship, 90mm from bow to stern.

So here is a teaser pic which shows nothing but the bare hull and the first sanded down coat of filler, I'm trying a new one that is quite light and quick drying.  Not as quick as I hoped so I tore a few chips out of it. Oh well, nothing a second coat and some sanding can't fix.

Don't look like much, does it?  :lol:

Fire in the North - The Navies - Soviet tester done

Right, finished the tester, noted down the steps and colours used.

These colours work for me for the "Evil Empire", so this part is done. I won't do the base till I've got a fair number of ships painted so I can factory line them. I will give a wash again to the turrets, they are a bit dull, and I need to highlight the deck, and try to decal the bow. Other then that, I think it is a good standard.

Now I can wait for the order to arrive and paint other things :)

Oh, and for the real size:

Fire in the North - The Navies - Starting the Soviet Navy

For this gamebuild, I'll be focusing my efforts on the Soviet Navy as well as a few NATO ships and merchants.

While watching paint dry on the Isuzus (doubt they will be done tomorrow) I updated the paint trial ship for the Soviets, a Sovremenny class Destroyer.

(yes, thats a 1 euro cent coin)

Quite a few updates on the model, the model looked like it had just 4 SSm instead of the 8 seen in pics so used plasticcard to replace them , quite the differerence. Now they actually look like SSN-22 containers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-N-22). Also chopped a bit off the main mast, added radars and some additional mastwork. Also replaced the main guns with a bit of brass (should really be double, but this is the thinnest brass wire I can get) and trimmed the barrels off the 30mm AA guns....just not visible and no need to represent them.

Painting them should not be too hard, a dark shade of grey and 2 tones of brown red for the surface, 1 or 2 details picked out in near white. If I still have a sheet somewhere, I'll number them, as I've stopped adding nametags to the rear. No need for the enemy to see what you got and if I can't remember what I'm sailing I'm fighting the wrong battle (it's not like you will have 50+ ships on the table, for the average game 5-10 is more then enough)

Already put out an order for a few Destroyers, Frigates and landing craft for the Soviets as well as a small British fleet with additional NATO ships for Piers. I might add a few severely converted or even scratch built merchants to the fleet, maybe build another carcarrier, we'll see.