KGN Weekend - The First Town - Tilly-Sur-Seulles, June 1944 - Part 1

My next gaming event will be the KGN Weekend, hosted by Piers and the GMG in Ireland, called "The First Town - Tilly-Sur-Seulles, June 1944", where 2 teams of 5 players each will fight it out, commanded by their respective team captain. The date is set and my ticket purchased, so lets get started, as I have a new army to build for this.

I've selected the following pre made list:

Player 4 - Feldwebel Brasche
Dismounted Grenadier Platoon
Sniper
StuG G Squadron
HMG Team
Panzerschrek Team
Medium Mortar Team
Pak 40 + tow

plus 2 Supply trucks

The supply trucks are not a problem, as I have quite a few of those so I will pick 2 of these

And I just finished the tow for the Pak 40, a Cromwell RSO/1, a real beaut of a cast.

MG Bunker

Just a few quick MG Bunker I cobbled up sunday afternoon. Just some toothpicks, plasticcard and filler on a 50x40mm plasticcard base.

 I copied the picture of the one that is sold for FoW, and took the frontage of my sandbagged bunker as a base (which is seen on its side in the pic....oops!). Quick, simple and easy for all of the periods I game in.

I'm most taken with my succes at painting Birch

Republic of Texas, 1938 (Crimson Skies)

When the Republic of Texas started looking at German aircraft to bolster its ranks, they sent sent over a zeppelin with attachees and their latest state of the art hardware. Included for the protection of the zeppelin it housed an entire Staffel (12 aircraft, Red, White and Yellow flight), something unheard of for a zeppelin of this size. The aircraft was the tried and tested Bf-105, a variant of the Bf-109 specifically designed for Zeppelin duty. Clipped wings, a short tail, but still packing a powerful engine, 2 20mm cannons in the wings and 2 MG's in the nose the Kleiner Messer (or unofficially called the Stiletto or Wespe) wasn't exactly a pilots dream to handle but was more then a match for pirates and militias. Yellow flight was equipped with the 20mm cannon nose submodel for added punch. Mock dogfights were held to show the strengths and weaknesses of the design vs Texas aircraft.

We now show you some of the gun camera footage.

 In the end, the Republic of Texas purchased several German designs, including production rights.

 This was my back up for my main entry Relic, cause I wasn't too sure yet if I could do distressed and weathered bare metal. The original mode, a old Airfix Me-109 was converted way back in 2008 after an original idea from John Paterson for a parasite fighter for Crimson Skies. It never progressed beyond a semi painted stage before being dumped into the spares bin.

 I was actually going to use the hulk as a test for Reals flight stand, to see if I could refit older magnet bases aircraft to the new system. This was rather succesful so I took out the hulk and overhauled it.

Added a adapter for the flight stand

 Fixed the problem of the propellor sticking out in front of the aircraft by adding some additional plasticcard

And gave it a good cleaning and sanding

 And here she is, Rote 3 (Red 3) in all of its colourful splender. Wingtips and nose are painted red for recognition purposes (in Yellow and White flight these correspond to the group name). The scheme is derived from German aircraft of that particular era.

I gave her a handpainted wooden prop. Quite a bit more surface area then the gunstocks I'm used to painting like this.

Something quite different compared to my recent output, I know, but made it cause I know there are some Crimson Skies fans outthere and I want to use this as a personal motivator for Modhail to kickstart his Crimson Skies interests again, and show it is possible to game this in 1/72 as well Hell, I'm even going to use it for VBCW for all I care.....

Relic

My entry for the Wings Build over at the Guild

Once, you were the best of the best, defending the motherland against all the enemy could throw at it. Cutting edge, all shiny metal, you set records and went all around the world, the sky had no limits for you. When you got older they painted you in camouflage, loaded you up with bombs and rockets and you got to see the ground at altitudes you never flew before, and you loved it. Eventually, they used you to train new pilots, but one managed to break your back on landing. They  gutted your insides, repainted you one more time and shipped you off on the back of a truck to some far away airbase. You were mounted on a concrete base, remembering the deeds of airmen of the past, and witnessed, with pride, many a parade. Conscripts cleaned and washed you on a regular basis, and you felt loved.

Then a thing called Glasnost came, no one came to wash you anymore, and with all of the troops gone, you stood vigil over a deserted airbase. The sounds of jet engines long gone, replaced by the howling winds, you feel corrosion setting in more and more and wonder how long you get to gaze up at the sky. Birds now land on your fuselage, showing no respect for your clean lines. As you weep tears of oil and rust you dream about what once was, and never will be again.....

 For my entry I took inspiration from the many abandoned airframes and monuments in the former USSR. The base is scratchbuilt, filled with lead sheets to balance the weight of the aircraft, and coated with Mr Surfacer for the rough concrete look. The MiG is an old one from Matchbox, and can be removed from the base as the base will be used (in the future) for a few other items.

Enjoy!

As mentioned before, it comes off:

And to give you an idea of the size:

Block 1: Star and Pyramid - The 6 Day War - Part 1

The first block of the 2012 Build is based on the CY6! book Star and Pyramid - The 6 Day War.

For this I have the following list as a guideline, 39 aircraft:
4 MiG-19
4 Mirage IIICJ - 2 with droptanks
1 Piper Cub - Use L5 Stinson
6 MiG-17
2 MiG-21 PFM
4 MiG-21 F-13
4 Super Mystere
4 Ouragan
2 S-58
1 IL-14 - Not made, need to scratchbuild one
3 IL-28
4 Su-7b

The items in red are not in my TD box so I've put out an order with Doms Decals, they should be here about halfway into January (I hope). 

I've started work on cleaning up what I do have, adding either magnets or nail heads to the underside of the aircraft so they stick to the magnets on their flight stands, and started to tackle the biggest conversion of this block, the IL-14.

It bears a big resemblance overall to the DC-3, but it has differences in wingshape, engines and length:

This means for me just painting a DC-3 as is won't do. So out comes the juwellers saw:

And then some pinning wire and superglue to get to the basic shape of what is to become my Il-14:

I'll need to hit it with putty and/or green stuff next to get the sape and details I want.

For this block I will need to paint 39 aircraft in 60 days. That is 8 fridays (friday being my preferred day to Blog) so 5 aircraft to paint per week. I can do that :)

Big Build 2012

Right, the Big Build 2012. Another Guild build, but not 3 weeks or 3 months as usual, but 11 months spread over 5 blocks of 2 months with the final block being 3 months. The idea is to pick a theme and complete items every 2 months for that theme. As it stands you can either just state the theme (members with no balls), state the theme and what category per block (members with balls) and state the theme, category and a fixed number of items to complete per block (members with Krupp steel balls).

If I have one problem that hinders me more in this hobby then anything else it's my inability to stick to a given theme for more then a few months unless there is a game coming up or a prize involved (hence I love Group Builds), but a year long build is going to require quite a bit of effort from me.

Even so, I've decided to go fro some Krupp steel, and with the following:

Theme: Air War 1/600th (Check Your 6!)

Block 1: Star and Pyramid - The 6 Day War - 39
Block 2: Star and Pyramid - The War of Attrition - 37
Block 3: The Falklands + Danger Zone - 40
Block 4: Breaking the Luftwaffe - Into the Reich - 46
Block 5: Breaking the Luftwaffe - Big Week - 66

For the ones that dont know Check Your 6!, this is a rulesset for air wargaming. I've based my entries on their books that I own, just stripped out the aircraft lists and taking those as a guide for the build. I'll be using Tumbling Dice aircraft and propably the occasional Odzial Osmy ground vehicle.

Oh, did I mention failure to meet the required number before the deadlines means you are removed from the competition? No pressure :)