woensdag 28 maart 2012

KGN Weekend - The First Town - Tilly-Sur-Seulles, June 1944 - Army finished!

Last bits!

120mm mortar team 1

120mm mortar team 2

HMG team

MMG team 1

MMG team 2

MMG team 3 went awol from my painting table and I'm loaning one from the club for this one.

Infantry Gun plus crew (1 of them has artillery piping and will be removed once I paint more guns and crews for them)

And the total lot, minus 2 transport trucks and the FAO transport


Now to cut the last bits of foam packaging, then pack it snugly in my flightcase and off to Ireland tomorrow :)

15mm grav car, 1 careful owner






Typical case of horrible picture on webpage, so a turn off, but trying anyway cause there isn't too much choice. And it turns out to be a gem. 2 more coming up, 1 with a driver and 1 without, but that will be next week. And it really is that small. :grin:

Minimi GAZ-AA truck with open bed review.

I was painting a few newly released open backed GAZ-AA trucks from Minimi, finished one that was going into the Flak build, saw the SA-7 one and gave up. Originally meant it for Crimson Skies, a generic Ford truck, it would do nicely in a civillian WW2 setting, albeit it an elderly truck.



As usual, I ask Minimi to cast it for me without base. Specially cast for me, they arrive here, and when they arrive I tend to let them breathe for a week or so to let the resin fully cure. I tend to find that if I wash and clean them straight away the resin sometimes feels tacky, hence why.
Of the 3 models ordered, I only had 2 that had 1 airbubble, 1 in the flatbed of one model (not so easily filled) and one in the tire of another (easily filled)



For a one piece casting these are very good, you have no assembly of any parts, due to the special request for a no-base you might lose a bit of the tire here and there but thats ok with me.  4.60 Pounds per model, and the flatbed gives you more options, be it cargo, troops or even AA guns. Or as in this case, as a civillian one.

Compared to the Minimi GAZ-AAA


If you want to save time on building a fleet of trucks for your Russians, this could be the one to get.

zondag 25 maart 2012

KGN Weekend - The First Town - Tilly-Sur-Seulles, June 1944 - Part 6

Almost there now!

Last unit of the German platoon:



Needed for the list but not this game, my Medic:


Not needed for this list but will return in my late 45 list, another Medic:

(Rather charcaterful chap, miscast, I chopped off his arm, added a new one plus a white flag so I could use when my army was defeated, changed my mind and wanted to use him as a supression marker. Then changed my mind again and made him a medic for my 1945 army)

Another for my list, a Messenger, will be on loan to Brodir:


2 120mm mortars (crew will follow later), also on loan to Brodir:


1 infantry gun plus towed version, finally finished. But not for this game.


And a note of thx for Taylor, who helped me out with a pile of Britannia figs so I could complete this army!  :clapping:

To do: 1 MMG team, 2 120mm crews, 1 gun crew plus 1 FAO team (all have their gloss coat drying now) and 3 Stugs that are basecoated but I need to get finished in the next 4 days.....no pressure!

dinsdag 20 maart 2012

KGN Weekend - The First Town - Tilly-Sur-Seulles, June 1944 - A busy table!

Almost there now!


Painting 29 figures in one go is a bit of a first for me. Plus 2 new support weapons and the clean uo of 2 more, but I want to get this lot done so I can focus on the Stugs. Clothing, faces and codes are done, just minor detailing and clean up before the first coat of varnish.

8 days to go.....

maandag 19 maart 2012

Fool me once....

KGN can give you the option (if it is in your list) to use dirty tricks. One of them is a Dummy Gun. Ruleswise you put one in your deployment area, and remove it when it is destroyed or if the enemy moves closer then 12 inch. I abhor removing casualties from play, after a heavy battle you end up with an empty battlefield. Mine is filled with dead men, craters and wrecked vehicles, and shows heavily contested areas and tells a story. In this case, if the enemy spots the gun and it is a dummy, this one is put in place.

Seems the Germans did this quite a bit, but they are not very well documented, I've had to make do with barely 6 pictures.

The gun is plasticcard, toothpicks, 2 wheels from a Sgts'MEss rubble pack and a spare muzzle from a 105 Stug I had lying around. Took me a spare hour to build and paint it, so time well spent.

zondag 18 maart 2012

壁虎 Bi Hu armoured police truck

The Bi Hu (壁虎, Gecko, or Wall Tiger) is a older 6x6 armoured truck that the PRC still produces for policing duties on lesser developed locations and colonies. It is either equipped with a water cannon (with a water tank added in the back) or a 14.7mm machinegun, depending on the situation. It is very reliable, needs little maintenance but is lightly armoured and rather cramped. The vehicle is not sold to civillians, though a few private security companies operate them and it has been seen with rebels and seperatists, though those are propably captured examples.

The model itself is a 15mm FoW model, FR320 Laffly S15TOE, just released. Comes as a resin hull with metal wheels and yurret. Flashfree, hardly any cleaning to do, it did come with double the amound of small wheels needed to make it. 1 had a small chip in the back but nothing too bad. Painted in suitable police colours it's for my PRC sci-fi army. Decals are from I-94 (numbers) and TL Decals (door shield). I'd love to have some POLICE decals in this scale, but alas. Comparison pic with a droid from The Scene, based on a 1 eurocent.