WWII - Western Desert - Armour

While playing around it picked up a couple of the Zvezda Blitzkrieg packs from their Art of War range.  They only cost £2.99 each and a quick way of building up "hordes".

The PzIIIG is compact and a nice kit.

The Matilda II is mouled in a dark sand colour.  

Side by side view of the two kits.  The PzIII had some attention yesterday once the VJ Green Ochre paint arrived as I couldn't find any.

WWII - DAK Tester Figures

Pete and I had a chat the other night about why we have never done the Western Desert in WWII.  Neither of us could think of a valid reason seeing as we were both brought up on the period and it was the de riguer topic in most of the wargames books.

Anyway seeing as how plastic kits are dirt cheap and things like CoC and TW@T etc deal with low level forces I fancied seeing what they look like.  The bonus being that I wont need a lot of complicated terrain pieces.  Anything I do make up will fit easily in with either the NWF or Sudan colonial items I have already which will be of benefit

A couple of tester shots of some PP DAK Figures which I ordered as I couldn't find enough in my spares box

VJ Russian Uniform washed over a white undercoat.  Head swapped on one of the MC Riders and also covered over the boot joint with some liquid green stuff as the riders aren't dressed for the desert.

figures finished with a agrax earthshade wash.  Need to find some more Green Ochre paint and couldn't fnd any in my paint box and had to substitute in VJ Tan Yellow.  Which I am not overly happy with.  The figures could probably do with an Iraqi Sand dry brush prior to the wash as well just to dusty things and lighten the uniform colour which I think is a little too dark.. 

Modern Naval - Airpower

1/1200 Aircraft for a naval game open up a whole new range of possibilities.  They are reasonably detailed and easy to put on decals.  This pair of AWACS, one for each side, in simple schemes are a little bit more expensive than a 1/600th aircraft for some reason.

However,  the scale distortion isn't massive when used with 1/3000th scale shipping.  And most likely that we might go back and add these into the MNB:GW project that we started as Intel cards

WWII - Late British Infantry Update

Feb has come and I finished the first company of the PSC 15mm LW Brits to a gaming standard

Since finishing them off I have looked at adding some PP figs in as well to give me moving Bren and PIAT teams plus a couple more individual infantry figures.

Modern Naval - Shipwreck

Yes, something new.   With the messing around we did with MNB:GW and the small set I painted up I suppose it was inevitable that I would try to do something more with them.  I added a PLAN starter fleet from Navwar plus a Liaoning carrier for some Pacifc area action.  Not too sure if I am going to go full speed ahead with a US Navy counter but I do have a couple of Ticonderogas and Arleigh Burkes to paint up to go with the two O H Perrys from the first purchase.

I might even end up just using these with MNB:GW anyway but for now I have bought Shipwreck from Vandering Publications.  It has a good following and is in the realm of fast play.  Played it through solo last night and hit a couple of issues, but that is always the same when learning a set of rules from scratch.  The rules themselves do have a step by step run through which is very helpful but didn't cover what I ended up doing.  My bad ;)

So now have an idea that I need markers for a couple of things which will be on a 20mm x 15mm base so that 3 markers fit the snugly along the side of the base without getting in the way too much.

Modern Naval - Update Feb 2014

Oh well something new.  As if that was not going to happen.  The messing around we did with MNB:GW a while ago left several unpainted NAVWAR 1/3000 Ships unpainted and unloved.  With all the rain over the last couple of weeks I thought about getting them painted.  

So I did and as a result ended up adding a modern Chinese Starter fleet from NAVWAR plus a Liaoning carrier; two Ticonderogas and 3 Arleigh Burke Flight IIAs.

I took the existing Sovremmeny as well which had a soviet scheme and added that to the PLAN fleet as well.

The  bases of most of the ships is now a strange 25mm x 60mm size which sort of fits my current storage. Given a base coat of the Old GW Fenris Grey, which I am now nearly out of so need to find a replacement, and then used some of the Vallejo Heavy Gel 27.591 which is a brilliant gloss.

The US Carrier has had a bit of messing around with as well with deck markings, elevators and catapults all now marked out.  I also took a file to some 1/3000 F-18s which arrived and added them to the flight deck.  Will add more over the next couple of weeks as this goes.

The Liaoning in progress with the gel just applied. Need to look at the deck markings and see what I can make up.