Wednesday 24 June 2020

Women's Fascist Axillary

   A quick post out of my planned group of projects and back to my VBCW B.U.F. I've mentioned before that I've started keeping an eye on Pen and Sword's website for their monthly sales and any spot sales they do, and I noticed a forthcoming book on Fascist elements in the Suffragette movement, which looks like an interesting book to pick up in the future, but that book was in my mind about the same time that my kickstarter order from Bad Squiddo turned up.
   I'd placed an order for what I planned to be a squad and a bit of differently armed women to add to my Albertine VBCW army and make the Women's Institute it's own platoon, but as I was building the rifle squad I started to have ideas. The fact the women's land army figures were wearing a uniform didn't worry me when I ordered the figures as I planned a few head swaps and some different coloured shirts to hide the uniforms, but on closer inspection I realised they looked like they were fit into a B.U.F army with a different colour scheme. I'd been planning one last squad for my B.U.F and this would solve that nicely, so the Women's Fascist Axillary was born (Sorry Annie).




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Saturday 20 June 2020

It's Cold and the Huns Keep Coming

   Following on from the last WW2 German Post I did, the obvious project to get moving with would have been the 15mm DAK infantry as I only had the command squad to go, so obviously what I have been working on instead is the rest of my 28mm Winter Germans. Like I said, obviously.
   I've finished off the last two infantry squads along with a Leutant and adjutant so that I have a fully equipped platoon, then I have added a MMG and a medium mortar with spotter to make the force a bit more useful.
   There is more I plan to add to this army in the future (Kübelwagen for the Leutant, tank or two, a squad of the metal winter Germans to mix the look up and maybe some artillery etc) but the basic platoon is now done so can be put away safely.






 
  
 
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Wednesday 17 June 2020

Almost a Fleet

  This is by far one of the weirdest projects I think I have ever done, it's given me the most frustration that a relaxing hobby has ever managed but the most satisfaction with a finished model, it's going to be a slow project but I'd quite like to get it finished before we are allowed out to play again (assuming July at some point?), but we are making progress towards that goal.
   This post is for the two 68 gun ships in the fleet and the last two of the first order I placed all those years ago. Again, the models are from Langton and these are the two ships that had suffered the most in the years of moving between shelves and boxes with multiple broken masts.







langton miniatures dutch 1:1200 rigged 68
Admiraal de Ruijter*


Admiraal Piet Hein

*I'd appreciate it if you could ignore the upside down pennant . . .

   The Two ships from the last Dutch navy post have both been given their ensigns, pennants and names too, which means I am free to start on my next batch of ships.

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Sunday 7 June 2020

Multiple Germans


   This post is where my confessions go into overdrive. During the lockdown I have noticed that I am reading a lot more and painting a fair bit less, the 2 or 3 hours painting in front of the tv every night has turned into 2 or 3 hours of sitting quietly with a book, add to that all the lockdown ebook deals I've been stumbling across and my reading backlog is looking less manageable than my lead mountain*. This has led to a few book related projects getting a head start in either being bought or getting painted; Mercy Thompson, Dutch fleet, Tanith and the projects below.
*What a happy place to be
   Pen and Sword Publishing, do a monthly selection of cheap ebooks that I've been downloading on mass on the 1st of every month and quite a lot of them are WW2 related as you might expect. I've mostly ended up reading a lot of late 1944-fall of Berlin Eastern front books, including books about women in Nazi Germany and a few SS related books. This all gave me a serious itch to revive my WW2 projects, but with the lockdown it had to be modelling rather than gaming to scratch the itch.
   This is where I need to start the justifications. With all the winter war reading, I fancied a German army in Great Coats and as I already own a winter themed Soviet army, it would be nice to give them a home opponent. That's basically all the excuses I have for this one.
 



The first unit in the platoon - I even used the decals on them for the first time.









   If you are happy to believe why I needed a new German army for a period I already own but for a different front, then the figures below should be an even easier sell. In 2017 I went to a wargaming show with one of my mates (I want to say Broadside but I'm not sure) and we ended up being given a demo of the new Flames of War edition using the new 2 player starter box and it was really good. While we didn't finish painting the tanks, we did play a few more games before the tanks got lost in our respective homes and forgotten about.
   Back to this year's lockdown. Before I decided that the winter German project was a good idea (undermining a few of my justifications for the project at the top of the page here) I got it into my head that if I was going to do another WW2 German army it should be completely different and I have wanted to try Bolt Action in 15mm for a few years now, so I decided to do the desert war in 15mm. We could use the tanks we already owned, Wayland Games has 15mm desert scenery too, so it was just a case of buying figures. I ended up placing an order for a DAK platoon and a 8th army platoon from Forged In Battle which arrived the same day as my much later ordered Winter Germans.
   Below are the 3 infantry units for the German platoon, with just the tanks and command to be painted before I start on the British and think about ordering more bits.
 










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Thursday 4 June 2020

Dark Age Irish

   After claiming the Moorish army wasn't a new project, this one definitely is*. Ever since the single unit of Norse-Gaels in my Viking army became a project in their own right, I've had my eye on a home bred opponent for them, pricing up a metal Gripping Beast Irish army more than a few times, but with the Wargames Atlantic Dark Age Irish kit, I knew I needed to pick up a box to have a look.
   This isn't the first box of their plastics I have tried, I already have a box of their Ancient Greek Skeletons, and I stand by what I said in that review. I'm not a fan of the plastic they use, but it goes together well and the casts are crisp, they just feel too much like the old bendy plastic toys.




*And some more confessions for later










   As per normal, I'm building the army to Lion Rampant unit sizes as this will allow the units to be broken down to suit smaller unit games like Saga if needed. The bulk of the army will be made up of Yeomen stated troops with javelins which should give a very different game dynamic to the normal dark ages shield walls we play.
   I've got another box of these on order, which will give me enough troops for 4 units of regular Irish and 2 units of wolfhounds which I will use as Ferocious Foot (although I only plan to use a single unit per game), then a unit of Foot Sgt stated fighters will round the army off with a more elite household bodyguard for the army's lord.






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