2014 in review

Seasons greetings!

Its that time of year again (already). 2014 has been a very busy and troublesome year for me, both at work and at home, nevertheless I have found that wargaming, well painting mostly, provides me with a much needed escape from the daily grind.

I had some definate goals this year, in no particular order, they were:

• Commanders for the Muslim army DONE
• Commanders for the Persian army DONE
• Lots of Persians! DONE
• A Theban contingent for the Greek Hoplite army NOT DONE
• SS Troops for my Bolt Action German force DONE
• Vehicles for Ze Germans DONE
• Soviet forces to oppose said Germans for Bolt Action. DONE
• An Anglo Danish warband for SAGA, to oppose the Vikings I finished a while back. SAGA NOT EVEN STARTED!
• Finish off the Novamarines and start on their adversaries, The TAU for EPIC. ONGOING
• Continue with the Napoleonic project, Finish the Austrian forces and make a start on the French. ONGOING

So, what have I actually managed to do? 

Planned stuff.

Ancients

The Persian army. This army has been finally finished this year with the addition of lots more cavalry units and levy archers. The army is now pretty big and comes in at around 500 points for Impetus.

Persian Page

The Ayyubid Egyptian army. This army needed less work to get finished, so with the addition of new command units and some light cavalry, this one is now complete as well.

Saladin and his mates










WW2. 

The German armies have been bolstered this year, lots of infantry and vehicles.

The Soviet forces have also had some work done to them, I now have a sizable infantry force based up for Bolt action or Battlegroup Kursk, complete with anti tank guns etc.

WW2 page!

6mm Napoleonics

Much slower progress than I wanted. I have painted a few units, but the army is still not finished and the French forces to oppose them haven't even been ordered, despite the completed order form to Adler sitting in my drafts folder for over a year! 

Austrian 1809 page!

Epic

Epic has been a big thing for me this year. Lots of stuff has been added to the Novamarine force.















Their enemy the Tau army has been painted up and several games played!

EPIC!!!

Distractions

As always, I am easily distracted, often ill start a new project on a whim, or maybe ive had a pint and am on the internet, it usually results in a load of stuff getting delivered about a week later....

10mm Fantasy.

My lads expressed an interest in fantasy stuff, so I bought a few rulebooks, then bought a load of models from copplestone castings. I even made a start on painting them, but the motivation wasn't there, and the lads decided that they weren't bothered. End result was it all got sold, and a load of time was wasted! Oh well at least I made a small profit once everything had gone via ebay!

Terrain

Not so much a distraction as something that needed doing, I made a far bit of scenery this year, mainly aimed at my 6mm Napoleonic stuff, but it works OK for the 15mm WW2 models as well.

Zombicide!

This is a cool game. There is just something far cooler about hordes of painted zombies roaming about the board! The unpainted masses were bugging me so they had to be done!

Next year?

There is a lot happening next year, including relocating back to the UK, after 4 years in Cyprus, im conscious of the amount of gaming related stuff I have accumulated... I will be scaling back on new purchases, and instead concentrating of a suitable storage system for it all. 

Of course some painting will be getting done or I may go insane!

6mm Napoleonics

Next year I really am going to get the Austrian Army finished off! Possibly ill make a small start on some French, but that depends on the Austrian progress.

Epic

The Epic Novamarines will also hopefully be getting finished, because to be honest im sick of painting them, and want them done! 

A new army is in the planning stage.. more of which later.

If I end up running out of stuff to paint, I will paint up the models in the Space Hulk box, as my son has been asking me to paint them since 2009.....

I may add some stuff to The Crusader army for Impetus, or may just leave it until im settled in the UK....I have plans for all my Ancient armies, but it may have to wait until im settled in the UK, as the move home has to be taken into account. I have so much stuff to get back in one piece already.....

Anyway, there we go. Another year done.

Steve

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all have a great Christmas break, and get lots of shiny new toys to keep you busy next year.

Steve

Zombicide!

Now then,

I have owned this game for a while now, Its a great game, and probably has the best components of ANY game ive seen. The makers of this game really have raised the bar when it comes to production values!

Last week, I decided id paint all the miniatures in the box. So 65 zombies and 6 survivors later, here is what Ive got:

The box itself is quite heavy, there is alot of stuff in there, besides all the minis, there are various counters, stat cards, equipment cards, zombie reinforcement cards, dice, double sided game/terrain tiles and of course the rulebook...

Well worth the retail price.

The Minis come packaged in these plastic blister thingys, then packed in a separate box. Here are the survivors, and the big bad guy, the Abomination!

The Desperate Survivors!

The Zombie Hordes!

The Abomination, a massively mutated creature, if this guy turns up then there is going to be trouble!

The Zombies come packaged in the same way as the survivors, in the plastic thing, then in a separate sturdy box. There are 2 trays of 32 Zombies in each.

Both trays are the same, However with a bit of paint, hopefully there is plenty of variation. So we have 3 different types of basic zombie. The walker, the most common type, then runners, fast movers who can upset your plans! Lastly there are the fatties, tough to kill but less numerous.

UH-OH....

I hope you agree that having them all painted just looks far better than playing the game with the bare plastic. It adds a bit more atmosphere I think. As a big fan of the walking dead, I cant wait for my next game!

For more info about zombicide and its expansion sets etc have a look here -

Guillotine Games - Zombicide

You zombie bastards, you killed Kenny!!

Thanks for looking,
Steve

Richard the Lionheart, revisited..

Now then,

I have spent the last few days re-doing King Richards standard. It looked passable before, but you know when you look at something and it bugs you?

Heres what it looked like before.... 3 odd looking yellow monkeys......

Anyway, I have re-done it, and im much happier with it, although it took ages to draw, then paint...





Here we go!

Much better I hope you agree. All the Crusaders can be seen here - Crusaders!

On the painting table are loads of 6mm Napoleonic Austrian landwehr. Im making getting this army finished my priority, as I really want to order some French!

I have not been idle on the painting front, I have painted literally a HORDE of zombies, and of course the desperate survivors, check in again soon for some ZOMBICIDE!

Cheers,
Steve

StuH42 G

Now then,

I have decided to paint up my last Stug as an assault gun to support the Infantry, and help dig the soviets out of their foxholes and bunkers.

The StuH 42
(From Wikipedia) In 1942, a variant of the StuG III Ausf. F was designed with a 105 mm (4.1 in) howitzer instead of the 7.5 cm StuK 40 L/43 cannon. 

These new vehicles, designated StuH 42 (Sturmhaubitze 42, Sd.Kfz 142/2), were designed to provide infantry support with the increased number of StuG III Ausf. F/8 and Ausf. Gs being used in the anti-tank role. 

This is a battlefront model, however I have removed the original commanders cupola using a sharp knife and a lot of filing, and replaced it with a spare Forged in Battle 1 piece cupola with a commander. As the barrel is a lot chunkier than the FIB models I have been painting recently I was able to drill out the barrel and muzzle brake.

The StuH 42 mounted a variant of the 10.5 cm leFH 18 howitzer, modified to be electrically fired and fitted with a muzzle brake. Production models were built on StuG III Ausf. G chassis. 

The muzzle brake was often omitted due to the scarcity of resources later in the war. ~1,299 StuH 42 were produced by Alkett from March 1943 to 1945, the initial 12 vehicles were built on repaired StuG III Ausf. F and F/8 from autumn 1942 to January 1943.





This is my last of my WW2 German stuff for the time being. I have a few bits and bobs to paint up for my Soviets, but they will be waiting for a bit.

I will be painting something completely different next.....Zombies!??
Cheers for looking,
Steve

Pz IVH Platoon, Forged in Battle

Now then,

This week I have finished off the other 3 Panzer IVH for my battlegroup Kursk German forces. I now have a platoon of 3 and 1 extra tank to support them.

Panzers advance across Russian farmland

Command tank.

Panzer III's and IV's

Also because I like my gaming aids, I downloaded a card deck for battlegroup Kursk from boardgame geek, whoever designed them has done a great job.

These are designed to replace the counters in the rulebook, so no little counters in a cup, when you lose a unit etc, you just take the top card.

cardboard case.

Loads of cards, with all the special ones in there too, so no looking up in the rulebook, its all on the cards.

So, next im working on my StuH42 G assault gun, then that's about everything I have for my Germans done. Ill be painting something completely different after its finished, with some help from my son James.

Cheers for looking,
Steve

Pz IVH test paint scheme Forged in Battle

Now then,

I have 4 Pz IVH's from forged in battle sat on my painting desk. I have done a test paint scheme on 1 of them before i plunge in feet first and do the other 3. As your probably aware the German army had loads of different camouflage schemes that varied wildly even among tanks within the same unit.

I have decided to go with what I think is a scheme that would work well enough for both the mid war (mainly stripes and blotches) an late war (dots) Nothing quite says late war to me more than dots everywhere!

Anyway enough waffling, here's what I came up with.

Personally Im quite happy with how it came out, and im getting there (finally) with the dip, I have been watering it down more every time I use it.

On a separate note, The Forged in battle 15mm miniatures are great, every tank I have is different, with schurtzen in different configurations etc. Highly recommended.

Cheers for looking,
Steve

Forged in Battle Pz III's

Now then,

A quick update.....I spent this afternoon painting up my panzer III's from forged in battle. Nice models! Although they wont stand up to the T34's except at close range!

So I now have a platoons worth for the battlegroup rules and the Pz IIIN (short barrel) will be a support vehicle for some Tiger tanks when I get them. But first I have four Pz IVH to get done, oh and a Stug G.

Cheers,
Steve

Battlegroup Kursk, support troops

Now then,

A while back I got a load of stuff from Skytrex, support stuff for the German forces on the Eastern front. As I had a week off, I have got round to painting it all now.

First up I have painted up the Opel Blitz Radio truck. This took me ages to paint, not really sure why....

This will be a forward signals unit for BGK.

Stretcher bearers (Waffen SS)

 Stretcher Bearers (Wehrmacht)

Dispatch riders (Waffen SS)

Dispatch riders (Wehrmacht)

While Im on about WW2, I thought I would show you these. I had them made for me by Warbases. They are laser cut MDF, with 2 dials inside numbered from 0-9. 

All I did was create the "covers" on word, print them out and stick them on. Now, these are not necessary to play BGK, but im thinking anything that makes a game easier cant be a bad thing....

As it took me so long to paint the radio truck, I have been experimenting. I managed to paint up this PZ IIIN in about an hour (not including drying time).

All I did was paint it dunkelgelb, then painted on the cam, then painted the whole thing with ronseal dark oak stain/varnish.

once dry I drybrushed the whole thing with a light sand colour.

Done.


Maybe a bit rough and ready, but once I have all his mates done then they will look fine.

On the painting desk are 3 Pz III M's.Hopefully using the same speed painting method as the Pz III N above Ill have them all done by Monday...

As alwaysI have been chipping away at the epic Novamarines too...

 More Whirlwinds!

Land raider company!

And finally, here is them all painted so far!....

Cheers for looking,
Steve