Black Friday Late Night Purchase

I now realise that having returned from a night out meeting up with friends, I enthusistically took advantage of the Black Friday sale offer at Plastic Soldier Company and ordered some 15mm US Infantry. Quite why, I'm not sure; I don't do WW2 in that scale :-S but the delayed recall was impressive...ho hum...

I'm sure they're very nice...

That's it for now...

Monty

The Butt of all Jokes...

My usual slow plod has come to a temporary halt due to me being laid up following a minor operation on the old Farmer Giles; with the post-op convalescence of which I don't recommend to anyone, proving a considerable pain in the arse - boom,boom.

Suffice to say, I am unable to sit comfortably ('ooh, er, missus') for any length of time to paint, and in any case, my modelling stuff lives at my work flat in London; so I am separated from it for at least another week  - doh!

However, prior to this unfortunate occurence, I was cracking on (no pun intended) in two unrelated directions - nothing new there - primarily on...Warlord Games excellent 28mm 'Boadicea Triumphant!' model, which the little woman kindly bought me for my birthday.

As you can see, the chariot remains distinctly unoccupied at present, although both Boudica and her faithful charioteer are prepped, primed and ready to go; I decided to approach this project as three separate parts; horses, chariot and figures to maintain impetus. This is probably the single most ambitious  model I have attempted, despite 'wargaming' on and off since 1996; therein belies the extent of my achievements and vision in this great hobby to date! In fairness, I tend to concentrate on smaller scales primarily, so perhaps I am being a little harsh on myself...ho,hum.

I had intended the horses to be both white (cliché, I know, but who cares?), but after a couple of cock-ups with the washes I was using - I tend to overdo them - they ended up like this, which I quite like. My aim is to complete the model by Christmas - I know, my ambitions know no bounds!

...and secondly, some Colonial British infantry from my favourite 15mm manufacturer, Peter Pig, and their excellent 'Patrols in the Sudan' range. Those that have read my sporadic posts in the past may recall my liking of Two Hour Wargames (THW) and these troops  are the first finished for use with their Colonial Adventures rules set. All of THW's products are designed to use any basing systems you may already have, so I decided to base my rank and file on multiple stands -  to allow flexibility for use in other rules sets -  and the NCOs on separate bases as originally intended.

THW games can be as big or small as you like - the latter of which suits me perfectly - and still give a dynamic, entertaining experience. They are equally suited to head to head, same side or solo play and are designed with all three in mind.

I will post more progress reports once I get up and running again; my apologies to those of a reserved or squeamish disposition regarding the introduction of this post; but I believe in spreading my self-pitying misery to as many unsuspecting recipients as possible in a vain attempt at sympathy; and we all know where that can be found in the dictionary... :)

That's it for now,

Monty





Random Painting Part 2

The summer with its fleeting sunshine, along with the usual work constraints and relocating, continue to prevent me producing reams of stuff for the present; however, I have managed a few bits and pieces. 

Here are a few shots of a couple of things I've been doing lately - not much admittedly - as I  have to decide with the limited time I have available whether to concentrate on smaller scale stuff, as I have done up now, or maybe branch out into something larger...hmmm.

Pendraken 10mm Confederate infantry - I've had these knocking about for a while and ACW is a definite for a new period, but which scale...? I intend to use THW's Rebels and Rifles rules set which I've recently acquired and like a lot.

Essex 15mm Early Imperial Legionaries for DBA or RRtK.

I've moved on in my painting approach now and prefer the less uniformed, grubbier approach compared with my earlier attempts at 15mm Romans, which were all clean and identical...

My latest prezzie and next job courtesy of my other half, who is determined to add to my metal and plastic mountain - bless 'er! I will have to dust off and finish my Warlord Romans, which I enjoyed first time round.

Having thought about it, the priority I think, is to concentrate on focus - easier said than done for me, anyway - and just get back to painting stuff -  however little - regularly; while I game at skirmish level, before moving onto to greater things...

That's it for now,

Monty

Bits 'n' Bobs

I'm sure you will have noticed that I haven't exactly been productive lately, either with painting or posting. This, I suppose is due to a complete 'block' and evaporation of enthusiasm for table top gaming, which I'm sure will wear off soon and I'll be back to my usual low output in no time.

One of the things that has demoralised me is my endless mass of unpainted stuff and half-arsed unfinished projects. I intend to just start painting things again, not in any order or with any particular end goal, but just to regain the pleasure of (poorly) completing models and figures again.

 In the meantime, I have got these few GZG examples which I've recently finished, having had them lying around for over a year...

Alien mercenary, which is by far my favourite...

Human ravager with Crusty...

UNSC troops, which I decided to give the Master Chief look...

Fight!! 

That's about it for now, pretty pathetic, I know...but I'll BE BACK :)

Monty

Peter Pig 15mm US Humvee

I bought this 15mm US Marine Humvee from Salute last year, but such is my pathetic industry I have only now got round to painting it.

This is intended for use in my Ambush Alley and Chain Reaction 3.0 games and I went for the Browning HMG version, although there are others available such as the TOW ATGM.

Here it is, prior to the addition of static grass and looking suitably 'desert-worn', which I prefer and try to achieve with my efforts. I opted for the 3-colour camouflage temperate scheme when painting the model, as opposed to the usual desert yellow finish.

Finished off, with a requisitioned nylon bristle used as a radio antenna...

I am a big fan of Peter Pig and hope they expand their US Marine inventory in particular, by adding additional vehicles such as the M1 Abrams tank and Bradley IFV, which would be nice...

That's it for now,

Monty

Ambush Alley (Again)

Just before Christmas, here is a montage of my old Ambush Alley shots, gratuitously bunged together into a YouTube video, complete with non-copyrighted Middle-Eastern style music; what more could you want for the Big Day...?!

There were no specifics here, everything is recycled and with some skill and application I suppose I could have produced something half-decent, but hey, I'm no Spielberg - even on Windows Movie Maker :)

I have actually been productive and painting stuff; although not a great deal I have to say, as there have been lots of festive frolics of late as you can imagine.

I shall be 'back at it' though in the New Year and am determined to produce something worthwhile sharpish (I even have it on good authority that Father Christmas may be bringing something to spur me on!) so, a Merry Christmas to my fellow blogging gamers with best wishes for the New Year!

That's it for now,

Monty

Scratch-Built Terrain Part 2

Despite over 90% of my available spare time (which is admittedly  decreasing anyway due to a multitude of reasons) being dominated by the (IMHO) brilliant Battlefield 3 multi-player, I have been able to knock together some more scratch-built terrain and bits for use with either my 20mm, or, at a push, 15mm stuff.

Production and painting generally have been pretty non-existence lately due to a variety of reasons, apart from the xbox, so these few items are pretty exceptional, I suppose, if nothing else by the fact they actually got made!

My latest building and the largest so far, which I have dubbed 'The Reichstag' :) 

It has multiple areas and flooring layers to allow skirmishes to occur 'room-to-room' but more importantly gets around my lack of table space...

I went for a burnt-out look and wanted to contrast it against the other similar buildings I have made which I intend to use during the same games.

'The Reichstag' has the largest footprint (4 beer mat/coasters) of all my scratch-built stuff - most occupy singles or at most doubles - so this one stands out compared to the others.

Next up, my latest attempt at barbed wire entanglements - the last time I tried this was back in '96. This example is made largely from polystyrene, beer mat/coasters, cat litter and picture hanging wire. 

Smaller version, which I made first to see how they would turn out...

Finally, an urban rubble 'bunker' with barbed wire frontage - again using the same materials as above; this will provide a worthy objective during  forthcoming encounters...

I think I probably now have enough bits 'n' pieces to finally stage a small 1/72 Nuts! skirmish game - bring it on!


That's it for now - right, where's my joypad gone?


Monty

Odds and Sods Part 2

Lots of distractions preventing me from making any real progress lately have led to a new policy: less is more and small steps are large ones. To that tenuous end, here are a few of the things I have been doing lately; there are other bits 'n' pieces, but these are probably worth mentioning.

Plastic Soldier Company Late German Infantry, I've had these a while, only got round to starting them recently. They are intended to be used with THW CR 3.0 freebie skirmish rules, which I think are fab :) I also bought some Red Army bods too at Salute, but, alas, they remain in their box for now...

Next up - Peter Pig's US Marine sniper team, which I recently acquired to enhance my Ambush Alley/ CR 3.0 games. I really love the Pig's stuff and will continue to support them; I now have one of their recently released  Humvees to further supplement my forces...however at time of typing it remains in its package...

Finally, a few action shots from a recent CR 3.0 skirmish game (Ilove their mechanics); I suppose man-to-man combat has always been my favourite mode of (battle) play...


There you go, then, quick and cheerful - I seem to have solved the 'Blogger issue' too, now I have downloaded Google Chrome...hmmm, conspiracy after all, methinks...


Regards,


Monty