Judge and Rookies

This lunchtime I polished off the final bits of work on the first of my Judge Dredd Kickstarter miniatures, Judge Dekker and two Rookie Judges.

I found researching Judge uniforms to be as arduous as Napoleonics, a situation made worse by the lack of a Justice Department Uniforms 2099 to 2135 from Osprey!

Not only are there various artistic differences between the artists who have drawn the series over the decades and uniforms changes (especially for Rookies), even the colour of the uniform ranges from black to royal blue! In the end I went with Carlos Ezquerra's black uniform, after all, he designed the character so his version should be the most accurate!

Actually I made a mistake with these particular miniatures. Not appreciating they would be in the Justice Department II box in the Kickstarter I purchased them as singles so have neded up with duplicates. However I have converted the extras to give me some more miniatures variants and they are next on the painting table.

The Napoleon of Crime

As the Zombies progress I am working on odd little projects in between bulk painting sessions to keep my sanity. Today this has included some work on some Judge Dredd miniatures, a 6mm hovercraft, a 20mm T-72 and Professor James Moriarty, nemesis of the Great Consulting Detective...

I'd actually based and undercoated the Moriarty miniature (from Ironclad Miniatures) at the same time as I painted the Holmes and Watson pair back in August 2010 but I was disappointed with the sculpt. Whilst not bad, it is by a different designer than Holmes and Watson and to my mind not as good. Consequently he got shoved to one side...

Anyway I decided to finish him today and am quite pleased with the end result. It is not the most exciting miniature and I tried to enliven it by having a purple hue to his cloak (thinking about the cloak as I type I suppose I could have silk lined it to add a splash of colour - I will ponder this).

On the subject of the Napoleon of Crime I recently finished Kim Newman's excellent Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'urbervilles, a recounting of Moriarty's nefarious adventures as penned Flashman style by Colonel Sebastian "Basher" Moran. Well worth getting hold off if you enjoy Holmes and have a sense of humour,

New Osprey Catalogue

When I was a kid I used to look forward to the new Airfix catalogue, now I'm a big kid I look forward to the Osprey one! The new January to June 2013 one has just been released and has some interesting looking releases for the first half of the year.

In the Raid series The Fall of Eben Emael Belgium 1940 and Kill Hitler Operation Valkyrie 1944 look interesting, the latter maybe leading to some WW2 games with a difference. New Vanguard has a useful looking primer in the form of Warships of the Ancient World 3000–500 BC and no doubt Zaloga's forthcoming Tanks of Hitler’s Eastern Allies 1941–45 will of use. I am also looking forward to Russian Aces of World War One as coverage of a much ignored subject.

However it is there new non-historical series that may hit my wallet first. Dark Osprey following on from Zombies: A Hunter's Guide will release The Nazi Occult. The accompanying blurb says the book  "includes sections on the shadow war fought in the dying days of the Reich as the Nazis sought to stave off defeat through pacts with diabolic entities, attempts to preserve the Fuhrer’s brain, and the deployment of the strange flying saucers that battled to save the final Nazi stronghold in the Antarctic" Released in June, unsubtle hints for my birthday will have to be lodged with SWMBO!

Finally there is the new Myths & Legends series. This will be really interesting to see how good a job Osprey have done but both Jason and the Argonauts and The War of Horus and Set look really interesting.

Overall some really interesting looking titles to look forward to and no doubt inspiration for some new wargame projects!

French Foreign Legion Test Piece

SWMBO bought me a lovely box of Artizan Designs French Foreign Legion miniatures for Christmas which I earmarked for my Redcoats on Mars 28mm VSF project. These are not your typical blue greatcoated kepi wearing Beau Geste style infantry but pith helmet wearing white fatigue types suitable for North Africa, Madagascar, Tonkin and Mars(!).

Given the fact they are mainly white I decided I wanted to try out a new technique to help speed up the process given what a fussy colour white can be to paint and shade hence this test piece.

First off I undercoated the model white before painting it over with Army Painter Soft Tone dip (the idea being this would provide the shading). I then matt varnished it before painting the flesh and equipment in the three layers method from the darkest colour and then painting the uniform and helmet raised area pure white leaving the dip shading in the recesses.

Overall I think it has worked well and I happy with the end result given how quick the whole process took.

One down, twenty-three to go! :-)

The January Sales

Captain Biggleswade (Artizan Designs)

The weeks immediately after Christmas sees the inevitable January sales in the High Street with hosts of "bargains". In the wargames world a number of sales have been held and my credit card has taken an unfortunate battering as I decided to pick up some bargains!

First off there was North Star who have a ton of exciting goodies at reduced prices including the Defiance Games UAMC Marines at half price so I am now the proud owner of 48 plastic marines!

I also picked up a Thrilling Tales bargain bag containing 20 Artizan Designs pulp era miniatures for £19. The RRP on these figures is £44 and having gone through my luck dip selection there isn't one that I can't envisage finding a use for (and I've got Biggles!).

I am now trying to stay away from the sale site, as having read the article in  the current WSS magazine the crusader rules Deus Vult look very interesting and North Star appear to have them one third off!

Despite annoying me with the Dreadball fumble (it turned up just before Christmas), Mantic's Santa sale had some under half price bargains from an Undead point of view (a 52 figure war host for less than £15 - mainly skeletons which I need for the Undead Army project).

I also decided to buy twenty pole-armed Orcs and forty bow armed Goblins, I'm not sure I really needed these but you really can't have enough Goblinoids and they were ridiculously cheap...

Finally (I did say the credit card had taken a battering) Elheim Figures did a post free sale over the festive period (equivalent to about 10% off). With my Wessex Games head on I have been planning to reprint ColdWar: 1983 in a nicer format and have been looking at the 28mm Cold War era ranges for a while to use in photos, although there are huge gaps especially if you want something other than BAOR or US for NATO.

So I have turned the clock back twenty years to my first love 20mm and ordered a pile off Elheim which arrived yesterday and I must say are absolutely gorgeous. It has been hard to put these to one side as I concentrate on the Zombies I can tell you!

West German LMG's (photo Elheim Figures)

The Hobbit - An Unexpected Mess?

A few years back I remember watching Peter Jackson's The Frighteners and telling (an uninterested) SWMBO "that man should do The Lord of the Rings" when the wraith appeared - it was sooo Nazgul! Fortunately someone was listening! :-)

Of course there was no way that Jackson would faithfully recreate my interpretation of Tolkien's epic and I was happy to grant him leeway and by and large he hit the right buttons and did a very good job.

Ok, things were changed from the book, but I didn't mind the "let's hunt some orc!" in the Fellowship or even the dwarf tossing in the Two Towers. However the re-writing of Frodo's "I have come, but I do not choose to do what I came to do." dialogue at Mount Doom in the Return of the King (listen to the Radio 4 production to hear how powerful it is) irritated, as did the exorcising of The Scouring of the Shire epilogue from the story (it is an important aspect of the overall theme of the story).

So The Hobbit was not approached with the same level of excitement that the first Lord of the Rings film was. The success and (generally well deserved) plaudits of The Lord of the Rings meant that I suspected that not would Jackson be adding chunks of dialogue to what Tolkien wrote, but based on the Mount Doom scene removing what a professor of the Languages wrote in preference to that his wife dreamt up.

In Jackson's defence it is not a bad film and on occasion he gets it so right it is magical. The opening party at Bilbo's hobbit hole is extremely well filmed, the scenes at Rivendell look like some pre-Raphaelite painting brought to life and the inclusion of Nirnaeth Arnoediad (The battle of Unnumbered Tears) in the story is splendid (despite the mohicaned troll slayer who sneaked in!). The piece de resistance is, of course, the riddle in the dark sequence with Gollum. Excellent.

But for every magical scene there is some distinctly not. The idea of Radagast's bunny sled is woeful (let's ignore how far it travelled and how it got from Mirkwood to warn Gandalf of the Necromancer) and gets worse when it is dodging warg riders in some obvious poor CGI.

Indeed the CGI often stands out like a sore thumb from the opening dragon cam sweeping shots to the collapsing walkway when the dwarves are escaping from the goblins. In fact the whole escape from Goblin Town scene is so Goonies/Harry Potter when it could (should) have been tenser as it is in the book (and don't get me started on the look of the mutants, sorry goblins...).

Jackson also plays fast and loose with Tolkien's dialogue prefering to his own (or that of his wife). The scene with the trolls has been re-written for no obvious benefit. And FFS what about a hedgehog called Sebastian?! Tolkien's use of ancient languages is part of the reason the books are so well regarded and some muppet picks a Latin based name that bears no relation to that of the background Tolkien created.

As you might have guessed The Hobbit was an overall disappointment, largely because you can see that when he stays true to the source material Jackson gets it and takes it off the page and puts it on the screen in a way that is near perfect. However when he feels he needs to change things he rapidly goes off kilter. The book of The Hobbit is rightly regarded as a classic and when filming classics producers need to bear in mind they are classics for a reason and that they are just film producers!

Zulu War: The Evil Omen

Usuthu! Tremble white man as the uMbonambi march!

I managed to grab half an hour to finish my first Warlord Games Zulu regiment this lunchtime. Unfortunately the light is pretty crap so apologies if the pictures aren't too good (I have played with them in iPhoto but...)

This first regiment is the unmarried uMbonambi (The Evil Omen), raised in 1863 and present at Isandlwana (22nd January 1879), Kambala (29th Match 1879), Gingindlovo (2nd April 1879) and Ulundi (4th July 1879).

I have based them in groups of five on 80x40mm bases, apart from one group of two and one of three each on a 40x40mm base. Overall I'm fairly happy with them. They look good en masse but I think I can do better and will learn from mistakes. I am still debating some highlights but will wait until the weather (and natural light is better) before deciding whether this is necessary.

 Zulu Army painted running total: 

 30/288 infantry

Arrêter Les Boche!

With Bolt Action fresh in mind I decided to have an investigation of the Lead Mountain to see what early war stuff I had to build upon. As suspected I found a nice (and hefty) Solido die-cast Somua S35. It may be 1/43 scale (I'm not 100% sure) but it looks the business and just needs some weathering for tabletop use.

Infantry wise I dug out the Warlord Defenders of France box set which includes a platoon command squad, one twelve man infantry section and an 81mm mortar and crew.

(photo Warlord Games)

I'm not keen on working out balanced points forces so would need two more twelve man sections to bring the platoon up to TO&E strength (I am thinking that purchasing miniatures from the likes of Crusader will add some variety).

(photo Crusader Miniatures)

In the game platoons are reinforced, the S35 and mortar are perfect for this and I may just add a Hotchkiss HMG and a 25mm anti-tank gun for some variety in games.

On the Zombie front, all eighty have received a base coat of Rotting Flesh and the Zulus have had the filler applied to their bases...

(Zombie Month) The Undercoated Dead...

I hadn't intended to post work in progress posts of the Zombies but having made the second horde up and undercoated all 80 I thought they looked pretty impressive even in white undercoat!

I have decided not to wait for the Army Painter spray to come out in two weeks but go with Plan A and use the several pots of old GW Rotting Flesh I picked up before they redid their paint range. Hopefuly I will get the opportunity to start on this tomorrow.

I've actually managed to be a bit more productive today having, in addition to the above, undercoated the 24 French Foreign Legion Santa brought and based up the first Zulu regiment. They don't seem to look as dark as I thought (maybe I am getting used to them) and I will see if they need some odd highlights once I have finished the groundwork (all the clever kids like Saxon Dog appear to be adding odd highlights after the dip stage to great effect so I will keep this in mind).

Finally, in addition to the army running scores that I intend to post under specific projects going forward (I found it helpful with the Athenians when I was getting stir crazy with hoplite phalaxes) I have posted in the right hand column my 2013 Painting Target for the year - one miniature for each day of the year.

Obviously this doesn't mean one must be painted each day (otherwise I'm six down already!) but a target of at least 365 painted miniatures in 2013. I'm not differentiating between model sizes or scales so a cavalryman is the same as an infantryman which is the same as a tank (the only exception will be 6 or 10mm figures where one base will equate to one figure). We'll see how it goes...

Undead Army painted running total: 

0/182 infantry
0/16 cavalry
0/2 war machines

(Zombie Month) How to Paint Zombies - Quickly...

Whilst I was pleased with the end result of my modern zombies painted last year and intended to replicate the process on my fantasy zombies I did a bit of web surfing and came across this excellent Speed Painting Tutorial on Dice and Brush. As you can see the end result is very impressive and if mine are half as good I will be happy.

The process is not too disimilar to what I intended to do other than the white eyes (very effective) and the use of Army Painter's Necrotic Flesh primer. Apparently this has been unavailable for a couple of years but as fate would have it is due to be re-released on the 19th of this month. Now I am in a quandry as whether to proceed as planned or wait till the primer is available. Decisions. decisions...

With SWMBO away this weekend I have sneaked the hobby into the lounge (as it is warmer!) and spent a goodly chunk of today making up the first 40 strong zombie horde using the Mantic plastics. Not as straight forward as I was anticipating as care had to be taken ranking the miniatures up. As I've got my head round this now hopefully the second unit won't take as long.

The Zombie sprue is interchangeable with the Ghoul one (to some extent) so I have swapped the legs around on a couple of models to add variety though only in the front rank. A unit of 18 Ghouls is being constructed alongside the Zombies.

Undead Army painted running total:

0/182 infantry
0/16 cavalry
0/2 war machines

Bolt Action

When Bolt Action was announced I must confess to being a little disinterested. Yet 'another' set of WW2 rules and oh look special dice was a bit of a turn off. However being the rules magpie I am, I spotted them for half price on Amazon (currently £13.83 from one retailer there compared to £25 RRP) and thought what the hell...

They are very pretty.

Not only lots of pretty pictures of toys but tons of pieces of artwork from various Osprey books by Peter Dennis. In some respects this proves a tad distracting when trying to read the rules and I do wish that publishers wouldn't inundate the core rules section with so much eye candy!

Reading through the basic rules I did like what I was reading and am planning that my 28mm section level games may get bumped up to the platoon, one support weapon and one AFV level of the game (after all I probably have the figures and do have some Solido French and German tanks somewhere). There are some (to my mind) pointless rules for a 28mm game (AA rules? Why?) but the basic game looks like it will be fun.

However I was disappointed that despite lots of photos and artwork of various combatants in WW2 (especially the French, Japanese and Poles) there were only basic army lists for the big four in the book. Now I am prepared to look up TO&E's etc. but given the amount of fluff and eye candy in the book I was disappointed the French, Italians, Japanese and Poles didn't merit at least a page including any specific army rules.

Kudos to Warlord though in that they have subsequently released free basic PDF's for the French and Japanese, hopefully the Italians and Poles will be next.

 

Looking forward I am not sure I like the national army list book approach and would have preferred a campaign orientated approach with all the 1940 stuff in one, Pacific in another etc etc. Having to buy three books for the armies engaged in the Pacific for example is a bit of a pain if one only wants to do Far East 1944 but whatever approach Warlord took I suppose would have been wrong. Anyway I'm not sure how necessary these army list books will be for informal friendly games.

Overall I think as a rule set they are worth picking up (especially at half price) even for the artwork alone! I like how the rules read and can't help thinking they'd make the basis of a good SF set as well - Las-Bolt Action anyone?

I Am Spartacus!

Something fun to look forward to on these cold winter nights. Sadly the final series...

January is... Zombie Month!

I've decided that for January I will focus my attentions on the big box of Mantic Zombies I picked up from North Star for a steal last year. The box contains sixty models (to add to thirty I already have) but they can be assembled using a spinal accessory into up to eighty if one likes half zombies. I'm planning three hordes of thirty-two at the moment (8 x 4) but am considering upping the size to thirty-five (7 x 5) or even forty (8 x 5). I have a few old Citadel metal models that I will dig out to see if they are compatible...

On the non-undead front I dipped my first regiment of Zulus yesterday but the end result was a tad disappointing as the dip was a bit gloopy and my addition of white spirit to the mix hasn't given the usual shiny and shaded look. I have added an Army Painter ink wash but they figures may be a bit too dark now. I intend to add some highlights to see if this improves matters but for what was supposed to be a rough and ready quick project, this is turning into a lot of effort. A fresh tin of dip has been ordered for the other Zulus and Undead...

Finally I cleaned and based the twenty-four Artizan French Foreign Legion SWMBO (Santa Who Must Be Obeyed) bought me as a Christmas present. Lovely figures, they did take a little while to clean up. This present has galvanised me to proceed with my ponderings on 28mm VSF and develop my own ruleset for Wessex Games. More detail on the genesis and development of these rules will be posted here.

New Year's Resolutions!

A couple of months back I sat down and drew up a list (from memory) of all the outstanding wargames projects I had on the go and found that if I spent one month on each, I had at least five and a half years worth. Given my memory is not the best I guess ten years might be safer!

So where to start? Well, when I do a specific project month exercise I usually am successful (cough-zulus-cough) I am resolving myself to recommencing this methodology in 2013. With this in mind I am setting myself some targets for this year...

1. Rescue the Games Room:

As part of a wider DIY/decorating exercise at Blease Towers I will be reclaiming and returning the games room to its primary function.

2. WW2 Project:

I have uncompleted WW2 projects in 28mm, 20mm, 15mm 1/144th and 6mm. I aim to complete one, not sure which though I have a hankering to do 28mm 1940 skirmishes...

3. Fantasy:

I need to paint some more Orcs but I have a lot of Undead and would like to paint the core of a large Undead army this year. Skeletons and zombies should not be too taxing...

4. SF:

Focus will be on Judge Dredd but I want to paint up some more 6mm for Iron Cow. Whilst I didn't want to start a new project I already know Mongoose have me hook, line and sinker with the forthcoming Rogue Trooper Kickstarter.

5. Ancients:

2012's great success was finishing the Athenian army so 2013 must be the Spartans. I would also like to make some headway on the Romans and Celts but primary focus is on the Spartans despite Santa bringing some nice shiny new Roman accessories.

6. Colonial:

I want to finish the Zulu War project (despite Santa delivering some shiny new French Foreign Legion that may end up on Mars!)

Even as I am typing this I am mentally trying to add things in but I must be strong, this is a marathon not a sprint! Be disciplined Blease!!!

That Was The Year That Was...

So 2012 we come to the end...

Looking back at 2012 from a hobby perspective I haven't achieved anywhere near as much as I wished.

In the plus column I finished an army - the Athenians! I also painted up a number of Orc army regiments plus some odds and sods including a pile of old 40K Imperial Guard.



In the minus column the Zulus, a pile of brown undercoated miniatures, stare at me accusingly and I never progressed with my 28mm moderns as I wished (and we'll just skip over Wessex Games projects).

So bit of a mixed bag. If one lesson has been learn it is that I need to identify what projects I intend to concentrate on and stick to the plan and endeavour to do some painting (no matter how little) each day as every little helps (as they say). I just need to plan the first few months of 2013...



Anyway, off to see The Hobbit in a while so as this is the last post of 2012 I'd like to wish you all a peaceful and prosperous New Year!

Nice Looking Rack...

I spent part of Friday trying to get at least one of my Zulu regiments ready for dipping before the year ended and found myself spending more time trying to find the particular Vallejo paint pots I wanted (my current system of them all dumped in a clear plastic ziplock bag leaves something to be desired). Indeed I reflected my whole workbench/painting area is a complete and utter mess.

So the time has come for action!

Following an inspiring post on Belisarius's blog I have purchased this...

This is stage one in clearing, reclaiming and reogranising my workbench/painting area rather than trying to work amongst the detritus that has spread across all but a minute part on the area.

Once I have done this I will start to reclaim the wargames table with the aim of having a more organised and hobby orientated year in 2013!

Gerry Anderson RIP

It was sad to read the news of Gerry Anderson's passing today. To many of us of a 'certain age' his TV shows defined our youth, in my case Stingray and Thunderbirds...



A few years back I bought a complete set of the Konami Thunderbirds models with the idea of creating an International Rescue type game. An idea to dust off in 2013 perhaps...

Merry Christmas

Hoping you, your family and friends have a peaceful festive period and that Santa brought you lots of shiny new wargaming presents and not too many socks!

The model is Scibor Miniatures' Snowman Slayer, a companion to last year's Santa Hunter, lovely miniatures both...

Sharke's Aquila

Craig Andrew's has uploaded my annual contribution to his Orcs in the Webbe advent calendar which you can read here.

This year I have gone back to exploring the possibilities of gameworld crossovers with the Orc Rifles from Flintlqoue ending up in the world of Pax Bochemanica where, rather confusingly, orcs wear skirts and carry eagles...

Back to the present wrapping...

The End Is Nigh...

As the Mayans haven't been considerate enough to advise whether the world ends today at GMT, EST or even PST I thought we could all do some music. I'll be painting some Judge Dredd figures on the off chance they are wrong... ;-)

 

The Great DreadBall Fumble...

I wasn't going to post on this topic again but my blood pressure is rising the more I look into it...

Allegedly all the Kickstarters have now been shipped. I say allegedly because on 26th November Mantic posted that "all trade is shipping at the same time as the Kickstarter pledges!"

 A few days earlier they posted: "Just to keep you informed we will be shipping out distributor orders next week as well, so if any are super quick they may hit shelves next Saturday – but they should be arriving at the same time as yours the following week – though obviously without the MVPs and the other goodies you'll all have in your first shipment!"

This is why I am upset with Mantic. I accept crap happens and things get delayed but they are making decisions and moving goalposts without explaining why directly to the people who put almost half a million quid in their bank account at the end of September.

I don't know why they have not done what they said they were going to do on the 26th November. I'm also a bit confused how some UK Kickstarters got their stuff two weeks back (one two separate parcels) which contradicts either waiting for the MVP stock or sending overseas orders out first (which I don't mind if I believed that was true as it clearly isn't)

I appear to have been quite restrained in not getting miffed until two weeks after it went on sale with retailers having now come across the following interesting blog posts from November:

Frontline Game: Dreadball Launch

Meeples and Miniatures: “Mantic have the ball, it’s the last rush of the game, they must score…wait…FUMBLE!!!”

Incidentally it didn't arrive today...

A Dread(ful)Ball Experience...

I must confess to being a bit jacked off...

Back in October I told you all how I'd been seduced by Mantic's shiny new Dreadball project and had been looking forward to painting up the miniatures and having some games. I was planning to paint up two of the teams and give it to Saul as a Christmas present, but it looks like that won't be happening.

Mantic collected over $700,000 from gamers who invested in the project to get it off the ground, but since collecting the money they have treated the Kickstarters pretty poorly.

First off was the decision to supply retailers before the Kickstarters. They have tried to justify this as part of building a gaming community for players by getting it into shops where the game could be played but many of the retailers they supplied don't have shops. North Star, an online retailer and wholesaler, received their sets of DreadBall on 28th November and anyone who pre-ordered from them received their copies on 3rd December. Dave Thomas (who also doesn't have a shop) even had some on his stand at Recon on 1st December...

Eventually Mantic told Kickstarters that the game was shipping to us and it arrived - first in Malaysia... then New Zealand... then Canada.... It is 141 miles from Nottingham (home of Mantic) to Bristol (home of me) but apparently it is easier to get an order 11,299 miles to the other side of the globe. 

On the DreadBall Fanatics FB page one UK Kickstarter posted he phoned Mantic today and was told that half the UK ones were sent yesterday, half are waiting to be collected today. Except other UK Kickstarters have received theirs. Cambridge last Thursday, Arbroath last Friday. So that's a bare faced lie to a customer...

I appreciate that Mantic have probably been overwhelmed by the response to DreadBall but they have seriously dropped the customer service ball and I am not a happy bunny.

In contrast Reaper's CEO emailed all the Bones KS customers when they had a problem with the paints and offered refunds for anyone not happy with the delay. Similarly Matt Sprange at Mongoose has been straight up and communicated any delays with the Judge Dredd Kickstarter items, even taking a hit on postage by shipping out partial orders to make sure we got something asap rather than waiting for everything to be in stock...

A Sailor's Life For Me?

Still merrily coughing away here in Blease Towers so I haven't picked up a paintbrush for nearly a fortnight now though I intend to slap some metal work on the Zulu blades tomorrow. In the meantime, whilst SWMBO watches The Forsyte Saga she has discovered on ITV Player I've been looking at Lead (& Plastic) Mountain and thinking about next year's projects...

For a few years I've fancied having a crack at WW2 naval but have been put off with experiences with modern naval using  Harpoon twenty odd years back and the prospective "joy" of painting lots of grey models. A couple of years back I picked up a copy of Mongoose's Victory at Sea on eBay and a pile of Axis & Allies ships. They may not be brilliant, but they are painted (after a fashion).

These have (unsurprisingly) sat in a drawer for the last two years until I noticed Mongoose were planning a second edition of the rules and releasing a set of 1/1800th miniatures (the same size as Axis & Allies I believe). This piqued my interest until I saw the price (gulp!) but with my enthusiasm raised I then decided to revisit what could be done with the pre-painted plastics.

Of course I need to decide on a theatre of war and whilst I stocked up on piles of 1/700th planes many moons ago the Pacific is not very inspiring (despite reading an excellent book on it), as I want my ships to shoot at each other not just launch waves of planes.

A big of research and the Mediterranean seems the place to go...



Of course checking the pile of plastics and whilst I have a nice batch of British I only have one squadron of Italian destroyers (for some reason I have a lot of Germans, I think I was looking at doing a hypothetical Battle of the Atlantic). However it all seems jolly interesting and I have spent most of two episodes of The Forsyte Saga researching the Italian Navy, what it did in the Med and what models Axis & Allies have for them (quite a lot it seems).

All quite tempting, I think I need to find a good book on the subject...

The Joy of Six...

I think it is Big Lee's fault, yes, let's blame him! You may have seen on Big Lee's Miniature Adventures the start of his 6mm North Africa project which started me mentally reminiscing about the "good old days" when 6mm WW2 was the only game in town (well apart from WHFB2). This in turn led to some perusing the Cold War Commander forums and me wondering what was lurking in "Lead Mountain".

A bit of rummaging later I found...

A lot of Soviet late-WW2.  GHQ T34/85's, Su-122's etc and a few PzIvH's. Battle of Hungary anyone?

A lot of Cold War era models including some 1967 or '73 Arab-Israeli War (Chinese Farm?) and piles of GHQ Soviets, probably enough for Fulda Gap and Afghanistan. I also have a GHQ British battlegroup I bought for my 2ECW project who could also fight the Russkis...

Also a few bits of Scotia South African armour. Some interesting CWC Angola lists here whet the appetite...

A few pieces of near-future Twilight 2000 inspired armour...

And piles of SF, mainly Copeland and Brigade.

I really need to pull it all out and sort it out into some armies but there is enough here, certainly enough Soviet whether 1945 or 1989, to get on with something concrete next year.

Thousands of Them? Where?!!

Zulus? What Zulus?

Well "Zulu Month" came to an end with zero Zulus painted (well finished, 24 are close to dipping stage and 48 are base coated). The dreaded lurgy is still here (office Xmas dinner missed) and I am still coughing and spluttering. So a slight revision of the 2012 plan, December will be Zulu month with some Judge Dredd miniatures to break the brown monotony. The War Between the States will be pushed back in 2013...