Blitzkrieg: Fallschirmjäger II

Another three of the BTD Fallschirmjäger painted up for actions in Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium...

2014 Painting Target: 206/1000

Blitzkrieg: Fallschirmjäger I

I've decided to stick with the Germans for the time being and crack on with the Black Tree Design Fallschirmjäger which I picked up in their recent sale. These three have been painted up in the rather plain (but easy to paint) early war uniform. The helmet decals are from Warlord.

They are nice enough miniatures and scale well with the Crusader ones I bought for the forthcoming Tunisia campaign.

 2014 Painting Target: 203/1000

The King of Monsters!

Just back from seeing Godzilla at the local cinema - awesome!

Whilst being more than entertaining enough for regular cinema goers, Godzilla fans will get enough out of the little nods to Godzilla history (blink and miss the Mothra on the fish tank reference) and the broad sweep of Godzilla's role as saviour of the planet (as seen in most of the Japanese films). Godzilla himself is very well done, having enough of the man in the suit look to be familiar (and some of his combat moves!) but rendered so well that it does not look cheesy.

Great inspiration for a bit of Kaiju gaming! Recommended.

Blitzkrieg: German Infantry V

Hurray, the German infantry section is now complete with this MG34 team...

These two bring the years total to 200 miniatures, 20% of the year's target (which is not so good as we are 37% of the way through 2014, I need to up my game!)

Here is a picture of the completed section of Warlord plastic Blitzkrieg era Germans...

2014 Painting Target: 200/1000

Blitzkrieg: German Infantry IV

Moving swiftly on here are the next batch of Warlord Heer, taking the section total to eight completed. Just the MG34 team left now...

2014 Painting Target: 198/1000

Blitzkrieg: German Infantry III

Progress on the Blitzkrieg front! The Wehrmacht are now at that stage were I break them down into smaller groups to finish them off (I think I'd go insane trying to fix twenty of the minute Warlord decals to the helmets in one go!). Here are the next three Warlord plastics...

I must confess that nicely detailed as they are with the benefit of hindsight if I was doing this over I would have chose Crusader's metal figures purely for the time saved.

2014 Painting Target: 195/1000

1920 And All That...

Well I've now watched Battle of Warsaw and can confirm with some relief that it does not feature a Leopard 1A4 in it! What it does have - and to any wargamer this is so freaking cool - FT17's in action!

The film, Bitwa Warszawska 1920 (Battle of Warsaw 1920), to give it it's proper name, may not be the greatest work of cinema ever from a character development point of view and some of the acting is a bit suspect, but as war films go it is pretty damn good. The battle scenes are consistently well done, the attention to detail is fantastic, and the scale is immense. The Red cavalry army looks like an army, hundreds of infantry advance in waves not a dozen, antiquated armoured cars roll across the countryside it is all very, very impressive. There are also some wonderful modelling ideas, Soviet cavalry trombone band anyone?

It would have been easy for the film to be overly nationalistic but it is not. Polish troops run from the enemy, some are portrayed as self-serving bullies, the problems with troops fighting side by side when two years previous they fought in the Austrian, German and Russian armies is shown.

Overall, hugely enjoyable and anyone who likes or good war film along the lines of A Bridge Too Far or The Longest Day or has an interest in twentieth century warfare should pop over to Amazon right now and buy a copy. It'll be the best £3.39 you'll ever spend! Did I mention it has FT-17's in action?

Worst DVD Cover Ever?

I know we have to suffer some bad war films with dubious historical accuracy, and some even worse DVD covers that have little to do with the film inside, but this takes the biscuit...

With SWMBO claiming the "wand of power" here at Bleaseworld (the TV remote to mere mortals) I thought I'd take a break from Vikings on Amazon Prime and see what war films were available as part of the Prime membership.

There are quite a few, mainly foreign, and I thought Battle Of Warsaw looked worth checking out. Ok, it's got a Leopard 1A4 on the cover but it'll do as a proxy Tiger if I squint!

Wrong Battle of Warsaw, not the 1944 Uprising, this is the film the DVD cover is for...

I'll let you know if it is any good when I've finished watching it (trailer looks epic), hopefully there is no Leopard in it!

Warhammer: Dwarf Stone Thrower

Along with Grombrindal I decided it was time to finish an old-Citadel Dwarf Stone Thrower that had been sat half-painted on the workbench for too long...

Back to the Germans now...

2014 Painting Target: 192/1000

Warhammer: Grombrindal

Progress on the German infantry and paras has gone well today and hopefully they should be finished later this week (unfortunately there was a slight SNAFU with the Fallschirmjäger as BTD sent me a late war pack with MG42 and NCO with MP44, they are sending early war replacements).

As the base filler was drying earlier I looked around for something to finish and found a small batch of Dwarves including this old model of Grombrindal, the White Dwarf, which I finished before the football started...

2014 Painting Target: 188/1000

France At War in Photos...

I've been concentrating painting German infantry and paras today but whilst waiting for the ink wash to dry I decided to try Google.fr for photos of the Vichy forces in North Africa during WW2 - and came across this fantastic website chock full of photos of French military forces in action from before WW1 through to Afghanistan. For anyone with an interest in the French military it is a fantastic resource...

Vichy artillery in action in Syria

The Army of Africa in Tunisia

French armour in Tunisia

Algerian infantry in Indo-China 1950

Blitzkrieg: German Infantry II

Alongside the MP40 sporting German test piece I also painted one with a Kar98, today I got a few minutes to try the Warlord German army decals on him...

They are (obviously) very small and this is not helped by the spacing on the decal sheet which is ungenerous to say the least. Very careful cutting with a scalpel is required and I can't see why the sheets aren't a fraction larger to allow more space to cut round - it was like playing Operation!

The end result though is worth the effort, the helmet decals looked good so I promoted the smger to an NCO with a decal for his stripes. Work has now started on the remaining eight of the section.

2014 Painting Target: 187/1000

Où est l'Armée d'Afrique?

No progress on the painting front but I am enjoying reading An Army at Dawn about the US Army in North Africa, despite some errors in the text. It has reinforced by interest in the Vichy French forces, especially the Armée d'Afrique which can historically fight American, British, German and Italian forces (expanding into the Levant with most of the same troops you can add Australians, Indians and the Free French). It goes without saying that no one produces much in the way of suitable figures in 28mm, the only ones I have found are some of Artizan's French Foreign Legion.

It seems that a search for suitable proxies may have to be be the way forward but information on the campaign uniforms of the Vichy French colonial troops is hard to come by (and photos even rarer). Looking at the photo above of Giraud in Algiers after Torch the colonial infantry don't look too far removed from Woodbine's WWI French Senegalese, the separate heads are likely to be useful as well, though a head in a 1930's topee would be useful (anyone got any suggestions?) for other units.

Most problems will be with the native cavalry (and I love WW2 cavalry), the Historie & Collections French Army 1940 shows an Algerian Spahi in a campaign uniform, cut like the one in the photo above but in the same colour as the 1940 European French army uniform (with no cloak).

These two photos (above and below) however suggest a campaign uniform in a lighter sand colour in North Africa (which would tie in with the French tropical uniform which would be ok for summer operations but maybe not so the Tunisian winter).

Regardless, I have not found any suitable figures that would look right for Spahis with a suitable paint job and an odd Adrian helmet head swap. Shame no manufacturer has taken up the challenge really, a great looking army with loads of potential opponents.

Black Tree Giving It Away (Almost)...

To celebrate VE Day (or SWMBO's birthday as they are one and the same) Black Tree Design have a 50% (yes fifty!) off sale on their WW2 infantry. Having taken advantage of recent sales I wasn't planning on picking anything up for a while but 50% off with the rewards voucher from the last sale kinda blows that idea out of the water - just need to decide what to get...

Batman Before

Fox has just released a trailer for it's pre-Batman series Gotham. My interest level has gone from meh to wow...

Gotham Trailer

Blitzkrieg: German Infantry I

I've been sticking together a section of German infantry from the Warlord plastic box set today. They can be a bit fiddly but I think the end result will look pretty good. Hopefully I can get outside and undercoat them in a little while.

Whilst I was converting and painting the Danes I also started work on one German as a test piece for uniform paint colours which I finished this morning. I'm quite pleased with the end result.

As he is armed with the MP40 I probably will promote him to an NCO by adding rank chevrons on his arm when I get around to using the decals I bought for the helmets.

2014 Painting Target: 186/1000

Blitzkrieg: Danish Infantry II

I managed to spend a little time today finishing off the paint jobs on the second batch of WW2 Danish infantry to go those I converted and painted last month.

Work is progressing on the final five (I think a section is enough), conversion work has been completed on the Marsden lmg team. and I'm working on the helmets of the three riflemen.

Whilst it has taken a fair bit of effort to convert the Warlord Germans, it is great to have a unit of obscure troops that are not commercially available.

2014 Painting Target: 185/1000

What AREN'T They Telling You About "May the Fourth"?

Citizens of the Empire, some of you may be considering "celebrating" the so-called "Star Wars Day" tomorrow. Be warned that this activity is illegal and you will be treated as a traitor to the Empire. We repeat our informative documentary from last year to help you avoid arrest and summary execution.

Die Götterdämmerung

The weekly Warlord email arrived today advertising their new wares including a new box of twenty defenders of Berlin. They look a lovely box of Volkssturm characters and no doubt would be great for some skirmishes in the ruins of the Reich.

Of course with the usual foresight of a wargamer many moons ago I persuaded SWMBO to buy me a 20mm scale resin model of the Brandenburg Gate and a pile of 20mm Volkssturm (can't remember who  exactly) to refight the Battle of Berlin so it would be pretty stupid to buy some 28mm Battle of Berlin figures wouldn't it? Or...

Out of Africa?

Temptation is fluttering her beguiling eyelashes at me again! Doing my best to ignore the Gorgon Norwegian campaign miniatures I stumbled over a new Kickstarter for Spectre Miniatures and their ultra-modern covert ops in Africa line.

Spectre Miniatures PMC's - so tempting...

Now I know I have a pile of Empress Miniatures to get around to painting but these look like they will match the Empress figures and the African militia types provide an interesting new opponent for the USMC.

Blitzkrieg: Who Needs This Kind of Temptation?

Gorgon Studios have just released some more WW2 figures for the Norwegian campaign. It is very hard to resist this kind of temptation, I think it is only the shipping cost that has prevented me sending off an order already...

French Foreign Legion in anorak (photo Gorgon Studios)

Transfer Request!

One of the joys of early war Germans as opposed to late war ones are the helmet markings. Whilst I am happy to skip these in 15 or 20mm, they do need to be recreated on 28mm models. Fortunately for the kack handed like me you no longer need to try and hold a 000 paint brush steady, but you can use decals from the likes of Warlord! As they had a post free offer on I popped in a small order for some German and American infantry decals which you will hopefully see adorning some toy soldiers very soon!

Superkrieg: Walküre

Busy day today, but I did manager to finish off another Superkrieg figure - this time the Nazi's top fighting fräulein Walküre!

The miniature is a straight repaint of the Wizkids Lois Lane, Superwoman model, again using a red. black, white Germanic palette.

2014 Painting Target: 182/1000

Superkrieg: Der Todsturm

Painting on the Danes has been slower than planned but I have managed to complete another Superkrieg character - the Nazi super Der Todsturm!

The basic figure is a Wizkids Nova Corps Recruit but this time I replaced the head with a Warlord German helmeted one from the Blitzkrieg plastic set. I decided to paint the miniature in Germanic red and black and added a plane tailfin swastika to complete things.

2014 Painting Target: 181/1000

Another Brick in the Wall...

You may have seen that Warlord have released some plastic stone walls recently, just over four foot of wall for £14, part of their collaboration with Italeri (as can be seen from the box).

I'm not sure whether £14 for four foot of wall represents good value but you can purchase exactly the same product in an Italeri box for almost half the price (their rrp is about ten euro). Now I admit the box isn't as nice but the price difference is a bit surprising.

Some people have wondered if the product has been upscaled from 1/72nd to 1/56th or that the box contains more sprues but it has been confirmed by Warlord not, the product and quantity is identical. The 19mm tall walls which are six foot in 1/72nd are about four foot in 28mm. I picked up a couple of Italeri boxes from a seller via Amazon for less than the Warlord rrp which arrived today and they should prove useful for both 20mm and 28mm games.

I have to admit to being somewhat surprised that Warlord thought they might be able to get away with releasing Italeri's product with such a hefty mark up in this day and age and I confess that I shall be looking twice now at any future collaborative efforts (such as the planned vehicle kits) to ensure that I am not being taken for a ride...