Farm House & Barn

I just received my Farm House and Barn (BB176) via UPS and I'm both excited and sad at the same time.

Bruno Koenig and Snipers

I've always wanted to field snipers, but never really had the chance (since I like playing non-infantry lists). But I couldn't turn down the chance to own a few when I recently traded some unwanted bits for the Koenig sniper blister.

WWPD Italy Campaign - Fighting Withdrawal

Mission: Fighting Withdrawal
Defending: Confident Veteran Allies
Attacking: Confident Veteran Axis

Confident Veterans from the 3rd Infantry Division (Magnus) with orders for fighting withdrawal against fast advancing Panzers from the Hermann Goring Panzerkompanie Regiment (FarkonGnome).

Picture Day

Since the sun was out today, I decided to take some pictures during my lunch hour. I recently completed a SS HMG platoon and did some final labeling to my stands (you'll see them in the photos) that needed to have them done.

I took the idea of labeling the stands from a friend of mine. While it may not be the neatest or cutting edge system out there, it does make playing the game with them a lot easier since I don't have to remember any color codes, move the stand to see what they are, etc.

May Muster Picture Dump

Here are some pictures from the tournament I went to where I placed 2nd. I'll comment on the pictures where I was present for them, but otherwise I'll let them speak for themselves.

Tournament and some Brummbars

I entered a local tournament this past weekend at a local gaming store, and I wasn't aware there was prize support. Well the first game I got my but t handed to me courtesy to 2 tigers and 2 panthers against my Panzer IV H's and pumas. I bounced every shot I fired at them, and just couldn't - as Admiral Ackbar would say - "repel firepower of that magnitude".

It's a trap!

Ernst Barkmann's Panther Ausf. A

Wanting to get more warriors for my army, I decided to pick up Barkmann's Panther Ausf. A tank. While I'm not a huge fan of zimmerit, this tank has it on it, and was actually less defined than I originally thought. Now some of you that know me are asking why I would get another Late War warrior when all you do is play Mid War. Well, believe it or not, Barkmann had a long career in the German Army. Based on this, I decided I needed to have him in my arsenal so I could pull him out whenever the need arises.

6-8 Weeks

First off, I"m beginning to hate this term. I wish I could simply return some of the stuff I've purchased in order to order it from a secondary company. But alas, I cannot - and neither can others that have stuff that is simply below par with respect to quality issues with Battlefront products.

Rudel's Stuka

By far the most difficult model I've done up to this point with my airbrush: Rudel. I wanted to recreate the camo pattern that was on the FoW website, but the one thing I didn't like on the aircraft there was the yellow stripe on the fuselage.

Rudel's Stuka

Wirblewinds and Ostwinds

I've been reading a lot lately about how big cats need some AA support, so I decided to pick up some Wirblewinds and Ostwinds to help protect them. While I normally play MW with my FoW group, I can't help but not get them - they just look cool.

Schwerer Panzerspähwagen - AKA 8-Rad's

After seeing one of my friend use these in a battle campaign - Kursk - I decided I needed to get a few of these. While I didn't get the 8 that I wanted, I started out with 4, since I'm always able to borrow some models (Thanks again Jeff).

One thing I have to say is that I'm glad that the wheels are mounted 2 per wheel set. I couldn't imagine if I had to put on 32 single wheels across all of the vehicles. The models I received are modeled very clean, as I didn't have to clean them up at all. nothing irritates me more than having to clean up some resin model due to there being extra "gloop" on the models - I'm looking at you Panzer III G platoon box set.

My boxes of goodies...

I recently ordered a buttload of items I needed to help me limit the amount of army borrowing that I've been doing lately. Among the items I purchased are:

• 2 boxes of the plastic Panzer IV H's
• 4 8-Rads
• 2 Ostwinds
• 2 Wirblewinds
• 4 BMW with sidecars
• Panzer III G Platoon (OOP box)
• Rudel and his Stuka

The postman hates me with all the packages that she had to deliver

I ordered these while I was on vacation and when I arrived home, I was lucky enough to have BF send me the 2 Premium houses that I've been waiting to be delivered next.

I spent most of the weekend building and painting the Panzer IV H's and last night I finally was able to decal them and apply a pin wash to 5 of the 10 tanks. After looking at them 5 that I didn't pin wash, I never realized how much the pin wash makes the details of the tank pop out. I also learned a valuable lesson: Never attach the turrets of the tanks until the next day after you varnish them.

While I didn't have any problems with a majority of the tanks, I had one tank where the turret stuck to the body of the tank and after slowly prying it off it managed to rip some of the paint off of my tank. It wasn't anything major (about the size of a dime and under the turret so you wouldn't see it unless the tank was destroyed), but I managed to touch up the spot and reapplied some varnish to the tank.

I'll post up some pictures of the tanks tomorrow when there is some sun outside to at least let me get some good photos of them. I'm about 75% done with them, as I need to do the finishing touches of adding detail touch ups to them (shovels, wrenches, etc.).

Neb's, MG's and Warriors

This weekend I finished up my two 21cm Nebelwerfers plastoons, a FJ Machine gun platoon, General Major Remer and SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl-Heinz Euling . I'm awaiting on a replacement Nebelwerfer from BF since one that was packaged in my one blister was miscast - BADLY.

European Houses - Review

After a year plus of waiting for some Battlefield In a Box houses I ordered from The War Store, my 3 houses finally arrived. Inside of the box where:

• Dieppe House
• Antwerp House
• Cherbourg House

Hetzers!

After playing World of Tanks using a Hetzer and being quite successful with it, I had to paint these guys up. They have been on my shelf for way too long, just taunting me to paint them up. Last night I had some time to paint them up so I tried something new - dot camo.

Cold Kitty, Panther kitty....

Big machines of doom, Deadly kitty Panther kitty BOOM BOOM BOOM!

These aren't finished, but I thought I would throw up a few pictures of them since I'm at a stand still until my paints arrive in the mail. I ran out of Tamiya X-22 Gloss, so I'm unable to dull coat them to apply the finishing touches to the tools, cables, etc.

Dismounted Begleit tank escorts

I finished painting the dismounted portion of the Begleit Tank Escorts today. I decided to paint them up using the summer oak leaf camo pattern so they would stand out on the table if they were forced to dismount from the tank(s). I ran out of pumice paste last night, so once I have a chance to run up to Michael's (my wife gets a nice teacher discount) to get some I'll finish these guys up.

Mortar Teams

I painted up my mortar team this weekend, in between hockey games for my kids. While I've yet to use mortar teams in the past, I felt I needed a set since I don't really like to borrow other people's miniatures.

Riders on the move...

I finished up my Begleit Tank Escorts this weekend.While I was wondering what I could do to conceal the wire between the riders, after putting them on the tanks, I don't think I'll need to worry. The wire, when painted black makes it almost impossible to see when you are at tabletop length away from them. I think they turned out pretty good, considering that I'll probably only get to use them once or twice if I'm lucky.  I just like the look of them on the top of my STuG's.

Removable Begleit Tank Escorts

I've wanted to make Begleit tank riders removable for a while since I've seen them in the Late War catalog. I didn't want to have them always be glued/pinned to the tank, so I decide to do something different. I was originally going to magnetize them, but that would mean I would have to find ever super small magnets to fit into the riders as well as on the tank. this wasn't going to cut it for me, so I decided to have some pinning wire go between the riders so that they supported each other.

First off I needed a set of super small drill bits as well as pinning wire. I managed to have my neighbor supply me with both a 0.55mm drill bit and some 0.5mm wire rod.

Drill bit on the left, wire rod on the right

That's a lot of lead...

I spent most of last night cleaning and gluing multiple blisters of figures down to popsicle sticks last night.

What you see here so far is:

• Warriors of Market Garder
• FJ Machine gun platoon
• Begleit Assault platoon
• 21cm NW42 rocket launcher 
• 8cm GW34 mortar platoon
• Generalmajor Remer

I still have about 5 more blisters worth of figures to glue to sticks but I don't wan tto overwhelm myself with too many infantry at a time.

After proxying Remer so many times, I decided to buy his blister. He's always been a good warrior for me, so he deserves to be painted up and used right, if only to intimidate my foes.

First though, I just need to finish up some little touches here and there on the tanks I recently finished. Once I'm done with that, I'm going to prime and start work on these guys.

My New Airbrush Results

So I finally received my new GREX Tritium TS airbrush set for my birthday. I have to say, while it's the first airbrush I've owned and used, it is SUPER easy to use. I was able to lay down nice clean base coats, as well as 3 color camo patterns on all of my tanks and half-tracks that needed some loving.

I was able to clean off about 80% of my shelf of shame tanks in my first outing using the airbrush. The only thing I didn't tackle yet, is the hard edge camo patterns I plan to use on my Panther G's. I need to save up to get some blue tack or Silly Putty to put the edging on.

So, without further ado, here are some pictures...

Pre-Pin Wash

Post-Pin Wash

What do you folks think? I still need to finish up the tracks and add antennas to the tanks, but at least it's stuff I can knock out as time permits.

Objective Markers

I finished up my objective markers today. I sealed them and flocked the crashed kubelwagen so that it doesn't have painted grass on it - since the dude went through a fence into a field. While I could add some decals to the car, like the iron cross,  I think simple is better in this case.

Anyways, for your viewing pleasure....

Both of the objectives next to each other

The Sturmtiger objective

Objective Marker Progress

I am about 75% done with the objective marker that came with my Sturmtiger box set. I'm having an issue trying to determine how to make the padding around the rockets to come out looking realistic enough without them being cartoonish. Anyways, I'll post more on this later but here is where it stands right now...

My camera phone's flash is making some wash areas look unpainted - grrrr!!

Sturmtigers!

The Sturmtiger's I bought off of Ebay arrived today and after opening them, I found that I was missing a rocket barrel for one of them. I contacted BF's customer service so hopefully I'll get a replacement for it. Anyways, I found the models to be cleanly molded, with little flash and were easy to put together.

A quick coat of black primer and I was off to painting the objective marker that came with the set. One of the reasons I bought this set was due to the objective, since I don't have any other than the cardboard versions that came with Open Fire!. So far i have the basecoat for the bricks down, as well as the wood color.

I'll be finishing this objective before I move on to any of the models on my Shelf of Shame - in fact the 2 tanks now get added to it (they like the rest of the tanks are awaiting for my airbrush).

Houses

So it's no secret that the Battlefield in a Box (BiaB) series has been seriously slow in releasing new houses in their line. In fact, I've had an order for houses for over a year that's yet to be filled. I emailed Battlefront asking when they'll be released and this is the response I received:

Jason,

Unfortunately I do not know when they are going to make these houses if ever.  Sometimes when there is enough material to make these, they will go ahead and produce a couple, then surprise me on my next shipment.

Sorry this if this wasn't helpful. 

Thank you,

Andrew Smith

Battlefront Miniatures USA

 

Mold time! Day 2

So I poured the second half of the mold this morning, and waited for it to set.  First the good news...

The two piece mold was a success. I had no problem separating the 2 pieces at all from each other once the RTV cured.

Now the bad news, the master flame markers I made are just too porous and they disintegrated in the RTV. So all that hard work I put into making this mold was all for naught. I'm going to have to make a master out of hardened clay and then try to cast that. 

It'll take me a few days to try to create a set of new masters to cast.

Mold time!

I received my silicon yesterday and after letting it warm up for a day inside I am making the mold for the explosion markers. Based on what the company said, this material they provided to me (aka sample) withstands resin extremely well. Once the mold has time to cure, I'll need to remove the modelling clay I used so I can pour the second part of the mold. 

I decided to make a 2 part mold due to the complexity of the markers, so it'll make demolding the resin that much easier. Unfortunately, this is the first time I've done a 2 part mold - in the past I've done tons of single stage molds, but this is a whole different animal. 

So here is what I have so far today:

Is there nothing LEGO can't do?

So how did I make the mold? I took modelling clay and surrounded the markers (2 in this case) halfway around them. Once I had that done, I filled the rest of the mold cavity with clay so that it provides a flat surface for the second piece of the mold. I then pour the silicon and let it set. Once that is set, I'll flip the form and remove all of the clay. Once the clay has been removed, I'll use mold release and spray the living crap out of the piece of poured today. After that I'll pour a second batch of silicon and wait for that to cure. After that I should have a 2 part mold and the only thing I'll have to do is clean up the mold fill points so I can pour the resin.

More tomorrow...

Bogged Down markers

So I'm always one to make the board a little more "cool looking" whenever i play, and I've seen these someplace before (I can't remember the site i was on). I thought I'd make a few for myself since I had some spare figures laying around after a recent trade. I decided to paint the troops up in the Summer Oak Leaf uniforms, just to make them stand out a little more. 

I think what I'm going to do once I get some bailed out figures that I'm going to make some of these that represent bailed out. I think I'll use red striping on the side (again I saw it on the same site) to help differentiate them on the table.

What do you guys think?

Bastogne Church

My replacement Bastogne church finally arrived today. I have to say thank you to Battlefront to sending this thing out fast for me. My original church arrived and it had a piece chipped off of the roof above the back door.

Just how I like my Sherman's -- nice and toasty!

While this wouldn't normally bother me, the problem was the piece missing was about the size of a quarter and was nowhere to be found in the package. After taking some pictures and sending them to BF's customer service, they sent me a return label to send it back. Total time from the time I received my original damaged church to the receipt of the fixed church: 1 week.

One thing I have to commend BF on was the amount of packaging they included inside of my replaced church. Inside of the church were foam peanuts, as well as every nook and cranny in the box to keep the church from moving around. 

Overall I'm quite happy with the church, even with all the delays in production. I would give this a 10 out of 10 stars - especially given BF's customer service treatment.

So without further delay, some pictures...

The 3 pieces of the church, with a Tiger Ie for size comparison

Side of the church

Reverse side of the church

Destroyed Markers

Growing tired of using cotton balls for my flaming wrecks when playing Flames of War, I finally decided to make my own smoke plume markers. While the first attempt took me a few hours, I'm finally proficient in making 5 in about 20 minutes (that's not including glue drying time).

Once my sample of RTV arrives in them ail (any day now) I'm going to make a 2 part mold of a few of these and try casting them with resin. I'll post up more on that project when it arrives.

if you are interested in acquiring some of these, I'm selling them $5 each, or 5 for $20. Just send me an email and I'll contact you with the specifics.

Summer Oak Leaf

Lately I've been toying around with different camo patterns for my german army. My latest attempt has been Oak Leaf - both Summer and Autumn. While I'm not sure which version I like the most, I'm still going to try Autumn some more.

 

Autumn Oak Leaf 

Summer Oak Leaf

Open Fire! US Force

Here are some pictures of my Open Fire US paratrooper forces. Since i mainly play German forces, these are just sitting unused in the box they came in. 

I painted them up thinking my kids would want to play with me, but I quickly found the rules to be a little hard for them to understand. they just like to go PEW PEW and not have to worry about things like "Gone to Ground", "Dug In" or "Bailed Out" .

All of the guns and tank commanders are on magnets so they come off if you don't spend the points for them.

The Shelf of Shame

You might ask me-- So what do you have on the shelf of shame? the answer to that would be "Tank, and lots of them."

The primary reason is that I'm waiting for my Grex Tritum Airbrush to arrive for my birthday, and once I have that I'm going to go nuts painting hard edge and soft edge 3 tone camo on all of my tanks.

Soft Edge Camo

Hard Edge Camo

 So what exactly is on the shelf of shame? Well here is a picture of what is on there followed by a list:

The LITERAL Shelf of Shame

• 5 Stug IV's
• 5 Tiger Ie's
• 5 Panther G's
• 4 Jagdpanther's
• 5 Hetzer's
• 1 Bergepanther
• 3 Konigstiger's
• 3 Horch Kfz 15's
• 3 Sd Kfz 7 (8t) half-track's
• 2 Steyr 1500 Kfz 70's 

  
As you can see I have some Panzer IV's and Kettenkrad's  painted up. I just need to get some decals to apply then those will be done.

Monthly FoW Games - Encounter AAR

So my FoW group had our meeting today, and Chris and I were going to have a go at Encounter. I was fielding German while Chris was fielding Canadian Guards... So here are the lists:




Turn 1)

Chris decides to dig in his troops, and send his Sherman's to the East side of the table around the hill.

My Tiger sensing danger, decides to make a double move to counter his tank threat in the East. Luckily I was able to pass my Unreliable test and successfully make the double move.

Remer is position behind the field in the bottom center of the above picture (He's going to help with a joke later on)

My Stuh's decide to push up on the west flank.....


But the commander decides to say his tank is "bogged down" (you'll understand this joke in a little bit)...


Turn 2)
Chris decides to bring on the hurt to my Stuh's....


And manages to bail both of them....


The resulting assault renders them nothing but smoking hulks of their former glory....


Chris manages to destroy one of my Half-tracks on the eastern side of the table with his Sherman's and decides to hightail it before my Tiger can take a shot on them.


Not wanting to play Cat & Mouse around the hill I decide to make my Tiger go up the hill (which Chris said he was going to do after I moved up the hill). I was about this time I realized I forgot to roll my Tiger Ace Skill... 3 Shots per turn!! Ohhhh yeah, that's going to make Chris sweat a little.

My reserves arrive on the east side of the table and I have to have them book it to the western side...And my Stuh is still bogged down.... Damn hedge! Remer decides he's had enough of the Stuh not moving and makes his way over towards that direction....


Turn 3)
Chris gets some of his universal carrier reserves in and decides to book it down the road toward my western objective....


And manages to destroy 2 of my reserves!!!


But not before my remaining stuh makes them go up in smoke and cause them to flee the battle!

So his Sherman's prepare to go after the Stuh...


My Tiger manages to destroy one of his Sherman's and bail out the other one. The 3rd Sherman managed to survive due to my unlucky roll of a 1.

Turn 4)
Chris manages to get some more of his universal carriers and brings them down the western road towards that objective (the same route the others had to withdraw from)

My Stuh is still bogged down and is swarmed with his infantry! Luckily I managed to make it out of there unharmed as all of his shots bounced!


Chris decides to have his Sherman take cover and he remounts his bailed Sherman on the eastern side...


The Stuh manages to destroy one of his problematic Sherman's and bail an other...


My Tiger on the other hand decides to light up the remaining Sherman's on the east side -- one is destroyed and the other 2 rounds bounce...


The eastern infantry of mine makes a mad dash towards the objective as far as they can go...


Turn 5)
Chris decides to push hard on the west objective of mine, and rolls his carriers up the road, his shermans up to the field, and his infantry into the field....

Remer shows up and magically and my Stuh is longer bogged.. As we both comment, the Commander of the tank was just pretending to be bogged down...My Stuh manages to take out a few of those pesky assaulting infantry that tried to destroy him!


Turn 6)
His Sherman's finally manage to dispatch my Stuh...


He tries to take the forest with the western object but is repulsed...

I manage to get close enough to the north-eastern objective (near the swamp), but it becomes a slug-fest there. i finally manage to remove some of his troops and land my half-tracks and troops on the objective but they still have Chris' infantry nearby to do an assault on his next turn. Sadly, time was called and we had a draw.