Strength and Honour Roman Reinforcements

            

I've got another Strength and Honour game in a few weeks time, so need to paint up a couple of auxiliary cavalry bases and some skirmisher strips, ready for the battle. We're going to have a crack at Bedriacum, with Vespasian's forces using my existing Imperial Roman army. I'm going to try a different approach to painting these units this time round, to speed things up a bit and add some more detail at the same time.

1/600th Early War Coastal Forces

The Cruel Seas club game yesterday reminded me that I have a collection of 1/600th scale coastal forces for the early war East Coast and English Channel, which I haven't used for years. These are a mix of mainly Skytrex with a few Tumbling Dice models, originally for solo scenario based games using the excellent fast play Schnellboote rules by David Manley. I had some great games with these rules and really should dust of the models again for some club games. I also have plenty more in the leadpile, quite a few of which are already assembled, with the Kriegsmarine definitely in need of reinforcements. Yet another project to think about!

Angolan Air Force Decals

 

The Angolan and South African 1/600th decals from Dan at Flight Deck arrived yesterday, so I can now get started on my Angolan Air Force aircraft for the Border War Wings at War project. This will include MiG-23's, MiG-21's, Su 22's, Mi-8's and Mi-25's. I'm also thinking of including some more up to date aircraft, specifically the Su-27 and Su-25, so that I can do some modern 'What If?" games as well. No rush as I have plenty of other things to do!

Cruel Seas Club Game

         

An enjoyable but absolutely bonkers game of Cruel Seas at the club this evening, with the Italian heavy cruiser Pola and escort closing to point blank bombardment range of the inner harbour of Tobruk, only to be met by a the Royal Navy's coastal forces. The ground scale and any sort of realism went out the window on this one but it was great fun nonetheless. The rules are very dodgy but also very simple, so it clipped along at a good pace, with the end result a victory for the Axis, even if one of my S-boats was blown to bits. Crazy stuff.

Red Actions! AFSR (14)

             

The Peter Pig armoured train has now been assembled and is ready for painting, although I may add a few extra bits here and there to tart it up a bit. The resin parts were a bit rough and ready, so it took longer than expected to clean them all up, the end result being a pretty impressive metre long train, complete with locomotive, tender, two gun wagons and a flat car at the front in case of sabotage to the tracks. It's well worth the cost of the bundle and, hopefully, will be a useful asset rather than a bullet magnet when it eventually goes into action!

Sandbox Skirmish Patrol

Here's the finished test figures for the Sandbox Skirmish project, with the bases painted in Vallejo US Tan Earth and a dry brush in Vallejo Iraqi Sand, plus some Gamers Grass light green tufts. I've put them with the Humber Pig and Ferret armoured car to make up a small patrol, the other three section squaddies being the drivers and Ferret commander. I now need to paint up the rest of the platoon and finish the other vehicles.

South American Pre-dreadnought Cruisers

             

After all the recent sidetracking it's now back to the proper project, to finish off my South American pre-dreadnought 'What If?' Chile vs Argentina mini-campaign painting backlog in 1/2400th scale. This involves firstly completing the last of the cruisers, with a selection of Chilean, Peruvian, Brazilian, American and British ships, which will pop up in the campaign on one side or the other, or quite possibly in the middle. I'll get cracking on these tomorrow.

Sandbox Skirmish Painting Experiment

 

This is the result of my experiment in painting 15mm figures using a basecoat and wash method, instead of my usual layering over a black undercoat. In some ways I think it works well, the shading on the packs for example, but in others I'm not so keen. It also wasn't any faster than layering, which was a surprise. I think I'll stick to my usual method for my Red Actions! project but, as I've started using washes for the Sandbox Skirmish figures I'll carry on with the same for the rest of the British infantry platoon. Ho hum.