AK47 Summer Offensive [20]

I glued together the Nubee Mil Mi1 Hare this afternoon, with a liberal dash of expletives due the high fiddly factor involved. It came out 'not too bad' at the end of the construction process, although there were a few minor *&^% ups along the way. It won't win any IPMS prizes but it'll do the tirck.

I've also made a start on the last of the Mi4 Hounds, by converting a Peter Pig US M60 doorgunner into his soviet-equipped equivalent, thanks to some judicious filing and the addition of a Russian heavy machine gun barrel. I should get the rest of the chopper assembled tomorrow, although I have a gargantuan trampoline to assemble for the sprogs, so I may have to curtail my modelling efforts as a result.

AK47 Summer Offensive [19]

I finished a second Mi4 Hound yesterday and undercoated both with a quick spray of Humbrol Olive Green. I originally wanted to use Grass Green but found that my last can had seized up, so resorted to what I had left on the shelf. I'm not sure what the final camouflage scheme will be anyway, so it doesn't really matter about the exact shade of basecoat I've used.

I now have one more Mi4 to construct having deciced to keep my helicopter transport unit to a sensible minimum. I'm going to try to add some weapons pylons and a door gunner to the last one so that it can double up as a ground attack chopper but I've got a feeling that this might be  too tricky, so it'll end up as another transport, with just the door gunner for good measure.

I have, however, located my Nubee Mil Mi1 Hare kit in the loft. I got this at an airshow for a couple of quid and stashed it away for a rainy day. I'd like to use it as my commander's battlefield taxi, although how that would work in the rules I don't know. I think it's a cool little kit and should look the business once I've stuck all the fiddly bits together.

AK47 Summer Offensive [18]

I'm planning to build one of the Mil Mi4's as a ground attack helicopter gunship, so I've been doing some background research to find out what one would look like. There seem to have been at least two versions of the Hound adapted to the ground attack role with others also developed for aerial mine laying and the like.

I'm going to go for the simplest option which will involve adding a door gunner to the rear left hand side access hatch, using a converted Peter Pig Vietnam figure, and a couple of weapons pylons on either side of the fuselage. These might be a bit tricky to pull off, to say the least, as they consist of a lattice of rods supporting a trapezium type mounting, as you can see in the pictures.

They will be either scratchbuilt from plastic rod and bits from the spares box or I'll cheat and use stub wings from the tailplane of another kit. The rocket pods will be scrounged from a 1/144 scale kit. I'll also add a machine gun to the front of the underlsung gondola, which is what it was originally intended for although it wasn't used like that very much according to the stuff I've read.

I've also had to do some surgery to the front end of the model that I built yesterday as it was tail heavy and tipped up. I removed the front couling with a blade then superglued a flattened lead fishign weight to the inside surface before sticking the whole lot back together again. This has done the trick and I'll now be able to land the choppers on the table without them all tipping up skywards. 

AK47 Summer Offensive [17]

I had a crack at one of the Nubee Mi4's this evening and it's not too bad, if a little rough around the edges. I cut a few corners with the various antenna, pitot tubes and other appendages, which saved me a bit of construction time. I need to let the glue set before I undercoat the model but I have a worked out the best way to tackle the other three or four that I need to build by the end of the week.

AK47 Summer Offensive [16]

I need to make a unit of Mil Mi 4 transport choppers for my AK47 airmobile professionals by the end of the the week. This shouldn't be a problem as they're possibly the coolest helicopters in the history of cool.

I have four or five 1/100 scale Nubee kits to play around with over the next three days, so I should be able to knock them together ready for painting up next week. I've also got an idea for an armed ground attack 'dakka dakka' version complete with pylon mounted rocket pods and underslung cannon in the wierd gondola thing on the fuselage beneath the cabin.

I think this will look very effective if I can pull it off. If not, I've got a Revell Hind in the loft somewhere that will do the job, although I'll have to dig it out of the kit pile first.

AK47 Summer Offensive [15]

I was looking after the boys this weekend as the other half was away in France at a family wedding. As a result, I managed to get a fair bit done on the AK47 front, with virtually all of the units now cleaned up and based.

I started by adding four small arms bases of helmet wearing infantry to the existing unit to add a bit of extra manpower. I also added a couple of AAA missile equipped bases to the regulars with caps, again to provide some additional support to the rank and file. I have more bases than I need for the regulars but this provides some flexibility, especially when the political flowcharts are factored in.

As I've now relegated the helmet wearing unit to regular status, I needed to replace them with a professional unit in the form of a beret wearing unit of airborne assault troops. This consists of six bases of small arms, two bases of AAA missile launchers, two of RPG's, two mortars and a RCL. I'll also be putting together three or four transport helicopters for them over the next couple of days.

Finally, I decided to use up my last remaning GAZ jeeps to make a regular or professional recce unit armed with jeep mounted HMG's. These have worked well in my Colonial Settlers army so I thought it would be a good idea to reinforce my new set up with a similar unit. It features a Peter Pig GAZ staff car and two Skytrex GAZ jeeps, all with Peter Pig crew and gunners.

To round things off, I put together two additional militia technical trucks, both with heavy RCL's and Peter Pig militia crews. I have one more to build, equipped with an AA gun but that will have to wait until I've sorted the helicopters. I've also added bases to all of the vehicles that didn't have them, including the tanks, the APC's and the jeeps.

All in all, a very productive weekend.

Now all I need to do is paint them!

Zulus and Matabele

I've nearly finished To War with Wellington so have been looking for something to read next. I can thoroughly reccommend the Wellington book as a cracking read, even if you're not that interested in Napoleonics. Anyway, I picked up this out of print hardback in the Oxfam bookshop in town yesterday. It looks really interesting and a skim read of the first chapter has me hooked. I have some Matabele from Northstar for Darkest Africa so it'll be valuable for background research.

Back of Beyond Expedition [35]

I have finished the bases on the Back of Beyond figures today so, to all intents and purposes, the project is complete. I could add bases to the vehicles and I still need a flag for the White Russian standard bearer to wave about but otherwise it's mission accomplished.

Huzzah!

I'm using this force in the first game of the campaign against the Bolsheviks, so I'll have to wait and see how they cope against a numerically superior enemy. It may well give me an excuse to paint up a few additional figures to represent the unit of labourers that I'm allowed to field or, perhaps, a few extra mercenaries to fill out the ranks.

Submarine Safari Sea Monsters [2]

I have aquired a couple of new plastic prehistoric sea monsters for Submarine Safari to add to the lone Dunkleosteus. They're both from Safari and cost about six or seven quid plus postage, so not too expensive considering their size and quality.

The first is a Mosasaurus, which sounds a bit generic so I'm going to use it as a Platecarpus, which was a member of the Mosasaur family. It's the smaller of the two but still a good 25 cm long, so pretty big when placed next to a 28mm figure. In the rules, the Platecarpus has the following characteristics:

Move: 8'' / Agility: 3 / Toughness: 8 / Damage: 30 (no critical hits due to feeding frenzy)

The second beast is a Tylosaurus, again from the Mosasaur family of swimming reptiles. This one is a bit bigger and measures out at a respectable 30cm from head to tail. There are no statistitics for Tylosaurus in the supplement, although there some in the main rulebook. However,the Plotosaurus is pretty much the same thing, so I'll use those factors instead:

Move: 10'' / Agility: 2 / Toughness: 8 / Damage: 40 (no critical hits as above)

These two should put up a good fight due to their high damage ratings but are vulnerable to spearguns, harpoons and knives, even though the toughtness rating isn't that low.  However, they do cause 2D6 damage to anything they manage to bite rather than the usual 1D6, making them pretty deadly if you don't get out of the way!

AK47 Summer Offensive [14]

Last year I spent my Summer holidays cleaning up and basing units for my AK47 Dictatorship army. I managed to base up the bulk of my regular and professional units but ended up with my militia only partially done. When the holidays ended I drifted off into other projects but I've now picked up the thread and am worling to complete the last of the units ready for Summer Offensive 2011!

Having looked at my box of completed bases and vehicles, I've decided to ditch my original plan for a full infantry based militia unit and just use the truck-based technicals as my militia component. Instead, I'll be basing up a professional unit of airborne / armoured infantry, using the beret wearing figures that I have in the bits box (I've found that the headgear method is a handy way to distinguish different units).

These will be transported about either in MTLB APC's or in Mil Mi4 helicopters, which I have stockpiled for just such a purpose. They can also be reinforced by a unit of professional T55's and by a couple of helicopter gunships, based on the same Nubee Mi4 kit that I'll be using for the transports.

This will give me some flexibility in what I deploy and will allow me to relegate my helmet wearing units to regular status, which fits the army restrictions to a greater degree. I should get all the extra bits sorted this weekend and plan to tackle one unit at a time over the next three weeks, so that the bulk of the army is completed by the end of the month.