BKC Aegean Campaign [9]

I got round to basing up the second infantry battalion, its support platoons and some artillery pieces this evening. The infantry will form the Alpini mountain battalion for the battlegroup, although they'll look pretty much identical to the other regular units. I'm thinking about adding a few extra rocks to their bases to differentiate them from the others as mountain troops.

Neat eh?

I've also based up three 100m Obice 17 artillery pieces and three SPA TL 37 gun tractors, all from the excellent Pithead range. These will be off board for most games but they're really nice models so I thought why not? I've also added a couple of Pendraken L3/35 flamethrower tankettes for infantry support.

I'm now running out of crew figures and need to find some more to fill out the ranks of the paratroop battalion that's up next. I have some Pendraken WW2 US figures that might do, with a bit of headswappng and some filing to make the helmets similar to the paratroop ones. It's worth a try.

Saurian Safari Steam Machine Finished

One of my sons is ill today so I've been off work to look after him. He fell asleep this morning so I got some time in on the Victorian dinosaur hunting steam contraption and have managed to finish it off. Yesterday, I added some vision ports to the cupola using some leftover Ork gun sights that my eldest son had in his spares box, before undercoating the thing in matt black spray.

This morning I gave it a drybrush of Foundry Charcoal Grey and Charcoal Grey Light, followed by a highlight of Foundry Arctic Grey Shade. I then washed the model in future based gunge and drybrush weathered the area around the base of the hull in three stages of Foundry Rawhide. I was thinking about basing it but it's such a wide model that I don't think it would look right.

I tried to find some decals to add a bit of colour but all I had was a small union flag, which I put on one of the doors. I did think of slapping WW1 German crosses all over it but that seemed a little too teutonic and, anyway, most of my dinosaur hunting participants are British players and gentlemen, so it wouldn't have been a popular option. 

It's a bit basic but at least I'll be able to try out the rules that I have written for Saurian Safari.

Pirate Rowing Boat Finished

I finished the rowing boat this afternoon, painting it up using Foundry Bay Brown in three stages of wetbrushing and drybrushing, followed by a gunge wash and overspray in Army Painter matt varnish. I haven't based it so that I can use it afloat or pulled up on the beach. It was quite easy to construct and good experience for the Darkest Africa project, where I'll be needing to scratchbuild a whole village worth of native dugout canoes.

Saurian Safari Steam Machine

I've also got round to putting together the Ironclad Miniatures steam tank that I bought at Warfare about four or five years ago, for use as a Victorian dinosaur hunting contraption in Saurian Safari. I have already devised a set of rules for steam machines and will be trying them out on Tuesday, assuming the rapid demise of the pirates in the first half and the need to provide a bit of 'conventional' dino bagging thereafter.

As turret mounted machine guns are unsporting, to say the least, I replaced the turret with a cupola using the top of the boiler supplied in the kit and a brass drawing pin as a hatch. I also had to sand off a couple of the front port holes as they'd been damaged in storage and I couldn't be bothered to fix them. I'm hoping to undercoat, paint and base the thing tomorrow.

Pirate Rowing Boat

I started on the rowing boat for the Saurian Swashbucklers game on Tuesday this afternoon, using a combination of balsa wood, mounting card and postcard for the basic construction. It looks a bit 'ho hum' at the moment but I'm planning to soup it up a bit tomorrow, so that it's less like a floating bath tub and nore like an actual boat (hopefully?).

I also based up some 28mm Foundry pirate figures that I won on ebay ages ago along with a load of unpainted figures. I'm guessing it was an abandoned project but the four figures are well painted and it's a shame not to use them. They're from the Treasure Island pack so represent Blind Pugh, Squire Trelawney, Doctor Livesey and Jim Hawkins, as far as I can make out.

Too Fat Lardies Burma Specials

The cold weather and a couple of evening meetings this last week have effectively put the scuppers on any painting or basing in the last few days. It was -9C in the garage last night so discretion took the better part of valour and I retired from the icy workbench to the sitting room instead. I didn't waste the time, however, as I spent an hour or so trawling through back issues of the Too Fat Lardies Specials in search of IABSM articles for Burma.

I wasn't disapppointed either, having turned up two cracking articles, one a guide to late war Burma games using TW&T / IABSM and the other a couple of linked scenarios for Imphal - Kohima. The two relevant issues are the Christmans Special 2008 and the Summer Special 2005.

The first contains the Banzai! article by Richard Morrill, which is a mine of useful information including ToE's, special rules and guidelines for converting IABSM to the 1943-45 Burma Campaign. The second contains Night and Day at Imphal by Rob Avery, which consists of a set of detailed fictitious scenarios set around Wireless Hill.

Both are great and have given me further ideas and inspiration for the 15mm Burma project.

The Big Project...Japanese!

The other half of the birthday present arrived today in the post from Peter Pig. I decided to add a small contingent of Japanese to the equation, both to give me some opposition for solo gaming and to make the most of the fiscal 'window of opportunity' before it was slammed shut by the Ministry of the Interior. I seem to have evaded the sniffer dogs, snatch squad and sentry guns but it's only a matter of time.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the leadpile has now been further de-stabilized by the addition of a couple of platoon packs of Japanese in helmets and caps, some extra infantry packs, some HMG's and mortars, a few snipers, a couple of 70mm infantry guns and three Te Ke tankettes. A bit of a mixed bag but that's what you'd expect for the Arakan, although the tanks should really be Ha Go or Chi Ha.

Anyway, more 'ooh shiny' stuff hits the shelves above the workbench, ready for the big clean up and basing extravganza sometime in the next couple of months. I have some ideas about basing that I'm working on but that'll have to wait for a later post. In the meantime, the Pendraken 10mm Italian Paras have dropped in, so I'll be basing them up alongside the scratchbuilt rowing boat shenanigans this weekend.

Burma Bookshelf

Another one for general reading and research into the Burma Campaign today, this time by the well known military writer Will Fowler. It looks like a good general introduction with an emphasis on first hand accounts of the conflict from 1941 through to 1945. I might make it my starting point for the IABSM research as it's not too long and looks like a quick read. Nice.

Prehistoric Pirates

I have organised a game of Saurian Safari at the club next Tuesday but with a bit of an unusual plot twist. As my 28mm pirates have been on the beach for six months or so, after my swashbuckling opponent Jon sold off his scurvy crew, I though I'd dig them out and use them for a spot of treaure hunting on a mysterious deserted tropical island.

The island will, of course, be inhabited by a selection of prehistoric beasties, which will proceed to squish, chew, mangle and otherwise dispose of the pirates as they search for buried treasure. I'm now working on some rules for black powder weapons and the like for Saurian Safari, together with some extra rules for treasure hunting based on a Legends of the High Seas scenario I played last year.

I now have to construct a couple of rowing boats from card and balsa so that the crew can get ashore from the sloop that will be anchored off the island. The sloop itself I scratchbuilt last year and has already seen some action. The island will be put together using the expanding club collection of Hexon terrain, which now includes some hills and peaks, together with my existing jungle plants and scatter.

I'm looking forward to it, as it'll be a bit different and should be a bit of a laugh. If the pirates get eaten early in the proceedings, I'll be bringing along some proper dinosaur hunting figures from the Back of Beyond collection, so that the game can continue in a more conventional way. In the meantime, while I wait for the Pendraken 10mm Italian figures to arrive in the post, it's back to the workbench to get scratchbuilding those boats.

Thunderbolts over Rangoon

I'm a big propellor head at heart and so I always evaluate any prospective wargaming project in terms of aircraft rather than interesting units, tanks, colourful uniforms or other such emphemeral distractions. So when I was flicking through a book this afternoon and saw this picture of P47's over Rangoon in November 1944, I thought I might just add a little bit of extra ground support for the Arakan. The result is a rather neat looking and cheap Airfix 1/100th scale P47 pre-painted minikit, which will get a re-paint into a SEAC scheme and should fit in really well alongside the diecast Hurricane IID that I've already got.