Carden Me?

Having a sort through the lead mountain is always a joy, forgotten pieces are revealled with all the excitement from buying them in the first place. This Carden Loyd universal carrier is made by Reiver Miniatures and I picked it up at Salute 2011 while having a natter with Red Rich who’d put on that year’s VBCW game.

It’s a crisp solid metal casting and surprisingly solid for such a small model.  It’s few pieces, the chassis, the lid, two tracks and a Vickers HMG. The chassis has a couple of notches so you physically can’t put the tracks on the wrong way around, a smart touch. The Vickers doesn’t have an ammo box, but it’s simple enough to add one and yes it really does go on at that jaunty angle. Not so with the tripod which usually goes on the driver’s side of the “bonnet”.  It would be a folded one and I don’t have any of those in my scraps box so I left it off.

I’d rather not base vehicles like this but I did think it’d get whalloped in game so a base was a must.  I used the ever wonderful milliput for the ground so I could press the models tracks into it and have trackmarks, if you’re doing this it’s best to do it with the bare metal piece, but if you only think of it after painting you need to get both pieces damp to avoid problems.

I wanted to put a few pieces in the stowage bins, so I used various pieces from the Warlord Games plastic British sprues plus a white metal petrol can.  I’m pleased with it, should I do another one I’d do it with the lid propped up and a full crew.

Leaf it out

The fourth 28mm horse I’ve painted is this British officer from Great War Miniatures who only on being based revealed himself to be crookedly mounted. This makes his nationally questionable and suggests he might be a fifth-columnist. It’s a one piece cast so the poor saddle skills aren’t of my making. Aside from from that it’s a pleasant figure which I wanted to make more of so I added a couple of hounds. I don’t remember whose dogs those are, but they suit well.

I also wanted to try the leaf scatter on the base rather than flock. I’ve rarely seen it used by gamers but it’s all the rage with military modellers. It’s quite difficult to use, the tub has plenty of woody surplus which has to be picked out before application, and being irregular is awkward to lay in any thickness.

Although suitable for both World Wars I’ll also be using this charactor in VBCW as Hercules Grytpype-Thynne  a caddish officer with an eye on villainy disguised by high rank and aided by a pocket full of gorillas.

Not a Tankless Task

A great weight has been lifted off the shoulders of the workers at Slug Industries seeing as we’ve finally got our latest, and hopefully greatest, model finished. Not a simple one this, with around forty hours on the build alone, seperate moulds for components, and the hot weather mucking up the paintjob on the first cast, but only after full highlighting. In other words a bit of a pain.

Here’s the first paintjob shortly before a lot of the surfaces simply started to crack. A few attempts at repair later and other cracks and flakes appeared. Casting another and painting that proved to be quicker.

The rear door which shows the riveting quite well.

The armoured radiator, which looks flat although it’s made of semi circular tubing, and the Dambuster style headlights. The idea being that they’re adjustable, so you could set a rang to them and when the merged lights lit up a target it’s at the predeterminde range. Probably worth a +1 on any dice roll – if it’s at night.

The first wheel layout. Ending up putting two extra pairs in after Orkdung over at VBCF quite rightly pointed out how it looked under powered. Figure gives a sense of scale.

 

Anarchy in the UK

Last week I set myself the task of painting as many figures as I could in a week and choose to hack a trail through my pile of figures for a Very British Civil War, as well as accidently buying some more. Here you can see how  far I got. Firstly my fabourite of the bunch is this trio from the Royal household; Edward VIII, Wallace Simpson and a lady waiting around – yes a lady-in-waiting. Delightful sculpts on and all, the ones of Eddie and that woman being freebies from the Newark Irregulars Partizan shows and quite difficult to get hold of if, like me, you can’t make it to the show.  A while back a pair of these were on Ebay for a whooping £8 a piece, but thankfully the wonderful Irregukar Tricks heard about a few folk seeking these figures and incredibly generously sent pairs out to those in need without even asking for postage. What a diamond gent. Three cheers for him!

The lady in waiting was very simple, leaving more intricate work for the Royals. Gave him a golden gun, very likely a gift from some foreign despot, while she has a Chanel looking two piece with matching shoes. Great fun to paint. I put only red, white and blue flowers on the King’s base, while Simpson got just scarlet.

The two Empress figures on the left are the cause of this painting fury inspired by another piece of gamer-on-gamer generosity. This time it was Ook with an offer of free figures over on VBCF. I’ve just finished reading Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia” and aside from enjoying it a great deal it produced a desire to field some anarchists and those figures suited well I thought for Officers and NCOs, having slipped off economic restraint I bought both packs of Bolt Action’s partisans, which include the two on the right which fit perfectly. The Gods smile down eh?

Thankfully there’s a few armed women in the pack too. There’s really not enough fighting women miniatures around so I’m always happy to find more. It’s a myth to siggest they can’t fight, they fought furiously in the early days of the Spanish Civil War and many still do today even as terrorists.

Although I’ve given these a hint of their anarcho-syndacalist cause I have tried to keep them pretty generic, so they could form any militia for VBCW, SCW or even as partisans as intended.

Apologies for the blur on this one… they’re running.

The one on the left looks, yo me, like a Paul Hicks sculpt.

Talking of the maestro here are a pair of his on the left. The ever wonderful Mutton Chop miniatures are some of the most complicated I’ve ever seen, they could make you knees tremble with their details but a steady nerve and a steadier paintbrush really delivers a great finished figure. The pair on the right are meant for BUF militia but again I’ve kept them generically suitable for other games.

The Lewis gun is almost a holy relic or heathen fetish in the world of VBCW. We all really like them and want lots of them… so here’s some for the BUF using Gripping Beast figures. These come with loose heads so you can set them as you see fit and that’s handy if you want more than a pair of them.

The pair on the right are from Volksturm pack we picked up from where we don’t recall, they’re a trifle small and under detailed, especially compared to the brutes beside them.

Finally the most generic piece, a Vickers HMG. Akthough there’s some joy to be had in having HMG teams in every flavour you might ever play I thought it might make some small sense to just base one  all alone, and then a pair of figures can be set sadie it to show whose it is. Not exciting but practical. So in total I managed thirty-three figures and one HMG, which I’m chuffed with. This week I will be mainly talking to those strangers in my house called family.

At a Slug’s Pace

Despite the name our humble Slug Industries keeps producing more gaming goodies at a reasonably fast pace producing as it does a model a month on average. The latest is the Art Deco House above, which I’m glad to have finally finished as it’s been a slight horror show from begining to end. Being designed to fit into our old vacuum chamber with just milimeters to spare was difficult enough, but the original idea was for the windows to be cast thin enough to be poked out, however with such a thin mould wall this proved difficult when combined with the actuality of casting resin a milimeter or less in thickness. After a bit of discussion of this over at GWP the general feeling was how this wasn’t really needed. So I thickened the walls, made new moulds and here’s the result. All that remains is to go and mention it on all the best forums, but I imagine on LAF I’ll suffer some random thread derail which will make it all worthwhile.

We just noticed how our humble Fred wasn’t ever listed on the Slug Industries site so we’ve sorted that out, a surprising oversight especially as we’ve sold quite a few of these.

I’ve got a crusher on you

Without doubt this is one of the finest VBCW miniatures every produced and we’ve Mutton Chop to thank for it. Paul Hicks has a glowing reputation for his work and rightly so. Typically wholly impractical, packed with charactor and with facial expressions sited somewhere between gormless and mild retardation he encapsulates not only the feel of VBCW but also of a lot of it’s players.

Originally this was meant to make the “Siege of Canterbury” game at Legion, but didn’t as I wasn’t as organised as I’d have wished… not fielding the half dozen BUF cavalry still irritates me.  This piece is more than a match for any BUF unit really and I’m looking forward to seeing this speed into action.

Last Ditch Effort

Regular browsers of this humble blog made have noticed just how quiet it’s been recently and for that I can only apologise as I have been busy as a hive of bees making masters to cast from. I really don’t want to corrupt the purity of this blog by trying to sell you things at every turn, but I will share what I’m working on purely from a willingness to illuminate fellow gamers and other chums. Pompous sermon over – so on with the serious business of gaming waffle.

Above is what was meant to be a simple aid for my modelling which set me on the slippery slope of all things trench.  Twenty-five seamed sandbags which I made from Greenstuff seemed enough to be able to make sandbag bits for the rest of my life… how wrong I was.

Making a wall from 64 individual pieces can limit the fun factor so I made a master, which then had to be properly filled, to cast from.

But then I also needed ends to cap the tessellated walls.

Now having created the opportunity of endless sandbag walls I realised how I didn’t fancy making miles of planking for walkways. So two sections of 40mm wide and one of 35mm, the larger for main trenches, the smaller for access trenches. Both bigger than the actuality, but this is for gaming.

That did involve looks of shaping and scribing totalling over a hundred feet. The calculation being made while facing the tedium of actually doing it.

They paint up rather well, these are just propped up rather than a finished piece hence the gaps, but it gives an idea of the finished product. These are available from us via the blatantly commercial place.

Chance is a fine thing

Here’s both the turn and chance cards which we used for the Big Demo Game Kent. I really like turn cards because should a player get a few turns in a row it presents the opportunity for a player to manage something historic. I’m not sure anyone else agrees with me but they put up with it when I’m running a game. The Zulus at Islawana very much had a few turn cards in a row, while at Rorke’s Drift it was the British for whom the cards fell neatly. Having justified my position in the vacuum of the blog with no one to disagree on with the freebies.

Simply click on these images to take you to the high resolution version and save those to print out. I hope they might be of some use to you… bear in mind one of them involves buying me a pint, and I must insist that doea apply wherever you might be playing – probably best to put it in the wood for me, or buy a can so it doesn’t go flat.

Canterbury or Bust!

A quiet morning in Canterbury with the birds chirping unaware of the drama of the coming day.

Although some hushed activity is stirring at some pipe laying works down in the park.

A loudspeaker starts blaring out an over-dramatic speech barely masking the hum of several rowdy engines.

This brings forth brave volunteers to man the city edge against the coming attack.

Shop keepers, clerks, policemen and retired armour majors with a tank in their back garden rally to the cause.

With one disgusiing itself as a water feature in the park.

St Peter’s militia decide to rush the flank in a bid to thwart the BUF’s advance.

Meanwhile the Choir, a Belgian elite led by Tin Tin on a heavy machine gun form up on the centre.

Across the fields another group of BUF advance.

A strange 20th century siege tower follows behind a push down St. Dunstans Street.

Matched by the motorised speed of the other flank.

With the BUF making as much use of the cover available.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it’s the appearance of SuperFascist in his home made costume, his mum will be furious when she realises he’s used her new curtains for a cloak. Although effectively useless as a combatant his endless sloganeering at loud volume does give the BUF a serious boost to morale.

This boost speeds the advance to the river Stour under the destructive defensive fire of the Anglican League.

Tin Tin observes the massive attack with some trepidation and discusses it with Snowy.

Synchronised hedge breaching becomes the order of the day.

Suddenly the defenders open fire and start seriously damaging both armour and infantry. One light tank destroyed and an armoured car immobilised.

Meanwhile the siege tower is joined by what had appeared to be an old shed. Behind them a squad of FAF have become entangled in a clothes line.

The Anglican commanders feel confident. boosted not least by some medicinal treacle from Boots.

Uneffected by treacle the bridger gets into position and soaks the socks of the lone driver. Vehicles group for the crossing while the dithering AL militia are reduced to delivering condemantion from a damp vicar.

The BUF storm Westgate Tower and start shooting down below.

While Charlie and one of the Boys are severely damaged.

Suddenly Winston Churchill appears at a window with a Thompson machine gun he purchased from nearby Greenfields.  His appearance offers a much needed boost to the defenders.

Suddenly the mysterious pipeworks is revealed to be a fiendish fire throwing device invented by some chap called Levins. The result is massively damaging to the massed attack, and singes even the dampened militia.

A truly terrifying weapon to be at the wrong end of.

The BUF pushing up the centre get decimated by the grenading Choirboys, the rifle fire of the Belgians and Tin Tin on Hmg. the single man left has decided that now would be a great time for a cup of tea.

A long range tank shot silences the Mosley loudspeaker drone.

And confusion starts to slow down the BUF. For the second time today the elite FAF squad gets entangled in a washing line. Perhaps they should have stuck to the fields.

But the BUF on the tower send some firepower into the brave defenders…

…decimating them and even having time to change the flag on the tower, much to the dismay of the people of Canterbury.

They then take a defensive stance against all efforts to repel them.

A militia which has done very little thus far finds itself in position to pour fire at the politician Winston Churchill – killing him in a hail of bullets. A sad loss but it’s not like he’d ever be Prime Minister is it?

Having attrected a fair amount of damage the centre stills holds.

On the flank the BUF failed to get a single man across the bridge, so the AL use it to push back the stalled advance.

A scene of confusion settles over the battlefield as the day comes to an end, even if the play doesn’t.

A good day’s play was had by all. Left to right, Wobbly Steve,  Fascist Child Killer Tony, 6mil Phil, Slug, Daring Dan and front and centre Captain Stinky (proud commander of Tin Tin et al). The chance cards, complete with limited edition typos, from this battle are available here.

Thanet Thrasher

There’s no certainty as to whether this vehicle for VBCW is a monster truck too far or not, as us loyal bunch of VBCW gamers do seem to have a unique strange arms race of our very British own. It’s one of the Slug Industries “Fred” vehicles, with some tracks from Ramshackle Games, plus the front off a steam roller which was just too damned small for 28mm. It’s early days with this yet, and I’m not sure it’ll be completed in time for the Very British Big Demo Game at Legion at the end of the month. What do you think?