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.

Pull the Udder One

A short post with some poor photos of the Warlord Games dead livestock which I enjoyed painting as the Ayrshire breed, spurred on by them re-releasing them while I still had an unopened blister packet from the original release.

When I first saw these I thought they were a must have. The first dead cattle I recall seeing in a war film were those in Saving Private Ryan during the radar station scene. I’m not certain that was a cinematic first, but it’s what they reminded me of, well that and how many animals get slaughtered during war without much notice.

In the Navy

Recently I traded with the cosmopolitan  Akula for the remnants of his naval forces from his VBCW project. Some of you might recall how he built an eight foot long aircraft carrier, thankfully that wasn’t part of the deal. I originally thought it was just a few figures, but it turned out to be an entire navy plus a couple of Torpedo Boats by PMC games.

A few pieces have been added, namely a splash of brown paint to bring the decking to the fore, a ships wheel, decal numbers, a lifebelt, a cleat on the bow, and to gun them up a little with a rack of three depth charges. I did look into getting a couple more PMC nautical pieces but it proved fruitless.

Of course two boats do not a navy make, so I’ve started on a midget two man submarine, which can be seen in it’s current state below. I’m still sourcing torpedos for it but expect to see a post about it once finished. The base structure is a toy submarine, Micro Machines perhaps, with the main conning tower hacked off. The fore structure had enough room to cut a window in so expect a face to be peering out of it.

I’m also going to scratchbuild a Clyde Puffer having finally tracked down some basic plans which were free. All will be kept clean of flags and nation marks so they can be used in a variety of game not least both VBCW and WW2. Full steam ahead!

Die Nacht der Toten

The boy Slug has a slowly evolving nazi zombie project inspired, in part, by the Call of Duty game which features the opportunity to shoot Nazi zombies. These figures are part of West Wind Productions Secrets of the Third Reich which we picked up a couple of Salutes ago. Rather uphappily I didn’t enjoy painting these at all. The detail seems a little limited, even confused. I have a sneaking suspicion this might be why these were the ones I was asked to paints.

The bases are the 30mm DS Ruined Flagstone set from Fenris Games, and those I enjoyed working on more than the figures. Slug set the figures on the bases and rather well I think, I really liked the one with a stream trickling through it, and the boy set the figure firmly standing in it.

All-in-all an odd experience. usually I strive to paint up to the sculpt but on these the piece which demanded justice was the base…

Military Odyssey 2012

Here’s a few photos from the Odyssey show at Detling this year. Rather lazily it shows just the few pieces of immediate interest to me rather than a bit of everything. It was fun, but did seem to be less well attended than previous years, not just visitors but stalls and reenactors as well. Apparently it had a new organiser this year who took a hands-off approach, something he’ll not do next year.  A bit thanks to all the reenactors for the great effort they put into their displays, we appreciate it.

Dressed to Kill

The boy Slug has an eager eye for a uniform, especially a decent colour reference for basing painted figures on. Recently he found a whole pile of them and thought he might share them with you as well as have them in one handy online place. Sadly the picture above is the only British one but in the gallery below is a wealth of German, Russian, Polish and United States WW2 uniforms for your use. Enjoy but please don’t hotlink to them.

 

Crouchie’s Workbench

En route to Dover model shop  the other day I pooped in to see Uncle Crouchie to deliver some resin cats to him and got the chance to see what everyone’s gaming Uncle had on his workbench, well his dining table.

First off this delightful light tank whose name I’ve forgotten. He did tell me but my knowledge isn’t as broad as his especially when it comes to the obscure which he builds a lot of to our delight.

Hopefully this is due for production, but we’ll have to wait and see.

This charmer is an early WW2 Belgian motor trike. Crouchie tracked down a couple of photos during an exhaustive search and from those he started this. The motorcycle is an adaption of his combination for the Belgians.

The bad news is how this isn’t for production, it’s just for his own use. A shame not least beacuse I imagine the VBCW crowd would snap this up.

Tanks for Everything

Biased I am, due to having cast these up,  but I think this is a lovely little tankette perfectly suited for VBCW even though it’s a yet to be released model for Akula’s Armies so meant for WW1 Fantasy.

It’s a seven piece resin kit inspired by French FT light tanks and built by Uncle Crouchie who was the man behind BEF miniatures.

I enjoyed both casting building and painting it but I’m not sure how many might be available so if you’d like one I’d suggest chasing Akula via the link above.

I’m going to have to scrounge another off him myself as I’d like one for my Anarchist band.

 

Kraut Rock

This handsome bunch of burgers are the old BEF miniatures early WW2 Germans. Since the range was taken over by Warlord they’ve been changed slightly making these beauties out of production – as if they weren’t brilliant enough already.

Now before you start telling me just how marvelous I am for this tremendous paintjob I have to hold up my hand and stop you. These lovely little pjs are those of the boy Slug, I think they’re brilliant and I’m a hard hobby taskmaster. I wish I’d managed such a level of painting by the tender age of fifteen and one third.

Actually I’m not sure I could match these, lucky for me I don’t really do old Germans otherwise I’d have to find another excuse.

The epaulettes, rank markings and other emblems are all paint, not a transfer in sight.

Of course having seen what he’s managed with these I’m inclined towards buying the new lot.