A hostile horde of Huns.

A hostile horde of Huns

We had a shindig for my birthday on Saturday and the War Room was temporary turned into a bar, which necessitated quite a bit of cleaning and tidying. As a result the table was clear for the first time in ages, so I took the opportunity to lay out my German forces. This is handy for two reasons, firstly it means that I could actually get a look at everything and secondly because I intend to run some Memoir '44 and it means that I can work out how many units of X and Y I actually have. 

Command staff - Kubelwagens and radio trucks. Britannia and a variety of ancient plastics. 

Most of these were collected for use in my Razvedcheki - GURPS World War Two campaign, so the choices may be a little odd for a wargamer. 

Artillery

A Britannia 120mm mortar, plus two infantry guns and a variety of anti tank ordnance.  I have more of those Revel 105mm somewhere. Possibly not. 

Britania crew with a Revell Pak.  I didn't notice the missing wheel on the AA halftrack until now. The self propelled piece is a Wespe, I think and was picked up via eBay, nearly a lifetime ago.  I think it's rather dinky. 

SHQ early war German paratroopers

These guys have probably seen more service than any other part of this collection.  When I began historical wargaming the second time around, my only opponent was a huge early Second World War enthusiast and we only played games that revolved around my fellows duffing up Belgians, Norwegians and on one notable occasion, the entire armed forces of Luxemberg. 

Italeri and Revell Panzergrenadiers. 

I painted all of these myself during a period of illness. They are based for Crossfire, a game that I enjoyed, but did not play as much as I would like. 

More Panzergrenadiers, including one deceased chap that I had thought was out of shot. 

Command staff and a lad with a flamethrower. 

Unpainted bits and pieces. 

I am actually surprised I don't have a painted 88. I shall have to attend to that I think. 

A better shot of the Command staff. 

My gallant Russian partisans murdered that jodhpurs wearing officer more times I care to mention. 

Some of the recurring villains of the piece, Britannia German Field Police. The dog handlers are from Irregular.  These guys spent a lot of time getting ambushed. 

A Britannia motorcycle combination with some plastic chums

I have no idea where the plastics came from, but these guys were used in quite a number of Indiana Jones style chases. 

A Panzer II from Revell and some other scout type stuff. 

Matchbox Panzer IIIs and a Revell Panzer IV

There aren't quite as many of these as I thought. I may have to invest in some regular Germany armour in the midst of all the big cats. 

SHQ dismounted Panzer crew

Some Sven Hassell characters from Drews Militia (or was it Battlefield?)

These guys were recurring villains in the game as well and were pulled out for one memorable game session, where one of the characters was having a nightmare.  It was great - all the other players were in on it and played along beautifully.

A Maus from Frontline

This slap of resin was used as a sort of Death Star type device in a convention game pitting Soviet Partians ("The Red Death Commando!") versus some hiliariously evil Nazis. 

"You have not heard the last of Colonel Siegfried von Stahlfaust!" was a recurring line as the villain, a Panzer officer with a prosthetic metal fist as he would make his escape for the third time that day. 

As one grows older, one asks oneself questions...

...and one of these questions is "Why do I have eight Tigers?" 

I don't even remember putting all of these together. The chaps on the left are repainted diecast models and I know I inherited two of the kits from a pal. This is rather more big cat than I need. 

An Italeri Blitz (right) accompanied by three Frontline Maultiers

The Maultiers were ordered because I got the code wrong when I was making up my order and was too embarrassed to say anything. 

Another three Blitz's  I think these are Frontline again and were ordered to replace the Maultiers. 

A collection of half tracks

The big gray one was from a weird Japanese company that I found in a pound shop for a euro. The others came with other kits I think and are either Italeri or Revell. 

Two big cats

These are Revell, I believe - though I assembled them more than ten years ago now. Krisztian did a job on the camouflage.

And lastly, two resin Hanomags. 

I think these are resin models from Frontline.  They were a gift from a friend a couple of years ago and I had intended to add a few crew to jazz them up a bit. 

And there you have it, in many ways a very typical early wargames army and I say this mainly because the plethora of Tigers. There is less standard armour than I had thought and a little shy on 88mm guns, but for the most part I think it should serve.

I have realised that I forgot to take a picture of the two Ferdinands, the King Tiger and the Jadgpanzer in the centre. I will remedy that in time.

In other news, the Padre is running a caption competition over at his blog and you should enter.  There simply will not be enough fart jokes, I fear.

You will find a link here.  

Luftwaffe Reinforcements

I managed to get some modelling done and I've added a Stuka to my Luftwaffe forces. This was an Airfix kit and frankly it was a joy. Good hard plastic, very simple assembly, just spot on. I'm not sure if this kit is currently available - the box is not in the red livery of the current generation of models, but as a wargaming piece it's top notch. More of that please.  

I shall have to look up my colour references for the early Luftwaffe.   I'm hoping that this plane will see service in Poland, France, Britain and finish up at Kursk. 

Birthday loot

I

S Models Vickers Light Tank - BEF colours

You won't be hearing much from me for a little while as I managed to drop my laptop and I'm now in a situation where I have to decide whether its worth fixing or not. I will mostly be operating off my phone and occasionally Mrs Kinchs machine.  This rather puts a damper on my blogging. 

The camouflage scheme is proving dissappointingly effective

In the meantime, I've been painting Vickers light tanks. I might add aerials to these - but I think the camouflage scheme is a bit dull. Now as it happens, it looks quite mottled and that is probably good, but it seems a bit underwhelming. I might dial up the contrast on the highlight  on the base coat, so the other colour (Vallejo Marron Violet) looks better. We shall see. 

Still needs weathering and decals 

I have another four of these to paint. So I will need to come to some sort of decision. But the more I look at them - the more I think they need aerials with pennants. I'm relatively sure that there were pennants. 

Wonderful books 

I turned 34 the other day and Mrs Kinch presented me with the above - they are excellent. I've been reading Volume 9 and rather enjoying it. She is truly a pearl beyond price. 

HAT have produced their Seven Years War plastics and I definitely won't be going anywhere near that particular conflict. Honest guv. 

Wargaming at the Teachers Club II

For our second outing at the Teachers Club we got two games in.  

This is the first game - one of the two Overlord scenarios included in the Sword of Stalingrad expansion.  This is "Rats in the Factory", which is based on the struggle for the Dzerzkinsky Tank factory during the early phases of the battle. It's a tough scenario, the German player has air surperioity and advantages in terms of troops and command and control, the Soviet player has the edge in terms of terrain and begins the game holding several valuable objectives. 

Note the Balkas in the foreground. 

These are deep ravines and are a major headache of the German player as they slow movement down to a crawl. I intend to play this particular scenario on my five inch mats some day and I am damned if I have any idea how I will model them. I was thinking of building drifts out of kitty litter, but I usually use litter to mark roads, so it would run the risk of turning the entire map into a sea of kitty litter. 

That said with my new sandbags and barbed wire, this is looking like more of a possibility. 

ccattlecry.net

There was a demand by popular acclamation for another American Civil War game, so I went scratching around for a scenario.  Now as it happened, I wasn't aware the boys behind ccnapoleonic.net had a website for Battlecry, but I was very happy to find out that they did.  This has the rules and all the scenarios up on it.  There are also fan made scenarios, including some for the Indian Wars and the Zulu War of 1879. 

Union troops move swiftly into the centre

Given that it was our second American Civil game - Gettyburg seemed like an obvious choice.  It was an interesting game, made all the more so by some trash talking from the internet. 

Old John, dyed in the wool rebel that he is, wasn't able to make this games day, but sent a message to the boys to let them know that he was with them in spirit. It concluded with. 

have some great games and kick General Creanor's Yankee ass for me :-))

I read this out just after General Creanor had been defeated at Stalingrad, because well - Wargamers are a cruel breed. Consequently General Creanor, playing Meade, was determined not to be defeated at Gettysburg. 

TK and General Creanor discuss tactics, while Boomer remains stoic. 

The game was played with 6mm figures on two standard boards.  I substituted cork tiles for hills and model buildings for built up areas.  Unfortunately, despite scouring the dungeon for them I have so far completely failed to find my 6mm trees - though they must be in there somewhere. 

Anyway, this led to an interesting battle as Boomer & General K fought a long range sniping engagement around the Peach Orchard. Neither was convinced that he had sufficient strength to cross the open ground and deal a decisive blow the other. 

However, the game took a drastically different turn when General Creanor led a sudden movement in the Federal centre against an uncharacteristically defensive General D.  This allowed him to dictate the pace of the engagement while TK and Fatz slugged it out on the Rebel left.  General D managed to put together a defensive line after being pushed off the hills, but it wasn't enough to salvage the situation. 

The victorious Federals 

A specially posed shot for Old John. 

The innate perversity of Kinch

This is what I got

I got some of these recently of that nice fellow Brian of The Hobbyden.  They're Vickers Light Tanks from S Models, so a British tank made by a Chinese company bought from an Irishman. We're just a melting pot here. 

I assembled these and they're designed as fast builds so they went together pretty quickly. There was actually stuff that came in the box that I didn't use. The box comes with a number of brass etched pieces, I left them off because to be honest, I couldn't get them to attach easily and they were very delicate, more delicate than I'm comfortable with in a wargaming model. 

These were €13 per box of two and they are nice, but I think if I was doing this again, I would probably go with Frontline Wargaming resins. 

We had a painting evening the other day, which was fun. Mr. E and Mr. Target dropped over. Mr. E painted some Soviet Motor Rifle troops while Mr. Target assembled a Hornby pylon from my plastic stash.  Mr. Target also brought along some Rogue Trader era Orks which he very kindly passed on to me. 

I got my six Vickers six tonners basecoated.  The trick with that being, multiple thin coats.  The first one always looks awful, but these came up OK.  I'm in two minds about drybrushing a highlight on, but we shall see. 

I want them to look a little bit like this

So at the moment, I have two main projects on the go, my stalled Cold War Project and my ongoing Napoleonics project.  

What am I excited about painting at the moment - my BEF/Very British Civil War Tanks and possibly some Rogue Trader figures. 

Which just goes to show that I can be guaranteed to want to paint whatever it is I'm not meant to be working on at the moment. 

This made me laugh. A lot.

If you've ever wondered how your dog would react to a magic trick - now you have your answer. 

Barbed Wire

Being supportive

Given that I have been poking away at Second World War and other 20th century unpleasantness of late, it was becoming apparent that I was sadly lacking in defences.  

This is a Javis barbed wire support which I got from Andy Harfield of Harfields. I would probably run something up myself, but at a quid a throw for a solid resin piece, it seemed sensible to spend the money and save the time. The model itself is solid resin and extremely sturdy, I've dropped mine several times ferrying them out to the shed to get sprayed and haven't had any problems. These got a white spray undercoat with my house style Vallejo English Uniform on the ground.  

The supports were painted grey and then the whole thing got a quick drybrush of "Constables Snow". 

Garnish with a touch of Javis barbed wire et voila!

One section of barbed wire will do for two supports.  If I was being realistic I would probably wash the wire with brown ink to give it a bit of rust, but they'll do for the time being and having knocked out a round dozen in two hours, I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself.