Maple Leaf Up

After a flurry of posts on my 2nd Canadian Division in January and February, things got rather sparse in March. Painting slowed down a bit, but I got some additional figures completed: a 25 pounder howitzer with crew and limber, a 6 pounder anti-tank gun with crew and limber, two 3 inch mortars with crew and a group of eight Foundry French partisans. Battle Honors 25 Pounder with crew and limber. I have been looking for a vehicle to tow this but nobody seems to make a Quad Gun Tractor in any scales other than 1/72 or 1/35 Battle Honors 6 pounder anti-tank gun and crew. It came with an ammunition limber but my research seems to indicate that these were not used. One of my Universal Carriers will be the vehicle used to haul this around the battlefield. Battle Honors 3 inch mortars with crew. While I find that the sculpting of the Battle Honors range is not up to the same standard as the Bolt Action or Crusader range of miniatures, I like the fact that the crew are in shirt-sleeve order. Having fired an 81 mm mortar, I know that hauling that around and humping ammo can be sweaty work. Foundry French maquis. I picked these up years ago just because I loved the sculpting on these figures. They are equipped with a mixture of British and captured German rifles, pistols and sub-machine guns. I always find painting motley attire more difficult that uniforms, often because I can't decide what colours would look right. I ended up with a range of blues, browns, grays and black that seemed appropriate for 1944 French civilians.

More vehicles for the 2nd Canadian Division Motor Pool

I have added four jeeps and crews to my 2nd Canadian Division. The vehicles are Corgi 1/50 scale and the crews are Bolt Action Miniatures from several years ago that were sculpted to specifically fit into the Corgi Jeeps. Two of the jeeps originally had red crosses on the hood while the other two had the white star, which I did not paint over. All the vehicles were re-painted in British/Canadian colours and appropriate divisional and unit markings added. One of the drivers that I had was wearing a field service cap rather than a helmet, so I put Artillery markings on it for the 4th Regiment RCA. The rest were done up with the markings of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada. Now my company commanders don't have to walk to the battlefield any longer.

Dollar Store Mordor Catapult

Several years ago I happened to be checking out the toys at the Dollar Store and came across a set of plastic knights which included a catapult. I thought this had potential as a Mordor Catapult to add to my companies of orcs and warg riders. At only $1, it was no great loss if it didn't work out. The Games Workshop version comes with a troll and 3 crew, but at a price tag of around $70, I was not too eager to part with my cash. The knights were passed along to a colleague for his son to play with, and the catapult ended up in the projects box where it sat until now. At Christmas, I received a GW Gondor Battle Cry Trebuchet as well as some 1/72 scale siege equipment by a Russian model company called Zvezda. This inspired me to work on some heavy artillery for my Lord of the Rings armies. Taking a break from painting my WW2 Canadians, the Mordor catapult was the first project out of the starting gate.

The Dollar Store catapult is seen above. It could actually launch some small projectiles that come with the set, but I wasn't planning to do that on the gaming table. It had spoked wheels similar to the ones on 19th Century fortress artillery mounted on iron carriages, and a cheesy looking spring and release mechanism that didn't fit with my picture of a Mordor siege weapon. The spring and release mechanism were cut away and the wheels were filled in with epoxy putty to make them solid.

Bits cut from a coffee stir stick were added to the wheels to mimic the wheels on the GW catapult.

A winching mechanism was fashioned from some bits of balsa wood, a short length of wooden dowel, some 2 cm long pieces of bamboo barbecue skewer and part of a cheap costume jewelry chain that my wife was going to throw away.

After initially spraying the catapult with flat black primer, the whole thing was painted dark brown, followed by dry brushing a light tan on to highlight the wood grain in the casting. Metal parts were painted black and then dry brushed with gun metal.

As a final touch, the catapult was painted with a liberal wash of 'Devlan Mud', a favourite medium of many of the Fawcett Avenue Conscripts for shading and weathering. A couple of evenings work and my $1 purchase looks as good as the more expensive GW version. I managed to find a Cave Troll chess piece for $2 on eBay that will be painted up as one of the crew, along with a few orc warriors that will be converted to artillerymen.

Carrier Platoon moves to the Front

With the completion of my second rifle platoon, it was now time to work on the Carrier Platoon. For the painting and marking of the vehicles, I had photos of the "real deal', a restored Universal carrier, complete with markings of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada, 6th Brigade, 2nd Canadian Infantry Division. When I bought my West Wind Canadians, I also picked up two Universal carriers by Battle Honors. Those were later supplemented by two Bolt Action Miniatures Universal carriers along with enough crew for all four. The BAM carriers came with drivers, but not those from Battle Honors, so I converted two Jeep drivers to carrier drivers by cutting them off at the waist and repositioning the steering wheel. (On a Universal carrier, the steering wheel is vertical.) Here is a photo of the vehicle with the owner, Derk Derrin, and me in front of the Legislature during the Camerons' 100th Anniversary celebration. I managed to get a ride in the vehicle but because it was on the road surface, we didn't really get up to speed. Metal tracks and asphalt/concrete don't mix well. Here is a pic of my cluttered work area. In addition to the photos of Derk's carrier, I was also able to find some pdf files of Canadian vehicle markings on the internet. This proved very useful for producing the tactical symbols for marking the vehicle. In order to paint the crew men, I glued them to Popsicle sticks which makes it easier to handle the figures. The driver and Bren gunner castings are only from the waist up, while the crew that sit in the back are cast from the shins up. It took me a while to get the colour somewhere close to correct. Canadian vehicles were painted a bronze olive colour and I haven't been able to find anything close that is pre-mixed. I do most of my painting with water-based acrylics from the craft store. A 50/50 mixture of FolkArt 449 Olive Green and 945 Maple Syrup seems to come very close. The vehicles with the crooked stars are the original Battle Honors universal carriers, which are inferior to the BAM resin castings. They are about 10% too wide and 5% too short (most of the missing length being forward of the driver's compartment). Here is the completed carrier platoon with all the crew inside and vehicle markings in place. To make the markings, I scanned an image of the symbols and shrunk it to size. I then printed enough off on my laser printer, cut them out with scissors, and glued them on with Weldbond glue. I put a black '5' on a yellow circle on the front right fender (bridge weight rating) and white '68' on maroon square, as well as the a yellow maple leaf on a blue rectangle on both front and back of the vehicle. Not as perfect as decals, but it was a cheap way of doing the markings for the Camerons of Canada. Here is another view from a different angle showing the unit and divisional markings. I am counting these as 20 points towards my personal painting objective for 2011.

Reinforcements for the 2nd Canadian Division

The painting competition is quickly becoming a distant memory [This happens a lot when you get to my age, regardless of how recent the event] and I ended up so far behind the pack that the leaders were but specks on the horizon, rapidly increasing the distance between me and them. I am hoping to achieve a personal goal of increasing my painting output for the year 2011 and by December 31st have at least one miniature painted for every day of the year. 28 down, 337 to go. Several years ago I picked up some West Wind WW2 Brits/Canadians [part of their "Berlin or Bust" range - http://www.westwindproductions.co.uk/catalog/index.php?cPath=3_67] which I painted up to represent the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada. Since then I have acquired some Bolt Action and Crusader miniatures to add a second rifle platoon as well as some heavy weapons. Only the heavy weapons (PIAT's, mortars and heavy machine guns) got completed in time for the Fall Painting competition, but the rest of rifle sections have now moved off the assembly line and are marching to the front. Next up is the 6-pounder anti-tank gun and a carrier platoon of 4 Universal carriers. The heavy weapons teams are mostly by Crusader with the exception of the Vickers HMG on the front left, which is by Bolt Action. The second rifle platoon is now complete with Bren gun teams [front right] A close-up of some the section commanders, armed with Sten guns.