Forgeworld 40K Ork Flakk Gun

Sometimes I worry that the models I buy will just get put away forever and never painted. This feeling usually comes along when I'm contemplating a new purchase. Sometimes it passes and I pull the trigger on whatever shiny thing was in question; other times I sigh and put it back on the shelf (or more often these days, remove it from the electronic shopping cart).

So it happens that every so often I have to go into the large storage bins in the utility room and try to restore my faith in myself. This is one of those times... I bought this Ork Flakk Gun off the Forge World stand at Salute 2012 and decided to assemble and paint it for a summer Apocalypse game with the good old Red Star Orks.

The model is typical Forge World resin circa 2012 - that is to say, crap. It's bendy, it's brittle, and thank God it's not like this anymore. The kit was a right bugger to assemble. Comes with some cool Grot crew though. I've superglued the two guys to the crank handle and everything else is fixed solid too - it's the only way I could get the barrels to sit anywhere near straight.

The Ork gunner peering through his telescope is a nice touch.

I painted the 'scope lens in my standard gem style, with gloss varnish for good measure.

The little fellow carrying spare magazines has been based separately.

Barrels are a little wavy but dem's Orks, right?? Byron made me a nice wooden base with his magic laser machine. I've put a couple of pins in the base and drilled corresponding holes in the base of the model to mount it. The idea is that the gun can come off the base and do THIS...

Quad flak on a heavy halftrack! How cool is that??? My next post will feature more of the vehicle (it's an Ork Warbus from Polish company Puppets War) and some other Ork stuff I've just finished. Stay tuned if you're into Orks! ;-)

Battlefront's Egyptian ZSU-57-2 AAA Tanks - 15mm Arab-Israeli Wars

Eyes on the skies in the Middle East...

Continuing the theme of escalation in the 15mm Arab-Israeli Wars category here are a pair of ZSU-57-2 anti-aircraft artillery tanks. The models are from Battlefront's "Fate of A Nation" range.  They are very nice models and a breeze to paint.  The only challenge I had was to get the twin barrels to sit straight...I didn't quite meet it, but they don't look too cross-eyed :)

Zandri dust was the main paint colour, weathered, chipped and pin washed

These would have been important anti-aircraft assets for the Egyptian troops in 1967 - given the fact that the Egyptian Air Force was essentially obliterated on the ground by the Israelis, kit like this was all the desperate Egyptian troops in the Sinai could really hope for in terms of keeping the Israeli jets at bay!

The guns seem almost-straight from this angle..not bad...

The Egyptians took the terrible lessons learned in 1967 to heart, and their Soviet patrons started equipping them with much more serious kit. By the time of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Egypt's Operation Badr, the crossing of the Suez Canal, was covered by a lethal network of SAM missiles and ZSU-23-4 AAA tanks.  The Israeli Air Force paid a dear price against it. I think the ZSU-57-2 took a back seat to this newer kit in 1973, but they were still in the OOB somewhere...

These will come in handy for Yom Kippur War games as Dallas continues to build on his excellent assortment of Egyptians.  Like any wargamer, the first time I see a AAA tank, I think of how mean it would be to use against infantry and light vehicles, as opposed to its actual stated purpose :)  Those IDF jeeps with recoilless rifles would not be too happy to see these things...

I do want to do some Flames of War games set in the Six-Day War too (once I get enough relevant models painted :)  I have a pile of T-55s, BTR-152s and other Egyptian goodies waiting around for time on the paint table to take on my pile of IDF Shermans. It won't be anytime soon, however, as I need to get back to my Legion Project! Volkite Calivers are waiting...

15mm IDF Halftracks - Yom Kippur War

IDF halftracks from Battlefront

Some more Yom Kippur painting as we prepare for Prairiecon 2014! In this post are a pair of Israeli M3 halftracks.  The models are from Battlefront - the halftracks themselves are from their WW2 range, but they are tricked out with upgrade bits from their really, really awesome "Fate of A Nation" expansion for the Six Day War.

Mix of resin, plastic and metal - all in one little 15mm APC!

The US M2/M3 halftrack was the main APC of the IDF armoured infantry battalions during the Six Day War.  The IDF was in the process of replacing the M3 with the M113 by the time of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, but as is so often the case when bringing new kit to your armed forces, the IDF still relied on the tried and tested M3 as their reserves mobilized to meet the surprise attack by the Arabs.

Covered in soldiers' kit...I like the look - makes them look "lived in"

As with the venerable M51 Sherman, the M3 saw service with mobilizing reserve formations and saw action in both the Golan Heights and against the Egyptians in the Sinai peninsula.

Battlefront offers these models for their Fate of a Nation supplement.  The model is (of course) the US WW2 M3 halftrack with a conversion kit.  The pieces in the kit let you have the halftrack festooned with spare kit and bags, as these vehicles often seem to be when seen in photos from the Arab-Israeli wars, and also add the little ball-turret .30cal MG in place of the right-side front vision port. The air-recognition decals are also from Battlefront. 

Details were done on the hull by pin washing with GW's Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade

The Battlefront APC itself is a mix of old and new trends in gaming model design - the hull is resin, with plastic accessories. While overall the kit is very good, I'm not totally wild about the quality of the Battlefront plastic...it has an odd, rigid quality to it and not as much detail as the metal parts. Gamers often clamor for more and more plastic, and I worry we will regret this...

The .50cal MGs are plastic...and not inspiring plastic...but overall these are still real beauties to work with

And yet, even with my grouchy-old-man-style bleating, these are fun kits.  I am very much enjoying Battlefront's entry into 15mm Arab-Israeli wars as it is overall providing us gamers with some great stuff! The only problem here is that I should have finished four of these halftracks - not two - in order to mount the entire platoon.  I sort of ran out of bases...I hope to get the other two done in time for Prairiecon! But if the bases don't get sorted in time, we'll just add some M113s :)

We will be test driving the Prairiecon scenario at Dallas' place this week.  Looking forward to getting these on the table!

May the Fourth Be With You!

Yesterday was Star Wars Day, so I thought there was no better way to celebrate than to host some games of Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures. Man, where was this game when I was a kid?

Several of the boys dropped by during the course of the afternoon for some beers, fellowship, and to push tiny ships around.

DavidA (a local author of some note) expressed his confusion when I tried to explain the game's mechanics. Accordingly, Conscript Frederick stepped up and put him through his paces, each pitting a couple of ships against the other. After only two turns, David was already calculating what he should do next, in response to Frederick's likely moves.

Success! Another player joined the Dark Side.

After another beer, a few of us decided to play a 4-handed game. PaulK and Frederick ran a team of 4 TIE Interceptors vs. DavidA and myself, running Chewbacca in the Millennium Falcon, a B-Wing with a Heavy Laser Cannon, and an X-Wing.

Below, the action hots up as the Interceptors navigate their way through the asteroid field. In retrospect, the Imperial players acknowledged that this deployment split up their forces too much; they probably should have ganged up on one flank.



David maneuvers Chewbacca (with an elite Gunner on board) towards the fray.



My Star Wars Family tee shirt came from Tee Fury.



Fist Blood, as the Rebel star fighters down an Interceptor.



The Rebel star fighters angled north, under the covering fire of the Millennium Falcon. The Imperials got a measure of revenge, destroying the X-Wing after the latter had turned around to face them.



However, those two gray Interceptors got caught in a squeeze play between the Falcon and the B-Wing...



...whose combined firepower proved overwhelming. With the final Interceptor having only one hull point left, facing much larger ships with no hull damage (in fact, the B-Wing had all its shields, too), the Imperials conceded the match.



In the last year or so, I have played more X-Wing Miniatures than any other game. The mechanics are both intuitive and easy to grasp, but it retains your interest with surprisingly deep tactical possibilities.

***

Most of those present were old enough to have seen Star Wars (or, "Episode IV-A New Hope") in the theatre when it was first released. I still remember seeing it on May 25, 1977, with my brother; we sat in the very front row, at the extreme leftmost seats. Some aspects of the movie don't hold up so well over time (for example, Luke's whiny, painfully-delivered line, “But I was going to go into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!”). However, I still get that feeling of wonder when I think about Luke staring out at the twin setting suns, or when Gold and Red and Squadrons begin their attack on the Death Star. Watching Star Wars changed my life, sparking a life-long interest in science fiction literature, movies, conventions, and games.

Note: I met my wife at a local science fiction convention.

Panzer IIIs in Winter - 15mm WW2

Panzer III-Ls from Peter Pig - 15mm WW2

One last "clearing of the baffles" project that started on the Easter long weekend.  Here is a group of Panzer III-Ls in winter colours.  The models are from Peter Pig.

That tank commander would be pretty damn cold, I think...

Last fall I started, together with Curt C, a little 15mm winter WW2 project on the Eastern Front. These tanks were meant to be part of that effort, but they have sat there primed yet unpainted for almost six months.  I wanted to get them finished off during a little break from my 40k Legion project. And since there were flurries (AGAIN) this weekend, I thought it was appropriate timing.

The tactical numbers are decals from Plastic Soldier Company

The blue collar late model Panzer III is a favourite tank of mine.  The vehicle has thick plates of extra armour bolted to the front of the turret and the glacis.  The gun has been increased in size as much as it can be for the turret (to 50mm) with a longer barrel to add as much velocity as possible to the shots. This tank design has been tweaked to give everything it possibly can in the face of an increasingly superior Soviet adversary!

The detail on the Peter Pig tanks is excellent, without equal in 15mm

I think this version of the Panzer III saw service late in 1942 and into 1943 - all the way to the fighting at Kursk.  The winter of 1942-43 saw some very heavy fighting in the face of the Soviets' shattering counteroffensive around Stalingrad and through the Caucasus region.

There are a lot of nice little details, like the spare track links draped across the front of the tank

These models are from Peter Pig, and once again I am blown away by the quality.  They were easy to put together, a lot of fun to paint, and they are just gorgeous.  I would love to paint a whole company of these models!  Peter Pig is tops when it comes to 15mm WW2.

A thin gel medium was used to represent the snow

Like  my other winter tanks, I put a base coat on ("The Fang" from GW in this case - geez I hate the lame names of their paints) followed by a base off-white to represent the white wash, followed by some  heavy duty weathering to represent the abuse dished out by the elements in a Russian winter.  I stippled various shades of white on the armour, sponged some dark grey chipping along the edges, and then used some "Agrax Earthshade" and "Nuln Oil" washes from GW to pin-wash some specific spots.  The tanks look worn as heck, just the way I like them.

I hope to get these in to a Chain of Command game some time, but I'm finished painting winter stuff for now.  This past winter here in the Canadian prairies has been a relentless soul-crushing hell of non-stop cold.  While I was glad to get these cleared from the painting table, I'm done painting winter stuff for a while.  F*ck winter - just f*ck it in the face - painting winter stuff makes me think too much of it! I'll resume the winter stuff next October :)

Magach 3s - 15mm Yom Kippur War

Magach 3s from Battlefront

Over the past couple months Dallas has been doing some really nice work on some 15mm Egyptians to participate in some Yom Kippur War gaming - see here for his really sharp tanks and here for some really nice infantry.  It's always fun when someone else in the group tilts over and joins in with a "New Insane Project", and in particular Dallas is great because he not only joins, but once he does, he provokes counter-escalation (Mike is great for this too).  And so here is a platoon of IDF Magach 3 tanks, ready to respond to this Egyptian provocation.

I used Vallejo's "Green Grey" on these tanks

The "Magach", as tread heads will immediately recognize, is a US M48 Patton tank.  The IDF acquired these from West Germany initially (I think) and then more from the US.  They equipped armour battalions serving in the Southern Command, the front facing Egypt in/on the Sinai. The Magach served in the Six Day War in 1967, and saw critical service again during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

Decals from Battlefront

My initial Arab-Israeli war collecting was focused on the Golan Heights front, but with Dallas doing Egyptians I wanted to expand into the IDF tanks that saw service in the Sinai.  The Centurions and M51s saw action there as well, but the Magach tanks were pretty much exclusive to the Sinai and their rounded, egg-shaped silhouette is quite evocative of the desperate fighting along the Suez Canal in 1973.

Air recognition stripes

As with most of their tanks, the IDF set about improving them almost immediately.  They ditched the little mini-turret cupolas in favour of a more standard hatch, and up-gunned them from 90mm to 105mm. Tracking the many small modifications to the different version of Magach tanks is confusing and gives me a headache, but I think the main differences for gaming purposes are the main gun and the cupola. While there were only a relatively small number of the 105mm-armed tanks in 1967, by 1973 they were the norm in the IDF Southern Command, so I put the 105mm gun on these models.

You can kind of see the hacked-up cupola on the tanks

The models are from Battlefront.  The Magach kits are lovely, but unfortunately the cupolas are still the old-school "M1" cupolas from the original Patton tanks.  I believe the IDF used them in 1967, so this makes sense - Battlefront released these models for the Six Day War, after all.  But I wanted these tanks to "look 1973", so I attempted a crude conversion by simply cutting the MG off the turret and mounting a .50 cal MG on the top.  It's not pretty, and absolutely not a proper "Urdan" IDF tank cupola, but it will do for now!

I absolutely love the decals from Battlefront...

I painted the tanks with Vallejo "Green Grey" and pin washed them with GW "Agrax Earthsade" and "Nuln Oil" washes.  The decals are also from Battlefront, and they are REALLY excellent - no more free-hand attempts at Hebrew letters for me!!  I weathered them with pigment powders and they are ready for action.

Bring on the Egyptians! Hey - what's a "Sagger" anyway?

Dallas has kindly agreed to run a 15mm Yom Kippur War game with me a PrairieCon 2014 in Brandon this year.  We are hoping to play a test-game this week against his excellent Egyptians - stay tuned for details!

Small Batch of Small Germans - 15mm WW2

More fodder for 15mm Chain of Command

My Legion Project is currently at a pause while I assemble more models, get them primed and wait for the primer to dry etc.  I have been filling the gap by finishing off some small lingering 15mm WW2 projects that have been lying around the pending pile for too long.  Up first is this small assortment of German WW2 infantry from Battlefront.

The figures are based individually for skirmish gaming - rules like Bolt Action, Chain of Command and  Dallas' own excellent "Blitzkrieg" skirmish rules. There are eight riflemen and one NCO with an MP40. I believe these figures would be early-to-mid war - a guess based on the boots that most of them seem to be wearing, but I'm not 100% certain.

Eight rifles and an SMG for the NCO

I quite enjoy the skirmish gaming in this scale.  One tricky bit can be trying to discern who is carrying what weapon - in sci-fi games, the weapons are often really big and even in 15mm scale it is obvious which model is carrying, say, the MG/pulser/big laser cannon.  It is also easier to tell officers/commanders apart in 15mm sci fi - with leaders wearing different/whackier armour, or a real stand-out colour helmet or some such thing.

Bases are 20mm rounds

With WW2 figures, this is not always the case, and when I first used 15mm stuff for skirmishing it was a little hard on the eyes.  Out in Regina my good friend Curt had been puzzling over the same issue, and came up with a basing system to help.  NCOs on squares, senior officers on hexes, super unique/special weapons on octagons - and that's it.  It works pretty well, and it's easier on the eyes!

Figures from Battlefront

There are three great things about WW2 skirmish gaming in 15mm.  For one, I already have a very large number of 15mm vehicles for games like Flames of War.  Second thing is the price - you can purchase a platoon-worth of models for relatively cheap, and if you are buying from Battlefront or Peter Pig, you have the whole platoon in one purchase, including supporting weapons like MG teams, light mortars and bazookas. The third thing (and most important) is that I love the look of it on the table - the ranges "look" a lot more in tune on a 6' x 4' table.  

I hope to get the progress renewed on the Legion project soon...but there will be a little 15mm diversion for now as Prairiecon 2014 approaches...stay tuned for more on that!