Thing a Week 20

So I managed to push out three and a half platoons in four days. I hate painting at the best of times, but more so when I have to do so industrially, under a deadline, and when it eats up my entire bank holiday.

I watched 3 seasons of Cougartown (now 100% cougar free) the latest season of Ripper Street and hours of YouTube lets plays while painting these bastards.

In any case I am now ready for our Midwar alt-history game on Saturday.

The final 2 MG's for my para MG platoon

A full 25pdr battery

I've got to interject at this point. The rifle platoon consisted of the worst moulds I have ever received from Battlefront. Details were muggy or non-existent in places - one command figure was missing his face.

Front and centre. That's not just blurriness. He has no face.

I will seriously be looking at PCS plastics when I get round to my D-Day company.

And finally some Matildas to round out the force

Actual games are being played!

In lieu of painting stuff, here's some pics of a quick game of Flames of War I managed to get in a couple of weeks ago.

I decided to whip out my tank list against an opponent whose list really wasn't the right shape to take them on. Coincidentally. I don't do that shit on purpose.

Even so, it was a close thing.

I'm bogging here and I'm going to stay bogged for the rest of the fight. Veteran? What's that?

Surprise StuGs!

Ach! Nein!

Ambushing Pioneers (in buildings, right) make short work of virtually defenceless Cromwells and Challengers

British infantry, disguised as paras, prepare for a counter attack

Meanwhile, on the relevant side of the board, tanks punch through German infantry for massive damage

Winning the game, but at a high cost.

Status Update and IPMS Thornbury photos [Pic heavy]

A little update on where things are at.

Its been a little quiet here recently, mostly because I recently acquired a rather bigger painting project.

Namely, an entire flat

Regardless, there's an alternate history Flames of War tournament being run by Vanguard at the start of next month for which I need to put some new units together, so there'll be some photos of them as they are completed.

For now, here are some photos of last months IPMS in Thorbury, which seems to have been overrun by gamers rather than modellers (not that I'm complaining...)

Might as well use my expensive new phone for something right?

 Someone wrote up various new races for WFB and plays them at 35mm or thereabouts. It is glorious!

Pretty sure this was here last year...

An interesting Cthulhu-esque RPG-ish game with great production values that I ultimately didn't buy into.

These guys wouldn't let us play with their toys...

There was a painting competition for wargaming figures, which, last year only had three entries. This year, however.

I was mostly there to showcase All That Remains and you can nip over to the All That Remains blog for pics.

Thing a Week 19

Some Jeeps for the purposes of 6pdr towing. Not going to lie, I didn't put that much effort into them as they'll rarely be deployed, but I've paid the points for them for todays list, so why not right?

Still though, quite happy with them.

Thing a Week 18

And thus yellow platoon was born. It's an airlanding platoon, but it will - of course - be known as yellow platoon due to the marking on the back. It's short a PIAT but I'll be cannibalising one of the freefloating ones from the HQ teams.

Really looking forwards to D-Day gaming this weekend.

Thing a Week 17

Finally finished half of a Para MG platoon, spurred on as I was by our D-Day event to be held in June.

It's a fugly picture, but I'm really quite happy with them.

I've transitioned to using full strength PVA rather than the very dilute stuff I also have, and it's come out rather shiney. Strange, but not visible in this picture.

Thing a Week 16

Zombies!

These Wargames factory zombies were originally put together for a d20 Modern campaign that ended over a year ago. I've finally finished (and for that matter, started) painting them.

As they're zombies, I didn't want to sink too much effort into them so I tried following the tutorial found here. I've got to say, I'm not seeing the advantage of Army Painter quick shade, which I invested in. I didn't see as dramatic a darkening in colour as I was expecting, and the end effect seemed to be little more than a shinier, stickier, more brush ruin-y version of a devlan mud wash. Also the colours  used made them end up looking rather green - despite being dark brown and beige - where I was aiming for the baked reddish brown of The Walking Dead zombies.

Also, as with Wargames Factory models that I've painted before the definition is a little ropey, and they seem extra susceptible to blobiness.

So overall, not the prettiest job I've ever done, but what the hell, they're zombies.

I'll be leaving zombies for now and moving on to other things, but I think I'll be trying out other techniques later in the year. I believe there is a miniature painting tradition called zombtober where you spend October painting zombies for no readily explained reason; maybe I'll give that a go.