Marry Christmas

I just like to wish you and yours a Marry Christmas and Happy New Year.

The Cathedral in downtown Savannah.

I don't know if I'll get another post in  before the New Year, but I hope to see ya then

New Ships

I managed to get some painting done this week. These ships will be used in my Naval Invasion game, at Gnome Con. I've I got another batch on the way. Here we have a mix of German, Danish, and Soviet light ships.

Wish I had a better pen to name the German's and Danish

In the back I have a pair of German Koln class frigates. On the left side a pair of Soviet Parchim II Corvettes. In the center a pair of Danish Soloven PT boats. Finally on the right four German Type 148 missile boats. Next I'm going to work on some of the ground forces for the land game.

Tanksgiving 2018

Last Saturday I actually had the day off, so a decided to drive to Waycross to join in on Tanksgiving.  Tanksgiving is an annual event held by my friend Mike Baker just before Thanksgiving and is a series of armor games. This is the first time I'd been able to attend. We first started with Destopian Wars, a game I hadn't played before. It was the Prussians and French verses the British and Russians. I commanded one of the Prussian groups. 

On the right is my group which consist of a group of light tanks, a battery of artillery, and a Giant Robot that will from now on be call Mecha-Krout. On the left is the other Prussian group, consisting of another group of light tanks, a company of medium tanks, and a land carrier. 

A picture of my French allies, which include a land ship and  another rolling carrier. 

Some of the enemy British forces passing by the lake as a monster watches. Sadly it did not attack.

My units advancing through the town with Mecha-Krout trying to hide among the buildings. Didn't work out too well. 

Mecha-Krout charges forward to destroy the last Russian heavy anti-tank vehicle, before going down for the count.

Things don't go well on the French side either as their landship is destroyed.

In a final act of pettiness, the Russians use their mechanical earth worm, to run over the last of the Prussian light tanks

 In the end the French and Prussians suffered too many casualties and we lost. We then moved on to a game of Blitzkrieg Commander. The game was Russians verses Germans mid 44. This time I was playing on the Russian side. For the Russians we had a tank brigade of T-34s, supported by some heavy armor.

My force consisting of a battalion of T-34/76 and a company of infantry.

The rest of the Russian force. On my right a battalion of T-34/85 plus infantry company. On my left another battalion of      T-34/76 plus infantry. Farther to left out of the picture is the Russian heavy armor consisting of 2 KV-1 and 2 ISU-122.

The T-34/85 battalion moves into the nearest village. 

Meanwhile my battalion moved up to capture the central hill.

The bigger picture with the T-34 battalion on my left taking the other forward ridge line. Mikes heavy armor goes to the center to try to take on the German king tigers. On the left you can see one the kumpf groups equipped with Pzr IV tanks and some rather annoying PAK-40s. The king tigers were set up near the town behind a wall. On the right is the other kumpf group consisting of Pzr IV and Panther companies..

At end of the game on the left side my battalion was starting to take casualties while we lost all our heavy armor.

The right side at the end of the game. The T-34/85 battalion had taken heavy casualties, also inflecting losses on the Germans.

 In the end the we lost due to casualties. It was a fun time and I enjoyed it, I'm going to see about going to the next Tanksgiving. As of now I working on some new ships for the gnome con game.

Wargame Unit: Angolan Motorized Battalion

Yesterday I finally finished my new 6mm modern unit. My SWAPO Front now has some regular FAPLA forces to back them up. Here's the units all together, a battalion plus brigade support.

Please excuse the gaggle as well as the shadows on some of the photos.

Below we have the bulk of the battalion, it's three infantry companies. All of them are mounted on old BTR-152 APCs.

Next we have the battalions considerable support units. This includes (left to right) the AA platoon with ZPU-2, AGS-17 platoon, 82mm Mortar platoon, AT platoon with jeep mounted recoilless rifle, and the HQ platoon with a BTR-152U.

Finally we have some brigade support in the form of a tank company with T-34/85s and Recon company with BRDM-2s

That is the new unit. I'm not sure what I'll be working on yet. I'm thinking of doing some ships for the gnome con project. I'll probably do more terrain as well. I'm waiting for the first of several orders I have to make to arrive as well.

More terrain

In between painting units I decided to finish these two 6mm terrain pieces I had on the side.

First up I have this graveyard. The walls are C&C stone walls and the tombstones are cut from a wooden craft stick. I mainly did this for the fun of it.

The second more useful piece is this tent city, I made using large and medium tents from Game Craft. I can use this piece for all kinds of things such as a HQ, refugee camp, training camp, temporary housing in a FOB, and many more.

Those are the new pieces. I've now started on my new Angolan unit. This well be a regular army unit.

New Unit: Soviet Naval Infantry Battalion

I've been on a bit of a roll lately. I just finished this unit for my new mini-campaign project. I've already sign up for Gnome  Con. Hopefully it will be ready by then. The new unit is the 1st battalion of the 36th Naval Infantry Brigade (I'm planning to use two).

The full battalion, 3 companies plus battalion AA platoon, AT platoon, and Mortar battery. I will eventually add a battalion command stand, but it's not need at this point. The backs of the stands (can be seen in any of the pictures) are color coded to show which combat stands belong to the battalion. I'm going to start doing that with all my FFT units.

I thought about having them in camouflage uniforms, but I just had to go with the black. I might do an air landing battalion in camouflage and black berets, but not for this scenario. Note I also experiment with putting stowage on the vehicles using plastic for ammo crates and modeling putty for tarps and cammo nets. 

I also added the Soviet naval ensign to the sides of the vehicles. Hopefully I'll get better at painting them

I still plan to work on my South African stuff. I got a new unit of that sitting on the side. And I have to do a lot of terrain pieces as well so hopefully I can keep this pace up.

The roads to hell

A couple of months ago I brought this from Wargame Vault.

This week I decided to print some up. I was going to glue them to felt using rubber cement so they would be somewhat flexible. The felt will keep them from moving around on the table too much. I would then trim them with a X-Acto blade. I of course ran into problems the first being with the glue. The rubber cement was a bust, it just didn't work on felt. So I ended up using Elmer's spray adhesive. This worked very well giving an even coat. The next problem I had was with cutting them. The blades I had were trash at cutting felt, so I ended up using a regular pair of scissors to cut them into shape. Here's some pictures of the progress.

The final result. I now have 162 inches of roads not including the curves and intersections.

Unfortuneitly, the printer I used added these blue lines for some reason. They're not as noticeable at a distance and really only show up on the straights, but I may end up reprinting them. 

Anyway that's what I've on doing lately.

New Megablitz Unit

   I finished painting these a while ago and have just now gotten around to posting them. The new unit is the Russian 8th Guards Rifle Corps, my second Russian rifle corps. Hope to make a few more later on. Here are the pictures of the unit, once again sorry for the poor quality.

First up the 5th Guards Rifle Division, with a tractor drawn 122mm howitzer.

Next up we have the 26th and 83rd Guards Rifle Division, each with horse drawn 76mm guns,

Next we have the support units from left to right: 883rd Guards Sapper Battalion, Corp Supply, 6th Guards Tank Destroyer Regiment, and the Corps HQ. Not pictured is 148th Tank Regiment as that unit needs a little repainting.

Finally here's the entire rifle corps together. 

I just need some Russian Army level units and some late war aircraft and my late war Russian front scenario will be ready. I'm going to be working on more modern stuff also, as I have a new idea. Kind of a mini-campaign game involving both sea and land.

The non-event of 2017

   I decided to post something just so you wouldn't think I'm dead or something. As you know, today was the day of the solar eclipse in the United States. For us here in Georgia it turned out to be the non-event of 2017. The overcast sky hide the sun and it didn't even get that dark. Apparently 3% of the sun is enough to light the world.
   Anyway, on to gaming news. I'm just about finished my naval warfare rules, and will have to start play-testing them. As far as painting is going, I've recently finished one Megablitz unit and hope to have pictures of it on-line soon. I've just got another modern unit together and will start painting it soon. There are also some more terrain projects I want to do. My biggest problem however is my lack of gaming time. My new schedule has me off on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. I might try to get something together of con season.

Digging in

A little project I did today. I realized I needed some entrenchment markers for some future micro armor games. I usually use fortifications from C&C fortifications but I barely have enough for a battalion, and buying more could get expensive. I also had to replicate the extensive trench works around SWAPO base camps. I thought of getting the trench system made by Timecast, but I'm cheap so I decided to make my own.

A little sloppy with the glue. 

I made these with sand colored craft foam glued onto brown drawing paper. I made about four feet of trenches, including communication trenches and some with larger dugouts.

The long sections are 1"x 3". The small ones 1"x 2". 

While I was at I made enough individual markers for two full western infantry battalions or a Warsaw Pact motor rifle regiment.

Each are 1"x 1". The round ones can be  mortar pits.

I need to brake out my SLR, as the camera on my phone isn't cutting it anymore. I still have plenty of foam and brown paper left, so I plan to make some anti-tank ditches next. Maybe some larger vehicle emplacements too. I might also make some minefield markers. I've also started on another Megablitz unit, so I should have a post on that soon.

New SAM battalion

 Last month I went to Rapier in Jacksonville. I really wish they hadn't moved it to February. It put all the gaming cons in my area too close together. Because of this I could only go to one and had to miss out on Gnomecon this year. Anyway, I did get to have a nice game of Starfleet battles.

Too learn more visit Ski's blog, listed on the right.

 While I was there, I also brought a good amount of micro-armor which I've just started painting. First up is a Soviet/Warsaw Pact SA-6 battalion. The micro-armor I brought was second hand so it already came assembled and painted. While the launchers where in nice action poses, the paint job left a lot to be desired. The person who had them before just spray painted them green and call it a day. I decided to touch them up giving the missiles some details, adding some camouflage to the vehicles, and some light weathering. I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures.

The camouflage is based of a Czech SA-6. While most of the Soviet vehicles were plain green during the cold war, the original plan was to quickly paint them camouflage during war time.

I'll probably use the Straight Flush radar as a sort of command stand. 

 My battalion has a radar and 3 batteries. Most Warsaw Pact division had a SAM regiment with 5 batteries, enough to give one to each of the division's regiment. However, I seriously doubt I'll be putting a full division on the table anytime soon so I'm happy with just 3 batteries for now.

The SAM battalion all together. Just waiting for some capitalist aircraft to show up.

I hope to do some more painting and gaming in this year than I did in the last. Hopefully I'll have a new post out soon.