Shop.............ping Moderns

Sometimes I think wargamers are a bit like women when it comes to buying stuff for our hobby we go out with good intentions to just get one or two items and come home with an armful! It all happened on Monday when the Cardinal and I went for a drive too Canberra to spend my Father’s day money and pick up some Vallejo paint and peruse the bookshops of Fyshwick (Academic remainders and Crusader books). We went to Crusader first to pick up some Vallejo paint and have a look at some books, so I picked up a mix of browns and some washes. Next stop was Toyworld and as my painting MOJO has returned and the weather is warming up I decided to peruse the kit shelves and decided to pick up an Apache helicopter (Airfix) as I am starting another modern army in 20mm and I thought justified it that way, then we decided to get some lunch next, however we thought that we really should visit Monaro hobbies. At Monaro I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of plastic kit they had of the shelves and decided to pick up a Trumpeter M1 Abrams, however on the way out they had a sale on ICM cold war Russian kits for $5 each, so I picked up 3 BTR152’s and 5 trucks!
Now I normally get one of my mates to put my kits together because they annoy me and I have two left hands when it come to fiddly bits. However as they last few days have been wet I have sat down and put four of the nine kits together already.
The Apache went together very nicely and I made the rotors removable for transport.





The ICM 152 kits are excellent and I put them together easily also, the ICM plastic is a little different
so setting times are a little longer, but I used a production line so I could do three models at the same time, a few little adjustments, so battle kit and damage then off to the spray booth for all of them (probably after I finish the trucks).




The BTR152s and trucks will see service with my Soviets for Afghanistan and Cold War and may even make it into my African Warlord army, so I think either a generic green or the tan/khaki camouflage.

On the painting desk I have some Volunteers de Clermont (see my 18th century blog 'Fine and Dandy") and some 18th century civilians, next up will be some WSS French and then some more Imperial Romans, and some individual British general characters for the “William Atkinson memorial build” on the Guild forum.

Cheers
matt

Victory without Qauter

The guys at the Goulburn Valiant Stormer’s are throwing around some ideas for the big project next year, a few of us think be 30 years war could be a possible front runner, as the warlord plastics lend themselves nicely to the period (still some discussion and dissention in the ranks as to basing conventions though), so with that thought a number of us have started to play test some rule sets. On Sunday Dave and I (we both normally play Warhammer English Civil War) had a game using the Free “Victory without Quarter” rules.

Using my ECW figs we each had a C in C, one cavalry general , two pike and shot blocks, one trotter and one galloper horse unit, one gun and a clubman for the parliament and highlanders for the Irish Royalists.

The game was played over 4 hours, I really liked the rules as I found they could be a little unpredictable and I liked the different factors for troop types and the card idea, although I think that VWQ will be a little slow for those players wanting to get two games in on a club day. VWQ still gave a satisfactory result and possibly would speed up after a few games; however I don’t think they would handle much more troop wise, two more pike blocks possibly and another regiment of horse each would slow it down even more. My ECW army is a mix of different figures, the Irish Montrose army are mostly Eureka, the pike and shot, horse, a mix of Old Glory, Perry and Eureka Highlanders and a Foundry gun and crew, On the parliment side, all Foundry and Perry except for the clubmen who are Warlord metals.

As the boys want to play a more grand tactical game I think VWQ will not be suitable for what we have in mind, although I would happily use VWQ for ECW. The next rule set we will play test is the Baroque set from the guys who wrote impetus.


Cheers
Matt

Germans in the trees

A beautiful winter’s day today in the sunny city of Goulburn, about 13 degrees with no wind, I ventured out of the house and decided to do a re-org of the terrain boxes, after sorting out the buildings and the tree boxes out, I decided to refurbish some of the damaged trees with flock, creating six new poplars and a re-flocking about 15 others, I still need to refurbish about fifty trees, but I need some more rubberised horse hair, so a visit to the local upholstery shops this week is on the cards. I also marked out and cut the base for my manor house and some roman roads which I have been meaning to do, it should be all painted and completed by tomorrow night.








On the painting front I have finished my 28mm First Corps German tribal cavalry, and my last unit of 28mm Fenlon ACW figs Coppen’s Zouaves need flocking. I have also almost finished off my Warlord ECW clubmen, another unit of Foundry pike and shot, some Perry dismounted dragoons and warlord guns and crew, and they should all be on the table this weekend for our ECW club game.








My manor house has been cut out and will be glued down tomorrow, once I have painted the base coat on the base tonight. I have decided to do a fictional house but I have based it on an old Ian Weekly model, but not as big!
Looking forward to the clubs ECW bash this weekend, hopefully I will get some good pictures so I can do an AAR for you all.

Cheers
Matt

ACW ironclads

Well such a beutiful day on Sunday I decided to take some photos after I finished preparing the garden beds for spring planting. I managed to get my ACW 1/1200th Langton ACW ships out and take a few photos so I thought I would share them. A bought a few of these for a river fight game for the ACW weekend, but they never managed to make it onto the table. I enjoyed painting these and after undercoating I think I painted all four in about two hours, a basic colour then a wash in devlan mud, and I am very pleased how they came out, I am thinking about returning and adding stays to the funnels with brush bristles and perhaps flags.

here they are
CSS Albermarle



Uss Cairo


USS Benton


USS Virginia



cheers
Matt

Goulburn Valiant Stormers Swap Meet

Goulburn Valiant Stormers

"White Lead Elephant, car boot swap meet"

24th of July , Saturday 10 am -3pm
8 Railway Parade Marulan.



Weather permitting..it will be quite cold but should be dry...


Bring a blanket card table whatever and all the stuff you are going to NEVER read, paint or play with and sell trade or swap with others of a like mind discuss what you intend to bring or what you intend to pick up on this thread here http://passageoflines.50.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=1220.


We can get about 25 cars into the backyard so there should be enough room? A goodly distance between Canberra (1 hr 20mins) and Sydney (1 hour 40 mins) ..sausage sizzle coffee and tea available at the location and local eateries and coffee are part of the general ambiance.


Bring lots of bags or boxes to carry home your loot and lots of small notes, it is very hard to get change around here . Bring a raincoat and an umbrella and don't park on the railway side of the road, you will get a golfball through your windscreen!

cheers
Matt

"Kingmaker 2010"

Well only a few members made it up this month so only five players for the sheildwall games, and I managed to take some bad pics and get a drubbing with my Flemish, but the good company and lunch made up for my misery. Louis and Guy won both games so a draw after all for first place. After we finnished we played 1/72 scale Wings of War with Marks fast play WOW with dice, Marks Rohden Gothas were huge and his Se5s, Fe2s were excellent along with a great range of early german kit. Five of us played and it was great fun, Sam was excited to shot down Boyd in his fancy Albatross, and I got mark on a single dice roll of 100! All of us have promised to paint our hordes of unpainted plastic ww1 aircraft we have around the place and get them on the table in the next few months. I have added the few pictures that did work out below. I have on the painting desk at the moment more 20mm germans, more 28mm Sassanids and some successor Greeks and ancient German cavalry as roman allies.

cheers
matt