OK its been like 4 years since my last update. In that time ive been busy with kids, jobs and a small move to Australia from the UK.

I'd lost the love for my hobby over the last few years, but its back now. I intend to use the blog to motivate myself.

Great war miniatures WW1 British

The WW1 British are done at last, so that's one off my list! Made up for chain of command, a 28mm platoon level game. The markers are jump off markers, the game has a patrol phase prior to thr game proper, this really messes things up. The markers show where troops will come on from, so the game is always in flux. Fantastic game by two fat lardies, give it a bash.

I'll have some support options to add later on, i'll add them once they are done.

 Infatry rifle squad

 HQ elements

 Bomber squad

 MG squad with 1 gun

Jump off markers

Lee

Partizan

I went to Partizan show in Newark today. All I wanted was one Battlefront Honey Stuart. Not one stall there sold ant Flames of War products! Bad sign? Time will tell.

So as usual I was blinded by new shiny miniatures. I bought 8 Empress Miniatures British modern Infantry, i'll use these in Skirmish Sangin, a ruleset I picked up a few months ago.

The other random purchase was a Blood Bowl treeman, to go with another recent random purchase of some Blood Bowl Halflings. Just need one more treeman for the team now.

Otherwise the show was fairly good. I would comment on lighting, I have excellent eyesight and could barely make some miniatures out in the larger room. Other folks must have been blind!

Great to see my man Scrivs and his Verdun project on the display games, inspired me to get my Great War Brits done ASAP.

Laters.

A return to the blog

After quite some time away from the blog I am going to try and get back on top of it again, been a bad year at home. Enough on that! So, what projects have I on the go that I intend to report on? I'll list them in the order I intend to do them:
1) WW1 28mm late war British. These are not far off done and i'm looking forward to playing chain of command with my man Scrivs in a few weeks. A separate post and piccies will follow.
2) Blood bowl Orc team. This team has sat half painted for nearly ten years, time to finish it and play with James and maybe find a league.
3) Flames of war KG Hummel. 10 tigers of goodliness for late war ww2. Already airbrushed so need detailing and some recce support plus nebelwerfers painting.
4) Finish up 28mm wild west cowboys.

After this it becomes more fuzzy, so i'll just list the projects with no order!
- Drop zone commander PHR army
- 28mm Medieval army (foundry)
- Finish 28mm Sudan british - Finish 28mm DAK for chain of command
- Flames of war soviet assault gun horde (16 su122)
- Flames of war EW/MW Italians. Labour of love for these guys, so in no hurry.
- Flames of war USA 2ID - Flames of war USA airborne
- Mordheim. Building a city, plus have a possessed posse to do

On top of this i'm playing board games merrily. Games I play on occasion at the moment are:
- Space hulk
- Mordheim
- Zombicide
- B Sieged (kickstarter, do not have in my hands yet)
- Blood rage (as B seiged)
- Advanced heroquest
- Heroquest
- Necromunda
- Settlers of catan

Update coming soon with those ww1 Brits.

The lead mountain: 2014

I've finally sorted a space for me topaint again, after repeatedly being evicted by new children for the last few years! I'm in the cellar now. Its cold and underground, but on the plus side theres no toddlers to 'play' with my ongoing projects and I could weather a nuclear war and not miss out on painting time! So, heres my lead mountain as at Jan 1: 8th army infantry platoon 1 - SOLD 8th army infantry platoon 2 - SOLD 8th army infantry platoon 3 - SOLD 25 lb battery 1 - SOLD 25 lb battery 2 - SOLD Gebirgsjager platoon 1 Gebirgsjager platoon 2 Gebirgsjager Pioneer plt Gebirgsjager Artillery battery 1 Gebirgsjager Artillery battery 2 Gebirgsjager Mortar battery Gebirgsjager PaK 40's 1 Gebirgsjager light guns Gebirgsjager PaK 40's 2 German MW Tiger platoon German Elefant platoon German 8 rads x 4 Hungarian Bikes Hungarian Infantry Hungarian Pioneers Hungarian Nebs Hungarian Tigers Hungarian Panthers FJ Company Command FJ Platoon 1 FJ Platoon 2 MW Panzer platoon 1 MW Panzer platoon 2 German 88's German leFH18 battery German HMG platoon 28mm German grenadiers 28mm German SdKfz 222 28mm German Opel Blitz 28mm German PaK40 28mm German mortar unit 28mm Sudan British Foundry DAK Rommels Stuarts Russian SU122 plt 1 Russian SU122 plt 2 Russian SU122 plt 3 Russian SU122 plt 4 Sturmvogel ME262 DAK SdKfz 222 plt Panzergren heavy platoon SdKfz 251's DAK panzergrens IS2 platoon Gebirgsjager HQ 8th Army HQ ISU122 platoon 4 T34/76's Panzerwerfer 42 battery FJ Marder II platoon 18 Foundry Norman Knights 24 Foundry Norman Archers 28mm perry DAK platoon Quite a bit to get done!

Initial thoughts on the Festungs company. 6 platoons. 2 Ultra defence platoons, should very capably hold their own against most enemies, 4 88's in nests is NASTY. 4 mobile(ish) platoons to cope with fair fights (to a degree!) or allow a 50/50 set up with all the good stuff on. I think i'll make up one of the platoons to see how I feel about the whole thing. The good thing here is that its a cheapo list, 90% of the stuff can be home made. Watch this page...

D Day 70th anniversary looms...

With the 70th anniversary of the D Day landings looming, and a Flames Of War late period themed event run by the reluctant Conscripts also planned, its time to wonder what army to do to remember this amazing feat of military planning and engineering, and all the lives lost and saved as a result.

I already own a Wehrmacht 352nd Infantry division force. This is based on the units just inland from the invasion itself, and is quite tasty to use with 8 Marder IIIM's, 150mm artillery and 3 full platoons of MG wielding Confident Vet troops, amongst much more.

I also own the core of a British Para army, painted by Ian Mann, another cracking force to play with.

I've had the idea floating in my head that i'd do a fortified company however. These companies can be very unwieldy in the game, and the current list structures are hard to make competitive in my personal opinion. You can field a viable army based on the brittany lists than only requires 1 fortified platoon, and can have nice additions to it. This may well be a 'good' tournanment list, but misses what i'm looking for.

So I think i'll do a 2 platoon fortified list, based on the 343 brittany festungs company. 2 fortified platoons with a full odds and sods to fill out the points allowances. It will not be able to attack in any real form, but then its not supposed to! I'll make it as its supposed to be, a defensive beast, and will shrug my shoulders should I have to attack at all.

More to follow...