Shovels, sickles and planks of wood

Greetings everyone from Athens, that, for  the time being is rather warm.

Yesterday, while listening to Brazil vs Germany game (what a game!), I finished these three small terrain pieces, that can be used as complementary pieces next to small buildings, barns, stone houses, sheds etc.

The tools (shovels and sickles), were made with needles (the shafts) and thin card (the metal parts - blades and this curvy thing, which I can't grasp it in my memory right now, please bear with me...).

The rest of the woodwork is made by balsa wood and matches.

The sacks, were made by white Milliput, since I couldn't find any decent sacks in the market (and to be honest, I couldn't wait 7-15 days to receive them, by post - I had to finish the pieces yesterday).   :-)

I reckon that with a bit of patience given, it will be fairly easy for you guys to make something like these, in no time (go get some matches and needles)! 

I hope you like them.

Have a good Wednesday night everyone - I'm off to get me some pints o' Guinness!

T.

Flying Lead on a sunny Sunday

Ok, it’s been four months since my last post, I know that, but when you don’t feel in the mood to paint, when you're out of focus, you simply want to hide yourself from everything that’s hobby related.

At least, that was the deal until yesterday afternoon. The weather was nice (I live in Greece after all), I had a nice cup of coffee in the morning with my SWMBO, and by the end of the morning I had an invitation by the fellow modeler and wargamer Dimitris of the Complete Greek Geek blog, for a WW2 skirmish game – you can imagine my sense of excitement, since I’ve never played anything related to WW2, EVER! And yes, I mostly paint WW2 models – I know, and yes, I don’t feel proud about that. But, that belongs to the past now! First blood was drawn, and boy….it was mine to spare. Well, I guess that should be the ritual for a noobie like me. J

 

Taken from Dimitris’ blog:

World War II skirmishing, using Flying Lead from Ganesha Games. If you don't know them, visit their site. Andrea is an awesome guy to deal with and his rules are ALWAYS great fun. Flying Lead is a generic skirmish game that can be used for WWII, pulp adventures, cops and robbers, science fiction and probably more types of wargaming.

So, the rules came out, two forces of 600 points each were assembled, the battlefield was laid out, and battle was joined.

 I got the Americans and he got the Germans…

 The Battlefield

 Rules, army list, QR sheet, dice, measuring sticks. Ready to rock and roll.

The Yanks. Heroic sarge, corporal, BAR gunner, 4 privates, 1 veteran in CQB, 1 veteran with hand grenades.

 The Krauts. Heroic unteroffizier, gefreiter, MG-34 gunner and loader, 4 grenadiers, 1 veteran grenadier with rifle grenades.

Ok, the aerial reconnaissance showed no movement or enemy presence in the area. I had to cross the field and occupy the area, waiting for the reinforcements to come, for the big push. That was the plan, that was what my men heard in briefing. ‘’Same shit, different day’’ they thought.

I split my force in two. One part (Commander and BAR team) would get cover in one of the derelict houses (great terrain pieces btw), providing suppressing fire to the stone house across the dirt road, where I thought that most of the Jerries would be. The other team (Sergeant and riflemen) would move through the woods and flank the stone house. A reasonable plan you say? Just wait and see….

Movement was done without too much hassle. During my movement phases, the Germans moved behind the stone wall and started loading their weapons – among them was a ‘’sewing – machine’’ a.k.a MG-34. I had to move as quickly as possible.

 The support team occupied the derelict house and the men on the two sides of the dirt road started exchanging bullets, wishes and gifts. Oh wait, I need to clarify things a bit for you. Dimitris was using his weapons very efficiently - grenades, 7.62’ rounds - you name it, were decorating the derelict house with splinters, bricks and fumes…also, to spice things up, the inhouse decoration was consisted of blood spatters on the walls alongside with some broken limbs and materiel of my men – as you might have guessed, my men were pinned by continuous fire and my Commander was out of action, at the very early stages of the game.

 What I gave back in response? Lots of “1”s and “2”s… and then another man (BAR) fell. More “1”s and “2”s….and grenadiers trying to flank my position – and then another man fell. No need to carry on writing the same thing over and over again. You might have guessed the outcome of this mini battle. To make things worse, hand to hand battles between my men and the grenadiers took place, and apart from my inability to get some decent die, my men guns jammed and one of them was killed during the melee.

The other team after a few turnovers – due to my good dice, delayed in reaching the stone house – the outer wall to be exact, near the tree. I managed to throw some grenades and fire some shots, pinning some Jerries down, but the Dice Deity, came to my ‘’rescue’’. More “1”s and “2”s, and the pinned Germans managed to get cover behind the house walls – from which they fired with everything they had against me, with the expected results – more Yankees wounded and out of the action…

 Outcome: One dead, four wounded/ out of action and only three men unscathed by the battle. After that, I started yelling: «είναι κλοπή κύριε Κοτλέμπα»!! – Sorry, I cannot translate this in English, Blogger will ban my blog, if I do so. J

 Dimitri's tactics were clever, his die was decent and my reaction was feeble to the least.I had to call for retreat. It was obvious that I had lost the field against a worthy opponent. Next time Dimitris, next time…Next time I will bring my plucky Brits and restore the Allies reputation. After all, we have to win a war…  

 I must confess though, that I enjoyed the game very much, even though I lost. :-)

Have a good Monday night everyone!

 T.

PSC - Pak 97/38

Hi everyone!

Hope you are all well.

Last weekend I finished painting PSC's Pak 97/38 team, for my German army. 

The kit contains 4 guns with crews of six (per gun) and they all get assembled very easily. Value for money guys (and ladies), value for money. I  now have three more to finish the contains of it. 

On with the photos:

I apologize for the short post, but I am off to go and play a game of ''Song of Drums and Shakos'', with my friend Dimitri. A new adventure for me, since I haven't played any wargames of Napoleonic wars, let aside the fact, that this game will be a skirmish type of game. Mental, isn't it? I have to save my rounds for the right time. :-) 

I'll show you some photos of the game, later this week. 

Have a good (as possible) Monday night everyone!

T.

W.I.P - A country house and a failed hard disk!

Hi everyone!

I apologize for my absence these past few weeks, but my laptop's hard disk has failed me...completely!

However, I was lucky, because my laptop is made from Dell, and Dell's customer service is the BEST! And I mean it. The guys are simply the best professionals I have dealt with (and trust me, even though I am a polite person, I wouldn't say that if this wasn't the case). They changed it (I managed to save some of my files) in no time! 

If you want to buy a new computer, buy a Dell (and no, I don't take any money from them). :-)

In our subject now, I haven't stayed idle during these days, as you will see in the photo below. I am struggling to make a country house (made from stone). A rather difficult task, since everything is made from foamcore, embossed card and other materials I haven't worked with so far.

So, stay tuned, cause I am going to pest you with new posts in the forthcoming future. I have a new hard disk!! :-)

Cheers everyone!

T.

Artillery & Reconnaissance: An army's foundations.

Good day!

Now that the weather has come back to normal (in terms of temperature) for the season being and since we are in the last ten days of this month, and I still have money left from my salary (that's new....), I visited my local hobby store ''Fasma Models'', and I bought two kits for my British Army. Basically an idea was running through my head, that was a creation of WW2 armies that they were going to have the basic elements an army of WW2 had in reality (in much smaller scale though). That means: Artillery, Reconnaissance forces, Trucks, A/A & A/T guns, AFV, Infantry etc...

With so many blogs in the internet related to our hobby, I had the chance to visit a blog runned by Jack - (Jacksarge's Wargames Rumblings), who lives in Australia (if I am correct). Jack among his other works, is creating a British Armed force for WW2, more especially 43rd Wessex Division, which was one of the most famous army units in the British Army during WW2. Being astonished by his work (if you haven't visited his blog, please do - link), I decided to follow his track and try to make a little 43rd Wessex Division for me.  I hope you don't mind Jack! :-)

Fingers crossed I started yesterday, with the acquisition of two kits, one from Airfix (#1314 AEC Matador & 5.5' Gun) and one from Revell (Ex-Matchbox #3223 Humber Mk II). 

Eager to start playing with my new toys (late at night - when all the good things happen usually) I managed to build Airfix's kit and prime it with its basic colours. Next post will be for the finished models, so stay tuned.

One quick question (I am asking all my friends): can you suggest any figs for the guns (crew), that may be ''budget-friendly'' (if they're in plastic, that would be even better)? I know that AB figures make some excellent figs for the 5.5'' guns, but gosh..they're a bit out of my budget. With a rough calculation, I have to give almost 80 quid, to provide a 4piece artillery battery with crews. I'd better give them for beers... :-)

Have a great day!

Cheers,

T.

Zvezda's #6142 German Motorcycle R-12 (w. sidecar)

Good day everyone!

The weather here in Greece improves more and more every day, and that means that soon my paints will get dry very quickly whilst painting due to the increasing temperature, we have during summertime.
Despite the weather and the sirens' songs of the local pubs, I managed to finish Zvezda's #6142 German Motorcycle R-12 model, a great model (even though a bit feeble, but more robust since it is destined to be used as a wargames model), and some other German figs. The motorcycle and the sidecar, came along nicely, so were the figures that the kit included. I decided to paint it in early-war colours and base it on one of my famous pizza box stands (with some greenery to spice it up a bit).

The other figures were painted in the usual colours. VMC 830 Field grey for the first two, and white (with a Vallejo's pale wash) for the remaining two. The snow effect on the bases is baking soda.

I hope you like 'em!
C&C are more than welcome!
T.