Giveaway Loki Style

I really don't want to tell you but Loki is having a rather excellent Giveaway over at the Great Hall with a great selection of prizes. Keep your hands off Napoleon though, I want's him I do, my precious. Oh and a few boobs are also on view but lease don't touch. 

Kickstarter Monday

It's kind of funny as both the Kickstarter's that I backed have reported updates on the same day for the last two updates. After I reported the points that both seemed to share in common they have since stated to show two rather different stories. 

Baker Company have for instance sent out around 160 parcels over last week and today and whilst still way behind schedule (still do not have their own casting machine back up and running) are working hard on getting as much out as possible and even have started work (externally) on the next Kickstarter, that being the Balkan's during WWII something that appeals to me and something I am likely to back again so as you can see my confidence is growing in this one.

Red Republic Games also are making progress but one month into their last extended deadline (1st Quarter of 2014 release) has now been replaced with no deadline offered. Simply they are unsure when they will be releasing their figures.

A quick look at the chart above will tell you why. 16 models are either in hand or in production. The other 20 are not, so given the time scale they have worked to this point it's fair to assume that the figures may not be ready in 2014!!! Seven of those twenty are at least at the caster for prototypes and if all goes well then may well be ready in this quarter. Only two more are advanced enough to possibly be done in this quarter but ten are Sculpt In Progress. I have see some of these and they look reasonably along the way but I doubt the figures, rules and other items have much chance of arriving before they are a year plus overdue. 

The good news is that I am more confident on this happening at some point than I was a couple of months ago. I don't mind waiting as it's not a project that is at the top of my list and was looking to be a bit of a distraction if it arrived around now. A distraction it will be as the figures look excellent and need to soak up a lot of tie to do them justice. I even think removing unrealistic release dates is a positive move, what worries me is that they may have thought the date was realistic. I at the time blogged that I would be surprised if they made first quarter and that I was so right about. The figures though are just lovely and when they do arrive will make a big splash.

Snipers of Stalingrad ASL Style

As you already know, I had some Snow Effects for Christmas and wanted to have another go with them and had promised a fellow ASL player a set of Stalingrad Deluxe Snipers, that was well over a year ago but I have finally started work on them and this is the result of the Russian.

This is not the base I showed the start of a few weeks ago, that is for the bonus round in the painting challenge. Timing has never been my strong suit so here you find me spending hours on just the one figure rather than getting the lead out but I don't mind at all as I have been having a blast and indeed I can feel my painting batteries recharging as I go.

The power lines and pole are all fully scratch built. The pole being two paintbrush handles with balsa added to one pole with brass pin heads pushed in. Fuse wire then makes up the cables painted Black Grey with bits showing through silver. The walls and pavement are Linka again with Model Display Product clay bricks added for the loose bricks, often broken into pieces to keep to scale with the undersized Linka.

To sink the base of the figure into something I made a door (see the door knob?) cutting out a section and then later covering with snow allowing it to escape easy detection. This was pinned to a stack of bricks and also gives the needed height. I used an old business card to add wallpaper and hide all the joins in the wall pieces.

I draped a loose power cable into the building to give the impression that a fair sized part of the roof and upper floors were missing to help explain the snow in the room. I like how the wall has come out looking really dirty without looking over worked, one of the few times I stepped away from a process without wishing I had done it sooner.

On standard Sniper Reminders, the figure is the main attraction but on these they tend to take second place to the scene you are trying to set. So far I have only done a total of four of these and right from the start I planned never to repeat a scene so these are certainly one off's. I may use the downed power line again but never in the same way. 

The window is from a pack provided by Warbases and is in fact two separate windows. One I have cut most of the window sections out and the other I have shaved the corner off one third of the second window and stuck in to give the imprecision of an open window that fits the frame. 

Again I have used snow effects to cover up joints and help set the scene, I really like the snow effects and will be getting a lot of use out of them when the Baker Company Kickstarter items start to arrive.

Hopefully the customer will like him and it will bring him luck when he play's, well unless I ever get to play opposite him LOL.

So all in all a very fun distraction that was more of a modelling exercise than paint up. I have another one for Stalingrad to do, this being the German and one in France in the Bocage both of which have the figures almost finished and I know what I plan to do for the bases so it's just putting them into reality.

Building of the Week Timber Shack and Block House

Yes a double header this week. These are two of the new buildings that Leven Miniatures are previewing on their Website. Both are also part of a fairly large expansion of the ACW range which should be very welcome news to some of my followers.

Lets start with the Timber Shack (ACW07) this has a covered area leaving the entrance in shadow (it was REALLY raining so took the shots on my painting desk). It's an all wood affair and a reasonable length running at 48mm and has lots of angles.

I don't see many uses for this building outside of America so have no plans for buying any of these for myself (these are being painted up for Mikes own use). However it's a nice building to work on.

As you can see it's full of interesting angles and also a new feature, that of a plastic (?) chimney that allows it to be a nice thin round piece that will not break off as would a resin piece would of the same thickness.

So another good looking building for Leven to add to the range and one that I suspect will see a lot of sales. Indeed Leven have been very busy this last few months and I have a lot os their farm buildings and outbuildings to buy during this year.

The roof shot gives you an idea of the different aspects this building has. I would love to see a farmhouse in stone with the same format, especially one clearly showing different stone work so it would look to have been extended. 

The Blockhouse (ACW06) by comparison is by definition a rather square, there is not a lot you can do with a square block like structure but still Mike manages to inject the required feel he has in all his buildings and again whilst it's not a building I will be adding to my collection it's still a good looking piece, just the wrong wars for me.

The other two sides are a repeat of the none door side to the point they have the windows all in the same positions but the timber work is not identical. Sure a small detail but it makes such a difference.

Here we have both buildings for scale. I can't be sure when Mike will release the buildings but I am thinking it could be as early as February. I have four more buildings from this range at various stages of painting and hope to have them all finished and on the blog over the next two weeks. I then have the other buildings that Leven will be releasing to do and will try and get all of the on the blog over the next six or so weeks which has got me thinking. Well we all like a challenge so I am considering trying to get 100 buildings all painted in 2014, what do you think, can I? Should I? As always at the start, it seems a good idea to me.

StuG's for the Bonus

The bonus round was vehicles and I was one of those unimaginative ones who went with we a vehicle ;-) or as it turned out three of them. My mate Lee, ever thoughtful supplied the three StuG's for my painting pleasure. I will admit I was more than a little under pressure having not painted a German vehicle since about the age of 17, that's 30 years ago almost. That last German tank was really bad as well.

These are three plastic models from the Open Fire set released by Battlefront as a starter set to get more wargamers (and Fantasy Converts I think) to have a go. It certainly comes with a lot of kit and represents good value for money, though generally that's not something you hear about most of the Battlefront models as they seem to be priced at a premium but unlike GW you have a lot more choice in who to get your figures and models from.

Here are all three parading over the table. That night they gave great service with them taking out most of the American armour for the loss of just one StuG. One thing that grates on me was the fact it was just as easy to hit as a Sherman which has a much higher silhouette. One of many fixes to make the game play faster but experienced tread heads know is wrong, oh well.

In the end I was quite pleased with the result and can see me painting more stuff up in the future though it's probably going to be Russian as they have the most stuff and it would help Lee out with the amount he will want to put out on the table. That is of course if we settle into the rules. With all the 28mm we have coming though as well as the need to paint up all the figures for Waterloo I can see this being intermittent at best.

Worse still not only will my painting time be reduced over the coming 20+ days but I have already had to say no to a couple of wargame opportunities as I have to give the time to a mix of family and work, hopefully things settle down before March arrives.

28mm Sniper Reminders - The New Batch

It's been about a week since these were shown on Curt's blog so I guess it's safe to show them now  ;-) I have to admit that I am struggling with time to blog, paint and do the normal stuff. My working day has me in near constant contact with China, especially the morning when I am either on Skype or traditional phone trying to get information or more often items in my mitts. Right now it's crazy daft as The Chinese New Year looms (31st January) and that means no new shiny for six weeks so it's very hectic and lots of working late or more often very early starts (China is eight hours ahead) meaning I am busted for the evening. Worse still I have a trade show coming up in the UK where I am away for five nights then it's off to Frankfurt the following day for four days so I am guessing I won't be doing much painting, oh um.

But I have managed to turn out some figures at least. these are all Black Tree Miniatures unless I say otherwise. I have to admit to being very happy with the quality of their figures and the level of detail they add to their figures. I am planning on salting away money every month till they have another 50% discount and then I am going to order big as they so rarely disappoint on quality.

As you can see, you often get a lot of kit to paint, no basic sculpting job here. However they have a few niggles. With a lot of the figures you get a mixed selection so often it includes lying down figures and with the Russian's a mix of summer and winter uniforms. I don't know about the mixed uniform but I asked for no lying down in my last order and was rewarded with standing and kneeling only so it's quite possible you would get the same level of service with uniform. Certainly I would have no qualms ordering the army deal with a few requests in an attempt to get what I required.

These paint up reasonably fast and the paint flows well allowing the folds of the uniform to come to light. The guy on the right looks a right slow burner, the body language and expression on his face really make you think he is having real trouble reloading that rifle, maybe he was the one who had to pick up the rifle?

Again just lovely looking figures and plenty to get your teeth into. The range is reasonably large so you can get a lot of figures without worrying about too many repeats.

The stars on the caps are soft enough that you can ignore them, or simply file the detail off but here I painted it on. The figure on the left is my favourite of this batch and I am tempted to keep him. I am looking forward to seeing how the Baker Company early Russians size up in case I can mix some of the Blacktree into them if required.

The tufts are all the Tajima1 ones I blogged about around a week ago but I have mixed up the sizes and I am as happy with these as I was with the earlier ones I have used on the 6 and 15mm figures.

Here we have the one Artizan figure (I think) on the left and I have had a go with the Scenic Snow by Deluxe Materials that I blogged about just after Christmas. I am planning on doing the Winter War miniatures with a similar amount of snow on the base as these as it looks more interesting than full snow and looks better for it as well I think.

Just the one on the right has winter clothes with the other having to mate do with a fur hat, at least he has better kit than the poor Germans.

The last three are all in snow smocks and so I added more snow effects to their bases but I don't think it carries as well. I enjoyed doing various white tones to the smocks and in real life you can see the different shades that bit better.

The true winter figures were actually Sniper sets and not in the normal mix and I have painted some of these with the brown sniper outfit in the past so they work both ways anyway.

Kids Go Western AAR

The kids finally got time to get down and dirty with the cowboys and they were really happy to have a go. My daughter picked the bad guys for her team and my son was happy to be the good guys, after all the good guys always win.....right?

The rules are Dave D's Blazing Dice available as a free download from his great A Town Names Serenity blog

Anyway after several turns of running from one side of the street to the other, rather than closing with each other, they finally decided to try going down main street.

One of the bad guys was killed with a shot to the chest whilst the Sheriff took a flesh wound to the arm, things look bad for the bad guys as they face five townsmen.

Two bad guys take shelter in a building, one with a rifle takes up position in the window, will it be enough. At this point both kids were having a wonderful time, and were doing their own measuring and remembering how many dice, well most of the time.

With all his men in the street my son decided he wanted to protect the wounded guy and moved him into a building. Unfortunately he did not move him to a window so it was just like he had lost a man.

A turn later and both had another one down with serious wounds, would they be able to get back up and into the game?

Well it was so much fun watching the kids have so much fun I forgot to take more shots. The bad guys lost the gunfight in the house on the right, though the winner was lightly wounded. Things turned in the favour of the bad guys when the guy with the shotgun opened up. Even though the severity of the hit drops one my girl seemed to know when to roll a six. Add to that she seemed only able to hit the chest and soon lots of good guys were hitting the deck. In the end the two guys in the building got away leaving only one townsman on his feet. It was past bed time but they went to bed happy and demanding more. My mission is done  ;-)