The Red God of War

Reading WWII history will vividly illustrate the importance that the Red Army placed on artillery. The weapon densities, especially in the last part of the war, were mind staggering. Unfortunately Russian artillery was not well served in 1/72 plastic, up to now. The Art of Tactics series by Zvezda has done quite a bit to rectify this shortage.

First up is the Zvezda 122mm howitzer. An easy kit to build, comes with a premade base (duly discarded) and 2 figures. I added one more from the old Revell Russian set (a tanker if I am not mistaken, but he looks cool with the map and all).




Next is the 45mm anti-tank gun by Plastic Soldier Company. This is one of the best gun models out there. It's simple, pretty well detailed, but most importantly, the crew poses are excellent. They look exactly like a gun crew in action, preparing to fire at a German tank or strong point.



Finally, the Zvezda Katyusha model. Yes, it is a 1/100 model, so I'm technically cheating. However, since this will be used only as an off-table asset (having anything over a 75mm IG on the table is overkill in my view) so nobody should care much about it. This is a finicky model to assemble (I ruined one making some dumb mistakes). The soft plastic doesn't help much either. I also had some problems with the mat varnish as well, but nothing to worry about.

That's all from Athens, were fall is surely setting in.

Italeri fast build ISU-152

One of the good things about the financial crisis in Greece is that it forces you to go back to old projects and trim the stash down a bit. I had build a couple of Russian tanks a couple of months back but never got around to finishing them. The first was an ISU-152 quick build from Italeri. I prefer the Russian fast builds by Pegasus as the detail on the Italeri ones is a bit soft, but this came with a normal ISU kit, so I got it. It's an easy kit that gets build in about half an hour tops. Some filling was needed in the rear joint of the upper and lower hull pieces but that was pretty much it. My major problem was not the softish detail but the fact that the barrel of the main gun is stuck at the position seen below. It looks as if the ISU got a couple of extra blue pills (if you know what I mean) and its not really attractive. Still, its a free kit. Instead of painting in the normal Russian Armour Green, I went for a Green-Sand-Brown camouflage that would make it at least a bit more interesting. I used a black/burnt umber wash and dusted it with Dark Earth. All in all, it took a couple of evenings and it was done.

I have quite a few things waiting to be completed. Another Italeri fast build (an IS-2), a Zvezda T-34 (a real gem of a kit), and Russian support weapons. Hopefully all of this will be ready by the end of next week.

That's all for now from Athens, where once again nothing really works.

6mm Fantasy Project

I had started on a 6mm fantasy project a while back but, unsurprisingly, I got sidetracked on other projects (including my 2-year old son). Still I kept at it and so far I have 9 bases of elves and 3 bases of orcs for Fantasy Rules! I plan to fight battles in early Middle Earth so I'll do elves and orcs and eventually humans and dwarves. Most of the figs are from Irregular Miniatures with the only exception being so far the High Elven pikes which come from Baccus.

Here are the pikes. They'll form the backbone of my battle line. Lovely figs, easy to paint. I don't think I did them enough justice as the amount of detail is phenomenal.

The other options for the main battle line are archers and swordsmen. I have a lot of Irregular archers but I've only painted one base so far. I also have some Baccus archers that I'll use for the elite regiments of the King's guard.

The Irregular Cavalry is also superb. I'll only use 2 bases for now as I want an infantry-heavy army. I might get some Baccus horsemen to use as heavy cavalry and Irregular Wood Elves to use as light cavalry. We'll see.
Finally my monsters: ents as heavy monsters and giant eagles for small flying monsters. One ent and two eagles per base look pretty good in my eyes.

In its final form, the army will have another 3-5 bases of archers, 2 bases of swordsmen, 2 ballistae, 2 heavy chariots, 2 bases of small monsters (giant eagles) and one of large (ents). This, together with characters and sundry stuff will give me up to 1300-1500 points, large enough for large battles and some mixing and matching. Hopefully the elves will be done before Christmas this year.

Have a great day from (yet again sunny) Athens.

PSCRussians

It's not common to have good hard plastic figures available. Plastic Soldier Company is one of the few making polystyrene miniatures in 1/72 scale. So far they have WWII Germans (late war), British (again late war) and Russians. I don't like the British much (I'm waiting for the new Airfix set due out this year) and I have more Germans than I can ever use, so I got some Russians. Overall, these are not bad figs. A bit chunky for some, but hey, the plastic is hard. I painted almost a complete sprue of their infantry set and an anti-tank rifle from their heavy weapons set.

The sculpting is pretty solid, but not as petite as say, the Revell set. I can't tell you much as far as historical accuracy is concerned, but the figures look pretty authentic to me. The proportions are a bit off (most of them have short or non-existent necks) but from a meter away, they look good. I would have liked more PPSh's, to make desant units, but I have plenty in my Revell and Esci fig sets to work on that.

Most heavy and support weapons come in 2 configurations; carried and firing. This works well for some rule sets and I plan to paint and base both of them regardless of whether I'll use them or not. They are pretty well animated figs.

You also get a pretty good commissar and a female Russian soldier that can be used as a nurse or as a radio operator (with some careful painting and a scratchbuilt radio). I painted the commissar and I'll modify one fig with a big red flag. Gotta have big red flags...

I have some more PSC miniatures ready to paint; mortars, Maxim guns and some more infantry. I hope I'll have them ready in a couple of weeks. Have a great day from sunny Athens.

The family is back from our yearly vacation in the lovely island of Sifnos and as work has not started yet for the neither SWMBO or myself I still have some free time left.Here's some pics of my orc and goblin warband for the Song of Blades and Heroes system. I think I'll be using the stats straight from the books for most of the minis but I still haven't settled down as to what I'll do with the warg.

All the miniatures come from Splintered Light. If you haven't looked them up, please do. They have some of the best 15mm fantasy miniatures available and they are very pleasant to deal with. There are several packs in the orc and goblin range, but I started off with the basic stuff (command, warriors, goblin scouts, warg and troll).Here is the command element. The Orc chieftain is an exquisite fig with plenty of available detail. So is the standard bearer. The shaman gave me a bit of trouble because I think I sprayed the primer on too thick. Still I think it came out OK. My only problem is the lack of a musician, but that's not a great problem. I think that a musician is available in the savage orc command pack.
The orc warriors and goblin scouts are pretty straightforward figs but they are exceptionally sculpted, with plenty of available detail. A pack of heavy orc infantry and another of orc archers have become available recently and they'll be in my shopping list for my next order (probably around Xmas).
Here is the best figure of the whole range in my honest opinion; the warg. Now, this is what a warg should look like. Big, bad and bone-chillingly frightening. If you are into 15mm fantasy BUY THIS MINI! I cannot recommend it enough. The amount of detail is amazing and the size is spot on for what is supposed to be a giant wolf that eats people with a single bite.

And here is the troll. There are two trolls available in the line and I'll be getting the other one at some time too. I'm not sure that this is close to my idea of a troll, but it is pleasantly big and mean-looking.

Eventually I'll add more options to my available figs for the orc and goblin warband. Savage orcs, goblins, orc slave master, savage hyena cavalry and so on and so forth. The options are practically endless.

That's all for now from windy Athens. Have a great night y'all.

Support Elements

A blessedly quiet Saturday evening with the young master out of the house and the mrs. engrossed in a new book allows me to catch up on my blogging. This is a bunch of figures I had finished about 3-4 months ago but with moving the office and going under the knife, I never had time to photograph. These are the support elements of my WWII German platoon.

These are all on-table assets and include a FAO team (minus their Kubelwagen of course), two sustained-fire MG teams, a Panzerschreck element, a sniper element and a 20mm flak gun.

Here is the FAO team, from SHQ Miniatures. The minis were fine, with good sculpting. Essentially they are an officer and a 2-man radio team. I find the use of anything over 50mm mortars as tabletop assets pointless in skirmish games, so these guys can call down fire from the company or battalion 81mm mortars or 75mm guns.

Here is my sniper element. Sniper and spotter come from Elhiem Miniatures. Lovely figs indeed, but I did not do the sniper's face mask much justice. Still, with a proper amount of cover, these guys can provide good forward intel or do harm to the enemy's C&C structure.

My Panzerknacker team is up next. Although panzerfausts were ubiquitous towards the end of the war, Panzerschreck elements provided most of the platoon-level anti-tank fire power for a good portion of it. These are again Elhiem miniatures.

A tripod-mounted MG-42 team. I have two of these beauties, again from Elhiem Miniatures. They come with gunner, loader and observer. I should paint a couple of Pegasus Models Waffen SS as ammo carriers, but it can wait for a bit.

Here is my final support element; a single-barreled 20mm Flak cannon. This comes from SHQ Miniatures and it was quite difficult to put together. The instructions and attachment points were rather vague (or non existent even), so the gun may not be 100% historically accurate. I don't think I'd get another one of these, not with the excellent Zvezda gun out there. It comes also with the ammo trailer, however this has not gotten painted yet.


In my last visit to IKEA, the mrs. found the perfect boxes for me to store my miniatures. I don't remember the exact name, but they are quite large, not expensive (around 5 euros each), fit an awful lot of miniatures, come with a hinged lid, and are stackable. What's not to like?

That's all from not-unbearably hot (for once) Athens. Have a great Saturday night y'all.

Paper Terrain

A few posts back I mentioned the paper models I got for the mrs and her arts class. She never got around giving them to the kids (one can only hope for next year), but I did find myself with several useful bits of terrain.

With the summer forcing me to take things slow at work (seriously, who wants to get their teeth done with this heat?) I have a bit more modeling time in my hands so I tried some of them. I first did them in relatively thin card and they proved very easy to build and quite durable. Dave, the guy who has designed most of the stuff I got, also said you can glue them to Bristol board and create extra-durable buildings. Now, I have no idea what Bristol board is, but I've worked quite a bit with foamcore and I like it. So I resized the Coach House model for 15-18mm figures, printed it on paper, glued it on foamcore and this is the result.It looks pretty good, especially if you consider that the whole thing from start to finish took a bit under an hour (not counting the time it took for the glue to set). The real kicker is that a lot of these paper models come with a variety of layers. Meaning you can have the same building but with a different finish, different doors or windows, weathering and so on. This particular building come in brick, stone and whitewash with beams. So buying a few buildings can help you build a small city or village real quick.
I'll be the first to admit that most scratch-built terrain may look better, but this is a fast and cheap way to get things done. I have 6 or 7 buildings in my stash and with these I can build my small 15mm fantasy village in under a week.
So look into paper terrain. It might help you out with your projects. Have a pleasant evening from hot yet pleasant Athens...