Nobody tosses the dwarf!

Here are some Eureka 18mm dwarves I painted a couple of months back. Although advertised as 18mm, they are closer in scale to 20mm so they are suitable for 1/72-1/76 gaming. At that time I still thought I would be able to wargame fantasy in 20mm. Alas, my efforts were in vain. As much as I tried, all I could do was dwarves, some few elves, some orcs and undead. No dark elves, no derro, no trolls, no nothing. I switched to 15mm fantasy instead where the pickings are anything but slim. These will be a bit tall for dwarves, especially in 15mm, but I'll deal with it. I ordered one pack of crossbowmen, axemen, spearmen and command. This set me back around 20 pounds (plus shipping and handling) but has given me enough dwarves for at least 2 warbands for the Song of Blades and Heroes game. Here is the first batch:

Miniatures in the Song of Blades and Heroes are divided into personalities and warriors. Personalities have special abilities that set them aside from the average fighter. They may be leaders, heroes, magic users, clerics, or just plain tough and mean.
In this case I painted 2 miniatures that can be used as personalities. Here is the leader (or hero) with his banner bearer and horn blower. The hero is the largest of all the miniatures. He is probably as large as old Airfix figs. Not quite dwarfish, but he looks good on the table. The banner bearer is a particularly imposing miniature and the dragon standard is very well sculpted. The other personality is a magic user or cleric (can be used for either). A 300-point warband will not have room enough for both of them, but he's a useful option, especially if you know you'll be facing undead.
The warriors are a mixed bunch. I've used axemen, spearmen, dwarves with hammers and a few crossbowmen. With the short movement, some shooting may be useful to whittle down the enemy some.
The figures took me about 10 days to complete. There was minimal cleaning up to do and the miniatures pretty much paint themselves. One of the axemen was a bit complicated as I could not figure out the layers of the armour, but that was the only difficulty I faced. I still have enough miniatures left to make another full warband and then some.
Here's some work almost complete; support units for my late WWII german platoon. Everything is almost painted up and the wash has been applied. After that, all I'll have left to do is highlights, painting up the bases and spray some mat varnish. I hope I'll be done by the middle of next week with them. After that? As you can see, plenty of work awaits me.
Have a great night from chilly (for once) Athens.

Armour

First post of the year... I hoped it would have been sooner, but there is this weird bionic flu making the rounds in Athens. It went through our home like Genghis Khan through Samarkand. As soon as I got better I tried to limit the number of vehicles in the stash, with some success.

First of all, the old Matchbox M-40 GMC. It's not a typical WWII subject, but since I can't find the Hasegawa Long Tom (plus associated crew) it will have to do. Not a hard kit to build, I had trouble with the painting. I used black acrylic spray as primer, let it dry for a couple of days and then masked with bluetac. Put two layers of Lifecolour Olive Drab and then removed the bluetac. The primer promptly was removed with the bluetac in most places. I brushed some black back on, washed, painted the details, dusted with British Dark Earth and then used mat varnish. Yet another disaster. For some reason the clear frosted. It should suffice that I swore in most of the languages I can speak (there were some choice bits in Hungarian). I followed what has worked in the past, namely a coat of Pronto. Didn't work too well, so I added tons of mud with an old brush and then used a different bottle of flat. Worked well enough. It should be noted that this can only be built with the gun at rest/travel position. Anything else and you'll need to do some surgery on the recoil springs.

Another old friend; the Matchbox Chaffee. Nice little kit, with some useful extras (an MG-42, a signpost, and a tripod mounted .50cal). I used the kit stars and a random serial number from another kit. I plan to build 3 of those to boost my recon forces. I had the same problems with the flat clear here as well, but the problem was mostly solved after I sprayed Pronto. I omitted the rear decking star, as it would not possibly settle down. These looked like older, stiffer Revell decals.
The lovely Pegasus T-34/85s. Untill now, the best bet for these were the old Airfix kits. Sure, Revell had an excellent T-34 but who wants to build kits with a gazillion pieces for wargaming (some people obviously do). The kits fall together by themselves. I used some Tamiya Extra-Thin glue and an old brush to roughen up the surface of the turrets. The only real problem I had is that the plastic is too hard and not so prone to melting if the glue is not "hot" enough, so that some pieces got unglued and had to be reattached. In the last Pegasus kits I build I used ModelMaster cement with no problems, but these were assembled with Humbrol and I think its not "hot" enough to handle Pegasus plastic. Or I might have screwed up somewhere. I glued some crates on the rear decking as I've seen tons of pictures of T-34s carrying supplies on them. After a coat of Humbrol 30 (gives the slightly bluer look of Russian Armour Green), wash and drybrushing, I used some flat with the above mentioned results. Thankfully, the tanks recovered. If anyone has built these, let me know if you had any gluing issues.
Finally the HaT Sdkfz 251. A lot of people have build this so there isn't much to say. I added some stowage in the form of tools and crates. I plan to build 4 of these, one with a 37mm doorknocker liberated from an Esci German Gun Set, to be used as the platoon commander's vehicle.

That's all for now. I'm off to take care of the mrs. who is coming down with yet another bout of the flu. The hazards of working in education I guess. Next up, figures. I have about 50 based, primed and ready for some paint. I'll probably do some fantasy first, to detox myself from all the guns and armour.

Giant Cat Spotted Fever

Happy Holidays all (or y'all as they would say south of the Mason-Dixon line). Work is over for a few days, I'm catching up on my sleep and more than catching up with my food. Blame my mother in law. Her cooking is excellent.

With work being hectic before the holidays I did not have much time to complete any of my ongoing projects. However, I did manage to finish painting and weathering one of Italeri's quick-build Panther Gs. Great kit, easy to build. My main problem was the lack of schurtzen, but that was easily rectified with plastic card.

I've opted to go with the late war "ambush" type camouflage. As usual, I washed with Devlan Mud, did some drybrushing with a medium grey, and some weathering with diluted British Dark Earth. I plan to make an almost full troop of 3 tanks. For games in the Western front, this will be very difficult for the Allied player, as Panthers tend to dominate due to their long range, good mobility and sloping armour. But for Eastern Front games, with those nasty T-34/85s in large numbers, a troop is not too bad. Two of the models will be the Italeri easy kits and one the more detailed Revell Panther G. It's a great little kit and very easy to build despite the large number of parts.
Here is the "to do pile" on my modeling desk. A couple of Pegasus T-34s, 2 Russian light tanks, some terrain, an Armourfast Hanomag and one more Panther G. I hope I'll get at least some of them done by the end of my vacation (although the Mrs. has other ideas as to what constitutes quality time).
Finally, this being Plane Month and all, I could not avoid posting a picture of an airplane, although this particular model was was completed a couple of months ago. This is an Airfix Hurricane Mk. II, a rather old mold (probably older than me) but a very satisfying build regardless. There are tons of Hurricane decal sheets out there and I have more than a few. This was done as an all-black Mk. IIb night intruder. If you have not build an Airfix Hurricane, go out there and buy one. With some TLC you'll have a great model for the shelf or the wargames table.

Now I'm off to get some some soda to help with the indigestion. Have a great night y'all from Athens.

Sturmpanzer IV

Sturmpanzer IV (otherwise known as the Brummbär by the Allies but not by the Germans) is one of the most misunderstood tanks in my part of the world. First of all, we've seen whole platoons of StuPas take the field. With only 300-some built, whole platoons at battalion or regimental-level games is kinda strange. Even a platoon might be stretching it in fact. The weirdness reaches new levels when the StuPas take the field and are used as heavy tanks. Yes, that's a mighty BFG they are packing (150mm L/12) but it fires low velocity rounds. They might ruin your day if they hit you, but you have to move real close to have any chance of getting a hit on a mobile target like, say, a tank. So far, I've never heard or seen of a StuPa being used for what it was originally intended; providing close support and reducing fortified buildings and strongpoints.


Still, its an impressive tank and a beautiful one, in a weird, boxy way. I'm pretty sure that Dragon or Trumpeter has issued a brand-new, highly accurate Brummbär but my favourite model has always been the old Esci kit, the first one with length-and-link tracks I've ever built. When Esci went the way of the Dodo, the molds went here and there, ended up with Italeri (or Italieri as it was then known). It's an easy enough kit to build. The tracks are not up to Revell's standards, but with some care and choice swear words everything fits.

The kit offers some interesting marking options and I tried to do the one from Caen from (Sturmpanzer Abteilung 217) but my airbrush skills are not up to it. So, I made the best of the situation and made a fictional, yet interesting camouflage. I followed up with a layer of Future (called Pronto in Greece), a wash of Devlan Mud, drybrushing with Dark Gull Grey to dull the colours and blend everything together and then some very diluted British Dark Earth to dirty things up even more. A final coat of matte varnish made my Stupa look like its been through intense and long combat. Considering the low number of vehicles manufactured, this is not an unlikely proposition. The tracks were painted black, drybrushed with Boltgun Metal, washed with diluted Rust and then drybrused with Boltgun Metal again, but more lightly this time. The figure was from a Preiser set.

So, that's my Sturmpanzer IV. I'll only build one of them, and this was a lot of fun. Brought a lot of memories back from my childhood years too. I hope you enjoy it as much.

The Germans are coming...

I finally put the finishing touches on my late-war German platoon. Total of 33 figures. Mostly Pegasus Waffen SS (Sets 1&2) with some Italeri Elite German Troops and Caesar Panzergrenadiers (Sets 1&2). This allowed for a great variety of poses. The command element is from Elhiem Miniatures (Panzer Lehr Command Group and Medic). All the figures were painted in Oak Leaf pattern camo.

All in all it was a rewarding experience. Pegasus and Caesar figures are a pleasure to paint. The Elhiem figs are a bit chunky but perfectly serviceable for wargaming. What next? Well, the yanks' second squad is primed and ready to be painted. I also received a few company-level assets for the Germans (sniper, spotter, FAO team, sustained-fire MGs, 81mm mortar, etc.) but I'll probably wait a bit till I get around to them. For now, I'm trying to finish some of the backlog of armour on my desk. I put the last touches on an Esci Brumbar (StuPa IV; pictures to follow soon) but I think I'll be back to painting figs soon.

Helping out the Mrs.

Mrs. Greek Geek is a high school arts teacher. That means that she has a sympathetic eye towards my wargaming and modeling hobbies. I also means that I have to put up with weird comments about colour selection and composition when it comes to camouflage.

She has been trying to find new projects for her high school classes and so I recommended trying out paper terrain. I had recently downloaded a few free paper terrain files from DriveThroughRPG and so we printed them out in black and white on plain paper. Mrs. Geek was ecstatic. She would print the files and have her students paint them, glue them together and make a small medieval village.

Off I was scouring DriveThroughRPG and The Miniatures Page trying to find stuff and reviews (how often will the wife actually ASK you to spend money on modeling stuff?). I settled down to Dave Graffam Models. Sure, WorldWorks terrain looked absolutely spectacular but we're after a town here... And Dave's paper models have an added advantage; many are layered models, meaning that although you buy one model, you have the option of changing its appearance. Pretty big deal if you ask me. Also, you can resize the files printing terrain for 15mm to 30mm. Most are fantasy models (also suitable for medieval Europe) but there are some that are good for WWII and many for sci-fi.

So, look around and see if anything works for you. We got a couple of buildings and I'll probably spend some of my Christmas holidays making a village for my fantasy wargaming. I already have Solomon Kane painted up. All I need to find is some witches (or ratmen, or fishmen) to burn.

My Life in Ruins

Let's face it, I don't have Thanos' talent when it comes to making terrain. But being overworked and underpaid, I can't afford cool resin terrain, so I have to make best of what I have. What I had was a bunch of leftover pieces from Matchbox/Revell kits and a small Italeri kit aptly named Walls and Ruins. And several crappy CDs I'd gotten with the Sunday edition of Greek newspapers. Here are the results:

Here I've used the brick wall from the Matchbox Hanomag, a section of wall from (I think) the 17-pounder set, the sandbags from the Airfix Forward Command post, some plastic card, balsa wood and various kinds of sand used to make the ground base.

Here is just a section from the Walls and Ruins set. I've filled the back with plastic card and filled and sanded the joints between the 2 pieces.

I have a couple of more pieces like that in the works. They might not be the best looking terrain out there, but they are useful and highly resilient. Each one can house about half a squad or a crew-served weapon (mortar or machine gun).

That's all for now from Athens (still uncomfortably warm, still walking around in t-shirts).