Christmas gifts and first challenge entries

Christmas has been celebrated and it's time to start easing back to normal life. A busy festive season again as we were visiting different relatives and both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were spent with our parents. It was the first time in years that I'd been at a Christmas  celebration with smaller children in years and boy had I forgotten how hectic it can be when you have a bunch of preschool aged children going crazy while waiting for Santa :)

With a massive renovation of our new apartment looming in the horizon we had asked relatives and each other not to give any gifts expect for help in the construction work. There were still a couple of nice gaming and hobby related surprises. The missus bought me Shooting Up by Lukasz Kamiensky which is a history about substance use by militaries throughout the years, both as recreational and in trying to improve combat performance. The psychological aspect of warface has always fascinated me so a very welcome gift. Only gotten through the first third, but it's definitely turning out to be a great book giving a good overview on the subject.

My Secret Santa was also very generous with a Königstiger popping up in the mail! A very welcome addition to the Remagen force that I'm working on for Flames of War now. Thank you very much for an amazing gift!

With the christmas fuzz over I had a couple of days of uninterrupted painting time as the better half left with her family for a short vacation at a holiday village also taking the warhound with her as well. In addition to the Panzergrenadier platoon that I just managed to finish before setting of for Christmas I managed to squeeze in further reinforcements for my Dropfleet Commander PHR fleet as well as an AA platoon for the Jerries. 176 points out of my goal of 1000 achieved within a week, so I'm pretty pleased with my output. Still I'm going to have to get quite a bit done before February as we'll start renovations then and I'm probably not going to get any painting done until mid-March.

With this post done, it's back to painting. I'm still hoping to get one more entry out before the end of the year. I've got base colours more or less done for the new Blood Bowl Orc team so hopefully I'll have enough time to get them finished in time for 2016!

Entry #1 - Panzergrenadier Platoon

Entry #2 - Dropfleet Commander PHR

 

 

Entry #3 - 2cm Flak38 Platoon

 

Dear Santa

Another year with another Christmas. And with Christmas it's time for the funny bearded man to come again courtesy of Ian of The Blog With No Name fame and his wife Catherine. Secret Santa is at it again with everyone having been given their target and instructions to come up with ideas for them to help with picking gifts.

With Dropfleet Commander coming out I've got tons of stuff coming from their Kickstarter, but more ships never hurt anyone and I'm definitely thankful for any UCM or PHR ships.

Flames of War is always high on my list and there's always room for one more tank or another platoon of infantry. Bigger German Cats can always find a good home at my house. My King Tigers and Jagdtigers can always have more friends to keep them company.

I can always use more fantasy monsters. The only things I'm really more or less fully stocked with for games are skeletons, zombies and small crawly critters. Trolls, ogres, goblins and what not can always find their way onto the table.

And even though my Saxon project has slightly been on hold now I'm starting to kick it off again with the start of our campaign looming ahead early next year. I've been using AB Saxons and I'm still missing a lot of Grenadiers and Light Infantry. Line Infantry is more or less all either painted or already bought as is cavalry.

Finally I've been meaning to get in some games of Konflikt '47 so any Weird War British or German troops or some suitable occult paraphernalia will definitely come in handy

Back in business

With Christmas and New Year over it's time to finally get back to painting. Quite a busy holiday season this year around as I had to be at the office before New Year as well. So the few off days included much driving, visiting relatives and a pretty decent final hunting trip of the year which saw us finally get the two final moose that were part of our quota.

Not much in the shape of hobby related presents as I didn't get myself anything this year. Luckily there was Secret Santa and I got a Bolt Action British Commando Mortar team for my collection. I'm not sure if I should paint it up as an airborne mortar team instead as the uniform is quite the same as the airborne had or if I should stick to the Commandos. It would be the perfect excuse to start up another army though :) We'll see!

Painting wise I've had a bit over a week long break since the start of the challenge and only found a bit of time last friday and sunday. A small unit this time with only 8 cavalry for the Saxons. Painting is done now with basing coming up when the super glue around their bases has completely dried. Not sure what I'm going to paint next as I realized I haven't prepared anything else. I have a few Flames of War tanks prepped, but they need an undercoat from a spray can to last the weathering. However the weather here took a rapid turn towards the icy hell that Finland can sometimes be with -20 degrees Celsius outside (and colder in store) which pretty much rules spray cans out of the question until the weather warms up at least a little bit. So I guess it's prepping time for the next few days then to get something ready that can be primed with an airbrush.

Dear Santa

It's that time of the year with Christmas closing in fast. And like before Ian from The Blog With No Name and his wife Catherine are organizing a Secret Santa ring for wargamers. Thanks to both of them to organizing this event once again! Really gives you some extra fun to wait for during Christmas. I'm taking part again and lately I've been busy planning what to get for my intended victim.

As requested and to make life easier for my mysterious benefactor I've compiled a few tips from projects on the desk or in near future.

15mm AB late Napoleonic Saxons
We're starting an 1813-14 campaign at my club and I've promised to build up the Saxons. I'm using AB Saxons for the job. I've only really just started so pretty much anything goes. The only ones I don't really need anymore are Zastrow Cuirassiers as I already have all that was active during the campaign. I'm basing them 18 infantry (including 3 command) to a battalion and 8 cavalry per regiment.

28mm WW2 German vehicles
My 28mm late war Germans can always benefit from more vehicles to add to their forces. Nothing beats more Panzers in your collection. I've already got quite a few Panzer IV's and 251's, but pretty much everything goes :)

28mm Dark Age civilians, animals and buildings
Civilians, animals and buildings for the dark ages are always needed as extras on the battlefield to fight over when the Saxons face raiding Vikings. We have a club Saga campaign coming up in December and lasting well into next year so there's always room for some helpless victims. I've already got all the Saxon/Medieval 4Ground buildings, but I can always find use for more Danish buildings to build larger villages.

28mm 100 Year War French
I'm going to run a 100YW demo game at a local convention next Summer featuring some sort of a skirmish between foraging English and French parties. I'm pretty well stocked with English from the Perry plastic boxes, but French troops are completely lacking at the moment. I'm aiming to base the game around the Siege of Harfleur just prior to Agincourt.

Star Wars X-Wing and Armada
I've been playing X-Wing quite a bit at home and just getting into Armada as well. Both Rebels and Imperials are always open to new recruits to help fight for the right cause.

Something wild
As this is mainly a painting and modelling hobby for me I'm always open for small projects that aren't necessarily needed in a game. For example I've occasionally been painting up some larger scale (54mm and up) Napoleonics just as display pieces in my cabinet.

Besides these feel free to come up with something else. Everything is appreciated and really add to the fun of christmas! Hopefully the list above will help, or inspires someone to come up with a cracking idea.

And as a last note I wish all the participants a wonderful Christmas filled with the joy of gaming and hopefully others will have as much fun finding a gift for their "victim" as I do!

Painting Challenge entry 8: Converted Beutepanzer

After some mishaps the looted Universal Carrier is finally finished. First looking for suitable readymade rivets, before settling on using putty, delayed it a bit and then right when I thought I was done I noticed I had forgotten decals... Well here it is in all it's glory

But first I'd really like to thank my mysterious benefactor for this Christmas gift! It was definately a very thoughtful gift and there must have been quite a lot of thought put into it with all the bits and pieces gathered with the instructions! So a big thank you for an extremely fun build and a great model that will definately stand out on the gaming table!

The kit consists of a plastic Warlord Games Universal Carrier with a PaK36 and it's crew from one of their 251 sets. The gun actually doesn't require too much modification with only a small part being cut off from it's mounting and a gun shield being built from plasticard. The driver and machine-gunner are both the original British crewmen with just a headswap. The uniform looks remarkably same as the German one even when checking it close up.

As my other German stuff is painted with a soft tone 3-colour camouflage I decided to do the same on this one. I just painted it randomly with my airbrush trying to leave about equal shares of each paint shade showing. After adding chipping I applied a gloss coat followed by a few different enamel washes. The washes were allowed to set in before being wiped off vertically. This already provides nice variation to the paint scheme, but I decided to add some streaking with rust and oil shades. When removing the shade I had some issues with the basecoat peeling off again. Vallejo grey primer doesn't really seem to bind very well to flat surfaces. Luckily all of the areas where this happened were in the bottom part of the model so I was able to hide them with the final muddying up.

Thank you Santa!

Christmas is over as is the short painting break caused by travel. I didn't finish the Panzerschützen in time for friday as 10 halftracks was apparently too much for one day. They'll be up next week then. I did manage to paint up two 15mm planes for the fortnight challenge though so not completely silent on the Challenge front.

Luckily we finally got snow as it was first looking to be quite a dark Christmas. The weather has been quite nice with roughly 20cm of snow and temperatures staying low enough to keep it dry and soft. This year I was particularly lucky with the gifts as I have been extra nice. Then again buying gifts for myself helped boost the amounts quite a bit :)

Secret Santa was very generous and quite thoughtful too! Not keeping to just a box I received a Warlord Games Universal Carrier with extra bits and instructions to convert it to a captured version with a German PaK36 stuck on top. Should prove to be a fun project and will be seen later on in the challenge. Thank you to who ever it was that sent this nice package to me!

The lady of the house got me some wargames related reading in the form of a book called "Lion of the North" which details the reign of Gustav Adolphus from a Finnish point of view. Haven't gotten very far with it yet, but should prove an interesting read as it won the Finnish literature award for non-fiction books this year. Important character for both Sweden and Finland so I can't wait to get through this.

Seeing Caliver Books' list of new second-hand books in the beginning of Christmas got a bit out of hand. I had wanted some new Napoleonic reading so I decided to buy some. But with the postage rates being crazy I thought why not buy a few at the same time and here we are with 5 books to go through. Should keep me occupied for quite a while. The books include The Letters of Private Wheeler detailing the British campaigns in the Peninsula and beyond from a soldiers point of view. Then In the Peninsula with a French Hussar by Albert Jean Michel de Rocca detailing the same campaign from the point of a French hussar officer. And the third memoir is With Napoleon in Russia 1812, by Heinrich Vossler a Würtemberg cavalry officer. Finally I also bought David Johnson's Napoleon's Cavalry and it's Leaders and a Historex Masterclass book by Bill Ottinger called Napoleonic Plastic Figure Modelling.

Next up a frantic few days of painting to finish more miniatures for the challenge before the year ends.

Secret Santa comes knocking

I had a mystery package arrive at my door the other day and having a couple of deliveries coming in I went ahead and opened the box up to find a package from some mysterious benefactor! I took part in Secret Santa held by Ian of The Blog With No Name fame and I have now received my package with plenty of time left for Christmas! The package has now been hidden by my better half to minimize any urges to be a naughty boy and open gifts before time. Now there is definately something to wait for this Christmas :)

Thank you for the wonderful gift and I wish you Happy Holidays back!

I've also been making some christmas decorations after finding these Star Wars themed snowflakes by Anthony Herrera. Wonderful stuff with plenty of different designs. Nice details too like the small Ewok throwing a spear next to the AT-ST :)

Painting progresses slowly with the Infinity stuff. Skin details have now been painted, but I did have a small setback with one of the arms coming of during painting. Especially the female figures were too delicate to be able to pin very well and it's coming back to bite my arse. Hopefully it will stay on now, but in the meantime I guess I'll have to try to be extra careful with how I hold them to avoid any further breakdowns.

Secret Santa has gone to war

Christmas is closing in and with it came Ian's Secret Santa project again. I've seen it going around the blogosphere previously and decided to jump in this time. The idea is to buy a wargames related secret christmas gift to your assigned fellow gamer for roughly 15 pounds + postage and somebody will do the same to you. Sounded like a lot of fun as with aging some of the excitement of Christmas has been toned down as you end up buying most of your own gifts anyway :) So now there's at least something that should end up being quite surprising!

I was originally planning to buy something from Crisis and shipping it later from home with some Finnish goodies as we are the official home country of Santa :) Alas that was not to be as I'd expect it to cause some issues with customs with the recipient, so I guess I'll have to resort to ordering something gift wrapped and sent straight from some of their local stores. So some research is going to be in need to find a suitable store and gift for Santa to deliver.

I'm not going to list anything too specific here for the Secret Santa, but as is probably quite evident from the blog WW2 and Napoleonics are what mostly makes me tick hobbywise. British and German armour in 28mm and 28mm French Napoleonics for D'Erlons Assault at Waterloo will definately see a lot of action in the future. But then again it's a painting hobby I'm in so anything that looks cool will definately get it's place of glory in my cabinet!

Eventhough Santa is from Finland wargaming stuff rarely comes from here so some sort of tips might be in place. Pretty much the only Finnish wargaming store selling historicals is Fantasiapelit, so overseas is usually the way to go. Still free shipping is usually available within Europe from many locations and for example Caliver Books has been servicing Finland very nicely!