SCW Update

Here's a small selection of what I have been working on recently.

La Legion, Irregular miniatures with a Frontline CV 35. The bases still needed doing when I took this and the standard bearer needs a flag.

Irregular miniatures Regulares artillerists.

Irregular miniatures Nationalist infantry in gorillo cap. These are the same figures as I used for La Legion. However to differentiate, I omitted the detail from these guys caps. This is so that on the table, the Legion figures have a little something that separates them from the peninsular infantry. 

Nationalist Panzer 1. This is a Britannia model I bought from Grubby tanks a few Salutes ago. Originally I made the terribly faux-pas of painting it grey, I repainted it this colour scheme las month and I'm much happier with it.

The Panzer as I originally painted it.

Also in this group is an old Hat FT-17 (they seen quite hard to come-by these days). I have cut off the tail, as I have seen pictures of FT-17's in the University City of Madrid being driven to the front without tails. However I have also lost the top of the turret, so I'll need to fashion one before this model is complete.

New Period

Unfortunately, as you may have noticed, my new career in marketing leaves little time in the evenings (or none on a busy week) for frivolous things like making models and painting miniatures. However I have managed to get a few bits finished. The modern Africa bits are still going, I've got a Ferret and AML 90 half done, as are the moderns and SCW. I've also been repainting some of my GZG scifi miniatures, but lately, after re-watching Band of Brothers and seeing the new Airfix resin buildings, I have gotten back into WW2. I say back into, I did start collecting a few tanks and plastic miniatures a while back, but it didn't amount to much. I think the SCW overtook it. So anyway, I'm in the middle of building up a force for Too Fat Lardies TW&T (nice name). I've got most of a platoon of Brits done, and nearly as many Germans. The infantry figures are all from Platoon 20 and the tanks are mainly armourfast, but also there's a Raventhorpe Churchill tank, an Airfix SDKFZ 222 and a couple of armoured cars from Hinchcliff. Unfortunately, I had to take these photo's indoors and resorted o using the camera's flash. As such the miniatures look much more shiny than in real life and the tanks look much darker, which is a shame. But, finally, it is some new images and it is a new post!

Stripping

The title and label of this post will probably make most of you think this evening was much more exciting than it really was. Yesterday afternoon I soaked an AML 90 armoured car, I bought recently from ebay (apologies if you were bidding on it as well),  in Dettol. According to the instructions I found, you mix the Dettol with water, drop in the item that you wish to strip and leave overnight. Then you scoop the miniature out, give it a bit of a scrub in some warm, soapy water and hey-presto it's ready to go...
...Or not.
I now have a claggy, black toothbrush (not that it was going to use it for my teeth again mind), a ruined washing up bowl, a kitchen that smells like a hospital and a 20mm AML 90 that is still covered in oily black paint. Oh and my hands are covered as well.
But initially I was impressed, after a day, the milky dettol substance had flecks of black floating round the jar and when I hooked the miniature out, a lot of the paint had come off. I think the issue is one of 2 things.
Firstly the model was bought in black primer, ready to paint. But by the look of things it has in fact been painted and sprayed over with black. So there are at least 3 coats of paint on there, no wonder it's proving a pig to get off.
Secondly, while writing, I spotted this entry on the Lead adventure forums. It seems, from other peoples experience, that black is a bigger problem to strip than other colours and that most people on here recommend leaving the miniature in Dettol for a week or more and by then the paint is much easier to remove. So as of tonight, the AML is back in the Dettol, letting it work its magic. I'm going to leave it now till the weekend and try again then, hopefully I will have a more positive experience.

Zanla

Not exactly new, I painted these at the same time as my first batch of RLI, but I stumbled across these pics still on my laptop today. The figures are Liberation Miniatures modern Africans, the RPG carrying figure is by Platoon 20. They are painted in a fairly generic way as I wanted to be able to use them for both Zanla, Zipra and other modern African insurgents.

Rhodesian Light Infantry

Well there's been a bit of a painting drought recently, but over the weekend I finally got a bit of downtime and was able to paint up another stick of RLI. so for you enjoyment and to prove I'm still active here are some pics





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I'm still standing...

...and still painting, only I've had a tremendously busy 2/3 months. That and the weather hasn't been conducive to taking photos. So don't worry I have every plan to update the blog soon, though it probably wont be till the christmas break.
In the meantime stay safe and remember, don't eat the yellow snow.
E

Republican dismounted cavalry

A couple of Spanish nuns.

Moorish infantry in Chibbala

Bum and Irregular Legion infantry, rebased from plasticard.

My new Minis

Unfortunately I didn't have my camera for our last game and I was only able to grab a grainy shot of the objective once we had stopped playing. So I decided, today being nicer weather, I would take some photos of my new mini's.

Liberation (RH Models) Rhodesian infantry in shorts with a bren gunner, a paint conversion from a South African infantryman.

The same group but with the Bren gunner close up to show the uniform.

2 Infantry sticks, the figures in helmets are Combat Miniatures (now sold by stonewall miniatures) Israeli infantry for the Yom Kippur war. They have weapons and equipment very similar to that used in Rhodesia, so work well together. I have seen pictures of Rhodesian soldiers wearing Israeli/British style para helmets, I'm not sure if this means they were paratroopers or not.

This fellow comes from the mixed Berets and bareheaded pack, again Liberation Miniatures. I have read somewhere that the only soldiers who didn't wear a hat or helmet of some kind and were allowed to grow beards where the Rhodesian Trackers Regiment. So there you go he's a tracker.

Trackers moving through a swamp.

These guys I painted up as RSAS (Rhodesian SAS obviously). I think they are great minis and look fantastic when painted up. I can't wait to get these guys stuck in a jam.

RSAS jumping out of a trusty Alouette 3. I have painted this in Rhodesian colours. I didn't feel like making the diffuser for the exhaust, so it's not strictly accurate, but I prefer it this way. The model is made by Heller and I was lucky enough to find a few models for sale here in the UK. It does in fact come with clear plastic for the windows but I'm not very good at making them and I don't think they look that realistic anyhow. It is painted in Revell acrylic blue grau and brushed with Dayler Rowney gloss acrylic medium.

Police Action Rhodesia

Just had a game with my stalwart opponent Matt. We were trying out the free rules Fireforceand the scenario was based on one I saw on the warseer forum. Basically a small force of regional police investigating a nearby village where there are reports of "terrorist" activity.

Matt had a command stick of 4 men, two 5 man sticks (each with a FN Mag) all listed as Trained. Waiting off table was an Alouette 3 containing a 4 man stick of Veteran infantry. I had 3 squads of rebels, one 6 man with AK's and G3's, one 4 man with 1 RPG and one 4 man with an old russian LMG. I also had the local force commander acting on his own. The rebels all started of hidden with 8 counters on the table, 4 representing the rebels, 2 dummies and 2 represented groups of fleeing civilians. I hadn't told Matt there were any civilians in the scenario so it was fun to see him move in to engage a group that were running up the edge of the table, trying to escape.

However sound use of overwatch and strategic fields of fire meant Matt was able to hold off 2 rebel squads and make his way to the village without taking any casualties. He then interrogated the fleeing civilians who revealed the position of my final squad hiding in the village. Unfortunately a prior engagement of Matt's called time on our session before the skirmish had reached it's climax (and 1 turn before Matt was planning to call in the Alouette).

In all we were both happy with the way the rules worked, a bit of referencing now and then being the only thing that slowed us down. We'll definitely use them again and hopefully my Liberation RLI will be done in time.

Some More Moderns

A mixture of Britannia and Liberation modern Brits.

Some Britannia PMCs

And finally a BMP, but who's side is it on?