The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated....
It has been a shit two months.
Lots of heavy real life stuff which has taken priority over the hobby.
We shall rise again, and there will be hobbying...
Der H
Project Progress - Konflikt 47 Soviet Heavy infantry
Sorry folks...It's been a busy week!
Work/sickness/real life all get in the way some times but, after all, for a grown man playing with little metal men should come after such things! (Brother Handro: "never!")
Today I give you what little progress has been made - assembly of my Soviet Heavy Infantry for Konflikt 47.
I tried to ensure that there were no identical poses/combinations. The sculpt is clearly uniform, with two hammer wielding, and the rest split between two dual weapon systems and one dual weapon system.
These guys have since been primed and will be painted green. I may use a muted white stripe to demarcate the NCO, historically identifying your NCO too clearly wouldn't be wise, but historically your NCO wouldn't be in a rift powered armour suit fighting undead Nazi's, werewolves and weird bat things....
I plan on basing in a winter/rubble/blasted terrain theme - to match with my current winter Bolt action terrain and the, soon to be started, winter Stalingrad/urban/ruins board.
Stay tuned for some more articles over the next few weeks!
Der H
Bolt Action, AKA Shame, Part III
In which Handro finally receives the final part of his order/descends into hobby madness...
At last, the final (who am I kidding?...) part of my recent Bolt Action splurge arrived, very tardily. - The new British Tank War starter set (Tank War supplement, mini V2 rule book, templates, damage/pin markers, dice, stat cards etc), 3 Churchills and a Sherman troop (2 Vs, 1 VC Firefly). Additionally some paint, dismounted panzer crew (just for fun, but actually useful in Tank War) and the new Opel Blitz/Maultier kit - expect a review and comparison to Rubicon's offering soon!
Lastly some 11th Armoured Division decals. I went with this outfit as they were pretty busy post-Normandy, allowing for themed games around Market Garden (Neunen, Band of Brothers style), Battle of the Bulge and into Germany. You can also run with Shermans/Fireflies, Cromwells and very late-war Comets, allowing for flexibility of models.
I've had a fair few head-scratching moments regarding British tank markings, squadron colours, senior/junior regiments, etc but think I've got a handle on it now. May be the subject of a future article, stay tuned!
Handro
Thought for the the day; 'Heresy grows from idleness'.
Project Progress - Konflikt 47 Terror Squad
Some progress today - I actually built something!
Recently we showed off the Bolt Action Soviet Terror Squad for Konflikt '47 - The blog post can be seen here.
Since then, I have been a slightly busy bee and have built the kit (Brother Handro: "you remember that they're basically finished already right?....")
As with a lot of my kits, I have added some conversion work to vary the sculpts.
Nice and simple, with a slung PPsH and right hand holding a grenade.
Simple Molotov conversion!
Why stab when you can bludgeon with a chain...
Simple weapon swap....why not!
I did have to keep one standard!
What do you guys think - Im quite pleased...now if only I painted things...
Der H
Battlefleet Gothic - How we started!
(Der H: "You know what?.....I love Battlefleet Gothic!")
(Brother Handro: "That's right...you tell me most days....")
(Der H: "No, but like....really LOVE it!")
This month, we will be running a series of articles on Battlefleet Gothic!
It is true...whilst I claim to have been tempted back to war gaming by the lure of Space hulk (Brother Handro: "Did you actually ever FINISH any of that box you bought.....?") I rapidly bought into the idea of playing BFG.
A quick Ebay search gave me my starter box, an of course Brother Handro's magic cupboard of doom yielded more and more goodies. Back in 2012, GDubs still sold some BFG, albeit limited, and I caved in and bought some of my favourite ships (Wait for my Voss Pattern blog post in a few weeks!). We cobbled together a narrative to link in with our narrative campaign, The Siege of Grandia (we'll get to that one day honest!), and we got to work building our fleets!
Our first battle was slow, to put it bluntly. Never having played before It did take some time to get our heads around it. We're both fans of the Age of Sail, and the idea that a broadside to broadside was less accurate than shooting at a closing ship (i.e. narrower target) was a little jarring at first. (Brother Handro: "And forgetting to brace....don't forget that!").
Our first game placed my Strike Cruiser, Dictator class cruiser, Enforcer and 6 Falchions against Brother Handro's Imperial fleet. We played a good old convoy assault style mission.
I deployed in a line, because why not! Brother Handro is sporting a number of converted ship designs (Der H: "They might just feature in an upcoming blog post!") and, currently, trying to make transports go faster than the Imperial fleet ships!
Here you can see a number of paint schemes, with two converted heavy transports on the right, three Armed freighters/escort carriers/Q-Ships (Grey) and four standard freighters.
Handro's escorts sweep in to intercept. We really enjoy the movement system, and the role of ordnance (Der H: "especially with no Tau players....<Stares at Handro>") with its area denial role is really something.
The satisfaction when you can really hit some escorts hard...
...and the pain when one of your ships gets hit again, and again, and again....but more on the fateful Milunia later....
I've kept Brother Handro's ships out of this post for now....that will come later!
Keep your eyes peeled for more coverage of our experience of BFG over the coming weeks including articles on:
- My Emperors Children fleet
- Brother Handro's Imperial fleet
- My scratch builds
- My Eldar fleet
- My, as yet, unfinished ships (CLANG!)
- Coverage of some of the old Warp Rift and BFG magazine articles
- BFG Terrain
- Some how-to's for conversions
Der H
Project: Stalingrad board Ideas
For some time, Brother Handro and I have wanted to build a Stalingrad board....but Stalingrad has buildings, and roads, and rubble, and trains....and is generally...difficult.
Here are a selection of my key thoughts and my first steps with this process!
First off is the iconic fountain.
This iconic fountain from Stalingrad has been nicely replicated in 28mm by Puppets war, and can be found here. I already have this, and so of course will be using it for this project.
Next is the trains/train yard. I love the look of this train below:
I helpfully heard of some cheap plastic, battery powered train sets for sale in a local bargain store and went out to buy two of these sets. They are pretty basic but have some details. I think with some damage, some heavy weathering and a nice big star on the front they will do nicely!
Finally I need an idea for the layout. For this I will be looking through top down images of Stalingrad to find some ideas and inspiration.
Im hoping to make a 4x4 or 4x6 board for this project, modularity might be sacrificed for the greater good, but 4 2'x2' boards could work too! Watch this space!
Der H
Project: Der H's Shermans!
Behold, there is life in this blog yet!
After a few tough weeks we have had a flurry of activity with enough content to last a month....ish!
Anyway. Some time ago Brother Handro and I bought the Tank War starter set from Warlord Games. A fine set it was, so fine it sat untouched for an age. But no longer!
A nice tidy sprue!
I tried to make each one individual in its own way. The MMGs face different directions, the damage is different, and the central tank (to be used as my command tank in Tank War) has sand bag extra armour (albeit light!).
Im keen on adding camoflage to them also, similar to that seen here:
Perhaps this last one is closer to the level of cover my command tank has!
What do you think of the work guys? These have been primed since the pictures above and hopefully I can get some paint on them this year.
Der H
Unboxing: Konflikt '47 Pz IV-X
No post today, but we do have a new video showing our unboxing of the Pz IV-X from Warlord Games!
...and since we filmed it, Brother Handro even built it!
He even humoured me and posed a Pz V/IV...
Hope you enjoy the video!
Der H
Thought for the day: "Place your trust in the Emperor's steel"