The Yanks Are Coming!

Although I never posted my completed 15mm WWII British troops last year I'm now finally got round to some US troops.

Lindberg Heinkel He-162

After enjoying my last Lindberg build so much I rushed out (to Ebay!) to see if they had any more unusual planes to build. I picked up 2, and here is the first - the German late war Emergency jet fighter Heinkel He-162.

Lindberg Heinkel He-100

 

I've had a bit of a varied experince with Lindberg Kits, with my Kingfisher being fine and the Sabre being awful, and started this one with the extra trepidation of the horror taht was the JU-88 kit earlier in the year....

Airfix Junkers Ju88A-4

 I was really looking forward to building this iconic light bomber, but it ended up as the worst kit ever, and combined with busy work, completely draining my hobby mojo for weeks and weeks!

Airfix Focke-Wulf Fw190 A-8

I'm recuperating from an operation, so what more stereotypical activity than making a model airplane?

Airfix Messerschmitt Bf109e

A staple for the finished model collection, alongside the Spitfire and Hurricane, is obviously the Messerschmitt Bf109, so I'm glad to get mine done.

The First Of Many...

...Or at least a few. A Battleground British Tommy, my first test 15mm WWII Allied figure.

Airfix Junkers Ju87b-1 Stuka

In my previous model kit I mentioned that this kit might be finished in the near future. Well in the same blogging year counts, right?

Boltaction - enter the learning curve.

 So not quite D-Day, but the opening game at the club arrived and this is how I'd managed to get the figures. From my RPG days I'd knew that if the flesh and weapons are defined on a primed figure it's enough to avoid the mono tone blob effect.

Bolt Action Startup

 

So a thread went out on the Falkirk Wargaming Club Facebook page to see if anyone wanted to try learning Bolt Action. 

WoW - Attack on the Intrepid: Wave 2

This week MacSver came down to continue his attack on the USS Intrepid.

WoW - Attack on the USS Intrepid

For our second visit to the Pacific Theatre MacSver and I decided to add a few more rules to play.

Since our last game I'd sourced, enhanced and printed out the deck plans of USS Intrepid (historical details at the end of the post) from Boardgamegeek, giving a bombing objective for the Japanese. We decided the the US had been caught napping and the 2 US planes would need to take off from the carrier (at altitude 0). The Carrier is bristling with AA guns which would hopefully help with protection until the defending planes got airborne.

Reinforcement Planes Ready For Action

The latest Wings of War models are ready for action.

(USA) Bell P-39 Airacobra:

WoW - First Contact Over the Pacific

With the first planes fuelled up and ready to go it was time for our first game of Wings of War WWII.

First Wave of Planes Complete

The first set of fighter models for pimping up my Wings of War set are now complete.

(USA) F4F-4 Wildcat

Airfix Hawker Hurricane Mk.1 Complete

I remembered the wing lights this time!

I Ain't Been Shot Mum?

As you may have noticed I tend to lean towards rulesets that are not tied into their own specific figure range. I feel it helps get the most out of the figures I have already bought. It does mean that I have a small library of rulesets that haven't been played. I suspect I 'm not the only one!

With enjoying "Hell Hath No Fury" it has been in my mind that I 'd like to add some non-tank elements to the game at some point. Nuts! has been bought and is good, but I'll have to fudge some rules as its doesn't cater for the "Flames Of War" figures I have from the Open Fire! boxset I have.

There seem to be quite a few other folk scouting about for rules to use their FoW figures with. Is there a gaming trend wave of people falling out of love with that game?? I don't know, but on a forum thread I saw mention\recommendation of TwoFatLardies "I Ain't Been Shot Mum". It seems to have elements similar to a couple of games I enjoy at the moment. Non-linear turn sequences, card activation, basic fog of war, etc.

It may very well to heading up the latest entry for the Hobby Shed Library...

PSC 15mm Cromwell IV

As part of my new found "tank mania" (as MacSver likes to call it!) I picked up a trio of Plastic Soldier Company Cromwell tanks from Ebay to give me the options on the "Hell Hath No Fury" reinforcement table.

This is the first time I've come across that much (and rightly) maligned practice of printing the instructions on the inside of the box. In this case there weren't even instructions, just a picture of a the sprue with the gun options highlighted. Despite what PSC think, the construction wasn't as obvious as they think, to me.

Handily though I was sitting next to my PC, and a quick google gave me the PSC construction video! I'll refrain from making general comment but it was useful for me, so may be useful for any other folk planning to make the purchase.

The kit's are nice, by the way, just lacking in instruction.

 

Another Sherman Painting Tutorial

I'll be painting my British Shermans soon. I did link to a great tutorial way back in January 2013 just after I'd bought the Open Fire boxset, but today I'm going to put up one from Battlefront themselves. Why? I suppose it deals with the actual kits and nationality I'll be painting and also it's a quicker, simpler technique that I know I'll be able to replicated across the 16 tanks that I have set up to paint. I 'm realistic enough to know that if it starts to become too much of a chore I'll struggle to maintain the interest to bash through them!

Panzers Ready

Finished painting up my German armour (at least what I have so far). The camouflage pattern is more inspired by than authentic I feel, but as it's my first bash at it and I am shy of the proper paint colours I'm quite happy with the way they've turned out.

They could really do with some decals to finish off, but I'll probably look for some advice and supplies at my next wargame show attendance.