Thursday, November 24, 2011
Fallschirmjäger 8cm Light Mortar platoon(15mm)
Hi folks revisiting my Fallschirmjäger for FOW and finished up a platoon I've had half finished for quite some rime. These are some light Mortars which are essential to all FJ forces as they can provide the quickest and fastest means of suppression allowing for rapid deployment of their forces or stop attackers from overwhelming their defensive positions.
I'm having quite some fun painting right now as I'm bouncing around between subjects which keeps me at the painting desk when I have time. I still have plans to add more to this force whenever the mood takes me again. I also attained a very large American Airborne and Tank Company for FOW so stay tuned for that.:-)
As always thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company:FOW Battlefront
Labels:
WWII(15mm)
Monday, November 14, 2011
FOW Game and a couple wall pictures
"KAAA.... BOOM....BOOM"
Hanz felt the concussion of the the two Pak 40's firing almost simultaneously but as a veteran of nearly constant action over several years he was used to it and so kept his binoculars trained on the advancing British Churchill's to check the effect of their fire . A slow smile turned his normally stern lips into a upward turn as he saw two Churchill's explode in a fountain of burning lead and smoke. This caused the remaining tank to go in reverse and leave the field which Franz noticed seemed to be what the British were doing across the entire visible sector. He knew they would be back, but for today they held their position and that was good enough for him.
He could remember the glory days of when he actually was a Jäger jumping out of planes and doing the job of a Fallschirmjäger, but those days were long gone which found him replacing his chute for a spade. Now his only concern was keeping himself and his men alive and for today at least it was by and large a success.
"Ok good work gentlemen now clean the barrels, set a watch and get some food inside you and what rest you can as the English will come knocking again tomorrow."
With that he lit a cigarette and wearily set his back to a tree and began writing his AAR.
I invited a couple friends over to my house for a FOW game to have a game and show off my new room.
We played 4000pts using the Fortress Europe lists with Mixer playing A British Rifle company vs Scnugg(Panzergrenadiers) and myself Fallschirmjäger.
I won't give a blow by blow account, but rather a brief report of the battle.
Things started well for the British when virtually 2 platoons of Schnugg's stugs and 2 platoon's of infantry were shredded in a aggressive attempt to pressure the British. After this the Germans pulled back and started an air and artillery duel where they began inflicting some casualties.
The British decided to take the initiative and go on the offensive and this is were things started to really go wrong for them as the Germans were weakened , but far from out of it. A combination of artillery, MG fire, anti-tank, a small Tiger offensive combined with infantry stopped the Brits cold and eventually broke their army.
In fairness to Mixer he could have sat back with his Brits and probably stood a far better chance to win, but since this was a friendly game he kept the game fun and went on the counter offence. It didn't help him much that he rolled pretty darn abysmal while doing it and we as a whole rolled quite good for the second half which all coupled altogether spelled doom for the Brits.
I had a great time playing and really enjoyed the company and hope to have them back soon.
Here are few quick pics of the game. The pics didn't turn out all that well as I need to polish my in game photography skills, but hopefully it gives you somewhat of an impression of our game.
I used a cloth blanket that is spray painted to get ground color texture. I still need to work it up some more, but I'm happy in the direction it's going. I vastly prefer cloth to any other playing surface as you can place hills underneath to give more subtle changes to the elevation and it's kind to models plus easy to manipulate. I also use sand for roads as it looks more natural in both in color and how it lays out on the board compared to modelled ones in my opinion. The hedges and fields are still raw and need some color foliage added to give better depth which is on my to do list along with some buildings and such. I also plan to base some of my trees in groups and leave others as singles. No doubt plenty of work yet to do on my terrain, but it's progressing as I see more what needs improving.
Here a couple pics I added to my walls of which Troini's 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg takes pride of place as I like the pic a great deal and it's my home state.
Thanks for viewing!
Hanz felt the concussion of the the two Pak 40's firing almost simultaneously but as a veteran of nearly constant action over several years he was used to it and so kept his binoculars trained on the advancing British Churchill's to check the effect of their fire . A slow smile turned his normally stern lips into a upward turn as he saw two Churchill's explode in a fountain of burning lead and smoke. This caused the remaining tank to go in reverse and leave the field which Franz noticed seemed to be what the British were doing across the entire visible sector. He knew they would be back, but for today they held their position and that was good enough for him.
He could remember the glory days of when he actually was a Jäger jumping out of planes and doing the job of a Fallschirmjäger, but those days were long gone which found him replacing his chute for a spade. Now his only concern was keeping himself and his men alive and for today at least it was by and large a success.
"Ok good work gentlemen now clean the barrels, set a watch and get some food inside you and what rest you can as the English will come knocking again tomorrow."
With that he lit a cigarette and wearily set his back to a tree and began writing his AAR.
I invited a couple friends over to my house for a FOW game to have a game and show off my new room.
We played 4000pts using the Fortress Europe lists with Mixer playing A British Rifle company vs Scnugg(Panzergrenadiers) and myself Fallschirmjäger.
I won't give a blow by blow account, but rather a brief report of the battle.
Things started well for the British when virtually 2 platoons of Schnugg's stugs and 2 platoon's of infantry were shredded in a aggressive attempt to pressure the British. After this the Germans pulled back and started an air and artillery duel where they began inflicting some casualties.
The British decided to take the initiative and go on the offensive and this is were things started to really go wrong for them as the Germans were weakened , but far from out of it. A combination of artillery, MG fire, anti-tank, a small Tiger offensive combined with infantry stopped the Brits cold and eventually broke their army.
In fairness to Mixer he could have sat back with his Brits and probably stood a far better chance to win, but since this was a friendly game he kept the game fun and went on the counter offence. It didn't help him much that he rolled pretty darn abysmal while doing it and we as a whole rolled quite good for the second half which all coupled altogether spelled doom for the Brits.
I had a great time playing and really enjoyed the company and hope to have them back soon.
Here are few quick pics of the game. The pics didn't turn out all that well as I need to polish my in game photography skills, but hopefully it gives you somewhat of an impression of our game.
I used a cloth blanket that is spray painted to get ground color texture. I still need to work it up some more, but I'm happy in the direction it's going. I vastly prefer cloth to any other playing surface as you can place hills underneath to give more subtle changes to the elevation and it's kind to models plus easy to manipulate. I also use sand for roads as it looks more natural in both in color and how it lays out on the board compared to modelled ones in my opinion. The hedges and fields are still raw and need some color foliage added to give better depth which is on my to do list along with some buildings and such. I also plan to base some of my trees in groups and leave others as singles. No doubt plenty of work yet to do on my terrain, but it's progressing as I see more what needs improving.
Here a couple pics I added to my walls of which Troini's 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg takes pride of place as I like the pic a great deal and it's my home state.
Thanks for viewing!
Labels:
Game Report
,
Hobby Room
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
General blog update
Hi Folks
I thought I would just give a general summation of where I'm at in the hobby so you don't think I've gone off the deep end!
When doing the El Cid project I had to meet a deadline. This put me in a position where I had to paint something when I was often not in the mood to do so which really had me frustrated! I absolutely hate being constrained and forced to paint something when I don't want to and therefore I was often miserable at the painting desk during this period! Of course it's nice finishing a project, but for me not in that fashion. I want to finish projects when I'm ready and not some predetermined date. This hobby is all about enjoying yourself and I will not put myself in that position again. I now only agree to do projects on a loose basis where I can back out gracefully or at least extend the agreed upon finish date if needed.As to events then only agree with something I'm finished with or I'm largely finished with already.
So many may be asking that's all fine and dandy Christopher, but what has that got to do with the blog? The answer is expect to see extremely radical swings in projects on this blog as I jump around all over the place like kids with free tickets in Disneyland!Freedom!!!!!!! That's right folks, I'm going to paint whatever strikes my interest at that particular moment! If you see a period you like and I drift off somewhere else then don't be concerned as I'll be back on it for sure at some point. Yes siree I'm not the best gent to tell you how to start and finish an army in reasonable amount of time, but I guess the good thing is I'll usually have something different on each post. Ok, I'm reaching, but it's something.:-) Right now I want to do a multitude of projects all at the same time and my painting will reflect it more then usually! Basically I'm giving an excuse for the eclectic nature of this blog and my inability to keep focused!
Happy painting out there!!:-)
Labels:
Notes
Monday, October 31, 2011
Arab Lancers
Sorry about the repeated post on this, but I was having some troubles posting it in correctly.
My first Impetus base finished! I mentioned awhile back that I would be doing a Saladin Ayyubid dynasty army for Impetus and here is my first unit. Sometimes I mention doing projects, but then don't get back to them for a bit and this is one of them.
This unit represents Kurdish, Berber or Syrian Lancers that I group into Arabs for ease of reference. I really enjoyed painting this unit as I got a chance to explore color and look forward to doing some more. The miniatures are 15mm Legio Historica and are really fantastic sculpts and have quite a bit detail that really adds to the painting time, but is worth it in my opinion.
I was going to go straight for a 300pts force, but changed my mind to a Basic Impetus army to start with because of less units to paint, quicker to start gaming our Crusades campaign at the club, and a loosely planned project with SG over at the super Conquering the Lead Mountain blog here. After having a BI force completed then I'll build the army further to 300pts, 400pts. etc for standard Impetus gaming.
Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Legio Historica
Labels:
Crusades(15mm)
,
Impetus
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Shimazu Samurai
I've been contemplating doing Samurai for many years, but haven't started them due to not having the right rule sets or lists, intimidation of painting them and just not finding the clan that really nailed it for me completely. All that has changed now with Impetus which I believe is a perfect rule set for Samurai and the Shimazu clan that totally fits the bill for me. As to painting intimidation I've decided just paint them and see how it goes instead of worrying about it all the time.
Recently I've seen fantastic Samurai armies coming from folks like Saxon Dog, Fig Man 1, Hetairoi Wargames and perusing the awesome pics on the Perry site again has really restarted my imagination for the period.
I'm not saying I'll be starting them immediately, but they have moved up on my to do list into the top 3 with ACW and Arabs. Since I don't have a imminent project due I'll likely be jumping around mostly between these three projects for the foreseeable future with a few things else here and there.
Why choose the Shimazu clan? The reason is I really like their background as an underdog clan that is tough as old boots. While they are not a tiny clan or even what I'd term small, they are also not what I'd call a super huge clan either and this really appealed to me as I like the smaller or less well known clans more then the really big well known powerful ones. The clan will include allies from the Arima clan which is a small clan they teamed up with to defeat another larger clan. The colours and mons from these clans I also like. Some good information on them can be found here:
http://wiki.samurai-archives.com/index.php?title=Shimazu_clan
http://wiki.samurai-archives.com/index.php?title=Arima_clan_%28Hizen%29
It will mainly be under the leadership of Shimazu Yoshihisaand and his very capable brothers
http://wiki.samurai-archives.com/index.php?title=Shimazu_Yoshihiro
The picture featured above isn't the Shimazu clan, but is a picture I like and so I featured it.
Labels:
Samurai Sengoku Period
Friday, October 14, 2011
1st North Carolina Militia
This unit has been sitting on my desk well over half done for quite along time and I felt I should finish them up and set them in my cabinet where they belong and so I did.
This is my impression of the 1st North Carolina Militia although they actually probably looked a bit more shabby then this as I perhaps have too many uniformed soldiers in the line and their clothes are in relatively good shape and not ragged which they likely were.
Information on these units is pretty sketchy to say the least and so I'll just give a general background. Excepting one North Carolina militia which held it's ground at Camden all the rest ran away with many not even firing a shot in anger and so General Greene was hoping to get a bit more from them at Guilford Courthouse and he did. They actually managed some sniping and even a volley which did inflict casualties on the British before throwing down their equipment and running. Since Greene really didn't expect more from them and they did inflict some damage he was content if not happy with their performance.
As to the painting I've continued on with the muddy theme as with the previous units and mixed up military and civilian equipment using mainly Foundry colors. Since I didn't have the time to make a flag or order one I used the free online flag's from http://quindiastudios.blogspot.com/2011/10/flag-monday_10.html in which he has done a fine job, but it seems my printer needs more ink as mine came out a bit faded. Giles also did one of his militia standard bearers getting shot before I did which I think lends itself naturally to this figure and something I kept in mind.
As you can see these are done using black lining and all eyes painted in which I seldom do these days any more as it's extremely time consuming and so I'm not sure if I'll continue to do that on my next AWI unit, but since the rest of the army is that way I'm not sure if it will look right if I don't. Just need to chew it over for a bit. The next AWI unit I'll do will probably be Continentals, but as to when I cannot say just yet.
Thanks for viewing.:-)
Miniature Company- Foundry and Perry miniatures
Labels:
AWI
Friday, October 7, 2011
Wainwright Battery #1 I Corps
I'm modelling my armies under the command structure at Gettysburg for both sides. This is my first artillery piece for the period and is a 3" rifled parrott gun.Information on each battery under General Wainwright at the time of Gettysburg is a bit sketchy except for perhaps Lt. Greenleaf T. Stevens and so I'll just number them battery #1, #2 etc. for ease.
Wainwright was commissioned a major in the 1st New York Artillery on October 17, 1861 and rose quickly through the ranks.
He was chief of artillery of I Corps at the Battle of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg where he helped repulse the Confederate attacks on Cemetery Hill and exchanged volleys with confederate artillery prior to Pickett's charge.
In 1864 he became chief of artillery of V Corps and also attained the rank of Brevet General which he held until the end of the war.
He was an author as well writing "A Diary of Battle: The Personal Journals of Colonel Charles S. Wainwright, 1861–1865" where he discussed his opinions on various generals he served under and experiences he had to include engagements and how to use artillery.
I was pretty keen to try out the new Foundry ACW paints, but didn't want to do a whole regiment before trying it out and so opted for an artillery piece as a test run. The Union Blue does come out authentically dark, but I'm undecided if it's perhaps too dark as I prefer a bit of a zing to my miniatures. The Union Blue Trousers came out great and so no need for a second thought on that. I'm looking forward to see if the confederate colors work out just as good. For the cannon body I tried Foundry's French Gun Olive Green and thought it too bright and so instead went with French Dragoon Green which I quite like.
Next up Iron Brigade!
Thank you for viewing.:-)
Miniature Company- Perry Miniatures
Labels:
ACW
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