Major Omission, Contrast Paint & Printing

So, I won't bother with the usual excuses for why I haven't been blogging, work, garden, family, travel, etc.

I have managed to get a few games in, online and face to face. 

Back in February, I decided it was time to haul out the Warlord Games plastic ECW I have been stashing away whenever they were on sale at silly prices.. (£1 a sprue?).  So with the interruption of a couple of weeks overseas, I have been bashing out unts with contrast paints...

The guns are 3d prints.

Pretty pleased with these, the last picture shows everything that is left of the stash, two more pike and shot units to go.

As always, 3d printing continues.. these are some nice morale trackers from Paul at Sabotag3d 

And I have been experimenting with making my own files for printing.. a simple ACW coffee cart..

A Westland Scout - very simplified... but I'm very pleased with it.

And I wanted to buy some casualty markers from Warbases, but they were out of stock. So I printed my own. 

The other thing I wanted to do is tackle my stash of Perry plastic  ACW, so some early experiments with Contrast paints over a grey undercoat... 

But naturally, being me, I got distracted, a 3d print file for West German Cold War vehicles.

And some Italian Wars!

I blame Jonathan for his series of Fornovo games, 

And of course..  Face to Face - Sikh Wars games... 

And Hail Caesar - Punic Wars

Finally, I am trying to remedy an omission in my roster, I have forces for lots of WW2 Chain of Command games...  Soviets, |Japanese, French, Malayan Campaign British, Early War German, French and BEF, British Paras, DAK, 8th Army etc...  I even have US in Winter clothing, but the big omission is a force of US Infantry. I assembled some Perry US Infantry ages ago, but they have been lurking in a box ever since. By coincidence I ended up with an additional box, so I tested some contrast paints on these. I'm pretty happy with how they look. 

The 'recipe' is very simple. In sequence, Guilliman Flesh, Aggaros Dunes for jackets, Contrast Wyldwood for pants, Skeleton Horde for some equipment, gaiters etc, Militarum Green for waterbottle covers, Black Templar for boots and weapons, Fyreslayer Flesh for woodwork. Final touches are Vallejo 70.893 US Dark Green for the helmet, and 70.886 Green Grey for some other equipment (I did the straps and pouches in a mix of Skeleton Horde and the Green Grey.

 

Lots happening - A big update

I kept meaning to post an update, but have been so preoccupied that I haven't made the time. Lots of reasons I won't bore you with, holes in ceilings, tradesmen painting and building things, new puppies, work being particularly intense. But enough of that. On to wargames. 

Ok, well, maybe just one of Mac discovering Netflix...

Anyway, Martin introduced me to the Great Escape Games Cold War rules '7 Days to the River Rhine' and we had a test run. Well, two actually - the simple all armour engagements we tried out (Syrians vs Israelis) were very fast, and we played two games, swapping sides. Honours were even to the players. the Israelis, not so much.

Those of you who have read this blog for a while might remember me airbrushing some Soviet Cold War armour, as a potential opponent for my Danish forces...

So having played the rules, I bought them, and started printing...

First up some BMP for me, Centurions with dozer blades and T62 for Martin...  And then I really got stuck in.. 

And those Soviet infantry I mentioned that had been hiding in a box since 2017, well they finally emerged blinking - and a single day was all it took to get them based and almost (flocking required) good to go. 

Of curse, being me, it didn't stop there. I figured that there were too many Soviets for the Danes to handle on their own, so Colonel Bill's secondhand figures furnished some BAOR infantry with SLR and Sterling SMG. And the printer whirred into life again. The airbrush needs to be hauled out, and camo netting added, but these bad boys should keep the T62s honest.

Oh, and the other week we played another game... one I have wanted to run for a while. Here's a teaser with more to follow.

Painting has been patchy - but a few things are nearing completion... 

More 15mm Vikings

These guys have been on the painting table for a week or two, I undercoated and applied the base flesh colour, then just got distracted with the arrival of new figures from the 1745 Flags of War Kickstarter.

So the last two days, in between some plumbing, some paint stripping etc... I managed to get some additional colour down. Now the army is 86 elements in size, and when I counted, I was surprised to find I have painted up 43 so far! Halfway exactly. I reckon I should now split them up into maybe another 4 batches and charge through, and kick off the basing.

So should I start them now or maybe take a break from the Vikings, and do some Hanoverians? 

Anyway, here's the boys. It's interesting, but the camera (Samsung S10) seems to really flatten out the colours. When you look closely; for example at the red cloaks on the generals, you can see there are shadows and highlights there, but the camera has made them almost disappear.

Bondi

General

Huscarles

Viking Mounted