Sherman progress and some games

Hi folks,

This week has been spent doing a couple of things. First up, I set up a Facebook account for my blog. You can click the link on the right in order to follow me there, where I am trying to give a few more regular updates, etc.

I also continued to work on my 144 RAC Sherman I's and some of my Polish Sherman V's.

I mixed some 'Magic Wash' up. Seems to be working ok, but needs to be mixed with ink before adding to the mini's as I've not got the shade right yet.

And lastly, I played 2 games! One was even Flames of War! The other was a 6mm battle between York and Lancaster (?) during some English civil war or other. This game was the first at a club being set up by Yorkie, over and 'Little Legions' in a village hall about 45 mins from me. It was the inaugural meeting tonight and we managed to get 6 of us there for a multi player game. Some lovely mini's, good banter and a pretty quick playing game. Here's some pics:

All set up, we were on the left - no idea which army we were! Each player had two 'battles'. The hill to our North split our forces a little.

The enemy line! Some great looking units.

Our battle line - the hill that split our forces can be seen in the distance.

Some progress in the first few turns, with my battle heading forwards and getting some lucky shots in, causing one enemy unit to fall back. on the other flank the close combat had already started! A wood meant that only one part of that battle could engage at first. Thankfully they held their own!

Aftermath of the battle in the north - one enemy and one friendly unit lost, with another enemy unit shaken. My own force carefully deployed just out of initiative charge range...

Getting ready for the big clash!

Exchanging arrow fire - Thankfully Yorkie's dice were poor and he was just out of charge range.

The results of my own charge. By this point my allies had almost cleared the board, with only one other enemy unit still active. The two to my front were charged, with one combat resulting in a draw and the other resulting in a smashes enemy unit after a turn or so.

The rest our forces preparing to tackle the single remaining enemy unit (thats being pointed at). Bottom right my chaps smashed the shattered and disordered enemy unit, swept round the hill and took out the guns and lined up to charge the other enemy unit (locked in combat with my unit) in the rear. Thankfully a very close tie resulted in morale checks for both our engaged units - I passed, he did not and his unit routed. Victory!

On Wednesday I was invited round to Yorkies house for a quick game of Flames of War. I picked two 1000pt infantry lists and we used my figures (although his own are stunning). I only took one picture of the game, but it resulted in a Highland victory.

Magic Wash wise, the concotion looks like this:

But I feel it needs to be even darker. It's not so dark as it looks when poured out to be painted on. Some drops of Army Painter Strong Tone wash in the mix sorted it out ready to go onto my bunkers and Shermans:

German MG bunkers, resins casts. I've since put the static grass on them so they should be finished this weekend.

This was them after a wash of the Magic Wash mixture and a drybrush of Russian Uniform. More highlighting still required!

On top of all this, last weekend I got all my Polish Shermans primed using the Team Yankee Soviet Armour spray. The Sherman I's were hand primed and painted. I have to say this spray was (or seems) very close to Vallejo Russian Uniform, although I did quickly hand paint a coat of Russian Uniform onto them as well. One full tin and a bit of another used to cover all the Polish Shermans:

(less the 4 on the painting table)

So yeah, constructive week, I seem to be making good progress and the club should hopefully be running every two weeks. It is a 45 min drive but that's not too bad - may be quicker once the roadworks are gone! Fingers crossed this leads to some more gaming.