Gunuary Update - Week 3 (or - 'what the hell happened to Week 2'!)

Hi Folks,

As the title suggests a blog entry for week 2 fell by the wayside a little bit. By the time I thought about getting round to doing one it was almost week 3. So I've combined the two weeks into one awesome update (ha!).

Work has been continuing on the Gunuary theme, with the guns assembled and blocked in last week. This week has been dedicated to washing and highlighting (and the New Homeworld: Desert of Kharak game, which may have been a mistake to buy while I still have painting to do). As usual the various Paint and Chat video conferences have helped me greatly in keeping focus and giving me fellow gamers to talk to while I bashed on with painting.

All guns are now up to the point that they need a varnish and then the crew added and basing completed. With one week to go, still no sign of the November order from Battlefront so I can only finish what I have. The Auster AOP has a base coat of Russian Uniform - but I am missing a colour for it which I will hopefully pick up tomorrow.

So the Auster and 4 more ammo limbers to finish, varnish and basing for all the guns, crews added and then updating the basing on some of my older units.

Hopefully the outstanding stuff arrives soon and I can get these units all finished off (although this means more infantry to paint with the adding of another artillery HQ unit).

Thanks again to all the guys on the Paint and Chat for keeping me amused and focused. There has been some great laughs and interesting chats. I'd recommend anyone who hasn't tried to join one and see what it's all about.

Gunuary - Week 1 AND Team Yankee thoughts

Hi folks,

With me having this week off work, I made a focused effort on finishing the various crew and infantry figures I have to paint for my gun crews.

Thankfully, after several days of feeling like I was getting nowhere, these guys are now ready for a coat of matt varnish. I had some issues which really slowed me down and were mainly due to my shortage of lollipop sticks when I was prepping the models. This meant I had crowded the figures on, and as a result I was touching the models while handling the sticks during painting. This meant that I was rubbing the paint away as I painted, meaning I was spending as much time repainting as actually painting!

I had picked up some new sticks last weekend, so I grabbed some (easier buying new than finding my old ones that are packed away!) and made some room by moving models over onto the new sticks. Being able to hold and handle the sticks made a big difference and let me actually make forward process.

A fairly simple issue, and one I should have seen coming!

Still, today I managed to get the final highlights done and revisited the faces - an area I really need to work on. Just a coat of varnish to go and they are ready to be based.

Speaking of bases, I got enough done for the models I currently have. Thinking about it now I mucked up a little and should have done at least 2 large ones more. But that's no big issue. I think I will follow technique I used last time I had vehicles to paint, which was to base them before painting. 4 of the guns will be on the resin Battlefront artillery bases I think, which will give me 8 on standard bases and 4 others on the artillery bases.

And as for the artillery, I took a break from painting one night and started assembling guns. So far, 4 x 25 Pounders, 1 x 5.5" and 2 x Limbers assembled.

I've some poor quality pics of the infantry up to this point - better pictures will follow once they are based.

As for Team Yankee... I've been thinking a lot about this over the weeks since release. It is a game I would like to play, but the experience of painting lots of 15mm infantry figures again has been one of the things that has caused me to seriously look at my plans. I've been thinking about the following issues - if anyone has any input themselves, I would be happy to hear it!

1.  I can't be sure of finding a player here collecting 15mm Team Yankee. This would probably mean I would need to collect both sides in order to get a game.

2.  A box set to get started with is £60+. With the plan to collect a Russian force that means a lot of T-72's and BMP's. Plus the above thought of having to get both sides (while I am starting to think about making a start on my WW2 Germans) makes this new period an expensive proposition.

3.  The ground scale looks far better for this period in 6mm than 15mm. It really is a time period where artillery should not be on the table, or if it is it's because it's a big table (centimetre ranges rather than inches).

4.  I can buy the whole of Team Yankee (Command, 2 x Abrams platoons (10 tanks total), 1 x mech inf platoon + support aircraft, artillery, helicopters, anti tank, anti air) plus a Soviet force (command + 2 x companies of T-72's (15 T-72's), Motor Rifle Company, Air support, helicopters, anti air (guns and missiles), artillery, rocket artillery, recce) from Heroics and Ros at 6mm for the price of one starter set at 15mm. Or for 3 x more could get the same (ish) force from GHQ.

5.  I don't really enjoy painting 15mm infantry. 6mm should (?) be much easier to do.

6.  6mm would give me both sides, would allow me to use the mini's for other systems, would be much more efficient cost wise and for expanding my forces and fits better with the scale of the conflict.

7.  I would need to look at different terrain for 6mm, when I still have nowhere near enough terrain for 15mm. However there would be some crossover, and the cost wouldn't majorly offset the saving for the reduced scale.

8.  6mm may be the way to go, for now*.


* Until later, when the the British range is released or I find a group playing at 15mm...

Gunuary Progress - Happy New Year

Hi folks,

A bit of a delay since the last blog entry. I hope everyone had a great time over the festive period and wish you all a fantastic 2016. As a friend text me, may your paint never chip!

I wanted to share a sculpture I saw, while out this weekend celebrating mine and Amy's engagement anniversary. This is called Eleven 'O' One, and is in Seaham. The locals call it 'Tommy' and he sits beside the town war memorial (facing the memorial). It's a large sculpture (about 9 feet tall) and is very detailed. I believe he is made from segments of steel plate.

A rather chilly day, so a well wrapped up me next to the sculpture - for scale purposes!

A link to more info on this sculpture can be found here.

Over the last few weeks I have been working towards my goal of getting all my outstanding 15mm Flames of War British artillery painted (not including transport, but that may change).

So far I have made some progress. All the crew figures were added to my 4.2" Mortar Loyd Carriers, as well as my Universal Carriers. These crew figures were the ones that came with the Forged in Battle vehicles. The main issue was that what should have been a 2 minute job took hours, as none of the drivers fitted into the driving compartments on the Universal Carriers. In the end I had to cut off the front webbing pouches and trim some metal from the drivers backs, as well as trim out the seat backs from inside the vehicles. Even doing that still had some of the drivers to tight in their seats that no glue was required. This also meant repair work was required where the paint on the models had been damaged by all the work...

I also managed to finish off all the outstanding infantry and gun crews I had left over from the 6MMRPC challenge.

I also worked on the supply truck for Battlegroup, as you can see above. It looks pretty smart with the bars on and painted and I just need to finish off some figures for the base before I get the basing done. I also finished off the last few details on my AA Batteries command team jeep. It just requires basing as well.

As part of Gunuary, I opened up all the blisters for the guns I have (still no sign of my models from the BF November Sale, purchased for my Christmas). I cleaned up the metal, trimmed everything that needed trimming, discovered one tiny part missing from my 40mm Bofors guns, which I have emailed BF about. I also washed all the metal and bought some new and some bigger sticks to painting the guns on.

The next part was to get all the crew from these blisters painted, which I have made a good start on this week.

I think there are around 68 figures in all from this lot - and I am remembering how much I hate painting flesh on these guys. Hopefully I will get these guys finished this week while I am off. This includes all the infantry and crew figures from the 2nd pack of 4.2" Mortars. I'm still not sure whether to fully build and base these up, or just to use the crew figures I like for the unit I have finished. My army can only field one unit of 4.2" mortars, so the second unit would be pointless. I could always build it and sell it... but I am unsure just now what I will do.

I've been really strongly aided in all this work by a new group I have joined. Tabletop Commanders are a Wargaming Community group across various formats. They have a Blog, Facebook Group and produce Youtube Videos.

The thing that has really helped my have been the regular paint and chats - normally held on Google Hangouts (a video conference service). It's really good to be able to talk toy soldiers and military history while working on your own stuff, and has really helped to keep my motivation up and keep me painting. It's amazing how much I have managed to get done. I was also pleasantly surprised to find a couple of people talking about the 6MMRPC and wanting to participate in the next challenge - conversation unprompted by me!

Well worth checking out!

Anyway, on with my painting for the day. If anyone chooses to join in with Gunuary, even just to paint up one unit of artillery, please let me know - I would be happy to share a link to your post or video!