666 - 2018 Winter Challenge: British Paras! Days 1-8

Happy New Year, All!

I decided - as I had less homework than normal this holiday - to challenge myself to get an entire project done. To this end, I opened-up my options as polls in a couple of my games clubs, and the winning option for completion by the end of January 2019 was 1000 points of British Paras: 

To be more precise, a list from the Market Garden campaign book for the 21st Independent Company - the British Pathfinders. I've always been interested in those who drop in first, and I enjoy playing unusual lists too. It's going to be a tricky list, mind: there's no free artillery FOO, no AT guns, no vehicles, no on-table artillery, none of my beloved 3" mortar...essentially nothing that couldn't be sneakily parachuted in. What they do have is more PIATs, snipers and 2" mortars than normal, a Captain as their default OC, and a cool special rule for the actual pathfinder sections.

The plan (ha!) is to make some progress - however minimal - as often as I can: every day, if possible. I'm now on Day 8, and by now I have all 39 men in the platoon based, primed, base-coated and with the desert yellow base-coat on their smocks. It's been quite a slog!

Day 1. Metal teams assembled.

Day 5...maybe? All models assembled and based.

Day 6 (below, too.) All models primed and base-coated
with English Uniform. It looks better without a flash.

Day 7: some smocks base-coated Desert Yellow

Day 8: the rest of the smocks base-coated.

...So there you go.

It's been an uncharacteristically speedy start (for me) and although I'm dreading the painting of the Denison smock camouflage, I think I should be okay to get them finished by the end of January. 

I must say, it's really weird for me to see a 1000pt Bolt Action army represented by just 39 men! Still, I've wanted paras for ages - they're so damned iconic - and as I got the box set essentially for free in a trade for some mid-90s Space Marine odds-and-sods that I found in a box, I'm laughing, really!

More updates as I get to them. 

Happy New Year, folks - my 2019 be a great one for you!

- Chris.

665 - Merry Christmas and Cruel Seas!

Merry Christmas, One and All!

I'll keep this brief:

1) I played Cruel Seas last month;

2) I really enjoyed it, warts and all;

3) I've ordered it.

Pics:

(NB: we played this before the game's release, so we were obliged to use 1:600 (rather than 1:300) vessels, and to improvise torpedoes out of bits of sprue...)

(Above) At this point, I'd somehow managed to get one of my S-Boots around the port side of the already limping convoy, and it was time to bring machine-gunny doom to the main target, the central ship.)

Ka-BLOOIE!

- Drax

664 - Bolt Action Tank Wars

Hullo, All!

Last week I had the singular pleasure of getting to play a stonkingly fun game of Bolt Action 'Tank Wars' again...and I just had to share some of the pics!

I'll spare you the detailed narrative, but essentially it was a 'meeting engagement' between two of my own forces: my late-war Heer versus my British 11th Armoured Division, played by 'C', who also brought a Churchill Mk III along to join in the fun.

Many thanks to David at the club (and C) who between them contrived to make a beautifully themed 8x4 German village table with smoke curling gently from the homes of its unsuspecting residents. 

Pics now!

One of my 11AD objective markers

 Flammenwerfer!

 Flammenwerfer incredibly strikes again! Bye-bye Tommycooker Firefly!

This bastard 6pdr was in ambush all game. Git.

 First outing for this lorry.

It turns out that the sides (1750pts each) were really well matched, and 'C' was of course a smashing opponent: he was thoroughly sporting throughout, and - like me - took as much amusement in his own fluffed rolls as he did joy in mine!

As always, the real star of this clash was the scenery. Now...what I really need is a better camera!

Thanks also to Justin for the kind use of his photos.

Cheers,

- Drax.

663 - German E-50 Standardpanzer Finished

...it's too big, of course, to fit in my lightbox though, so the pics aren't too good.

With hearty thanks again to Zzzzzz for the model,

[By the way: blogger has been weird with comments recently, so I apologise if yours have disappeared...]

- Drax.