Well the past few weeks have been a real mixed bag of the sort of stuff that 'real life' throws at you, when it decides it wants to derail all of your best laid plans and all that! So gaming related activity has been intermittent at best, as my poor old grey cells have been too muddled for anything much if I'm honest. At least after my recent Fall Rot 1940 game (AAR here), I did have a spurt of painting, which can be seen below, as I wanted to finally get some paint on a mix of AFVs that I've had in the lead pile for over 15 years now!
 |
| The dangers of browsing ebay, where I picked up this nice French WWII bomber for future France 1940 games. |
 |
| Some Panzer 38 (t)'s. |
 |
| 6 of them that I think I bought for Rommel's 'Ghost Division'. |
 |
| Pz III Kurz, that I 'converted' from the Lang variant by cutting down the barrel length. Back in the day I think this was the only Pz III Pendraken did. |
 |
| Stug III ausf A with command vehicle. |
 |
| Whilst the German panzer grey is a tad dark for 10mm miniatures, it does paint up very quickly, with a wash and drybrush over the base coat. I'm in two minds as to whether to apply balkan kreuz's and turret numbers to the vehicles, with the former being very tiny and thus hard to apply, ditto with the latter, especially when trying to cover turret hatches, as they don't sit flat, which would annoy me! |
The Barbarossa Campaign
Whilst painting the above AFV's and with others in the queue and on painting sticks, my mind turned towards trying a few games set during the invasion of Russia in 1941. This was another driving force in getting my long neglected Panzers painted. I read a good Osprey Campaign book on Army Group South, where the Russians at least put up a good show of resistance in places, and on occasion actually counter-attacked, just the sort of thing to make for some fun standalone games or mini-campaigns.
Campaigns In General
The campaigns I've played last year highlighted one or two issues with regards to maintaining the momentum of them, certainly with regards to WWII. Firstly it is one of actually having all the kit you need before embarking on the campaign itself. It's all well and good thinking the campaign will drive you to paint more stuff, which on one level is true, but I find that I actually struggle to find the time for this. Much better to start things off once you have all the kit you need, which is rather blindingly obvious! Secondly as 'real life' is wont to disrupt your plans, keep things to around 3-5 narrative campaign games, as anymore than that and the drive dissipates in my experience and generally you've reached a natural conclusion to the campaign anyway.
What Next?
Well I did manage a lovely little Honours of War game today, so an AAR on that will follow in due course, most likely at some point tomorrow. I have plenty more AFVs to paint, both German and British, as well as a mixed bag of Infantry and Support Weapons. I need to take stock of where I'm at before ploughing ahead regardless. Easier said than done of course!
Spring is threatening to give us some nice weather, but not for a while yet I'm afraid. We could all do with some sunshine and warmth after the all too brief taster of last week. Once it does arrive gardening and other activities will take lots of my time for sure.
Thanks for reading and as always, any comments greatly appreciated!
TTFN.
You’ve made more progress than I have in the last couple of months Steve. And I don’t have much of an excuse in terms of real life if I’m being honest.
ReplyDeleteChris/Nundanket
I was lucky that the Muse was upon me post the Fall Rot game, so I made much more progress than normal. Also life just sort of fell into place to allow me to paint whilst the modd took me, which is unusual. It is a hobby afterall, so I've learnt not to sweat it too much if I can't do all that I want, with reading a great fall back to keep one at least doing something!
DeleteShame so called "real life" got in the way of your plans Steve, but you seem to be on track with the painting at least! Do you have a load of Blitzkrieg era Soviets for Barbarossa?
ReplyDeleteBeing a parent carer can really throw you a curve ball, which it did a few weeks ago! Still dealing with the fall out, but things are looking up. As for some Soviets Keith, I've cheated before by using my AVBCW 'Communists' in lieu of actual WWII troops, which at this scale you can get away with! I just need to paint up some more AFV's to give me some options alongside my current T-26's, T-28's and T-35's.
DeleteSorry to hear Real Life has been a bit of a pain. Yes, sadly it often works out that way, as I know too well at the moment. Nice work on the WW2 stuff, although it's not really my period (too few big colourful flags! ;-)). Looking forward to your Honours of War game report. :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks David! I thought my 'retirement' would give me more time, which in a sense it does, but with that comes uncertainty of what each day may bring on the parent carer front. Planning is even harder than when I worked! WWII is great if you like tanks, which I do, but it does look rather dull compared to a colourful Italian Wars or SYW game. Fingers crossed the AAR up this morning...
DeleteI remember painting my Panzers, just for Flames of War, but I wasn't convinced about that grey armor either.
ReplyDeleteBTW, your preparations for campaign looking great :)
I'm sure the Vallejo paints etc look great on 20mm and 28mm AFV's, but at the smaller scales it does make the miniatures look very dark, so some artistic licence is required. Hopefully I can make some progress on some Soviet AFV's in the next week or so to get in a game or two...
DeleteWe all have those distractions I guess. Lovely looking tanks I need to get back to some Eastern front gaming as my 6mm stuff is underused.
ReplyDeleteIt would be great to see your 6mm troops in action Matt:)!
DeleteFine looking armored columns! Panzer grey can look too dark on smaller scales but I still use it. I remember how dark the models looked in the old Bandai 1/48 cover art. I kinda liked the look.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jon:)! The colour does look rather good when seen on vehicles at the Tank Museum, but when on miniatures or models in a vareity of sclaes, there is quite a range of interpretation of what the grey should look like.
DeleteThe shade of grey you choose is the right one!
DeleteThe Vallejo German Grey is very close, with just a light drybrush over it to lighten the edges a bit so they 'pop' once on the table.
DeleteVery nice additions to the forces!
ReplyDeleteThanks David and hopefully they will see some action in due course:).
DeleteA few more vehicles never goes amiss Steve. Of course, using ones from your “storage/stock” (or “mountain of unpainted lead” or “pile of opportunity” or whatever people choose to call it) is a very cost effective idea 😉
ReplyDeleteI’d be tempted to add some markings to the vehicles if only to aid identification by aircraft, but I understand things aren’t always easy in the smaller scales.
Cheers,
Geoff
Thanks Geoff:). I'm still in two minds re: the decals, but maybe I'll give it a try one day when my arm isn't too shaky. Mind you some of them are so small I think I might lose track of them in the water as they soften!
DeleteGood looking tiny armour and a lovely French bomber!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Thanks Iain:)! Yep, the French do have some cool aircraft and certainly the best Early WWII camo schemes for sure.
Delete