Whacked Pak

Remember this photo?

Well, here's the result of my attempt to replicate it:

PSC gives you empty shell casings in the set, which really helps with the atmosphere.

And here's the view of the whole destroyed gun.

The availability of cheap plastic kits aimed mainly at wargamers makes creating wrecked vehicles and guns as terrain pieces affordable. PSC is planning to release German trucks, so I hope to do the same thing with one. Problem is, you actually need a detailed kit if you want to reproduce a wrecked truck, because it's when a truck is blown up that you can really see the innards and axles and all the other bits which you hate having to glue together for your wargaming pieces. Take a look at this:

From militarymodels.co.nz

From militarymodels.co.nz

See what I mean? Now you know why they made the tyres separate from the wheels in Tamiya kits!

Anyway, if you do come across a photo of a destroyed Opel Blitz or similar which looks like it can be reproduced in 20mm, please send it my way. Thanks.

X-Wings again

Thomas joined fg and I for a game this afternoon, and it turns out he has bought almost every single X-Wing supplement released!

He had more ships that we can possibly handle, so we played a 150-points aside game. I chose to play the Imperial side and fly some TIE Interceptors which I have never played, and fg chose to use the Millennium Falcon (OK, the generic version with a generic pilot and generic pilot) and the A-Wing and B-Wing, all of which we haven't played before. Thomas took the other half of the Rebel force with two X-Wings and an A-Wing.

I am not sure if it was my poor piloting or my poor dice-rolls, but I found the TIE Interceptors to be a disappointment; without shields, they are rather vulnerable. I think I will stick with the TIE Advance from now on.

It was another enjoyable game nonetheless, and we wondered if we should get our hand on the D&D version of the franchise when it is released.

Liebstered

Thank you Nate for nominating me.

The rules of this meme are (amazing how the meaning of meme has changed over the past few decades, isn't it?):

1: Copy and paste the award on your blog linking it to the blogger who has given it you.

2. Pass the award to your top 11 blogs with less than 200 followers by leaving a comment on one of their posts to notify them that they have won the award and listing them on your own blog.


3. Sit back and bask in the warm fuzzy feeling that comes with knowing you have made someones day!


4. There is no obligation to pass this onto someone else but it's nice if you take the time to do so.


And now to the questions...

1. Why did you start blogging?

Several reasons. To keep a log of the games my gang and I played, show my works in progress, share my ideas and work with other fellow gamers. I benefit from other gamers' blogs, and hope mine can be helpful to others in turn.

2. If you could change one thing about the wargaming hobby, what would it be?


Well, not the hobby itself per se, but I wish postage was cheaper - that would probably stimulate sales and provide more incentives for companies to release new stuff.

3. What is best in life?


To not live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

4. Do you want to live forever?

Yes. Yes I do.

5. Fame or fortune?


Fame never dies. But if I were immortal, then maybe fortune...

6. What miniatures are you most proud of having painted?

7. How do you deal with burn out?

Step away from what I've been doing and either do something a little different (making terrain, computer games) or altogether different (cook, read). 


8. Why is a raven like a writing desk?


One of its legs are both the same.

9. Star Wars or Star Trek?


Star Trek. Because greatness lies in the choices you make, not in some hokey religion. There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny.

10. If you could only buy from one miniature company from now on, which one would it be?


Tough one. I'm going to cheat by going with Eureka, because if you wanted something bad enough you can try to get them to produce it under the Club 300 scheme.

11. What is your favourite takeaway?

Takeaway sushi by default, because it won't get cold.


Well, two of the four blogs I have on my reading list have already got the award, so I will tag Dan and, er, Dan.

X-Wing and Pak 38

fg came over for a game of X-Wing and we used the new star mat that he bought.

Rebel and Imperial forces duke it out in an asteroid field.

He chose a mat with a hex grid as our other starship game of choice is Starmada Compendium, which uses hexes.

My order from Plastic Solider Company arrived earlier in the week, but unfortunately there was a mistake with the order, which means there will be a few week's delay in our planned campaign. Nevertheless, I thought I should just work with what I have on hand and continue to build up my terrain collection.

The PSC Pak 38 box comes with four guns, so after assembling one and passing two to fg in case he decided to start a German force, I thought I would make a wrecked gun as a terrain piece. I thought I would make it a "realistic" terrain piece and base it on a photo of an actual destroyed Pak 38 gun; turns out those aren't common on Google (most are actually of restored guns or of the crew in action, taken from the rear or side). I did manage to find one photo on flickr (sorry, I didn't note down the user):

Here is my attempt to duplicate that in 20mm:

I think I didn't do too badly, although I wonder if I should remove the rivets on the right side of the gun shield, which appear to have popped off due to the impact of the round.

Should be fun to paint, this.

More CoC Terrain

Work on terrain bits continue...

Klaus strolls between two camouflaged Fujimi pillboxes.

I'm not sure why I built those as the CoC rules don't cover them; they came in the box so I thought I might as well just do them up.

Klaus walks behind a log pile.

I made this from a twig I picked up. It provides enough cover for a team of infantry.

A US minefield

I also decided to make another minefield, and this time I thought I would mark it as a US minefield. As I can't find an image of what a US minefield sign looks like, I decided to create one based on a iconic US sign...

Achtung! Chain of Command

Over the past couple of weeks the gang and I decided we will get into WW2 wargaming again; wahj has a dozen 1/72 T-34s of various makes, and Martin has Brits and Americans infantry and armour, so it was a matter of getting some Germans and Soviet infantry. That decided the scale.

For the rules I decided to try the Chain of Command rules from Too Fat Lardies; I have read good reviews of the rules and after reading them through I think I will enjoy them.

So I ordered some hard plastic German infantry and support weapons which I plan to sort, assemble, and the send off to a painter. They have not yet arrived so I busied myself with terrain-making, which is after all what makes a WW2 game look like a WW2 game.

Here are the results of this week's work.

The watchtower and the sentry box are from two Fujimi kits, while the barrier is made from parts from one of the Fujimi kits plus some styrene rods and strips I had - the original barrier was too short and I needed something longer than 2" long to span the roads I also ordered. I decided that painting the sentry box in that black-white-and-red chevron pattern is beyond my skills and opted for an unpainted look.

The two area terrain pieces are made from the Pegasus barb wire set. The larger enclosed area measures 6" x 6" and represents a minefield in CoC rules, while the smaller one measures 6" x 2" and represents a barb wire obstacle. The posts actually come longer/taller than that which is shown in the picture. They have 3 hooks along their length and I cut them down to 2 for the minefield and 1 for the obstacle, which depicts just the entanglement part of a full wire obstacle.

Klaus checks the guard duty roster for the week.

Minen! sign, which - let's face it - is half the fun of modeling a minefield.

Detail of the Pegasus barb wire and a sprig of tree moss.

Since I have decided to outsource the painting of the figures to a painting service, I hope I can devote more time to making small terrain accents in the weeks before we are ready to play.