The last models of 2012 ?

I started my new Bolt Action project on German Fallschirmjagers platoon just at the end of the year ! painting them is quite difficult (i did it in 15 mm but 28mm splinter camo is a very though task) and my first experiments are quite frustrating... 

However I am quite excited since I decided to use 1/48 vehicles instead of the resin ones. They are much better suited to heroic 28mm figures and also superior to resin models in terms of details.

My first experiment is an old Bandai model i retrieved from my basement: a fantastic JagdTiger. A real monster on Tiger II chassis and with 128mm gun able to pierce any armor !

I think the test succeeded reasonably well although painting leaks and washes on light colors is more difficult than on the olive drab. I used a black spray primer and then airbrushed the base color which is a mix of Tamiya  acrylics: 2/3 of Xf60  dark yellow and 1/3 Xf55 deck tan which makes a very convincing dunkelgelb with a light tone suitable for further washes and filters. Tamiya acrylics are really a fantastic surprise. They are very easy to spry and extremely matt: the berst you can use for vehicles.

The camo is sprayed by using vallejo air panzer brown 041 and Tamiya deep green Xf26. Then I sprayed a gloss varnish and applied two filters (paine grey and burnt umber) and a black wash using the technique shown in panzermania tutorial. 

I resprayed gloss cote and applied leaks, sponge, pigments and mud again following panzermania tutorial.

The result is fine and allowed me to test all the techniques on a tank that is quite unlikely i will ever use on the field.

BTD new generals

In the BTD pack I couldn't resist purchasing two of their leaders series... they are great and very funny adds to my armies who now have Hig rank commanders to distribute medals after the games !

Comparing BTD and Warlords USGI

BTD,Warlord tin, BTD, Warlord tin

I was also tempted by the black friday sale of BTD and purchased a team of USGI to complement my rangers...

I was very favorably impressed by the figures i received (for about 1EU each !) They are good and with good details and proportions.. for an awesome informed review on the figures and their equipment see the wwpd forum.

What I was concerned was the compatibility with Warlord figures which formed the bulk of my armies and the real surprise is that they are very compatible both in terms of height and of overall shape... At a close look heads are sometimes larger and sculpting is less accurate but the poses are varied and in many cases very nice (look at the two advancing GIs above).
Overall I was very happy of the purchase and will repeat it at the next sale... (I also bought a FJ squad that I am currently painting).

Rangers Heavy Weapons

To complete my rangers I got and painted an MMG and a light mortar. I think I will proxy the light mortar as a medium one since the light has two disadvantages. The main one is the lack of observer that makes it difficult to use it in game boards with a lot of terrain features (as they should be). The second one is the little damage (D3) that it make when it can hit.
Also the mmg did not impressed me a lot: 65 points for 3 dices is not that much...

At least the models look great and the bases are nice little dioramas. Note the damage dice and the .5 frame that I bought from minibits to hold the dice that I use to mark the casualties since the figures in the team are less than required (respectively they should be 3 crew for the mmg and 3-4 for the mortar).

The willys painted

Another addition to my rangers : the willys jeep finished with the same treatment of the rest of the US vehicles. It just need the painted crew. My use of the jeep is as mobile MMG (or HMG) without the crew or to assign it to the LT.

Painted Sherman

I could not really wait too much to paint the fantastic Warlords Sherman. I painted with airbrush using the vallejo 887 brown violet and used the same weathering treatment presented for the M3 halftrack.

This little hero performed very well in its first battle. It entered the field from reserves and at the second attempt it destroyed a concealed Stug III !

Unboxing Warlord Sherman, willys and crew

It's quite a long time I don't post but I was really busy with my work. Nevertheless I found a little time to proceed a little with my Boltaction Rangers. I received my order from Warlords which included some vehicles for the yankees.
Here you will see the M4 Sherman and the willys jeep box content. The metal and resin components are a finely detailed and with little flash.

Just an important note for the assembly of the sherman: remember to glue the metal parts of the wheels of the tracks BEFORE gluing the tracks to the main body since otherwise it wil be difficult to mount the internal one... (this was what happened to me!)

M3 Half track painted

Here is the result of my first attempt to paint a Bolt Action scale model. I tried most of the weathering techniques that I found explained in this fantastic tutorial.
I used oil paint for Leaks and Streaks and oil wash as explained by Buypainted followed by pigments for dust effect and pencil. For the heavy chipping I used goblin green as a base and the mud is done by mixing plaster with pigment, fine sand and vinylic glue.

The overall result is nice although some things can be improved... I will do better on the forthcoming M4 Tank !

Comments welcome

No Decals ? No panic !

I really wanted to start painting  the M3 halftrack nut have no usable US invasion star decals... then I decided to try preparing a stencil and use the airbrush for producing some decent stars.

I surfed a little on the net and then opted for a rather simple solution. I downloaded some samples and printed them on a transparent sheet. Then I cut three stencils with Xacto knife and sick them on the half track. I masked it carefully and used the airbrush loaded with white color: the result was quite good although since the stencil did not adhere fully I needed to refine the star manually a little. Next time I think I would use adhesive paper that sticks better to the surface to be painted.

To see the stencil and the results ...

FOW tournament 11/11

Today i participated to a FOW tournament at our local shop Goblin Bologna. The tournament was for Late war lists up to 2000 points.  There were 18 participants which is not a bad number for Italy nowadays.
I used my veteran British Paras but with a list from A bridge too far (Frost perimeter) that I never adopted before.

I had

Command (Frost) + 2 piat
3 x full para rifle plat
2 x antitank 6pdr plat
1 x assault plat
1 x artillery
1 x machine gun
1 x mortar
1 x recce with 2 squads

Overall I arrived 7th with 2 won and 1 lost battles... but more importantly I got the painting prize !

Chickamauga 1863

We are refighting the second battle of Chickamauga between the Union army of Cumberand and the Confederate army of the Tennesseee, 18-20 September, 1863.

Unboxing Warlord M3 A1 Halftrack

Hi I finally got my order from wayland and unpacked the M3A1 Halftrack. Here you will see the box contents and my comments.














Actually this is slightly different from that present in the warlords site that is denoted as
M3 Halftrack

maybe it was an old product... anyway it's very similar

Back to Fire and Fury !

The first love is hard to forget !  With the ambitious project of refighting Gettysburg we removed the dust from our beloved 20mm ACW troops. I quickly started painting some Union troops and really enjoyed them. These will join my Hanckock IInd corp and will soon fight alongside their friends !

Next in the list is the Iron Brigade as part of Reynolds corp.

The miniatures are Italeri Union troops

FOW Battle Report

I had an interesting fight with my Devil's Charge SS panzercompany against an US infantry coy.
The game was an Hold the line mission with the US on the defensive side. It has been a very bitter fighting with several errors on both sides (also due to a big amount of rust on the rules mechanics that i need to remove)...




My German List
HQ 1 Panther
1 Panther Plat (3)
2 Pz IV Plat (5 each, one proxyed with stug)
2 wiberlwind (proxied)
1 sd 231
1 ss artillery (3 guns)

Ranger Platoon completed, Part II

the second option of the magnetized arm: a sergent

Here is the gallery for the two squads
All men have Rangers shoulder pad and I put a couple of US flags on the other arm of the LT and a sergent

Ranger Platoon Completed, Part I

option A of the magnetized arm: Bangalore !

I am really happy to show the complete ranger platoon. It has been quite long to produce them since i needed to be acquainted to the new size and system but the last ten figures required me much less time than the first one. I am quite happy about the overall result that is quite homogeneous. Now I need some heavy weight and the platoon is ready... I am waiting from the lmg, mortar and Halftrack ...






see the gallery for HQ and specialists here...

Warlord announces US command

Exciting news in the Warlord site: they are about to release a stunning set of US command pieces. It includes a superior officer an observer and a medic... lots of heads and superb poses !

eager to have them in my hands !

Review 28mm US figures

Having entered the fantastic world of 28mm WWII miniatures i started surfing the net in search of miniatures and vehicles producers suitable for my new US late war project.

At the moment I restrict the survey to US Infantry (and rangers). Later I will add others as marines and paras.

Featured:
Warlord Games
Black Tree Design
Company B
Westwindproductions
Die Waffenkammer

The first completed rangers

Hi all tonight I completed the first batch of 4 figures. The officer, a sergeant and the bazooka team.

I am pretty happy of the final result although I used the army painter dip (dark tone)...

Rangers WIP 4 Basecoat

I primed and put the first two basic colors with the airbrush.



I used the vallejo grey primer. Then I painted jacket in khaki. After the first khaki layer i added white and sprayed from above so as to produce some highlight.

Rangers WIP 3 Magnets !

I really wanted to use bangalores in the rangers pack so i decided to magnetize them so as to change if they are not used...

I really like the result. the piece can become the NCO of my second squad instead...

Rangers WIP 2 Assembly completed

I finished tonight the assembly of my rangers platoon.
It will be made up by two squads plus some specialists. I am pretty happy about the first result though it was quite a long job. I am happy about the variety it can be obtained though some more variation in arm types would be great (some "at rest" variants would be helpful in assembling specialists).





Here's the first squad. NCO with gun, bar, 1/2 smgs and 5/6 rifles. I love the Bar with woolen cap and helmet in his back

Rangers WIP 1

Here some photos of assembled miniatures for my rangers.

You may see a great flamethrower and a bazooka team where the metal parts are very visible...

Bolt Action Unboxing US rangers

My first Bolt Action project is a platoon of US rangers (I decided after looking for the nth+1 time Saving Private Ryan). I grabbed a Box of Warlords US rangers at my local shop (Goblin !) and started looking at them.

Actually the box is made by 5 + 3 sprues from the standard US infantry box + a bag of metal items to characterize them as Rangers.

Bolt Action !

I enthusiastically bought a copy of the new Bolt Action rules ! I was really excited about startin a new project involving large scale figures for the WWII (so as to keep using my fantastic airbrush !)
Here is the copy I finally got from Amazon. At a first reading the rules are simple and the game seems playable only requiring 20-40 men and 1-2 vehicles/tanks. I hope some folk here around will start an army so as to have a mate to play with... I live in Italy and finding opponents is always a drama !

Necron army for sale

I am trying to make a little space in my basement and sell some unused armies. Here is a large lot of necrons mostly painted to good to very good standard. They should be on ebay however if interested please contact me.

My (self made) workbench

This is my self made workbench. It is broadly inspired by the citadel one and made of plain wood with an old ikea table cover as cutting base. I find it very useful and allows me to remove almost all what I need quickly from the table.

Lord of change

This is my last production. It took me lot of time to finish this impressive demon lord. Mainly because it is very difficult to paint: the wings and the vest represent a real challenge.
I used the second head to produce a two-heads model.
I painted most of the model pre-airbrush so it is mainly a dry brush painting effect. I also started using Vallejo liquid gold and was really happy of the effect. To ease the transport the model has detachable magnetized wings and arm. I had a great fun with that. Hope you will like them (apologize for the awful pictures taken with my iPad : I have my pc broken and am using the iPad app to post).

Screamers of Tzeench

I bought the new screamers of tzeench and I really love them. Very good models with a lot of details and parts that allow for some variety. I somehow automatically replaced the stand with my metal bar + magnet because I hate the old stands but overall I think it's not a good idea because the new stands are very good. Again I tried to use airbrush for the blue painting. I am not happy of the outcome for the airbrush. It took me several layers and I choose the wrong color shades... however I learned a lot for the next time! Using airbrush for WHFB figures is not trivial at all but is a very good alternative to traditional paint.

Herald of Tzeench on disc

I recently bought some of the new chaos demons that is my last warhammer army. Here you will see my latest painted model that is the finecast herald of tzeench. I tried to mimic the excellent buypainted tutorial because I wanted to try using airbrush on a 28mm model. The result is not bad overall (I used airbrush on the disc only).

German vs American Battle Report

Tonight I played at Goblin shop a nice (not for me) game using a Blood, Guts and Glory German FHH panzer company (with my brand new panthers!). Besides from the good look the company performed quite bad being very difficult to mount back bailed out reluctant tanks...

88 mm (work in progress)

I am using the two additional 88 I found in the old box (two with resin bases were painted in Afrika colors). I was inspired by the camo I saw in the spotlight and tried to replicate it... It seems to me that my spot are larger and darker but it was a wonderful exercise with aribrush to try to make small and light spots on the shield...

 

Nebelwerfer and 75mm IG

 My nebelwerfer section of 3 guns GE590.

 

German 105mm battery

This is the battery of 105 mm GE571, namely the leFH18 howitzers see also here. It is an old product not the new one in the box that comes with nice resin bases. nevertheless I think I did quite a good job on the bases anyway.

 

Nice aircraft bases

This is quite simple alternative idea to the typical aricraft mount for FOW (that easily gets broken).

First of all look at the effect.

you may put the aircraft in the usual horizontal way...

...or you may bend it to have a much better looking

 

Panzer Grenadier part I

I bought a box of panzer grenadiers with late hanomags. This summer I painted with airbrush the hanomag... the grenadiers are on the way (will put them in part II when done).

the four hanomags of the platoons

the command Sd 251/10 late

more photos