Taking the Uber Pledge, Colours and Kickstarter.

I, Eddie 'Fez-man' Turner, do here by honestly Uber-pledge to only purchase new models once I have painted two equivalent models from my existing collection.

There, I am actually bound by this now.

So I'm lucky that I've already pledged for a Platoon of 28mm Finns on the Baker Company 'Winter War' Kickstarter:

Check out the Winter War kickstarter here... go on, just a little look....

One platoon of Winter Fins for the early war invasion by the Soviets. As I know our local Soviet nutter Tuffskull Townsend will inevitability end up with an early war Soviet army, I jumped in. Then the total climbed. And Climbed. And Climbed.

With the free unlocked stretchgoals, I am now going to have more that 1,000pts for Bolt Action. I'll be blogging these guys when they arrive! (The Fins are in the new Italy and Axis book due in Nov)

How did I find this awesome deal? I was checking out another kickstarter I have backed - Now you see why I needed the pledge! 

My good friend Brian runs Anarchy Models (Who do many many awesome things, click here!) and is an award winning painter. He decided that the airbrushing community didn't have anyone supplying them with amazing stencil/masks. So he created this monster of a kickstarter:

If you have an airbrush, click here. If you don't, click here anyway and buy one from Brian. Its super easy!

Do check it out, these things are amazing! 

So, we went to colours last Sunday, and managed to take an entire album of photos:

So... Generic.

 Yup. Thats it.

Sorry for getting carried away with the awesomeness that was inside, all the retailers, displays and even just the Tournament armies from the Flames of War games were superb!

I'll do better next show, honest!

 I picked up some great books, some basing material (coming to the FJ bases soon). Some more PSC basecoat sprays (Dunklegelb, British Armour, US Armour), and third Kingtiger, and this tank of awesomeness:

There's a Maus, laus, about this haus!

All these will be reviewed in due time, but if you have any preferences, then comment below!

Its the pink-wafter biscuit foam effect (tm)

Oh, and my girlfriend got some pink and white foam from KR cases. Shes still smiling over it. Will post pictures of the Bolt Action US Airborne in pink foam when we swap the cases over.....

US vs Soviets on the left, Panthers vs Brits on the right

Once we got back from Newbury, we thought we would try out the Tank Aces 'Scrapyard' mission as we are going to run the campaign at the games club in October. Yes, that is 15+ soviet tanks for under 500pts.

Tank wrecks everywhere. Was a draw after all the dust settled!

Scrapyard indeed, my panthers got eaten by fireflies. Oh well, I'm thinking of using Hummel tigers :-)

Sorry for the scatterbrain post, will get back to the normal schedule shortly!

Fez

Road to War(fare) part #2 Luftlandesturm Platoon Building

Two Luftlandesturm Platoon's form the core of the my Warfare army, and I guessed that it they were as good a place as any to start!

I'll be using the new 'holey' bases as I like not having my guys on lumpy pedestals.

Random fun fact of the day: I'm a little fat to be a Fallschirmjager. No seriously, you needed to weigh less than 85Kg fully clothed!

The models themselves are battlefronts usual great standard, however I do wish that there was a little more verity in the models, as quite a few of them are the same pose. 

When they are all put together, they don't look half bad.

By using one of the spare riflemen (having been replaced by the flamethrower) I was able to use the Walter Koch figure as the IC - when I make the second platoon I'll rearrange these to make the 2iC.

As far as painting goes, I'm tempted to do a mix of the early war block grey smocks, with a scattering of Splinter cammo - The cammo smocks were issued in '41 before the invasion of Crete, and as my prominent early war opponent is Russians, it would be cool to have them as a 'What if' force for the eastern front, instead of the Mediterranean. Also means I can use these guys as mid-war FJ pioneers without them looking too odd. I'll cover the painting in another blog.

Only one of the models had a misaligned mold, but I could just swap him for the second Flamethrower it was no biggie. Fitting them into the circle bases took a couple of snips with the clippers for some of them, but it was easy enough.

Off to Colours tomorrow!

Hobby-How-To: Building the FoW Open Fire Plastic Shermans

Welcome to the first "Hobby-How-Too", a short guide on a certain technique or hobby kit.

So, like many, I was full of hobby froth when Battlefront announced the new 'Open Fire' starter set full of amazing looking models. Then, sadly, I too was full of hobby sadness when I struggled to put the Sherman tanks together in any sort of respectable fashion.

After having put two box sets worth of Sherman's together, I've found the weak spots of the kit, and can now make them look respectable with the minimum of effort - they are great plastic kits, and really great value!

The Enemy

After clipping the model out, and dry fitting the hull together, you'll notice that the right hand track just doesn't sit... right. That's because the back of the hull 'T' is too long. By clipping this down, you'll be able to sit the right track easier. Don't worry, the top of the hull covers this up, so unless you're specifically looking you'll not see the hole.

DON'T GLUE ANYTHING YET! This take a bit of effort, but by holding the hull together, you can test fit the top on:

And there is problem number two! Don't worry, its a simple fix. Don't forget, these are Battlefronts first attempt at a plastic tank, and they've managed to capture their style instead of the Plastic Soldier Companies lovely Scale model approach.

Onwards! By careful trimming then test fit then trimming again of the areas below, you can get a much better fit of the hull:

Then comes the fun fun time of gluing. I glue the bottom, sides and top of the hull all at once with plastic glue, and carefully hold them using the patented Fez-grip:

Nice. But how'd I take the picture....?

I've you've filed everything nicely, it shouldn't take long to dry.

The Rest its rather easy, just make sure that you use enough glue on the barrel, as it is a pain when they pop off....

Any questions, pop them below!

Fez

Pew Pew - Take that Jerry!

The pledge....mk II

So while the main topic of this Blog at the moment will be my preparations for the Flames of War tournament at Warfare Reading UK (http://www.wargamesassociationreading.co.uk/) I thought I might as well pop some other hobby bits and pieces up here to keep things interesting!

Oh dear Bloggs.....

This is what awaited me on my desk at work this morning..... I think I have failed at 'the pledge' (See http://hobbybrush.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/taking-pledge.html for more on this)

The basic idea is that you can only buy what you have painted, so if you need a new tank, you've got to paint and finish one of your existing tanks. Which is great, only I live in constant fear.
Constant fear that any second, I could be obliterated by a Hobby-lanche......

Yup. This isn't all of it.

It wouldn't be so bad if that was all there was, but I can't be bothered to take pictures of all the flat. Its alot, needless to say.

The Solution?

UBERPLEDGE

I'm going to take the uberpledge, and stick too it. Only this time, it'll be to a 2x1 ratio. I want a new platoon of tanks? I'll need to paint two before I'm allowed to buy it. Some of the Guildford Games Club members are joining me (although non on the uberpledge) so I'm sure we'll have another post then.

Although I'm not stupid enough to make the pledge now with the Colours wargame show on the weekend..... :-D

Fez

Road to War(fare)

So, I’ve paid for my first Flames of War Tournament Ticket. 
It’s 1500 points Early War.

I’ve played my share of G.W games, including tournaments that I got away too competitive at and ended up not enjoying. Flames of War has been a relatively new game for me, having only played locally.

So, after listening to all the wwpd guys tournament talk, planning, list composition, know the mission tactics etc, I’ve decided to throw all that out the window and take a Luftlandesturm Glider force.

Why? Well, they are gliders, so why wouldn’t you use them? Obviously, I’m massively bias as I am a glider pilot in real life.

Posing? Me? Neevveerrrr. *Puts on Dangerzone*

Due to treaty of Versailles, Germany was prohibited from having an Air Force. To train their new pilots, they decided to get the Hitler Youth into gliding – lots of outdoor team exercise while learning basic flying skills launching each other by bungee (a practise you can still experience here in the UK albeit from a hill and not a flat field: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFFJx4pwHnU). After the war they just kept developing the sport, and are now world leaders in glider manufacture (including the one pictured above)

However, I digress. The idea of taking a unique force that many people think is a rubbish one trick pony appeals to the hobby sadist side of me. Well, that and the chance to make some kick-ass models.

So what do you get for your 1500 points of Fallschirmjager?

Easy Army. God bless you.

My thoughts? Deploy the Flak 38’s and Pak 36’s on any objectives on my side, and scream the gliders onto their half of the board turn one, moving up the Flak 38’s if the enemy air cover requires it. The Stuka will bomb the crap out of anything that isn’t close enough to shoot/assault with that lovely pioneer goodness.

What about the glider landings? Well, having worked out that the glider landing run will be between 4-12 inches, (2” if I mess up and ‘prang’ one, so doesn’t count...), picking landing points that are 8” away from the unit I wish to assault will guarantee me a first turn assault with that lovely pinned/bailed defensive fire rule. I’m thinking that one flamethrower per platoon will be enough.

How will this fare in practise? I’ve yet to see, but that’s half the fun!

So, what does all of the above look like?

Mmmmmmm. Toys.

But wait, I imagine I hear you cry – whats with the JU-52? The 109? The peter pig models? Whats in the brown box in the background? Well, maybe not that last one. As the tournament is only an excuse to spend a weekend playing games, I thought I would push the boat out and go to town with the army transport/display tray, and the objectives. With that in mind, I’ve gotten some peter pig figures and the 109 for the objectives, and the “Taunte Ju” (ju-52) for the display tray.

As an experiement, I’ll be blogging the whole process, so I hope you’ll enjoy following along and giving hints and tips or feeling inspired about your own hobby. I’ll be sharing my techniques, along with any interesting history I discover while creating this unique army.

Right, thats about enough for an intro, now back to “Girls und Panzer”.....

Fez-man