Scrivsland: April 2016

Sunday, 10 April 2016

Spanish Foreign Legion reinforcements

Another bunch of figures that have been slowly having paint slapped on them amidst the chaos of the house move. Eleven La Legion for my Spanish Civil War collection from Empress Miniatures. As usual great Paul Hicks sculpts. About another 20 to go and I shall be able to field a full strength Seccion (Platoon) in our Chain of Command games.

Eagle eyed readers will note a glaring error on the second batch I painted, black shoes! WTF was I thinking, I shall have to do a forfeit!

These chaps shall soon join their colleagues and the rest of the SCW collection that is due to dock at New York tomorrow evening. Exciting times!

A few more close-ups.

Black Guard coming along nicely

I painted the four command figures just in January and managed to paint these eight spearmen last month but only got my act together to do the bases and varnish them this weekend.

All are from the Gripping Beast Moors range, I have another 8 primed and ready for painting when we get to Madison, these are now packed and ready to be put into my suitcase, I don't know what security shall make of them.....

The final 14 Bosche for James before we leave

In two weeks time Victoria and I shall be on our way to the airport and starting a new chapter in our lives when we relocate to Wisconsin. As you can imagine, I have been pretty busy with sorting things out for that, but, I wanted to wrap up a few painting commitments before we leave.

James and I have done rather a lot of work together over the past 18 months on our Battle of Verdun project and those of you following our posts will know that although James has done the bulk of the French I have provided all the Germans. So that he has some opponents while I am in the USA I have been painting a platoon of Hun for him, wrapping up the last 14 with a coat of varnish this morning.

Six German Infantry in Assault Packs

Six German Officers and NCOs

A flame-thrower from the German Specialists pack.

Here are a selection of close-ups. That German Officers and NCOs pack especially has some really characterful models.

Wednesday, 6 April 2016

Battlegroup Kursk

Over the Easter weekend Victoria was away so I took the opportunity to have my first crack at Battlegroup Kursk with chum Steve.

Steve has an extensive collection of 20mm WWII toys, quite a few of which used to be my own, and there is more than enough for us.

From previous experience Steve suggested that we did not go mad and limited the forces available to about 500pts. We picked a Soviet force of two infantry platoons, each with a Maxim and a 45mm anti-tank gun, a platoon of 3 T-70, a platoon of 3 T-34, a platoon of 3 SU-76 and a battery of off-table 81mm mortars.

The Germans fielded an armoured Panzer-Grenadier platoon with a PaK40, a platoon of 3 StuG IIIF and a platoon of 3 Pz IIIL, these were supported by a battery of off-table 8cm mortars.

As it was my first go with the rules we decided to play the simple, corner-to-corner meeting engagement with escalating forces.

It was a couple of weeks ago and my memory is a bit hazy, but it was a great game which swung back and forth. My SU-76 battery managed to destroy one StuG and disable another before succumbing to the inevitable barrage of return fire. My T-34 swept majestically into the fray polishing off the StuGs before falling victim to the 50mm guns on the Panzers and to add insult to injury the 37mm on teh SdKfz251/10

My infantry was getting the better of it though and soon the Krauts were suffering, having lost three of their for HQ units they were really suffering to get off commands.

Having hidden my T-70's until all the 'big gun' threats were eliminated they swept down on the unfortunate Panzer-Grenadiers and mopped them up, the German morale crashed and it was a resounding victory to the Soviets.

From first impressions the Battlegroup rules seem to play very well although there is some 'clunkyness' especially regarding indirect fire. But, I'd be happy to play them again.

All the lovely terrain and figures is from Steves collection, nearly all my toys are now mid-Atlantic and I did not even have a tape or dice of my own!

Tuesday, 5 April 2016

And the clearout continues

Three weeks from now we shall be in Madison WI so the final push is on to clear out the books and figures that I'm getting rid of.

Here is another pile of books, terrain and figures to move on to a new home.

All prices include UK postage & packing, contact me for international postage.

Grab yourselves a bargain!

The Last Argument of Kings by Warlord Games - £16.00