When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Go Shopping!

I popped down to the South East of England over the past weekend, to visit a very good friend of mine who had just had a (successful) major operation in Brighton. As it's such a long way to go, I always tend to make a short holiday of such journeys, and this time was no exception. I spent a few relaxing days with my sister, and apart from a nightmare trip through the blizzard to visit my friend Nicky in the Sussex Nuffield Hospital, I also managed to get in a visit to the large Modelzone shop in Holborn. This is on the site of the old Beatties store (not the old, old Beatties store, which was in a tiny shop just across from the Underground). They had a fair-ish selection of stuff I wanted for my Battle! project. I picked up a box of the new Italeri US Infantry, as the old re-issued ESCI set has no radio operators, and the mortars in the new set are much better.



And after a twenty minute hunt through the rather badly organised shelves of kits, I did eventually find several of the fast-build Italeri M3 Halftracks, and bought three boxes, six vehicles in total. I also checked out the Sale shelves and found two very useful Revell 1/76 Wespes SPG's. These are the old Matchbox kits, re-issued under the Revell label. They are nice little models and easy to build, and as the sale price was £2.99 I bought two of them, which covers my Vulgarian Artillery contingent nicely.

Today I found some spare time between getting the little one into school, the usual housework, shopping, and picking up the kid from school. So I cracked on with slinging a couple of the M3's together. The fit of parts is mostly good, but the one-piece front bulkhead/instrument panel/windscreen needed a little carving to get it to fit inside the front hull. Failure to do so on the first one I built resulted in a small gap 'twixt bonnet and screen. I failed to notice this until the glue had dried, so I left it alone. But the next one was carefully checked for fit and the piece had some plastic trimmed away from the sides to make it sit better against the bonnet top.

I then tried to prime the thing. Now lately I have found this to be a frustrating process. I do wash the sprues before construction, to get rid of any mould release agent that might still be on then. But lately this has not been working. Is there a new agent being widely used? Who knows, but none of the plastic kits I have made so far on this project have liked being undercoated with my usual matt black acrylic. The plastic just seems to repel the paint, as can be seen in this photo of the back door on one of the M3's.



I eventually resorted to an undercoat of black enamel, which worked OK. Most odd.

Anyway, aside from that brief annoyance the project is rolling along nicely. The first three M3's will be painted as Moldovian vehicles, and the second three as Vulgarian, just to keep the forces balanced whilst the project continues.

Battling On.

I eventually decided that it was time to break out the painting kit again and push on with the Battle project. I had just started the Moldovian forces before the Christmas break, and so cracked on with the Infantry and a few AFV's.

The Moldovian AFV camo scheme is quite complex. A base coat of GW Catachan Green is applied, and then GW Vermin Brown and Bubonic Brown are rougly stippled in irregular blotches and patterns over the base colour. Once dry, those blotches are then outlined with GW Chaos Black.

Then the two colours are filled in with another coat of each, and then the Catachan Green base coat, and the Chaos Black lines, are tidied up. Finally the tank is weathered by dry-brushing with GW Kommando Khaki, and areas like the engine deck, gun muzzle and exhausts are stained with a thin black/brown ink wash.

The tracks are painted Boltgun Metal, and then stained with the same black/brown ink wash.



Vehicle tyres are painted with Tamiya NATO Black, which is THE best colour for tyres I have ever found. It dries quickly to a VERY matt black/grey, and the effect is very...um... tyre-like.. Is that a word? It is now.

The Moldovian Infantry are the old Esci US Infantry, re-released by Italeri. They are under-coated in black and then base-coated with GW Camo Green. The webbing and gaiters were Cote D'Arms Faded Khaki, the boots were black, and grenades, equipment and helmets were Catachan Green. The uniforms were then given a wash of GW Dark Green Ink. I did have a go dry-brushing a few with Kommando Khaki, but to be honest it made little or no difference to the look of the figure, so I left the rest with just the ink wash and saved myself a hour or so of work.



Incidently, the little Pagasus BA6 Armoured Cars are a delight to build. The fit of parts is perfect; they virtually snap togther, and produce a dinky little model that looks the part.

More Battle!

I have been rather productive this last month, considering all the other stuff that needs doing around the house in the run-up to Christmas.

The first batch of Vulgarian Infantry is now complete and varnished. Three Vulgarian AFV's and a truck have been completed, as has a Moldovian light tank, and two more Moldovian AFV's, a Panther and a BA-6 armoured car, are on the painting table as we speak.



However, in a day or so the painting table has to be tucked away as the Festive Season approaches. We have a guest coming to stay, a good friend, and she will use this room. I doubt it will be back out for a couple of weeks afterwards, as trips away will limit my free time.



And who knows? After the holiday I might fancy a break from "moderns", and crack on with my old Spencer Smith ACW project, which needs a couple more units finishing off, and some more artillery purchasing for the Rebs.

Battle! On.

Having completed almost half of the Vulgarian Infantry and all but one of the original batch of Vulgarian AFV's, I have started to work on the paint schemes for the Moldovian forces now.



The Russian Green/Catachan Green idea did turn out to be a bit bland, especially on the cute litle Pegasus tanks. I finished the base coats on a Panther and Jaguar, but to be honest I wanted something with a bit more pizazz to it. I had no desire to copy the historical German three-colour scheme, so I cast my mind back further and decided to try something along the lines of an old WW1 tank "splinter camouflage" scheme that I recall seeing a while back, with three colours and thick black outlines around the colour demarcation points. I used GW paints for the scheme; Chaos Black, Catachan Green, Vermin Brown and Bubonic Brown (very close to dark yellow).



I gave it a go on the Pegasus Jaguar and although it is not yet finished, I like the effect. It sort of gives the impression of a "not quite up-to-date" army, and has also opened my mind to the possibility of using the HaT 1/72 WW2 Polish Infantry as the troops for this nation, rather than the Italeri US Infantry I had previously envisaged.



In the background can be seen the first Vulgarian Opel Truck getting its base coat. This is the old Airfx kit. It's handy for the project as it comes with a 75mm AT Gun and crew, but it has drawbacks as a wargames model.

It is, to be honest, a little too fragile for the wargames table. I deliberately left out lots of the smaller parts, such as the cab interior, drive shafts, front mudguard width indicators and driver's door mirrors, in an attempt to make it less vulnerable. But even so, the thinness of some parts has already caused breakages at the painting stage.

Now I am by no means ham-fisted, but I managed to weaken and then break off both front wheels simply by holding the model very gently by them, while applying a base coat. The spindles on the axle are so thin (less than 0.5mm thick) that they barely offer enough strength to hold the weight of the model itself. In the end I cut the axles down, and will have to superglue the wheels directly to the springs in order to get a strong enough joint. This will work; it's not perfect but I'm not worried. I have another one to make up, but I think for the rest of the wheeled transport I shall use the Pegasus quick-build Opel Trucks as far as the Vulgarians are concerned.

Battle! Project Update.

I've been busy finishing off some figures during the few spare hours I have had recently. I did come to a full stop because, after years of Horse & Musket and Fantasy projects, where the figures were finished with gloss varnish, I found I had no matt varnish to hand.

Or I thought I hadn't. Eventually, after digging through some boxes that had been tucked away for years, I found a small bottle of Humbrol matt varnish. Luckily if had not gone yellow or solidified, but it had separated and the top was solid, and required more muscle power to shift than I could manage. Thankfully a jar opener was purloined from the kitchen, and the top eventually yielded to brute force. I spent a couple of minutes stirring the thick gunk at the bottom of the bottle and eventually I got a good consistent thickness of liquid varnish. I tried it out on the underside of a tank to see if it was still OK, before risking it on a painted figure.

But it was fine so the first batch of finished Vulgarian Infantry got a coat of it and it worked well, with no yellowing. However, I tend not to brush varnish onto AFV's, as it always looks dreadful when I try it. But trying to get a matt varnish spray by mail order is damned hard now, as many companies are loth to post them via RM. Aberystwyth lived up to its reputataion for not having anything beyond the mainstream, and so things had to wait until a trip to Hereford yesterday, where I managed to find a can of Humbrol matt varnish in a model shop.



I now need to move onto transport for the two sides, and sadly it looks like the total budget will have to go over the £100 mark in order to procure the numbers of halftracks and trucks needed. Frontline will certainly be getting an order from me, as their prices are a good match for most of the quick-build halftracks out there. But that will be in the new year, I expect.

For now, I shall crack on and finish the AFV's and infantry I have.

Battle! Project Proceeds.

Well, in spite of the pre-Xmas housework, and having to run around taking the little one to various parties, Xmas Fairs and Stage School sessions, I have managed to crack on with this simple and inexpensive project.

I have established a set of rules for the project. In order to keep costs down, almost everything will be 20mm plastics, and as available time is also limited, fast-build kits will be used in most cases. I have also set a financial limit (so as to avoid breaking into the house-keeping money) of a maximum of £4 per vehicle and £6 for a box of figures. With this in mind, my initial outlay so far has been around £50 and I should have both sides done, with a good selection of vehicles, for around £100, at which point I shall cease building and start playing.

The first army is from the rather bombastic central European nation of Vulgaria.

The Italeri Germans' transformation into the Vulgarian hordes is coming along nicely. There are a few wasted poses (I do not like prone figures!) and a little flash on some others (easily trimmed), but most are usable and paint up nicely.

The paint scheme for the Vulgarian military is:
Uniforms: Cote D'Arms Russian Brown.
Webbing: Cote D'Arms Faded Khaki.
Boots: GW Snakebite Leather.
Equipment (helmet, entrenching tool handles, grenades, Panzerschrecks, mortars): Cote D'Arms Grey-Green.
A dark GW Flesh Wash is applied over the uniform, boots and webbing, and then when dry, the figure is dry-brushed with GW Kommando Khaki to highlight.
Guns: GW Chaos Black. (Note to wargamers: modern military weapons are NOT shiny bare metal!)
Rifle Furniture: GW Snakebite Leather and GW Flesh Wash.

Vehicles are all Cote D'Arms Grey-Green.
Once dry, they are then dry-brushed with GW Kommando Khaki, and then areas like the engine deck, gun muzzle brake and exhausts are given a thin wash of a brown/black ink to simulate oil and soot.

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Battle! Project.

Today I started my 20mm Battle! project.

Inspired by Charles Grant's wonderful little book on WW2-era wargaming, I have long desired to create a couple of fictional armies for that era.

Now the history and politics of the actual conflict itself are of little interest to me, and I have always had a hearty dislike of the "wall-to-wall Tiger tank" German armies one so often sees out there, and the all-too-common sets of WW2 rules that cater for them.

However, I do have an interest in the tactical problems posed by mechanised warfare, and a soft spot for many of the vehicles in use at the time. Some of them look really cute.

In order to cater for my interests, and do away with the bias so often inherent in "historical" games of WW2, I have basically come up with two fictious sides; Green and Brown. Both sides will field a happy mixture of whatever tanks, vehicles and weapons I feel like issuing them with.

The figures to be used have been selected purely on the grounds that the sets contain the requisite poses for the units I wish to create, and are available locally and cheaply.

In this case the troops will be Italeri's WW2 German Infantry (re-issue of the old ESCI set) and German Elite Infantry (the new-ish release), and their US Infantry (another re-issue of the old ESCI set). A couple of boxes of each will allow me to complete a battalion of Infantry and their support, using Charles Grant's OOB guidelines. The "German" figures will have brown uniforms, and the "US" figures green.

Support weapons such as Anti-Tank guns will also be provided by Italeri and Airfix. Armoured cars will be by Pegasus (the BA-6), Airfix and Revell (the old Matchbox Puma). Transport will be the new quick-build M3 halftracks, and perhaps later the 251 when it finally becomes available from HaT, plus Opel and GM trucks trucks from Pegasus.

Tanks will be whatever I fancy, really. Neither side will have unbeatable tanks, and Tigers, Panthers, Shermans, Mk IIIs, BT-7s, T34s and Stalins will be available to both sides. I'm using the various quick-build and E-Z build series out there from the likes of HaT, Italeri and Pegasus, and will include the latter's tidy little "what-if" models, too. I even intend to have a brace or so of the old FT-17's from HaT.

In fact today I slung together a couple of the Pegasus late-WW2 "what-if" tanks. They took me about 15 minutes per tank. The main parts such as the hull and turret went together so well they did not even need glue, and the finished kits are pretty little things, that have already set my imagination awhirl with the prospect of designing paint schemes for them.


I have no intention of creating a game that allows wall-to-wall tanks. They will be issued as support, and almost certainly be limited to three or four on a side, in any one battle.

I Used To Dabble......

In 28mm WWII stuff. By "dabble", I mean I toyed with the idea of using this size of figure to wargame the period, to the extent that I bought a fair few figures and painted them up.





I had no real idea of where this was going to go, and that is usually a bad sign for me. It tends to mean my little heart is NOT really into something, and this was no exception.





A number of things eventually put me off, but the main one was the near total lack of any support vehicles in the correct scale, and the price of the few that did exist. I was also put off by the huge size of table required if anything other than "Warhammer 40K"-style skirmish games were to be played.

Even so, I spent a fair amount of cash and time painting up various units from the period. But eventually I tired of it and sold them on, leaving only a few photos to remind me.

There & Back Again.

Well, after a gap of many months, and one momentous life-changing decision, the Poacher has returned, albeit in another form.

This blog represents a move away from the topic featured in my previous one, and will concentrate instead on a wonderful pastime that has remained my principal hobby for as long as I can recall: Wargaming.

I wargame with miniatures and boardgames, although circumstances have now seen a drastic reduction in the eras gamed, and armies used. I have also largely moved away from the historical side, now only gaming ACW and Ancients as historical periods.

The rest of my gaming is now centered around totally fictitious clashes in various eras, 18th century Lace Wars, 17th Centry Musket & Pike, Modern Jungle Warfare and a rather fun World War II era game, based on Charles Grant's Battle, where I happily mix various nations' equipment in my two armies, based simply on the notion of whether I like the look of it.

It is a wonderfully liberating experience, freeing oneself from the strait-jacket of a historical perspective. Gone are all the arguments, internal and external, about who were the good guys and bad guys. Gone are the arguments about the correct colour to paint the tanks and uniforms (in my WW2-era game, one side are Green, the other Brown). Gone are all the worries about the correct OOB for the armies. I make up my own, so I decide if they are correct.

Even with the historical periods that I do play, ACW and Ancients, I use highly stylised and, in the case of ACW, very old-fashioned rules. Purists may well shudder. For Ancients I use Command & Colors: Ancients, the wooden block boardgame designed by Richard Borg, which is fun, fast and furious, and probably not too bad from a historical perspective, if that's important.

My ACW gaming is based around a slightly modified set of Featherstone rules dating from the early 'sixties. Anyone familiar with Games Workshop Fantasy Battles will have no problem with them at all. The figures for the ACW games are old Spencer Smith 30mm plastics, or the newer metal versions, painted in an old-fashioned glossy toy soldier style. These armies are due for serious expansion soon, especially as John Preece (of Flanderkin Serjeant fame), a good gaming friend, passed me a load of wonderful SAE metal figures which have not been available in the range for around 30-40 years.