1st Battalion of Austrians complete

Based for Napmaster, a Warmaster variant, as the Austrian field battalions were considerably bigger than most countries, in this variant the Fusilier battalions are 4 bases big rather than the normal 3.

A long way to go yet before these see the table, another 4 of these "German" battalions then 3 Hungarian ones. The main difference between them is the "German" units have white trousers and a helmet, the Hungarians have blue or grey trousers and wear a shako.

The main decision I have to make now is do I actually want to do different colour cuffs and facings on each unit (as they should be) or do I do them all the same? Doing them the same makes sense in that theres less sorting out post game, but it does feel like cheating a bit.

Gruntz finally released

Well I'm hyped, just bought the final release version of these rules, Mexican Dave has as well and he's so impressed that he bought some figures to use with them. No mean feat when Dave is on an austerity drive to NOT buy any figures. But what am I blathering about, well the easiest way to find out is to look here http://www.gruntz.biz/ lots of nice eye-candy, battle reports with lots of piccies. But what makes these rather special is the price, its around about the £5.50 mark, that varies with the USD exchange rate.

The Brits are done

Well me and Mexican Dave have decided to try out Force on Force, but being a pair of cheapskates (and the fact that I already had bunch of figures) we decided to try it out using the WW2 scenarios from the PDF version. Dave promptly dissapeared in the wilds of Kirriemuir with 60 or 70 Germans leaving me to get on with the Brits for the scenario "Watching Jerry" and here they are.

As mentioned in an earlier post I have succumbed to the "need more" syndrome and bought another box of these guys, well you cant field a Brit force without PIATs or Vickers can you?

Not a good start to the month

I stupidly followed an interesting link on TMP, and yes, it's led me into yet another new period. It does look very different to what I normally play however but who can resist the thought of having massed cavalry, heavy machine guns and tanks all on the same battlefield? Yep its WW1, but before you switch off totally, theres no blasted fields of shell shattered mud and very few trenches involved. The rules are If The Lord Spares Us by Too Fat Lardies and its the gallant British Empire vs the foul JohnnyTurk, think Lawrence of Arabia for some inspiration. Buying and having a quick read through of these has led to another drain on my wallet this month in the shape of 2 Pendraken starter armies, a mere 270 figures though.

Pendraken despite Leon saying there were no new Napoleonic Austrian releases this month did in fact have some, although to be fair these are Hungarian regiments, so another 125 figures bought.

And with the WW2 purchases mentioned earlier thats a grand total of 467 bought so far this month, just as well that the taxman chose this month to stop raping my pension and give me a chunk of change back.

The end of the beginning?

Or the beginning of the end? To misquote Churchill.

Totals for June

Bought 185 (still havent arrived yet :( )
Painted 192

June's hitlist item, well and truly done, so all in all a good month, so its time to point my fevered brain at what I want to do with next month, July. I did have a whacky idea of starting a 10mm Dwarven army but since last night common sense has broken out here in the bunker. Mexican Dave has been cracking on with his 1/72 PSC Russians, so this morning I've been rooting out several untouched sprues of Valiant Germans, theres about 100+ figures still on the sprues plus about 40 in various stages of painting. Thats not to mention that Dave dissapeared up the road with about 60 of the  little  big buggers. So thats this coming months project, get a full platoon of these guys assembled with supporting weapons and purchase some support in the shape of some Pz IVs for them. I'd like to add some Hanomags or Trucks as well, simply because all the cool Panzergrenadiers cant be expected to walk around like some peasant Russians.

WHOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just looked and found out that although the Armourfast range of quick build stuff has gone up, used to be about £8 for two tanks, now the average seems to be just short of a tenner, but theyve gone a snuck a couple of essentials past my radar. Namely the ubiqeutous Pz IV and the long awaited Hanomag, well that'll be my German platoon having a couple of each, obviously.

So that looks like all I can sensibly buy for this project so a very light months spending.

Bought for July, 4.

Update, because of the "must have more" syndrome, I've just bought 68 more Valiant Tommies, my excuse is that I cant find the Vickers MGs or the PIATS that I built..

Update 2 : as the Armourfast kits are all around the tenner mark on e-bay I thought that was a HaT price hike, ermm no, check out http://armourfast.com/ the REAL price is £7.50, which for 2 vehicles isnt that bad at all.

Relative sizes in 28mm

Since I've got my hitlist item out of the way early on in the month I was thinking about what I'd like to get on with, and I came up with the thought of painting a squad of Germans up for Secrets of the Third Reich. It was only when I came to put the squad on the painting table that I saw just how different various figure companies must have different scaled rulers.

Both of these are descibed on the boxes as 28mm, but looking at that picture, I'm sure you'll agree that they actually look like they were different scales, not that 28mm is a scale, but a size. Using the magic of a steel ruler, I found that the Bolt Action figure on the left is 28mm to the top of the helmet, while the Shock Trooper on the right is about 28 to the centre of his goggles, making him nearer 35mm to the top of his helmet. A huge difference!

Do you think that the makers are doing this deliberatly? To try to tie you into their range and only their range. Its certainly a possibility.

So in short as I prefer the more Sci-Fi looks of the Shock Troopers, looks like I'll be ordering another box of them this month to gimme the MG teams for my squads.

June's here!!

Well despite what I had intended for this month, common sense has broken out in my household, after last months splurges my totals for May are :

Bought 150 (but 10 were already painted so dont count)

Painted 183

Hitlist progress

well see for yourself :)

The might of Carthage arrayed for battle, ok I have a little bit of flocking to do but thats all the little bleeps done and varnished. I think I'll consider that army well and truly complete as thats a 6 foot wall-to-wall frontage, that should be more than enough for a good sized scrap.

Its a bit of a mish-mash of an army with a General, a couple of leaders, 5 units of spears, 3 units of skirmishers, a unit of warband, 3 units of Light horse, 2 of Heavy Cavalry and one unit of Elephants. It has a bit of everything but not enough to use as your main arm. I guess I'll have to play with it and see how it fights.