A Soviet Valentine.

I’ve recently finished this kit as part of a forum’s group build. The kit is by Armourfast, the crewman by AB and the stowage is from an unkown manufacturer that I grabbed from my bits box.

As part of the lendlease agreement the Soviets recieved some 3462 Valentines (of all marks) from both British and Canadian production runs.

Although slow and lacking a HE round for the 2pdr it proved popular in Russian service, being standardised as a light tank during the middle years of the Great Patriotic War.

I decided to go for a work winter white wash paint scheme. It was easy to achive, green was used for the basecoat followed by a patch badly applied (on purpose) all over coat of white. Then by using a sponge and some Vallejo Russian Green paint the work paint effect was built up by carefully dabbing the green on to the exposed edges. A dark brown wash of thinned Vallejo Smoke was used to weather the paint job and add some grime.

Cheers,

Pete.

 

 

 

Tauregs.

Fresh from the painting bench we have this small group of 20mm Tauregs.

They are from what was previously Force 20 miniatures, they seem to have (as of 1st July this year) changed their name to Covert Intervention Games. Either way they are available through Elhiem Figures.

The Tauregs are an interesting tribal people who ancestral land crosses the borders of several modern African nation in the trans Sahara area. Periodically they have launched a war for self determination or at least increased right. However the latest uprising saw on of the major factions becoming allied to Al Qaeda. The French intervention in Mali Operation Serval was in part linked to the latest Taureg rebellion.

Finding information is pretty hard on them, as much as it pains me to say it Wikipedia is as good a starts as any, it was through there I become aware of a few different scholarly articles that I got hold of that gave good info on the late 20th century Taureg Rebellions.The fall out from the Lybian civil war has left a lot of their lands in a state of perpetual low level warfare as this Vice documentary shows:

https://news.vice.com/video/libyas-quiet-war-the-tuareg-of-south-libya?utm_source=vicenewsfb

Either way my figures will be making they way on to the table top in games of Black Ops/ Chain Reaction/ Force on Force as I use gaming to try and make sense of this latest geopolitical development.

Cheers,

 

Pete.

 

 

 

 

Dungeons Of Yendor.

In the middle of August some 80 or so gamers met up in Manchester to play one of the latest games by noted designer Jim Wallman. Set within his established setting of Yendor (I believe this was the third or foruth megagame to be run in its environs) the King is fed up with parties of adventurers going down to the dungeon and causing trouble as well as the troublesome Orcs (free folk in this game) raiding out of them.Accodingly the King’s army has been tasked to clear the dungeons on mass.

The game saw teams of players taken on the roles of the King’s army with their allied factions of Elves and Free folk as well as wizards decsend in to the dungeon; it was inhabited by teams or players representing factions that become increasingly monstrous the further down you went.

My role was as control for the Free  Folk allied to the King’s army so my perception of the game is pretty much limited to that position. The Free folk did send one detachment with the main body of the King’s army but their main force seemed to be content to try to force its own path through the dungeon, engaging in some pretty big pitched battles with the dungeon dwelling Free Folk along the way. For army sized units to go dungeoneering you need to factor in a fairrly substantial logistical element. This really was the crux of the game and a faliure to really grasp this seemed to lead to some inital frustration with the players. That said all the players seemed to get into the game well; the number of players in costume was higher than normal too.

Given my role there were parts of the game, especially concerning the deeper parts of the dungeon that I was unaware of, something involving plastecine monsters, until one materialized on the surface attacking some Free Folk. After what was the best attended Pennine megagame to date we all went to the pub for the usual informal debrief.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.