A quick paint job was needed on the second ambot from the box of two I bought ages ago as I managed to earn enough credits in the Necromunda campaign to afforda second one, fortunately my game had a high enough rep too.
Also here is a better picture of the Orlock ganger/ ammo jack I posted the other week.
Cheers,
Pete.
My Cold War gaming collection grows ever bigger with this modest set of additions.
I painted up 3 company bases and 4 individual stands of the T10 heavy tank and 2 company bases of the PT76.
The T10 heavy tank was the ultimate iteration of the IS tank from World War Two, the IS designation was dropped after Stalin’s death. Armed with a 122mm gun it was intended that these heavy tank would act in the overwatch/ supporting fire role to the smaller gunned T54/55 and T62 tanks. A battalion of them was to be found in a Tank division. With the advent of gun launched ATGMs their raison d’etre diminished and as the Cold War progressed they were relegated to more 2nd line units. Still they’ll be a useful addition to my Soviet collection as they’ll allow me to replicate earlier formations to fight my friends’ Leopard 1/ M48s in the case of the West Germans or Chieftans in the case of the Brits.
The PT76 was similarly an early Cold War tank. Armed with a rather small 76mm gun their amphibious capability meant that they were an ideal recce tank. Given their rather weak armour and gun it is surprising that they saw service with the Russian as late as the second Chechen War in the late 1990s. They also served extensively in other theatres, notably in the Middle East and Vietnam. Painting up these two bases now allows me to field up to a battlion of them in 5core: Brigade Commander terms.
Cheers,
Pete.
I wanted to add an Ammo Jack (a special hanger on used in campaign games of Necromunda) to my roster and given that they can be equipped with a Bolter I thought it would be nice to use an old 90’s figure for the purpose.
I bought one from ebay and gave him a quick paint job. I’m rather happy with how he turned out (the club lighting was less than flattering) I’ll re photograph him outside when it stops raining.
Cheers,
Pete.
I’ve been playing a few games of the old (1980) Strategy and Tactics magazine game ‘Tito’ so when I saw a copy of this book for a decent price I jumped on it.
Basically it is an operation history of the Stuka units and their time in Yugoslavia. Whilst the Stuka dive bomber is synonymous with the German’s Blitzkrieg* by 1940 and the Battle of Britain it was found to be rather vulnerable it contested air space. Whilst it did serve on the Eastern Front for many years, including as a dedicated tank hunter, it had reached its high water mark in the German opening attacks of the war.
One of these attacks was the 2 week invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941; details of which open the book’s narrative. Once the Partisan movement in Yugoslavia started to actively resist the Nazi occupiers the Stukas were deployed there to offer air support to the Germans fighting on the ground. Given the paucity of the Partisan anti- aircraft capabilities it was the ideal enviroment for the Stuka.
The books draws heavily on squadron recoreds and log books whilst it charts the deployments and notable missions of the different Stuka squadrons. A couple of chapters stoodf out: that which covered the German’s attepmts to disarm and demobilise the Italians after their 1943 capitulation and the Stuka’s role in Operation Rösselsprung, the attempt to kill Tito in 1944.
Until the end of the war the Stukas could fly with relative impunity, losses to ground fire were rare and there were also chances to continue terror bombing of civilian targets. However, as the Western Allies advanced up the Italian mainland the time came when Stukas were being engaged and shot down by the RAF, Spitfire Vcs on one occasion. Additionally the Stuka airfields were bombed as part of distractionm efforts when Italian based bomber units went north to bomb parts of Austria.
The book is rounded off with a nice selection of colour plates showing profiles for German as well as allied Axis operated aircraft. Their is also a single example in Partisan colours which would make for an interesting model (One of my 1/300 collection will end up like that probably).
Overall, this one gets my recommendation if you want to dig a bit deeper into the Yugoslavian campaign in WW2.
Cheers,
Pete.
*A problematic term given recent scholarship, it could quite easily be a blog post in itself….
I’ve just finished this rather smart little ambulance in 1/72nd scale from Academy.
I struggled a bit with decals, even after all these years of making models it is still something I find problematic.
The tractor and bomb trolley makes for some nice extras- they’d go well with the old Airfix figures on a air base set up.
Both should be good for my WW2 games or even into the Korean War.
Cheers,
Pete.
A couple of Saturdays ago around lunch time a small group of us met up in the back room of Star Stores for the inaugural Kill Team Tournament… 4 of us were regular players against each other, myself (Plague Marines), Nicola (Death Watch), Adam (Necrons) and Andy (Tau); joining us was Dave (Plague Marines too).
My Kill Team for the tournament.
Given the odd numbers one of us got a pass through the first round- luckily that was me, so I settled down to watch the first round. My gf Nicola took on Adam, the winner then taking on me.. The Death Watch put up a good fight but the close combat specialists of the Necrons proved too tough.
Nicola’s Death Watch versus Adam’s Necrons.
The second watch up was Dave versus Andy, this time the Tau suffered badly against the toughness of the Plague Marines giving Dave the win. That meant Dave went on to fight in the final and Andy would play the loser of mine and Adam’s game.
The Kill Zone for my first game.
When it came to my game against Adam we had to fight for control of 4 objectives. Here my lack of numbers proved to be my undoing, I had the smallest team in the tournament… I couldn’t taken enough ground and put fire down where it was needed so whilst I was trading shots with the ranged Necron models their close combat specialists whittled me down.
Adam’s Necrons move up.
My plague Marines locked in combat and doing badly out of it.
This meant I was to face Andy in the battle for Bronze. We played on the dungeon board and had to break through to the opposing board edge. A slow and steady advance played into my hands; this added to some very lucky dice rolls meant I shot away the Tau pretty easily. Deciding to concentrate on the better models first helped too. A fun game that gave me the Bronze.
Meanwhile Dave battled Adam for the win, a brutal game saw Adam scrape a win; this was thoroughly well deserved as he had won three games in a row.
Adam’s Necrons (Gold).
Nicola’s Death Watch (5th)
Dave’s Plague Marines (Silver).
Andy’s Tau (4th)
My team and my bronze medal.
A very big thanks too for Adam for being the driving force behind the organisation of the tournament and providing all the Kill Zones we fought over.
The medals were really nice- hefty bits of metal… looking forward to the next competition already.
Cheers,
Pete.
The aforementioned tournament was to be 125 points so I thought hard about what to take. I decided to go with a small but powerful team dedicated to the Chaos god Nurgle. A terminator leader and 5 marines. The pox walkers proved to be a failure in 2 practice games out of three so I decided not to take them.
My leader in Terminator armour.
I painted all the Plague Marines that I owned – seemed the sensible thing to do.
Plague Marine with Bolter and knife.
Plague Marine with Blight Launcher- my favourite weapon, it’s rather powerful.
Plague Champion with power glove.
The figures were a pleasure to paint- their 3D CAD designs made them rather detailed but easy to paint. A coating of the GW technical paint ‘Nurgle’s Rot’ adding a nice finishing touch at the end.
Cheers,
Pete.
SP's Projects Blog 