This has been another tank that I’ve had for ages half finished. Inspired by the news I painted it up in Turkish colours but never really got round to finish it. I tried to go with the offical MIG pigments fixative liquid, not quite sure it worked well. I think less might be more with them…
The base model is the 1/72nd Hasegawa Leopard 2A4.
Cheers,
Pete.
This video appeared in my feed so I thought I’d share it. Three reasons…
1- a nice bit of gaming/ modelling history.
2- shows you how they do white metal casting in a way that still hasn’t changed.
3- It is local: I grew up in the next village over. Although I was yet to be born when this was filmed.
Cheers,
Pete.
I picked up a rather battered HO (1/87th) scale German house in a job lot from ebay a while back. It has been knocking about my work bench for ages so I’ve taken the oppertunity to give it a spruce up and finish it off.
It is a little small but mixed in at the edge of the board I’m sure it will be fine, sods law means that the battle will be focused around in in all likleihood.
Cheers,
Pete.
I got the stl file for this Cold War Polish classic from thingiverse, rescaled it to 1/72nd and ran a few off my 3d printer. It should make a great little run around for my Warsaw Pact forces.
I’ve been asked by a friend to print him out a larger one as a transport for his Zone Alfa team. Can’t wait to see what he does with it.
Cheers,
Pete.
Underfire Miniatures produce this 60mm mortar and crew for the Rhodesian Bush war range. It is affectionally known as the ‘Pat and Ron’ pack after the two men in the photo is is based on.
I painted up two versions, one in the lain green fatigues worn by the RhSAS on external operations and one in the more familiar Rhodesian camo pattern. An extra trooper with an AK got painted at the same time.
Cheers,
Pete.
This last weekend I attended the Virtual Conference of Wargamers, organised by Wargames Developments. The usual format is a 3 day/ 2 night residential that has obviously been cancelled due to COVID-19. Although I’ve been a member of WD variously over the years I’ve never, for logistical and financial reasons mainly, managed to attend their yearly get together. But this years I could attend some sessions remotely.
I couldn’t make any of the Friday sessions so sadly missed the plenary lecture by Peter Perla but Saturday morning saw me participate in a virtual TEWT, Tactical Exercise Without Troops, based on the English Civil War Battle of Crepedy, run by John Curry from the UIniversity of Bath. It was very interesting to see the ground from eye level to plan a battle rather than the usual bird’s eye view of the table top. Gave me lots to think about for my own games.
I also listened to a couple of lectures, one deliverd by Professor Gary Sheffield from my old alma mater University of Wolverhampton, on the links between history and wargaming in his own career. This was followed by Graham Longley-Brown on his work on Defence and Recreational Gaming, including an overview of his work as a professional wargamer. Both were very interest and thought provoking, with my academic hat on however, I would have quibbled a couple of the points….
In the evening I got the chance to take part in a stripped down professional game that has been run for various US govt. agencies exploring US/Japan/China naval confrontation in the imminent future. A fascinating glimpse of how things are done, I like think of myself as fairly up to date on military tech matters but I realise I do have a bit of a hole when it comes to naval systems.
On Sunday morning John Curry presented again, this time it was looking at his experimental archaelogy in storming a castle. This research forms part of his upcoming book on medieval history and wargaming. Very interesting and the experiments, sadly undocumented, sounded great fun, seemingly done some years ago before health ands safety got too onerous.
Sunday afternoon continued with accounts of lockdown gaming activities before being finished off with WD’s AGM.
All in all it was great fun and makes me really keen to attend the actual event next year when it resumes.
Cheers,
Pete.
In the last three months I have painted 56 28mm miniatures but only 6 20mm ones. I finished 6 1/72nd scale kits and a single 1/56th one. I also read 30 books.
Cheers,
Pete.
Just before the COVID pandemic hit i was greatly saddened to hear of the death of John Dowman. I new him for many years through various forums where he always went by the name of Mausman. Today would have been his birthday and The Wargamers’ forum, of which John was a moderator, organised a build in his memory. John loved tanks, German ones in particular, and combat oin the Eastern Front, he also had an interest in experimental vehicles… all things I shared. Although he did get rid of his experimental stuff in the end I was happy as some bits made their way into my collection. He was a a talented model maker- for a short while he ran a resin terrain company with a friend. He always belived in getting things out of the stash and on to the table as quickly as possible- something every gamer can agree with I think.
For the build I decided to do a 1/72 Dragon E100 with commander from SHQ. I hope he would have liked it.
I used to meet up with John once or twice a year when me getting down to the wargame shows in Newark coincided with his shore leave (John worked on the diving side of the off shore oil industry, he tried to get me to be train as a diver once, the pay sounded good but rather dangerous, maybe if I were 10 years younger at the time…). I’ll miss my chats with him.
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