Friday, March 20, 2015

Who wrote "The Moon rules" in the side of my car with a key? You know someone who'd do something like that?

Hello again cyberville.  I have been away for a while.  Life is very busy.  I got to accomplish a lot of stuff in the interim.  The first bit are my Colonial government regular infantry forces!  They are a mix of different ranges and I believe they work well together.  The regular infantry platoon is the typical 3 squad format with 12 men per squad.  The colonial government has purchased weapons from countries in Europe and the Israelis. Each squad has several Uzis and a Russian light machine gun for support.  This is the first half of the squad minus the team leader.  I am going to add the leader if I can ever get to the hobby store.  The load out for a typical squad are the Fn-Fals, Uzis, the RpK and LaW AT weapons.  The standard camo pattern is Rhodesian camo.  I plan on mixing different patterns in as I imagine that a country fighting for survival does not always worry about everything being uniform.  Parade or garrison discipline is replaced by something more worthy.   






This tank is my great idea.  I had these pz 38t czech tanks laying around.  Gone were my plans to game early war ww2 in 15mm.  What could I do with these Russian made plastic tanks?  Well, inject them into my pseudo African nation.  After the war ended, the colonial government grabbed up as many tanks as they could get their hands on.  They needed them for defense of the interior.  Over time the tanks were replaced by more modern models.  These relics were handed over for training purposes.  For the last 20 or so years these old Czech survivors were used for training of the colonial army.  Now that the country is fighting a very real and terrible war supplies are in short supply.  A resource staff officer requisitioned them as second line support tanks.  They provide mobile pill box duty for the infantry.  These tanks are kind of a death trap but the crew has found ways to cheat death.



I actually finished a project.  Here are the ships that participated in the Battle of Cape Spada.  This was a resounding victory for the Australian Navy.  The Italian historians write it off as a morale victory because one of the cruisers got away.  
This battle started with two Italian light cruisers chasing 5 British destroyers.  The destroyers were actually leading the Italian cruisers into a trap.  A mean ol' Australian light cruiser and a little friend were sailing straight for the Italian bullies.  The Italian ships saw the cruiser and tried to break off.  The Bartomolei Colleoni took a fatal torpedo hit and was sunk.  The Bande Nere barely escaped.  
 The first picture is on the Bartomolei Colleni and the Giovanni delle Bande Nere.  They are the earliest class of Condoterri light cruisers used by the Italians.  This particular class, the Guissano, was at the time the fastest surface ship in the world.  That speed came a price though.  The ship had very weak armor.  The cruisers topped off at 40 knots.  That is 44 miles per hour.  In nautical terms that was booking... I guess.


This picture is the HMaS Sydney, a Perth class light cruiser and an H class destroyer.  The destroyers present all had H names but for the sake of basing and painting 30+ destroyers I labeled them all "H" class destroyer. 


Here are the rest of the British destroyers.  They are all H class ships as well.  The British named their new classes of destroyers after a letter of the alphabet.  It makes thing more simple.  I would be really nervous to be on a ship with a letter designation for a class.  It implies the ship you are on is extremely expendable...which means you are extremely expendable.  Yikes.
I do not have any more naval wargaming plans in the immediate future.  I would like to one day have the entire Italian and German surface fleets in 1/6000 figurehead ships.  Please note that my ambition will be from capital ships and scale down to destroyers.  I will not be basing torpedo boats or submarines.  There are far to many of them to collect.  Destroyers are pushing it actually.  The German fleet of WW2 only had around 20 capital ships and a handful of destroyers.  It would be easy to collect the fleet in 1/6000 scale.

Next up is my Chinese DbMM project.  No, this is not Taiping rebellion stuff.  I am also experimenting with a Chinese army from a much earlier era. This particular base is a unit of C'hin conscripts wielding Ge dagger axes.  The weapons are really cool.  I suggest looking them up if you are curious.  I used Baccus Japanese Retainers as guinea pigs.  The Ge were made with straight pins, superglue and plasticard.  I have also made some ge using brass rod and simple soldering skills.  I am still new at soldering but I hope that with time I will become proficient at it.  Soldering is an interesting skill.
This base is a Irr Bd (I).  The other base I made is a Reg Bd (O).  I also need to make Reg / Irr Aux with spears and shields and Reg Bw and Irr Bw wielding crossbows.  I think the Bd stands are the most challenging because the Ge require the most technical know how.  The Aux stands will need putty made shields and straight pins for spears. I have done stuff like that before.  Crossbows will be a challenge b/c I am not sure how to do that.  I will tackle that later.  China really liked their crossbows.  I have not even started on the C'hin chariots.  This dynasty is famous for the terracotta soldiers that have been dug up.  The Regular troops are made from Baccus Ashigaru.  Their armor looks terrible similar to the C'hin armored warriors minus the goofy headgear.  I had to sand down the helmets.  I am still on the fence on how to model the head gear of the armored C'hin warriors.

This is my old creation from almost two years ago. They are fantasy bolt shooters for a High Elf army.  One day I will actually make this army for Hostile Realms but for now they are resting.  One day... one day.


The last bit of the day are my disruption explosions for Spearhead.  These little mushroom clouds mimic actual explosions photographed during WW2.  They are on the largish side for 3mm models.  I do not care as they were fun to make and very easy if time consuming.  I just need another 40 and I should have enough for all my games of Spearhead operational combat.

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