Ooo ooo vroom ...

It's all about 'finishing' you see... finishing projects that have been long started. The 20mm Spearhead projects are new life breathed into 20mm collections of old, and In have actually thoroughly enjoyed the refurbishment and re-basing of those long since forgotten and newly rediscovered tanks and figures. Since I have openly declared to Lorraine that I ma trying to 'finish' projects before I start new ones, I was quick to point out that these most recent acquisitions are just that: the air power component of the three 20mm Spearhead armies that have arisen phoenix-like from the ashes. Andy had offered a surplus 1/72nd scale Ju87 for the mid and late war Germans.

Then yesterday when, in one of those mental 'fugs', I wandered in to Acorn Models in Christchurch and spotted a 1/72nd scale Sturmovik, well, the WW2 Soviets needed some air power, so.. 'aspirational purchase' number (some number to the power of, well ...  'lots', really) complete. I text 20mm Spearhead gaming mate Nick to say I'd bought the Sturmovik, and had hoped to find a Typhoon for the 1944 Brits, only to find that they were out of stock.

Phone call from Nick: "I have an old Tempest kit here, got it years ago, never assembled it, you are welcome to it if you want'. I was round there quicker than a rat up a drain pipe. The Tempest has always been one of my all time favourite WW2 aircraft. Must be something to do with one of those war comics I read as a boy - I used to keep them hidden in the wardrobe because my parents didn't approve!). Nice simple kits, all three... I have 10 more stunts/grots to paint, and then.. guess what has jumped up to the top of the projects list? Thanks Nick and Andy ... sooo cool!!!

Lorraine hasn't grumbled (mind you I'm pretty lucky, she never does). It's all about the finishing, you see...

Stunts and Green Stuff ... naturally!!!

Another 10 Grots/Stunts, still those earlier GW 2nd Edition figures. This time I decided to try some small modifications just to create some visual variety. However I'm something of a novice with Green Stuff sculpting, so the mods were pretty simple.

A gun with a dangerous looking red thing on the end. No that's gotta be better than an ordinary gun surely?

A small carry bag attached to your belt - why of course, to carry.. well .. stuff, you know!!

If a small bag hanging off your belt would carry... stuff, then a 'haversack that hangs form your shoulders must carry .. well.. MORE stuff..

And let's not forget those favourite blue trousers that you have to wear with your best fatigue jacket.

Or that favourite pair of red trousers that look so cool, even if they do 'clash' with the jungle camou jacket.

And a gun that has been made by adding half of a Marine gun to your own small gun .. well that has to be REALLY good!!

I simply enjoy the painting, OK???

Stunts or Grots .... a Greenskin frenzy!

A few years ago I bought a nice bag of 2nd Edition GW Orcs and Grots at a Bring and Buy table at New Zealand's Natcon. Until recently they have sat unpainted and unloved in their bag, but my experience with Mantic's Warpath rules lead me to get back into their painting. Last month I finished some Orcs/Marauders, and now it has been the turn of the Grots, or Stunts they are called in Warpath. This batch, finished last week in the midst of one of those week's from hell on the work front, is 15 of these little guys.

I have always seen these little guys as the 'children', or perhaps more aptly the 'adolescents', of the Greenskin world, and so have tried to paint them with this conception in mind.

Bright colours ...

Camouflage and bright coloured trousers.. because they are his favourites...

Mixed camouflage patterns ..

And my favourite, camouflage tunic, and his favourite bright red trousers...

I am pleased with the results.. after all, adolescents hardly show the best sartorial sense...

A few more Stunts to go ... and then it'll be the turn of something else ..

Just 'noodling' along..

Well, various life events (none of them bad I hasten to add) just seem to conspire to get in the way of any games, but I am still noodling along with a little painting.

(Noodling: pottering, ambling, generally messing around... I think).

I've just finished another five of the GW 2nd edition Orks, for the Warpath Marauders army (in which they are called Orx). This completes four units, enough for a small game.

So, just pondering what to paint next.. all part of the 'let's pick off some of those half finished projects for which I've had some of the figures sitting in boxes for years' ambition that I've had for the past year. Odd really, as this is not an inhibition that normally affects wargamers now, is it!!!

Carruthers recruits .. more British VSF

A change of pace on the painting table. I've planned to expand the VSF British army to three commands for Big Battle HotT. I've only really played one game of Big Battle HotT so far, and it played quite differently to the normal condensed version of the game and.. well ..  I really enjoyed it.

The expansion began with the aerial elements, and I've had a few infantry remaining in the box undercoated and awaiting painting. Sunday afternoon I pulled them out, and (since it was likely to be the last Sunday afternoon free for painting for some time) I painted these eight figures up to give two more elements of Blades for the British VSF boys. The bases got the treatment tonight and.. voila .. job done.

The new boys

Major General Carruthers leads the new troops in review

The new boys relaxing after the Parade??

There's a wee way to go, but I have some HaT lancers and some mounted infantry on order to provide some bases of knights, and riders, to round out the Big Battle army.

Warpath Orx

More as evidence that I haven't altogether stopped painting, here is the latest batch of work: some Orx for Warpath (or 40K for that matter). These are 2nd Edition Games Workshop Orcs that I picked up second hand at a briong and buy a few years ago and, having tried a game of Warpath before Xmas, I tough that adding these to the existing Orc army would give two matched table top armies.

The larger Orc at the back was a free giveaway with White Dwarf magazine several years ago, and has sat on my painting table ever since, begging for attention. He'll be the troop 'leader' for a Warpath platoon.

So I'm still on that 'finishing' binge I started in 2012...  how's that for focus?

Mind you, not sure how much longer I can hold out, with the Perry and Fireforge figures (for the 'Kingdoms of Men' army designed for play with the Mantic 'Kings of War' rule set) sitting there waiting since April 2012, and me all fired up after reading the first of the George RR Martin novels "A Game of Thrones'... damn this inspiration thing.

PST Russian M-30 122mm howitzer kit

The 20mm WW2 Russian army for Spearhead has been in its final throes. In the context of the Russian army in Spearhead, artillery is not very flexible in terms of its immediate response to battlefield needs (as distinct from pre-planned fire etc). Consequently I tend to take artillery s on table rather than off table. This means that at the very least judicious positioning can mean that the guns at least see action, and so scenario army points aren't wasted. To do this I had to model two on board artillery regiments (the number I'd need for the largest 'Attack' list I have tried so far), in Spearhead terms modelled by two stands of 76mm guns, and one stand of 122mm howitzer.

The only kit we could locate for the latter was the PST kit, so I bought one to give it a try. This may not have been my best buying decision. The kit parts often didn't fit, there was  a lot of brittle detail, and for some reason the plastic didn't seem to glue as well, meaning that I would have to glue one part, leave it to harden for a day, and then try the next etc. When assembled, the gun position was really only suitable for the towing position rather than appearing as deployed, and so I had to doctor up a base with a hump at the front in order to try to represent an even partly reasonable firing position (it's still wrong though). I began assembling this single gun before Christmas, and have only just finished it mid January. It feels as if I've been making this one gun for an age!!! As the average teenager might say, 'I'm so over it!!'.

All in all, I'm unhappy with the end product, and won't buy a second kit. For 'gaming purposes I'll proxy something  else.

Anyway, here are a few photos. The 122mm M-30 on its own, and then in the GOOD company of the UM 76mm guns.