Obscure War Movies

I already mentioned the two I received for Christmas, but there's one picked up at Wal-Mart for $5 that's worth mentioning as well.


The Gypsy Warriors (1978)
It's a B grade film, but certainly worth the $5 it cost for it. Tom Selleck plays a lead role. American special forces Captains parachute into France during the Nazi advance, to prevent the Germans from gaining use of a secret French biological weapons lab.


Submarine Base (1943)
This one was a surprise, as it wasn't on my request list, but it proved to be a very nice little film. The one other comment I would offer is that, on the Alpha Video edition I received, whoever wrote the summary on the back of the video obviously didn't watch the film. It has only the slightest relation to the actual content of the film.


They Raid By Night (1942)
This one I requested, having stumbled across it on Amazon in one of those "related items" listings. It was actually much better than some of the reviews there left me concerned it would be. British Commandos and a Norwegian freedom fighter stage a raid into Nazi-occupied Norway to free a Norwegian general who has the influence to
unite Norway in resistance against the Germans.

Christmas and Birthday

As my birthday was December 23rd, there's a mix of birthday and Christmas stuff to relate. With one exception, everyone's Christmas presents were off in the mail somewhere, but we had a lovely quiet Christmas involving parade, food, naps, and watching movies/DVDs.

Only one truly wargaming related present, in the form of a large collection of acrylic paints, mostly Delta Ceramcoat with a few oddities mixed in. The funny thing is, I put Delta Ceramcoat on my gift suggestion list specifically, as several folks had said they were very good, and the parents discovered a box of used ones that was sitting on a shelf for a year or more now, which my dad had acquired for a woodworking project.

Particularly good is the presence of various shades of greens and tans which will hopefully be useful for the World War 2 figures.

Also applicable to blogging was the provision of a new optical mouse to replace the old one, which started operating incorrectly a couple of months ago.

Besides that, there are 3 DVDs to watch: The Third Man, They Raid by Night (a British film from 1942 about Commando operations in Norway), and Submarine Base, which I think is a wartime US film.

All the previously mentioned incoming items have arrived, and one of them just left again today. I decided to sell the 1/1200 scale ships as they're very nice castings but I really decided I didn't need another period to deal with.

Incoming and Outgoing

I'm experiencing some more turnover in my wargaming collection, and this is a good thing. New items are inbound, and I'm trying to get some old items sold/traded.

For sale/trade:
1) Roco Marder APC, complete except for the assembly on the left side of the gun mount.
2) ~1200 1/72 Plastic Napoleonic figures. I've got one guy with first dibs on these, then expect to list leftovers.
3) Old Glory 28mm Seven Years War Austrian Grenadiers - 35 figures, including a number of command figures.
4) Old Glory 28mm AWI British Grenadiers - 15-18 figures. I don't have the actual count handy at the moment.
5) I expect to put my 1/72 American Civil War figures up soon, due to one of the imminent arrivals.
6) 1/72 WW2 Airfix British 8th Army, 80+ figures. Additional WW2 figure lots should be pending as I sort through my collection.

Incoming Wargaming Stuff:
1) 2 big sets of dice, each containing 27 d6 and 4 of the special Warhammer style artillery dice. The d6s are in white for one set, and black for the other. This should mean I can start throwing a bucket of dice at once instead of throwing the same six dice endless numbers of times. ;)
2) Reaper figures: Alexis the Conjuror (intended to possibly be a figure for one of my 18th century royals); Bran O'Mannon Highlander Lord (2 copies); Oskar Dunmesser (a priest in knight's armor. I'll find *something* to do with him); Fynch Brassfrog Gnome Bard (this figure I just couldn't help but buy. It's too funny)
3) 1/1200 scale ships from the Armada era. 8 Caravel, 2 Galleas, 2 English Man of War, 2 Carrack, 4 Pinnace, 2 Spanish Treasure Galleons.
4) 10mm American Civil War. Roughly 500-600 figures, from both sides, infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Even some wagons. I'll probably hate myself for getting these, but at a grand total of $35 with shipping, compared to the cost of that number of figures new, I won't hate myself too badly. Hopefully, selling off my 1/72 will also dampen the price a little.

Let me also just make a comment about the Reaper figures. I don't usually buy fantasy figures, because that's not my genre. All of the figures bought are at least semi-historical, so I hope to be able to use them in what I'm doing. But I highly recommend anyone with a fantasy interest taking a look through this seller's figures, as they're selling them to finance hearing aids for their son. The sellers are well enough known in their gaming community for one of the figure companies to have donated a pro-painted figure for auction and have mentioned the news on TMP. The Ebay name is anatora. She even refunded part of my purchase, without my asking, as Ebay'd charged too much shipping. I'm impressed; that takes integrity.

Digression: Sci fi starship crew

Which sci-fi crew would you best fit in with? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Serenity (Firefly) You like to live your own way and don't enjoy when anyone but a friend tries to tell you should do different. Now if only the Reavers would quit trying to skin you. Serenity (Firefly) 81% Moya (Farscape) 69% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 69% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 69% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 63% Heart of Gold (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) 63% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 56% SG-1 (Stargate) 50% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 50% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 50% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 44% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 44% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 31%

New toys and other news

October/November has proved to be an active period for me, but much of that activity has been in the realm of trading, buying, and selling troops and vehicles. I'm actively pursuing a goal of sending out items I don't have a need for, and getting in ones I do need/desire.

Recent acquisitions:

2 German Sdkfz 234/3 armored cars
1 German Kubelwagen car
1 German Schwimwagen car
4 German StuG III assault guns with the long 75mm cannon (to make a total of 6)
2 German StuG III assault guns with the short 75mm howitzer
2 US M36 Tank Destroyers (to make a total of 3)
1 British Churchill tank
1 US Sherman tank (to make a total of 6)
1 US Jeep (in need of a front axle repair)
half a Roco 105mm US Howitzer (I need the gun trails)
3 Roco (or clone) German motorcyclists (with MP44s on their back)

I'm still expecting delivery of 1 King Tiger tank.

In kit form, yet to be built, I've added 1 German Sdkfz 250/9 Neu w/20mm turret, and 2 British Scout Carrier Mk I.

Through an idea from the TooFatLardies Yahoo group, I've acquired a set of colored microbeads to use as unit designators on my WW2 infantry. They're a little more micro than I expected. :> I'll have to see whether I need to attach multiple of them instead of just one per level.

I've sorted out an infantry company from my German troops. I have additional units to sort out, and some units to re-sort, as I've shifted from using identical poses within squads to randomly pulling poses out of bags to get a good pose mixture for my WW2 figures.

I've recently obtained some RSM95 28mm Highlanders, which can be seen over on the Hesse-Engelburg blog. I need a few more to make a full battalion.

Also recently received are a set of 25mm WSS French samples from Imperialist Miniatures. You won't find them on the web, as they don't have a presence. But Robert from the Old School Wargaming group is fond of them and kindly offered to arrange samples for those who were interested in seeing them. More on this in a post soon at the Hesse-Engelburg blog, once I've gotten some pictures of them. They're about the same size as my 1/72 scale Italeri AWI British Light Dragoons, if slightly bulkier, so a bit smaller than RSM95s. Very lovely figures, though.

I'm awaiting delivery of a set of sample figures from Frank, and also expecting delivery of two additional figure sets: a group of 28mm Old Glory SYW Austrian Grenadiers, and a group of 28mm Old Glory AWI British Grenadiers.

On the computer gaming front, I've picked up a copy of Call of Duty 2, but I'm having tremendous problems with stuttering. I'm worried that it may be my video card is just not up to snuff.

Last, but by no means least, I'm expecting arrival of several books gifted free from a gamer friend cleaning out his own bookshelves.

More Troops

The latest arrivals over the last couple of months:

1) A little over 250 Airfix "Washington's Army" AWI infantry, about 2/3 of them painted.
2) Over 125 Airfix "British Grenadiers", about half of them painted.
3) 1 box Airfix WW2 Italian Infantry.
4) A total of 7 ships and various accessory cards for Pirates of the Revolution.
5) 5 boxes worth of Esci WW2 German Infantry to hopefully finally finish a German Infantry company for my Operation Warboard/I Ain't Been Shot, Mum forces.

I'm hoping with that last group to be able to field a solid 1:1 company of either British Infantry, American Infantry, or German Infantry whenever I desire to, plus 1-3 support platoons of various sorts if desired. Maybe someday I'll actually start painting some of them as well. But they're further down the queue.

New Dice

The Tin Dictator has delivered to me a nice little envelope, containing 3d12, 3d4, and a pair of percentage dice. This should give me the dice I need for IABSM and for one or two other rulesets.

General de Brigade

Just received the rules in today's mail, the second send for Caliver as the post office delivered me a torn and empty envelope the first time. Caliver was quick to send a replacement when I notified them. I'm well pleased.

We'll see what i think of them as I get to read the rules.

Plasti-Dip vs Gesso

I've now largely abandoned Plasti-Dip, due primarily to the difficulty of getting a spray-on substance onto all surfaces of a figure without multiple sprays, combined with the troublesome actions needed to try to prevent the rubber from solidifying between the figure and adjacent surfaces, causing the figure's own coating to rip when pulled away from the surface.

I'm now experimenting with Liquitex Acrylic Gesso, and much happier with it. Credit Stokes Schwartz of the Grand Duchy of Stollen blog with pointing me that direction.

Warrior Frogs: Step 1

I had a few minutes Sunday evening, so I decided to get out a few of the Warrior Frogs, which I got for the price of shipping from Greg Horne. Thanks, Greg!

I wanted to try a pair of the frogs, and the first pair that came out were pikefrogs, so I did the basic green coat on the pair of them, and had a little green paint left, so I added in one of the mallet frogs. It was my first try painting with acrylics, and also my first try painting a metal figure. Obviously, still more work to do, and I can see they're going to need touch-up as well. But...photo below.

New Plasti-Dip Experiment

Today, I've had an idea, which is presently waiting to dry so I can evaluate it. I've taken a cardboard box, set on its side so the open top faces out towards me. I screwed two screws into the upper surface, and tied a string of monofilament between them in a hanging loop, onto which I've placed a sprue of HaT Napoleonic Prussian Landwehr. I then sprayed it with the Plasti-Dip.

We shall see if this allows me to get good coverage on the Plasti-Dip without the issue of it becoming stuck to the surface on which the figure rests, and then ripping off the figure during removal. If this works, then coming weeks may see some of these figures still on sprues undercoated with Plasti-Dip so painting can actually begin.

I Ain't Been Shot, Mum

In the midst of all my Warboard work, the IABSM system from TooFatLardies has been catching my eye. After several interesting battle reports from others, I finally decided to go ahead an acquire it.

Sunday evening, I tried my first game with it, a solo affair with my Italian platoon against one of my British platoons. I only managed 5 moves before I closed down for the night, due to a late start, but I have to say I'm already liking it. It won't replace Warboard for me, most likely...but it's an additional option. The card driven system actually makes it easier for me to solo it, because some of the decision of which unit to move when is taken out of my hands, making it a little harder to favor one side over the other. When game was ended, the British had suffered some significant thrashing of one of their sections on the west side of the board, while on the east side they were engaged in a slow war of attrition via firefight between a British section with light mortar support in a hedged field and an Italian section in the woods.

Warboard: Americans

Well, I've been lax on posting for a bit, but the American Infantry I ordered did arrive, and were promptly sent into organizing mode.

1 platoon of armored infantry in half-tracks. Check.
1 recon platoon from an armored infantry battalion TO&E (minus 1 half-track). Check.
1 Infantry company....not so check. You'd think 4 boxes of figures would be plenty, but I'm actually short on some needed poses. So...the infantry company is on hold till I can get some more boxes.

Warboard: Italians

Well, I now have an armored car platoon and an oddly armed motorized rifle platoon of Italians ready. Oddly armed in this case means that the slightly incomplete box I bought had no machine guns, so they're armed purely with a mixture of rifles and SMGs, except for the officer's pistol. Oddly enough, there are exactly the right number of men for an Italian rifle platoon, however.

Warboard: German Progress

Well, last night I made some progress on the Germans, after doing some more online research. I now have a satisfactory Panzer Company, short 1 tank. So a complete unit of 16 PzIVs is ready to seriously threaten the Allied forces.

To accompany the tanks, I've sorted out a complete Panzer Grenadier Platoon with their half-tracks.

I've got elements as yet undetermined for an assault gun platoon, an armored car platoon, and possibly a heavy tank platoon.

I'm thinking that the panzer company and panzer grenadier platoon, as well as possibly some support units, will be designated as being from a panzer brigade. Other infantry and support units will be from separate units.

Warboard: The Next Project

With my Brits basically settled, except for the leftovers and some need for gun crews, the next project on my Warboard to do list is to organize my Germans into satisfactory platoons, and hopefully a fully company. I'm debating making them a Panzer Grenadier company, and then dropping any leftovers into the infantry or other arms. The odd part about these is that they're a mixed bag of different sets, which I'm planning to combine together. This will make my platoons less uniform, but as I'm doing the latter half of the war anyway, it's not that out of the ordinary for the Germans to have a mixed bag of equipment and uniforms within that time period. We'll see what I end up with. I'm once again using Bayonet Strength as my primary source for their organization, though I will likely continue doing searches here and there for additional info.

I've actually got an abundance of Germans, with German Paratroopers and German Engineers also on the menu. I had intended to have enough Americans to counter-balance the Germans with the addition of my Brits, but made a mistake in my buying and bought two boxes of Modern US Infantry instead of two boxes of WW2 US Infantry. I do have one box worth of US Paratroopers, and some British Commandos to work with.

If anyone needs Revell Modern US Infantry, I've got two sealed boxes I can sell or trade. :>

Warboard: WW2 British Infantry Completed. Maybe.

As of yesterday, I've got my complete British Infantry company read to my satisfaction, with three full platoons and a headquarters. I've also built half a carrier platoon, and plan to add in a 2-gun anti-tank section.

I'm still debating whether to give them the standard 6pdr guns, or go ahead and upgrade them to 17pdr. Historically, the infantry tended to get the left-over 6pdrs as the 17pdrs went first priority to the artillery units. But since they're an attached unit, it's entirely possible they could be an artillery unit attached to that sector. I have an imbalance of tanks in the Germans' favor, so I'm pondering going with that as an equalizer.

This still leaves me with an odd collection of leftovers, and I'm seriously pondering doing some converting of the PIAT teams into infantry with rifles and Stens as I saw someone else doing this by simply cutting the PIAT related items carefully.

I'm open to suggestions though for using them:

10 PIAT teams (1 man marching with PIAT on his shoulder, and a sten. 1 man marching with rifle on his shoulder, and an ammo case in his other hand)

6 2" mortar teams

7 prone Bren gunners

7 running Bren gunners

2 Officers with Stens

Almost there!

Received the two boxes of Brits in the mail today, and spent a piece of the evening sorting out the remaining two platoons. I ended up re-organizing the first platoon a bit as well, to get the figures sorted to my satisfaction, but now I have three identical platoons consisting of:

HQ
===========
1 officer w/Sten (Subaltern, Platoon Commander)
1 kneeling Sten (Sergeant)
1 2" mortar team
2 riflemen (runners)

1st Squad
===========
1 kneeling Sten (Corporal, Squad Leader)

Bren Section
-------------
1 throwing grenade, carrying rifle (Lance Corporal)
1 Bren
1 rifleman

Rifle Section
----------------
6 riflemen

2nd Squad
============
1 kneeling Sten (Corporal, Squad Leader)

Bren Section
-------------
1 throwing grenade, carrying rifle (Lance Corporal)
1 Bren
1 rifleman

Rifle Section
----------------
6 riflemen

3rd Squad
===============
1 kneeling Sten (Corporal, Squad Leader)

Bren Section
-------------
1 throwing grenade, carrying rifle (Lance Corporal)
1 Bren
1 rifleman

Rifle Section
----------------
4 riflemen
1 PIAT team

---

On the down side, I had to strip my carrier platoon to fill out the third platoon, and I still have to fill out a proper Company HQ. But I'm less concerned about the carrier platoon than having a full infantry company, so it's all good.

Warboard: British Re-org continues

Having found a very nice deal for my very tiny budget, I've ordered two more boxes of British Infantry from Revell. I'm hopefull this will allow me to finish out a full British infantry company, which should form the core of my Allied force.

I've put together half of a carrier platoon, a full mortar platoon (minus a few men), and a towed AT section as of two days ago. These should form a nice support group for my British company. If I have figures enough when it's over, I hope to add either an engineer formation or an armored infantry formation in half-tracks perhaps. I may actually end up using only two rifle platoons in the company, with the third assumed to be in action further along the board or detached to guard an objective perhaps, and converting one of the platoons to half-tracks of a different unit instead.

Allied forces will also have available a small formation of American Paratroops, and a few small squads of Partisans.

For the German side, I have about 3 boxes of troops, but from different manufacturers, which I hope to pull together into a reasonable infantry formation, and one platoon of Panzer Grenadiers.

I also have enough for a half company to a company of German Paratroops, an undetermined formation of German Engineers, and a platoon or so of Italian infantry. We'll see how much of them I put together and how much I end up putting up for sale or trade.

When I was just a lad...

I thought I might post these, just for a view of what once was. These are figures I painted in my late teens, using model aircraft enamels, and toothpicks as paintbrushes. Osprey Men-At-Arms books were used as a guide, though not perhaps followed to the letter in each of them. They're battered and worn from time, with paint falling, and these are the best painted of the lot.

But they're an interesting trip down memory lane, and perhaps an encouragement that I *can* actually do this. Even if they're not up to the standards of a lot of the ones I see online, I remind myself that they were my first try, and the product of a somewhat impatient teen. Hopefully, my new ones will be quite a bit better with time and practice, if I can keep patience and perseverance.

Warboard Plans Moving Forward

Well, I finally got a start on my reorganization, in the form of sorting out my first platoon of Revell British Infantry. Had a good bit left over, but not the right combo for another standard platoon. I did, however, find a marvelous deal on two more boxes of the same on Ebay, and decided I could eek out the funds for it. So, I'm hoping with the combination of 4 boxes of them, to have enough to build at least a full company. After that, perhaps I'll apportion the remainder out as drivers and other semi-useful figures. I'm also seriously considering setting up a carrier platoon.

Platoon HQ
------------------
1 man with sten gun - platoon commander, subaltern
1 throwing a grenade, carrying a rifle - platoon sergeant
2 marching with rifle
1 PIAT team (1 man with PIAT, 1 man with ammo and rifle)

3 Rifle Squads, each
-------------------------
1 man with sten - Corporal

Bren Section
----------------
1 Bren gunner
1 throwing a grenade, carrying a rifle - Lance Cpl, second in command
1 rifleman with shovel

Rifle Section
-----------------
2 Riflemen with picks
2 throwing a grenade, carrying a rifle
2 marching with rifle

More Warboard plans

After some debate, I'm seriously planning to reorganize my Operation Warboard forces to use a 1:1 ratio for infantry rather than the semi-1:3 ratio used by the original books. I think this will do two primary things for me:

1) Stop dithering over my platoons ending up with about 2/3 of their manpower being commanders, machine guns, and bazookas. This should bring things back into balance by restoring the actual force ratios inside a platoon.

2) Allow me to utilize a wider assortment of my figures than the regular Operation Warboard ratios do. I'll still dispense with cooks, clerks, etc. But I think even though it means fielding smaller sizes of forces, I'll be happier this way. And I've got enough of my primary combatants to still field nearly a company per side, plus accessory units.

Seven Years War Project

This is probably going to be a slow-moving thing, given the number of other things I have going, but I thought I should link to my new blog for my fictional Seven Years War German principality, Hesse-Engelburg.

http://hesse-engelburg.blogspot.com

Reinforcements Arrive

Those of you on the OSW group have taught me well that the thing to do when you don't have time to paint your figures is to buy new ones, right? ;)

So, this is just what I've done, but with a vaguely valid excuse behind it. To paint the figures one must settle them into units, so that one can provide the proper indicators of the unit to which they belong. And to settle them into units, one must do two things:

1) settle on a rule set, in order to know whether one is painting units of 12 figures or 48 figures.
2) Provide the proper mixture of figures to represent the units of the selected size.

I'm still struggling with the former, but I think I'm starting to sort things out a bit. In the process, however, I've identified some deficiencies in the figures I already have. There's some lacks among the poses that I needed to address, and a portion of my new purchases are sets chosen because of their proportions of certain figures. For instance, the Zvezda French infantry have 4 foot officers per box. If I limit myself to one officer figure pure unit, this should permit me to utilize some of the excess officers to command the officer-poor figures from other manufacturers.

The other portion of the new figures deal with balancing my army better. There were, before this purchase 498 French soldiers, compared to 183 British. And both armies had a lack of light or medium cavalry.

Therefore, I've purchased the following:

cavalry:
3 boxes Zvezda French Dragoons
4 boxes HaT King's German Legion Light Dragoons (British)

infantry:
3 boxes Zvezda French Infantry
2 boxes Italeri British/Scot Infantry
3 boxes HaT Prussian Landwehr

I wanted more Prussians, but just couldn't afford them right now. 3 boxes gives me a core for some good battalions, however, and I can try to scrape together money for more later.

The French infantry do further unbalance my raw numbers, but that should be compensated for by selling excess troops once I've settled on my desired regiments. My existing troops were bulk lots of mixed figures from varying manufacturers, and I believe are the excess from someone else's purchases, so I'll be continuing that tradition I think.

I endeavored to buy no less than 3 boxes of each type, credit for which concept goes to Donald Featherstone's little outlay of 5 "reasonable regiments" from 3 boxes of Airfix figures. This, combined with looking at examples from other wargaming blogs of their own unit compositions has swayed me towards the idea of battalions formed of 1 or at most 2 poses for the bulk of the figures, excluding officers and standard bearers and so forth. So I tried to select sets that could work towards that and provide several battalions of similar figures. The seeming exception to my rule of 3 is the Italeri British, which were chosen to match up to existing figures I already have and round out the numbers to 48 figures of each of the three main British poses.

Painting Plans

I suspect I may end up painting two units at once, as I'm anxious to see the results of my new paint upon some of my infantry, but my first unit is intended to be a squadron of French cuirassiers. However, I just did a test of the black Plasti-Dip basecoat on one side of a complete sprue of 25 French Grenadier Gaurds in greatcoats, to see how a complete sprue would do.

The cuirassiers should be an interesting place to start, and I owe a photo of them (if they're good enough) to someone once they're complete, in thanks for the provision of some spare horses I needed to get the unit fully mounted.

Outside of those, I have some intention of Plasti-dipping the plastic German tanks that I recently received, as they look rather better in black than in their molded plastic colors. I may, at some point, try to paint them up, but for now I simply want to get rid of the cheap plastic look, as the prior owner had spray painted several hulls black but most of the turrets and part of the complete units were still the original color when I bought them. A uniform black will be preferable.

I might put some sort of British unit in the queue, since I have a very nice red to use and my French will need someone to fight. I'm *probably* not going to start off with trying to paint 1/72 scale kilts, so it's more likely to be basic regulars or the Scots Guards cavalry.

Between greatcoats and the possibility of painting the Scots guards, I definitely need to learn to mix gray paint.

WW2 Vehicles revisited

Yesterday was a good day for the mail, with the biggest portion of the items I was waiting on arriving finally. This is a good thing, because it means that some of my more annoying anachronisms get laid to rest. There's still a disparity of scale between some of the items, and some anachronisms are going to live on for a while yet. But it's closer to where I want to be. Several of the anachronisms are going on Ebay, mostly more modern tanks, and will hopefully help repay the cost of my recent upgrades and reinforcements.

I'm still awaiting 1 delivery of 2 Sherman tanks, 2 Halftracks, and 1 Chevrolet staff car. But counting those in, my present expected organization, subject to change is:

Allied
---------------
5 Sherman tanks
1 Churchill tank
3 Crusader tanks (Bradleys doing designation duty)
2 Stuart light tanks
1 M36 tank destroyer
1 Quad w/25pdr towed gun (HMMV w/25pdr)
2 Jeeps w/6pdr AT guns (one is a civilian jeep)
1 Bren carrier (MicroMachines Priest, which I dearly want to replace when I can find a cheap substitute)
1 medium truck
15 large trucks
5 half-tracks
1 M12 SP gun (150mm)
1 mortar jeep
1 radio jeep w/trailer
6 jeeps w/50cal MG
1 Chevrolet staff car

German
-------------
1 Tiger II (broken barrel, may discard)
1 Tiger I
16 PzIV (these may actually be PzIIIs, but they're cheap plastic so I'm not sure. Look decent spray painted though.)
4 PzII (M113s with turrets, doing designation duty. May replace with 3 Weasel armored cars?)
1 Nashorn TD
2 StugIII
3 Staff cars (all civilian cars)
4 Kubelwagen
3 Half-tracks (all US halftracks redesignated)
1 motorcycle w/sidecar
1 large truck w/150mm towed gun (US truck, generic toy artillery piece)
10 large trucks (all US redesignated)

Not yet committed
------------------------
3 Weasel armored cars (I'm torn between giving these to one side or the other, or selling them to Matchbox collectors. I can't identify a historical vehicle they're supposed to be.)


The truck allocation, in particular, could change depending on how I organize my troops and what trucks it takes to motorize them.

Removed from usage are: 8 Hot Wheels "Big Bertha" tanks (M60s?), 1 Patton tank, 1 Rocket tank (formerly used, minus rocket, as a tracked prime mover), and 2 yellow civilian jeeps. I'd love to get rid of the M113s, especially, and replace them with real PzIIs. But I can't find any that match the requirement of cheap, around HO size, and little/no assembly.

It begins

Well, I just tried out the Plasti-Dip spray last night on a French Cuirassier, using a clear plastic trash bag as a spraying surface. This is intended to be my primer, basically, for all figure painting, as it's praised on various sources for providing a good surface for paint to adhere to that maintains its flexibility.

Observations:
1) I probably need some type of suspension to hold the items above the surface when I'm spraying. The rubber builds up on the bag around them, and they have to be peeled out of it afterwards, which means only one side at a time gets done. And I'm concerned that when I do the second side, lifting it up will pull loose some of the rubber on the finished side.
2) It makes a lovely black coat, which I may actually utilize by leaving some of my horses black and only painting the non-black parts of the horses. I'm debating this.
3) I'm going to need some Osprey books before I'm through. I also need flesh-toned paint.

Napoleonic Rules Pondering

I'm presently considering three sets, though I may run across others I like as well. Nothing's set in stone, really, at least till I start basing for one set or another. :>

I think my front runner at the moment may be Shako (http://uk.geocities.com/w.morffew@btinternet.com/shako1803/index.htm). The rules make an easy read, and I really like the breakthrough rules at first glance. I also like the rules for artillery crews retreating and then returning to get the guns back in action. I'm tempted to allow artillery crews even in rout to be rallied (subject to the regular rally rules of course) and returned to the guns if their side still has control of that ground. I wonder how historical this is.

I'm also considering Grenadier (http://www.anst.uu.se/svennore/Grenadier/index.html), which looks interesting but perhaps a little complex for my liking.

The third set under consideration is Old Trousers (http://www.anst.uu.se/svennore/Grenadier/index.html) which I have yet to actually open and look at. The introduction looked interesting, but we'll see if the actual rules hold up under scrutiny.

Overall, I'm looking for rules sets that will give roughly 10-30 soldiers per battalion, which with my current troops on hand (not counting any an opponent brings) would give me roughly 3-5 cavalry regiments and anywhere from 20 to 60 battalions of infantry on the table, counting both sides.