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.