Snickering Corpses

Figure Identification

2010-05-29T05:51:00.004-05:00

Can anyone help with identifying these figures?

There has been a little speculation that they could be Scruby, but nothing concrete.

Reading In Progress

2010-03-12T15:32:00.002-05:00

I've recently been reading a good bit more than I had in quite a while, and have finished a few books and have a couple in progress.

Finished
-----------
Panzer Commander by Hans von Luck - autobiographical memoir of a man who served under Rommel in France, Africa, and France again. He also served on the Eastern Front and finished up the war near Berlin. Covers his postwar experiences in a Russian prison camp and later in postwar Germany as well.

Is Paris Burning by Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre - A fairly extensive book with many firsthand accounts, centered around the liberation of Paris in WW2.

Piercing the Darkness by Brock and Bodie Thoene - A fictional novel by two of my favorite authors. This one would likely be classified as a thriller. Many of their other novels are historical fiction, such as Twilight of Courage (of which I frequently re-read various sections).

In Progress
---------------
With Rommel in the Desert by H.W. Schmidt - another autobiographical Afrika Korps memoir. The author served in various positions under Rommel, from combat commands to a time as Rommel's personal assistant.

Bread and Wine by Ignazio Silone - a novel focused on the Italian resistance fighters in WW2.

Alamo in the Ardennes by John C. McManus - As might be guessed from the title, this one is focused on the Battle of the Bulge, with a concentration on telling many small personal experiences from various participants.

HOTT Ponderings

2009-03-19T20:37:00.003-05:00

Naturally, now that I have the rules, I had to ponder about making armies. The person I blame most, though not the only one to blame, is David of the Miniature Minions blog. It was the thought of a Narnian army that led me across his blog and another website that had Narnian armies for HOTT.

However, first order of pondering is how to make HOTT armies from figures already on hand. I turned first to my sole box of Caesar 1/72 Samurai and Ninjas. This provides 16 Ninja figures, 1 mounted officer, 2 geisha or noble ladies, 4 bowmen, 4 heavily armored spearmen, 2 senior samurai, 4 lightly armored spearmen, and 4 lightly armored swordsmen. The excess of Ninja is a source of dithering, as they could be used as Sneakers, but the 3 point cost adds up fast and clashes with the rule about 3-4-6 point elements not being over 50% of your points. On the other hand, as Lurkers, the low cost leaves me potentially short on points without getting more figures. One set of options:

1 Blades General (2AP) - 2AP
3 Blades (2AP) - 6AP
1 Shooters (2AP) - 2AP
1 Heroes (4AP) - 4AP
2 Sneakers (3AP) - 6AP
2 Lurkers (1AP) - 2AP

That would leave me 2 points short.

Another ponder is taking my Thirty Years War figures and working out a HOTT semi-historical army for them.

Succumbing to the Hordes

2009-03-18T15:34:00.002-05:00

Well, I finally reached a point that I could no longer resist the lure of Hordes of the Things. Today's mail brought my copy of the ruleset in, but I've not had time to look through it at any depth yet. I looked at a half dozen or so army lists that caught my eye as familiar subjects and that's about it. The brief glimpse was encouraging, however.

The most interesting thing about buying these, to me, was that I ordered a copy from a seller in England, and even with shipping the total was significantly cheaper than ordering it from the only US sources I've found.

Among the ideas for armies tickling my brain (not necessarily in order of priority):

1) Japanese Samurai
2) Chronicles of Narnia
3) Redwall
4) Redaemon Chronicles/OnePrince - humans, rats, the occasional badger, and 'spirit things'
5) English Civil War/Thirty Years War era - I wonder if the combined pike/musket nature of some of the units of this period may be an issue.
6) Archives of Anthropos - no end to the fantasy characters in this one... dragons, horsemen, medieval-style infantry, pegasi, harpies, magicians,...

Of course, it may be a while before I have figures for any of these. But they're fun to dream about, if nothing else.

Elephants and other Thoughts

2009-02-06T11:45:00.002-05:00

The previous post mentioned some Rocos I was waiting to receive, and these arrived safely and with a nice bonus...a sixth Panther and a Panzer IV. The new arrivals have created an unexpected dilemma for me, as it demonstrated that my existing knockoff PzIV and JgdPzIV were actually significantly over scale! I knew it was large next to the StuG III, but now that I've seen it next to both the Panther and the Roco PzIV, I'm convinced they're overscale. So I may well actually put them up for sale too.

On to Elephants.... I've acquired a copy of the new TooFatLardies ACW rules, charmingly titled "They Couldn't Hit an Elephant" from a quote attributed to a Union general who assured his staff that the Confederate skirmishers "couldn't hit an elephant at this distance" right before dying from a shot by said skirmishers. I haven't had time to read through the whole thing yet, just the first few pages. It looks very hopeful though.

The recommended base size for TCHAE up to 15mm figures is 20mm x 20mm, and over 15mm is the 40mm x 40mm. I think I've decided, however, because of the way the figure strips that several of my ACW are on are set up, that I shall use the 40mm x 40mm bases for my 10mm figures. I should be able to get up to 3 or 4 rows of 3 or 4 figures per row on a single stand, with room left at the back for some sort of label identifying the unit. I think I shall like the look of that. I'm still not sure if I'm going to end up clipping apart the 3-figure strips into singles for mounting. The strips are rather thick, so I'm also pondering if I should eventually try to cut the bottoms off so that I don't have to build up putty or something around them to make the top level.

Income and outgo

2009-01-19T10:00:00.005-05:00

Still have all the items for sale/trade listed three posts down. May add to the list soon.

In the meantime, I'm expecting probably by the end of the week or possibly next week to have a small addition to my Roco forces, namely a platoon of 5 Panthers and a single Sdkfz 7 half-track. This will be my first actual German half-track, where right now all my half-tracks are diecast US ones from various toy companies. Hot Wheels, mostly, with a smattering of Zee Toys and Johnny Lightning.

With the arrival of the Rocos, I shall have all the vehicles necessary to recreate the first battle in Operation Warboard. This has been an objective that's been in my mind for a few weeks now, to assemble troops and vehicles and try out the battle as an IABSM scenario. I may use British troops instead of American as I already have some Brits being based up. I'm also debating whether to use the number of platoons listed in OW, or go with squads, as the platoons in Operation Warboard have roughly a squad worth of figures in them, so going with squads would be closer to the actual figure count involved. Plus, the scenario calls for 3 trucks, each carrying a "platoon", and I'm thinking the carrying capacity for a truck is probably about one squad in IABSM.

Errr...

2009-01-19T09:58:00.002-05:00

The Neocounter says I've had over 688,000 visitors. Surely that's not true.

Lesa and Shadrach

2008-12-30T21:39:00.002-05:00

Emails were sent to both of you as requested. It's holiday time so you may just not have had a chance to respond yet, but please confirm whether you've received them. I wanted to make sure they got through.

Items for sale or trade

2008-11-30T12:48:00.000-05:00

Books
-------------
Osprey Men-At-Arms 64 Napoleon's Cuirassiers and Carabiniers
Osprey Men-At-Arms 55 Napoleon's Dragoons and Lancers

25-30mm Old Glory
--------------------
SYWA-13 Austrian Hussar Command - complete (1 standard top broken off but present)
SYWA-08 Austrian Hungarian Grenadier Command - complete
SYWA-03 Austrian German Grenadier Command - 1 officer w/spontoon, 1 drummer, 1 standard bearer
SYWA-04 Austrian German Grenadier - 1 wounded marching hatless, 12 marching grenadier variants
?? unidentified 18th century - 2 officer marching with spontoon over shoulder, 2 officer standing with sword upright
AWI-21 British Grenadier March Attack - 1 officer, 1 standard, 1 fifer (I think), 1 drummer, 11 marching

25mm Barry Minot plastics
------------------------
2 Highlander
3 AWI light infantry advancing
2 AWI musketeer in tricorn advancing
16 AWI grenadier in bearskin advancing

30mm Spencer Smith plastics
-------------------------
2 drummers (1 painted and based)

25mm Sash & Saber
---------------
1 Prussian Grenadier Advancing Shoulder Arms (Prussian Cuffs)

1/72 Plastic Napoleonics - Boxed
------------------------------------
Manufacturer Code # Name Number of Boxes Number of Figures
Italeri 6058 British and Scots Infantry 1 50
Zvezda 8021 French Infantry 1 50

1/72 Plastic Napoleonics - Loose
--------------------------------------
Manufacturer Code # Name Number of Figures
Esci 227 French Line Infantry 75
Esci 215 Napoleonic British Infantry 127
Airfix 01744 Waterloo French Infantry 141
Esci 214 French Imperial Guard 127
Airfix 01749 Waterloo French Imperial Guard 50
Airfix 01736 Waterloo French Cavalry 24

1/72 Plastic Samurai
---------------
Caesar 003 Japan Samurai with Ninja - 1 box (with box, but off sprue, unpainted)

1/87 Vehicles
---------------
Roco Marder I (missing targeting asembly on left of turret)
Roco fuel tractor/trailer (Z168 maybe, with scoop-entry on tractor?)(painted)
EKO WW2 dump truck
Roco water tank truck (Looks like the #148, only it has the scoop-entry rather than doors on the tractor)

1/72 Plastic WW2
---------------------
Airfix 01748 USAF Personnel (loose figures, but should all be present)
Airfix 01747 RAF Personnel (loose figures, but should all be present)

A little more progress

2008-10-19T15:19:00.002-05:00

A trip over to my Hesse-Engelburg blog will show a little more work done this weekend.

WW2 Vehicle Park

2008-10-12T14:38:00.003-05:00

Following in the footsteps of some others on the 1/87 Military Models Yahoo group, I decided to line up all my WW2 vehicles for a group photo. On the left side, you can see various artillery pieces, a couple of Paul Heiser models that are still in progress (the white items), a stray Roco Marder I, a Tiger II and Panther from a Roco knockoff company that need new track units, and some odds and ends of spare parts. More comments after the photo. Click on the photo for a larger view.

As you can see (and has been mentioned on this blog), my vehicles are a mixture of true 1/87 vehicles from Roco, Boley, Eko, and others, plus a mix of die-cast and plastic vehicles that happen to be in generally the right size. The topmost trucks are all modern M998 trucks from Maisto, but I use them quite happily in my WW2 forces of all sides. If I eventually get enough Roco trucks of the correct nationality and era, I may phase them out, but for now they suit me fine. Similary, the third row down shows a mixed bag of diecast US half-tracks from at least three manufacturers, most of them the sort with AA guns. These are also happily used as troop transports of all sides as needed, until such time as proper replacements can arrive. Given that the Roco/Heiser halftracks tend to sell from $12-30 each, this will be a while.
I still don't know who makes the undersized cheap plastic panzers near the front. These too may eventually be replaced when I can afford the proper 1/87 vehicles. The very front row has several jeeps, a number of which are missing parts (which is their state when I bought them). It also has the probably gem of the Roco part of my collection, a lone Churchill.

On the Workbench

2008-10-07T05:12:00.004-05:00

Having done some random bits of progressing the past couple of days, I decided it was time for one of the traditional cluttered workbench pictures, plus some updates. As usual, click on a picture for a larger version. First the cluttered workbench. Right now, there's nothing else demanding the bench, so I've got my wargaming stuff spread out on it, so I figured it was a good time to take a picture. It's actually slightly more cluttered now, as that shot was a couple of days before some of the latest work. Those who follow my SYW ImagiNations can see some of the primed and partly painted figures off to the right side of the desk. Top center is Delta Ceramcoat paints, with Vallejo paints at top right.

Next up, we have further progress on the 10mm ACW figures. I painted blanket rolls on two more stands, going with Vallejo 869 Basalt Gray this time.

I also decided to begin painting on the remaining two buildings that were still unpainted all this time. The next picture shows the JR Miniatures 15mm church from their Napoleonic French line. The stonework is done with Delta Ceramcoat 2442 Stonewedge. I'm still not totally decided if I like this. The doors and wooden trim are in Delta Ceramcoat 2055 Autumn Brown. For the roof, I'm thinking of going with a dark red color.

With a bit of left-over Autumn Brown from the above, I painted the spear shaft of the leftmost Warrior Frog in the next picture.

Next up, we hav the other "Servant's Quarters" building from JR Miniatures, again from their 15mm Napoleonic French line. I've undercoated it with my usual white acrylic gesso. I'm thinking of going for a blue shade possible for the walls of it; haven't decided for sure.

And last but not least, I've finally gotten up the courage to take one of the Paul Heiser 1/87 scale British Scout Carriers out of its bag, trim/sand/snip/poke the flash from (most of) it, and get an undercoat of white gesso on it. I've got another one of these to go after it, and want to get a few more to equip my partial carrier platoon. A look back at the workbench photo will reveal a German Sdkfz 250 also awaiting painting and assembly.

Vive la House!

2008-09-29T15:52:00.000-05:00

No, this is't wargaming related.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080929/ap_on_bi_ge/financial_meltdown

Quote: "Bush and a host of leading congressional figures had implored the lawmakers to pass the legislation despite loud protest from their constituents back home. Not enough members were willing to take the political risk just five weeks before an election.

More than two-thirds of Republicans and 40 percent of Democrats opposed the bill."

Who cares about the political risks? Have any of you heard of representative government? Where the people elected represent their constituents? If their constituents are protesting loudly, isn't it their responsibility to vote against it? Since they're supposed to be representing us, not deciding things for us?

Vive la House! Even the Democrats that joined the vote against it. For once, I agree with some Democrats.

Tuesday's 10mm ACW painting

2008-09-26T21:15:00.004-05:00

At least, I think it was Tuesday. It's been one of those busy weeks, days jumbling together. But I managed to get in some more painting time, and advance the figures further.

Step 5 (part 2) and Step 6:
As noted before, one stand of the infantry is ahead of the others in the process now. I first decided to deal with catching the others up, and wanted to try a different shade of blue. The figures on the right are this attempt, painted with Accent Country Colors 2446 "Indigo Blue". As you can see, it came out rather dark, so I decided to go back to the main blue for the remaining figures.
Meanwhile, the left stand in the picture is the one in step 5 in the previous post, and has progressed to step 6 with the painting of the blanket roll. I decided to aim for the oilskin look on this one, so I went with Delta Ceramcoat 02506 Black. The contrast with the brighter Navy Blue is subtle, but visible, and I rather like it. I think I'll try some other blanket roll colors, however, probably starting with a gray.

This second photo shows Step 5 as applied to the remaining infantry and the mounted officer. All of these have been painted with the same Navy Blue as the first one was in the last post, after my attempt at a darker blue. I may go back and paint the officer's hat to a darker color. Still debating that.

One thing I did fail to do, which I should have done in step 5, is to paint the base of the figures. That will be rolled into the next round. Painting the base at this stage makes it easier to put the dash of color on the boots later.

10mm ACW Painting Continues

2008-08-28T11:06:00.003-05:00

Yesterday allowed me to get a little further on painting, and I've got some fresh photos to show for it. I actually was able to paint one stand several days ago, since the last post, but didn't get a photo of it. So now I have one stand that's ahead of the others in the painting steps. As usual, click on the photos to get a larger view.

Step 4: Trousers
For these union troops, I'm using Delta Ceramcoat 02106 Bonnie Blue as the trouser color, and I've begun using a new technique for these, which I used to use in my teen years on 1/72 scale figures. Instead of a paintbrush, I'm using a toothpick. While the shaking of my hands still causes paint where I don't want it some, it seems to cause a lot less trouble than stray bristles off the paint brush.

Step 5: Jacket and Kepi
I decided on using Delta Ceramcoat 2083 Navy Blue for the coats and hats on this stand, but I'm pondering the possibility of using some other dark blues on various stands. Initially this will likely be to learn what I like, but it also leaves some room for variation in dye jobs and wear to the fabric. You can see where I slipped and got a bit of the dark blue on the rifle barrel while painting the kepi. This will be corrected later.

More painting

2008-08-15T20:46:00.006-05:00

A couple of days ago provided another opportunity to get a little painting in. I started on the next step of the 10mm ACW figures, then had some paint left over so I went ahead and dug out a couple of other figures. As usual, click on the photo to zoom in.

Step 3: Skin
For step 3, I started on faces and hands, and backs of necks in some cases, for my 10mm ACW figures. I wasn't very worried about being neat, beyond trying not to paint over the rifles too much, but stages to come may require more care. I have some ideas to try.

I also had a chance to work on face and hands for my lone test figure for WW2 British plastic troops. I suspect I'll change my technique up some the next one I paint, but I'm reasonably pleased that the figure is actually somewhat usable in that state. I intend to do more, but for the period, a simple basic color and distinct face and hands is not a bad basic setup.

Meanwhile, check out my Hesse-Engelburg and Ober-Schweinsberg blogs to see the other two figures I worked on. For those of you not familiar with them, just click the "View my complete profile" link at the top of this page and scroll down to find links to them.

Painting and Trades

2008-08-11T11:19:00.004-05:00

While nothing impressive, I have made a little painting progress in the past couple of weeks. I started painting my 10mm ACW figures, using a technique found on a web forum for 6mm figures. Pictures below of the first two steps. I'm doing 4 stands of 3 infantry plus one mounted officer, though you can only see two of the stands in the photo. They're mounted with drops of white glue onto a spare bit of plywood for handling. I'm pleased with how that's worked out.

Step one: Priming
I've primed the figures, as with all my priming lately, with Liquitex white acrylic gesso. I'm still learning how much to pour out to coat a certain amount of figures.

Step two: Muskets and Horse
For this stage, I've used Delta Ceramcoat acrylic 02054 Golden Brown. The painting guide recommended going a little lighter for small figures than for large ones, so this was one of the lighter browns in my limited paint inventory. The decision to use it on the horse had more to do with having a fair bit of it left over after completing the muskets than out of any plan regarding horse colors.

Meanwhile, this past week's mail brought in several items. I finally managed to free up some cash to pay for a box that Tom had been holding onto for me, so my Roco forces are now augmented by a Roco Opel radio truck, a Roco Sherman tank, and a Roco Elefant tank destroyer. Also in the box were gun trails to complete my Roco US 105mm Howitzer, and a spare M10/36 tank destroyer hull in case I wished to do a conversion from the Sherman. In the end, I decided I had more need of a Sherman to lead my Matchbox Shermans, so it's been put into service as is.

Also in the mail was the result of a trade for about 300 of my 1/72 plastic Napoleonic figures (I still have more if anyone is interested). I know I'd decided to cut myself down to just Western Front WW2, but I ended up in trade with a box each of Airfix Japanese Infantry and US Marines. I can always trade them later, but having also received a couple of Japanese pack mules, I'm pondering doing a small supply interdiction game. Also included were 2 boxes of British paratroopers, a box of Revell Scottish 8th Infantry, and a box of Revell Afrika Korps. I probably won't use these for Africa (especially since I got rid of my other Africa troops), but rather raid the mostly long-trousered figures for variety in my Western Europe forces....and perhaps the option of doing Italian front battles as well. In line with the latter, I added a box of Italian Alpini. I'm still debating whether to cut off the feathers from the mostly helmeted troops so I can use them as regular Italians with my Airfix/Hat Italians. They'd supply badly needed machine guns for them. Or maybe I'll just leave the feathers on so I have the option to mix or to separate. We'll see.

Naval Wargames

2008-07-16T06:39:00.002-05:00

Thanks to a small contest, I received an Amazon gift certificate, which was spent on a variety of stuff, mostly DVDs/videos for family night, but first on my list was a copy of Barry J. Carter's "Naval Wargames" which is mostly focused on WW1 and WW2. This is another of those books I used to check out of the library in my late teens, and from which my best friend and I spent many hours cutting and writing on small cardboard counters for WW1 and WW2 fleets which were played out using these rules across a large living room floor. Good memories.

Long Time, No Post

2008-03-11T07:16:00.002-05:00

There's been a lot of activity on the sister-blogs, Hesse-Engelburg and Ober-Schweinsberg, but very little on this one. I have relatively little to report outside the SYW nations, but I have had some success in clearing out some of my unwanted wargaming items and adding some wanted ones.

Slowly, my wargaming library has grown, a book or a two at a time. I need to update that side listing pretty badly. It's well out of date.

Actual wargaming items have been limited to mostly SYW stuff, though I'm expecting a few more WW2 vehicles from a friend in the next few weeks.

I should compile a list of things I have to sell and post it here, just in case anyone's looking for them.

Obscure War Movies

2007-12-28T19:56:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-27T15:42:00.001-05:00

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

2007-12-11T09:27:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-14T06:16:00.001-05:00

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

2007-11-05T20:45:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-29T13:51:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-07T06:04:00.001-05:00

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

2007-05-02T18:03:00.000-05:00

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

2007-04-28T07:05:00.000-05:00

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

2007-04-09T06:04:00.000-05:00

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

2007-04-08T12:18:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-28T14:39:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-28T14:32:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-09T21:52:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-09T13:07:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-08T07:52:00.000-05:00

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.

2007-03-06T15:45:00.000-05:00

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!

2007-03-01T23:36:00.000-05:00

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

2007-02-28T21:11:00.000-05:00

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...

2007-02-23T20:37:00.000-05:00

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

2007-02-22T21:08:00.000-05:00

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

2007-02-17T14:09:00.000-05:00

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

2007-02-09T10:25:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-20T16:24:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-05T15:49:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-04T15:13:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-03T07:37:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-01T22:37:00.000-05:00

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.

WW2 Vehicles

2006-12-31T21:02:00.000-05:00

My vehicles for Operation Warboard are, true to the original, an odd mixture of toys and more serious toys. ;) There's also, though I'm gradually eliminating them as I'm able, some pieces that are simply being *declared* to be such and such, because I don't happen to have one handy. This is most obvious in the case of trucks, in which a large number of die-cast American trucks are doing service as both American trucks and German Opels, as Opels are expensive to acquire in any numbers.

I'm waiting on some deliveries from Christmas season spending, but here's what I expect to have once those are through:

Armor
---------------------------------
5 Sherman tanks
2 M5 Stuart light tanks
1 M36 Tank Destroyer
1 Churchill
~14 German tanks (Pz III or IV, I can't tell from the photos)
1 Tiger I
1 Nashorn
2 Stug III
1 Tiger II (missing half a gun barrel, may discard)

Half-tracks
-----------------
7 definite, all US but some may be redesignated as German
up to 2 additional US half-tracks, if my bids win
up to 4 German half-tracks, if my bids win

Trucks/Jeeps/Cars
-----------------
26 large and 1 medium truck, all US but redesignatable
1 US mortar jeep
7 US jeeps, 1 with trailer
4 Kubelwagen
1 US staff car
1 motorcycle with sidecar (could be any side)

Civilian, possibly designated as military
--------------------------------------------
2 jeeps
3 fancy cars

Other Redesignated Items
--------------------------------
3 Bradley IFVs, being used as Shermans or M10s or M18s.
3 4-wheel armored cars, post-war, which might end up in any army
4 M113s with turrets, Hot Wheels, which I've been using as PZIIFs
1 HMMV, used as a Quad towing vehicle
2 oversized jeeps, used as Morris C8 towing vehicles
1 tracked rocket launch vehicle without rocket, used as a tracked prime mover for artillery
1 Micro Machines Priest SP gun, being used as a Bren/Universal carrier by its small size.

At present, there are 8 Hot Wheels "Big Bertha" M60 tanks doing service as PzIVs, but these should be replaced by the above mentioned German tanks when they arrive.

Needs:
--------------
I'd say my worst need is a really cheap source of several Bren carriers suitably sized. After that, probably some actual German half-tracks or actual British towing vehicles. Some actual German light tanks would be nice too. More Kubelwagens would be a nice touch, as well.

As I'm able, I hope to keep getting rid of the ahistorical items, and eventually field a force fully made of items that actually are what they pretend to be. ;)

Too many troops or too few?

2006-12-31T18:30:00.000-05:00

Today I made an attempt to organize my troops, sorting out the British WW2 forces to try to create a proper Operation Warboard organization for them. But I find myself with the unusual problem of having too many troops now, rather than too few before. I suppose there's never really a balance of such things.

Yet, in spite of having too many troops, I have way too few of some types, with too many of others.

Useful British/Commonwealth forces available are:

Radios: 1 (only 1 despite having roughly 6-7 boxes worth of troops)
Officers/leader types: 17
Men with binoculars as spotters: 4
Bren guns: 40 (this is, in OWB terms, enough for more than 3 platoons composed solely of Bren guns!)
2-man PIAT teams: 10
2-man Vickers HMG teams: 3
2-man Mortar teams: 6
Other ranks with Sten guns: 16
Other ranks with Thompson SMG: 25
Other ranks with Enfield rifles: 138

In OWB terms, this gives me roughly 1 HMG platoon, 2 mortar platoons, and enough men for over 15 platoons of infantry.

Forces I'm not sure what to do with:

Minesweepers: 6 - useful in some scenarios, certainly, but what do I do with them otherwise? And do I draw troops from other types to fill this into some type of platoon sized unit?

Bagpipers: 4 - These might be useful for a morale boost, but would only fit for certain units

2-man HMG crews without guns: 4 - do I keep these about and look for guns, or dump them?

Men stabbing downward with their bayonets: 13 - These would be fine for dioramas, but kind of odd marching across a wargames table. Why must there be so many of them?

Riflemen in ANZAC Slouch Hats: 10 - My only problem with these is that they're only useful for desert or pacific battles, and I'm not sure whether to try to fill out an Aussie company with the non-slouch hats even though it wouldn't be usable in my European battles, or dump these off to someone who might need them.

Men helping wounded comrades: 2 - again, nice for dioramas, but not so useful for a wargaming table, unless you use casualty markers, which OWB rules don't. Possibility: could be used if evacuating wounded was a victory condition, perhaps relieving a position under fire or emptying a field hospital to avoid capture.