Last Ak-47 order delivered!

Haven't sat down to update the blog in a few days, but last Thursday brought the delivery of the big order I was waiting on from OldGloryMiniatures.com, the modified version of the order that Warweb failed to deliver. My Warweb order is now in Paypal claim department's hands, waiting for a refund. But in the meantime, OldGloryMiniatures.com came through with an unexpectedly rapid delivery.

Now I just need to find time to open all the packs and start sorting out my units for both armies, including extra troops from political maneuvers. I have a sneaky suspicion that I'll have enough left over to start a third army when I'm done. I'm particularly anxious to see how many of what is in the command/weapons packs with 50 figures total.

The AK-47 rules are not concerned with the specific types of small arms on an infantry base, with the exception of man-portable anti-tank weapons (RPG/Bazooka), crew-served heavy machine guns, mortars, recoilless rifles, and anti-aircraft weapons. So those are the main ones I need to sort out of the weapons packs.

A little more firepower

Yesterday's mail came very late, presumably as a result of the first day back from holiday meaning there was more mail to deliver. But it brought with it the heavy weapons from TheSceneUK. This means that all I now lack should be the big Old Glory order.

I received an email yesterday indicating another package was sent to me, which I hope is the Old Glory order, but didn't give me enough info to be sure. We'll just have to wait until it arrives and see!

A few reinforcements

Today's mail brought in my order from OldGlory15s.com. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the jeep with RCL I'd ordered was actually a pack of 2 jeeps.

Last night, while moving some things, I finally found a missing wargaming box, which included some previously ordered Litko items. So now I have a total of 75 purple hearts, and 10 miniature smoke column markers.

New arrivals and adjustments

Firstly, the Litko custom counters I ordered have arrived and I am very pleased with them. I think they'll do the job I want them to do. Now I just need to get the rest of the troops in so I can start building armies.

I finally decided to just cancel the Warweb orders and order direct from OldGloryMiniatures.com. I've initiated Paypal messages requesting a cancellation and citing the lack of communication. I have, however, decided to adjust my order in the process. I've dropped a couple of items and added a few more to better suit what I think I want for the final armies.

So the newly modified Old Glory order from OldGloryMiniatures.com is (totals of figures/vehicles, not packs):

Middle Eastern Regulars - 50
Middle Eastern Command - 50
African Irregulars - 100
African Irregular Command - 50
African Pickup Crew with HMG - 4
14.5mm ZPU Truck Mount - 4
Modern Pickups - 6
T-55 - 3
BTR-50 APC - 3
BTR-60A APC - 3
CMP 3 Ton Trucks - 6
AEC Armored Car - 3

Most likely, the army troops will get the tanks while the religious movement gets the armored cars, but we'll see.

I'm going to end up with an over-abundance of options for technicals by the end of this due to my random ordering from different sources instead of carefully planning. I've got a Landrover with RCL and a Jeep with RCL that came that way. But I've also got a total of 7 heavy machine gun vehicle mounts, 8 75mm RCLs, 6 ZPU-1 AA guns, 1 ZPU-4 AA gun, a quad 50cal MG mount, a twin-linked Gatling gun mount, a twin-linked auto-cannon mount, and a small rocket launcher mount. Which comes out to 26 possible weapon mounts (not counting the two pre-mounted RCLs), though some of those may end up as ground mounts too. This is partly due to the fact that several of them are multi-packs, particularly the RCLs that sent me too many in a pack and told me to just keep the extra when I reported it.

Lastly, I got an email from TheSceneUK that my order was complete. So hopefully it either shipped then or will ship by tomorrow.

We Get Signal

Today's mail brought the radio tower from Shapeways, extremely carefully packed. I was really impressed with the care taken in the packaging of the piece. So that's one more item arrived.

I also sent inquiry to the contact forms of Warweb and OldGlory15s to see the status on the orders I'd made. OldGlory15s replied to me Wednesday, saying the order was cast that day and would go out the next day, so I should be getting it sometime early next week at the latest. Still not a peep from Warweb.

Litko also emailed me that my order of markers from them was completed, and according to their tracking number it was picked up by the carrier today, so it should be here by the first part of the week as well.

Air Support

The Nu-bee 1/100 Mi-4 Hip arrived today from Hattons in the UK. It's a pre-owned kit, but everything seems to be present just as Hatton claimed, including the multilingual instruction book and the little roll of material to weight the nose. Looks, in unassembled form, to be a pretty clean little kit. Will have to see if it fits together properly when I get a chance to assemble it.

I haven't decided for sure what I'm going to do with it, since by rule helicopters can only be Professional units and neither of my current armies are allowed Professional units. I may just ignore that rule and let it be a regular if I use it, or save it for if I do another army that can use Professionals.

Reinforcements Arriving

It's been a busy couple of days for the mail carriers in Kinyonga, though their labor is not yet over.

My full QRF order from Scale Creep Miniatures and my Peter Pig order from Brookhurst Hobbies arrived yesterday, but I was too busy with some real life things to open them until today. Today's mail brought the second order from Peter Pig UK, and the huts and blast markers from PaperTerrain.

With the Peter Pig BTR-152 in hand, I was able to compare the size of the old Maisto M939 diecast trucks I had. They're longer than the BTR-152, but the wheels are about the same size and the height is reasonably compatible, so I think for my purposes they'll work to fill in extra trucks where needed. The M939 is technically too modern for my setting, but I'm going with the "a truck is a truck" rule for now, at least until such time as I can acquire a significant number of proper period trucks for an insignificant amount of money.

Most concerning to me right now amongst the not yet received is the Old Glory figures and vehicles ordered from Warweb. The earliest of them were ordered 19 days ago. They're just barely inside their "allow 2-3 weeks" timeframe, with no notice yet of anything shipping, and no answer to phone or email. This makes me a bit nervous since I've never ordered from them before. I wasn't expecting so long a delay because I thought everything I ordered was listed as in stock; I'm wondering if I overlooked one that wasn't or if their stock count wasn't up to date.

Other than that, I'm waiting on the Old Glory ZSU-23-4 and M40 Jeep w/RCL that I ordered direct from OldGlory15s, the casualty/wrecked/pinned markers from Litko, the barbed wire from SnM Stuff, the Nu-bee Mi-4 Hip from Hattons, the AA guns and rockets from TheSceneUK, and the radio transmitter pylon from Shapeways. Of those, the last 4 are all overseas, so I'm not too worried about the timeframe on them. Litko produces when the order is received, so it always takes a little while for them to ship, but I'm used to them and their communication.

I need the Old Glory orders (both Warweb and OG15s) and the TheSceneUK heavy weapons to be able to start sorting bases and units, especially the technicals since there are 4 pickups and 4 crew-served guns in the Warweb order and an additional 3 guns and a rocket launcher from TheScene. Once I have those, I can sort out which weapons I want mounted on which vehicles. The pickups, Unimogs, Land Rover, BTR-40, and M939s are all candidates for weapon mounts.

Totalling Up the Purchases (updated 9/14/15)

One of the hazards of buying a little here and there is you can quickly buy more than you need or spend more than you wanted. I'm pretty sure I've ended up doing that already with the AK-47 project. I won't really be sure until I have everything in hand so I can sort it out and figure up points, but I was going through to figure up how many things I'd ordered and thought I'd post the list here in a single post at the same time. Counts are number of figures/vehicles/items, not number of packs.

Old Glory
original order from Warweb cancelled

New Old Glory Order
Middle Eastern Regulars - 50 *
Middle Eastern Command - 50 *
African Irregulars - 100 *
African Irregular Command - 50 *
African Pickup Crew with HMG - 4 *
14.5mm ZPU Truck Mount - 4 *
Modern Pickups - 6 *
T-55 - 3 *
BTR-50 APC - 3 *
BTR-60A APC - 3 *
CMP 3 Ton Trucks - 6 *
AEC Armored Car - 3 *

Old Glory 15s/Battle Honors
ZSU-23-4 Shilka - 1 *
Jeep w/106mm RCL - 2 *

QRF
BTR-40A APC/scout vehicle - 1 *
Ferret Mk 1 armored car - 2 *
Saracen APC - 1 *
Landrover LWB w/Wombat RCL - 1 *

 Peter Pig
Seated Drivers - 6 *
ZPU-4 AA gun - 1 *
ZPU-1 AA gun - 2 *
Gaz Jeep - 1 *
AA Crew - 6 *
75mm RCL - 8*
Dictator character - 1*
Religious Leader character - 1*
BTR-152 - 2 *
Toyota High Suspension - 1 *
Unimog Truck - 2 *
Landrover - 1 *
MG Gunners - 3 *

Rebel Minis
Hostages - 12*
News Crew - 2*
Modern Rioters - 21*
Riot Police - 20*
African Military (berets) - 27*
African Militia - 27*
Modern Police - 22*
Modern Civilians - 21*

Khurasan Miniatures
Galactic Dictator - 1*
Modern Western Civilians (rioters) - 10*

Litko
30x30 bases - 200*
30x40 bases - 25*
40x40 bases - 50*
Wrecked vehicle markers (custom, blue) - 10 *
Wrecked vehicle markers (custom, red) - 10 *
Casualty markers (custom, red) - 30 *
Casualty markers (custom, blue) - 30 *
Pinned Markers - 20 (+10 I already had = 30) *

SnM Stuff
Barbed Wire - 10 meters *

Paper Terrain
15mm Grass Huts - 15 *
Blast markers - 25 *

Nu-Bee
Mi-4 Hip model kit *

Finger and Toe Models
15mm ShantyTown shacks - as many as I feel like printing and assembling*
15mm ShantyTown Shops - as many as I feel like printing and assembling*

The Scene UK
Quad linked 50 cal machine gun - 1 *
Twin linked Gatling gun - 1 *
ML001 (vehicle rocket launcher) - 1 *
Twin linked auto cannon - 1 *

Shapeways
 Transmitter  Pylon - 1 *


Besides all of this, I may or may not use some diecast vehicles I have on hand for the project, once I see what the sizes of the 15mm vehicles are compared to my diecasts.

* - indicates I've already received it. Everything else is waiting to arrive.