Deuce and Half "Krautmower" - walkthrough

Heya,

It's been a while but recently real life grabbed my balls pretty hard and refused to release 'till now. There's been just everything: kids, home, job, studies - friggin nightmare.

Deeply hope to catch some air during summer and paint something (anything!!!) more for my Bolt Action Americans. Some gaming also wouldn't hurt...

So what's about the truck?

Long story short I got it last year as a gift.

Although I needed small transport for my engineers (Dodge 3/4 would be just perfect for the task...) my brother delivered big ass truck instead: 

model itself is really nice and well casted, there are different assembly options etc, but sadly for small scale games we're having here fielding Deuce and Half is just waste of preciousss points and loading space. 

Not mentioning the fact loading too much infantry on a single transport is kinda risky...

So the model has been assembled, undercoated and as it turned out later - spent next few months waiting for fuck knows what.

I've always liked M16 MGMC anti-aircraft battery model. Not sure about it's gaming usefulness, but 4 heavy machine guns seems just damn nasty against enemy infantry!
Just imagine that pink mist and zee German bits flying everywhere after a salvo... Yum!

Original model uses tank "slot" in reinforced platoon so sadly - I don't need it BUT I thought having such thing in display case would be nice. 

Especially there was truck chassiss waiting for development...

After quick research I learnt during world war 2 quad heavy machine guns batteries were placed on half tracks and on trailers. There were also stationary anti-aircraft emplacements.

I thought my soiders are clever and resourceful enough to place one on slightly modified truck (such vehicles were actually used during Vietnam war, not sure about WW2).

So I got the battery:  

Prepared model for the field surgery...

Some cutting and breaking...

And it's done!

I tried to paint it with airbrush - result isn't exactly what I was hoping for but it's still promising.

I started with dark brown base followed by 3 tones of green:

Next stage - details:

tires, gas canisters, some chipping:

Da crew:

All bits put together...

Weathering.

It's something new for me - usually I simply load lots of chalk and seal it with varnish but this time model was airbrushed with very diluted sand yellow and then some chalk applied.

Quite acceptable solution:

All paint is dry so model has been covered with solid layer of Revell matt varnish (it's gaming model after all) and here's the final result:

The thing wouldn't happen without great customer service from Warlord Games - thanks a lot Robin! ;-)

The house that Demi built

Hello again,

I am still gathering strength to start working on US infantry for Bolt Action game.

No idea why but somehow just cannot force myself to expand the force - working on these models has always been fun after all.
Maybe it's a weather thing? Nowdays it's just fucking hot in the shithole I live in.

Anyway while "trying" to bring another engineers squad to battle I've managed to add additional terrain piece to make field of glory even more cute.

The piece is country cottage, which I got together with M3 Stuart light tank.
It's laser cut mdf - nowdays ther're lots and lots of such bits for Bolt Action and other games.
Must say it's worthy consideration investment: damage resistant, easy to assemble, easy to cut, drill and modify.

As for mine I only added the base and covered flat roof with cardboard roof tiles.
It was painted fast last night 'cause I wanted to see it  ready for tomorrow match so windows and door look damn flat (what can you expect from layer of paint and layer of glaze).
Same is for the chimney - idea was to make it look smoke dirty and the result is like someone was too lazy to assemble an airbrush and do the thing right...

Still - enough for gaming purposes:

Mercurian maculator (Warzone)

 

Heya,

While still looking for some missing zombie soliders for Undead army the decision was made to paint something slightly different from deaders or Bolt Action stuff.

There's been oldie Mercurian Maculator model (Warzone 1st edition of course) staring at me from display case, long enough to deserve some care and attention.

I must say I fell kinda connected to many Warzone models from that age since this was our very first miniatures game etc, but sadly there's no story behind this one:
I got the piece long after original Warzone was dead just for collecting reason but even during golden time of the game Mercurian maculator was poor tactical choice compared to, for example, Praetorian stalkers...

By the way - can you see the picture above? If so apparently mercyful photobucket changed it's fucked up policy...

So back to maculator:
I'd really love to see it in action sometimes (about once a year we play classic Warzone game) but looking at such model standing among crowd of Dark Legion infantry in display case is already rewarding. This piece is clear example of what happens if supercool artwork (Paul Bonner after all) meets, well, not-so-supercool execution...
There were lots of such "hybrids" in Warzone, but then again - I think it was just part of "charm" of the game.

The model was painted differently from Bonner's vision, 'cause I wanted it to fit Demnogonis style army. Painting is easy and nothing spectacular: some base colors applied with airbrush, some glazing and washing, details and voila! Ready for killing!

And one more thing:

Initially I didn't plan to mention about it but it's something slowly boiling in my head.
Last week I read polish Bolt Action forum is about to be shut down shortly.
I think I've actually expected it would happen one day: it's rather small community, there were much less posts published recently and most users use Facebook for sharing hobby progress, galleries etc.
I think it might be understandable: FB is more and more popular and it's way faster to check what's happening on the wall, than visiting other websites.
Even though in my opinion Facebook wall is just big fucking mess.

But for fuck's sake, that forum is ANOTHER site being shut down because of what?
Social media? People's laziness? Or maybe there's just too much shit available in the webspace so there's no room for "small" sites?

I won't allow such thing happen to my bloggy.
Nevaaaaaaaah!!! My spam stays where it is!!!

Phew! I feel so much better now!

M3 Stuart

Heya,

This time another piece of (very light) armour rolled out from my painting station: M3 Stuart.
It's actually another Stuart tank in my battleforce: the previous one has been armed with flamethrower to deal with enemy tanks and spread panic among infantry.

This one is my response for hordes of melee berzerkers my opponent is fielding. 

Goddamn brit army... ><

Painting is simple and fitting rest of my forces, but it also was test for my oldie airbrush. 

I didn't expect spectacular results, I was actually quite sure after years of being unused, the airbrush would be as good as dead.

But it turned out it's still operational (after some cleaning) so looks like I might finally get some terrain pieces painted. Not mentioning larger models...

The model got extra petrol canisters from M8 Greyhound set, backpacks hanging on the other side are (probably) spares from M3A1 halftrack.

All in all I am quite satisfied - finally I've managed to paint model clean, at least compared to the rest of my vehicles. Thing I do not like is dirt / dust on tracks:

I used mix of light grey and yellow chalk to make it look like riding through dry countryside but it's barely visible. Any ideas?
Maybe adding some sand to the mixture to create some texture?
Or maybe adding much more chalk would do the trick?

Dirty or not - hope you like it anyway: 

 

And the last thing:

I am about to finish zombie regiment for Undead army project. There's still one rank missing, but I'd like to see it made of olschool deaders.

Maybe any of you have spare/unused zombies from the ones below to sell/trade? I need like 3-4. Sure I can use plastics but definitely would like to see the unit as metal as possible.

I don't need new pieces: don't mind missing weapons, I can wash paint etc.

When I get models I'll try to prepare zombie painting tutorial / walkthrough, since there's been some questions about dead flesh color on my corpses.

Seeya!

Zombies are (dead) cool

Hey again,

Once again good ol' hobby got serious pounding from real life, but no matter how bad if gets I am desperately trying not to forget how to handle a brush and roll dices.

Do you hear me, Mr Real Life? 

GO FUCK YOURSELF!!!

Ekhm... So what does that mean anyway?

Since the last post I've managed to roll my Bolt Action US army to battle twice (getting my ass kicked big time last Saturday night...) and also painted bunch of oldie zombies washed off recently.

Zombies are definitely cool models to paint:

there're lots of ranges, systems and manufacturers to choose from and since lots of weirdo (and funny) things might happen to body after it kicks the bucket - deaders can be painted using whole range of colors available, which exactly is what the hobby should be about. Having fun with painting.

5 models from the group below are metal GW deaders from ~'92-'93. Although these cannot be compared straight to "new wave" zombies (you know: dynamic poses, high quality of details, digital design and whole that modern shit) I think those old farts are my favorite range. 

There is something about playing with hand-sculpted models.

The last one, dude with skeleton right arm, was built using some spares found in the bits box. Body organs came from GW multi-part zombies set, which I've never been big fan of, head was borrowed from Mantic Games donor.

Whole group has just reinforced my everlasting 2500 Middlehammer Undead army project. Since it's just fun thing (frankly I don't really expect to see it finished ever, not mentioning rolling the dead horde to battle...) zombies were painted with different ways and colors, just to keep up with 90's GW aesthetics. 

For those who don't know: 4/5 WFB edition armies were candy sweet...

My only regret is I haven't noted down color combos practiced on the models below - some colors turned out quite nice and wouldn't mind seeing those on more corpses.
Anyway - looks like I need 5 models to fill the last row, and further 4 to replace necro-supernumeraries:

While looking for proper head for the plastic zombie I ordered frame of skeleton warriors and zombies from Mantic Games. Those are "new" zombies (true) but they should fit the unit just fine. Really cannot wait to see the block of corpses finished so I can skip to skellies.

And what next?

Since we came back to wargaming and since my army is still licking wounds after crooked victory of those damn Brits I hope to move some more cannon fodder to the painted side of the force. I definitely need one more full squad of regular infantry or at least enough models painted to upgrade existing units to max size.

There's also nasty surprise waiting for my opponent it the paint shop. Really cannot wait to see what it's worth in the field...

<MWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAAA...>