AAR: Three from Scandinavia

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Originally posted 4th May 2012

We have a flourishing community of Scandinavian Lardies: renown for their good humour; extraordinary combinations of hair style and beards; and wonderful After Action Reports.

Here are three  After Action Reports, all from the Miniatyrmannen (The Miniatures Man) blog: two from various Cons, and one from a club game.

A Tale of Wooden Crosses describes how a German reconnaissance force succeeded in its aim of finding the enemy...

The game put on at Incognicon 2012 was based on the Nice One, Kirill! scenario from the TFL Summer Special 2007:

Finally, a good looking Winter War game set back in 1939:

Pouncer Portable Missile Launchers

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Originally posted 22nd April 2012

As I have often mentioned, one of the problems with some figure ranges is that they don't include any infantry support weapons. Plenty of men-with-guns, sometimes plenty of vehicles, but very little in the way of things such as the sci-fi equivalent or mortars and medium/heavy machine guns.

I accept that argument that in the future that sort of weapon might be redundant (firepower supplied via enhanced personal weapons, battle suits, different sorts of vehicles etc) but it's still nice to see that Khurasan Miniatures provides "full" ranges rather than just the grunts.

Here's my latest bit of painting: Pouncer Portable Missile Launchers for the Felids, and the other great thing is that the mortar operators can also double as drone operators for the Snaggletooth attack and Whiskers scouting drones.

AAR: AirCav

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Originally posted 22nd April 2012

It was great to meet so many Lardies at Salute yesterday. Included amongst the many was Benito and his fellow wargamers from Madrid, Spain. It's therefore good timing to post one of Benito's latest Charlie Don't Surf after action reports, with a scenario taken from the Surf's Up scenario pack.

Plastic Soldier Company Shermans

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Originally posted 2nd April 2012

Next on the list from the Plastic Soldier Company were some 76mm Shermans with wet stowage (i.e. the ammo was kept wet rather than dry).

 

These built very nicely indeed: even the usually tricky tracks were not too much of a bother. Lovely kits that take the paint very well: almost too well, as they have come out looking a huge amount smoother than their Battlefront metal and resin equivalents.

Here are some shots of the platoon, and one so that you can compare the Battlefront and PSC tanks.

Here are the Battlefront versions:

And the PSC ones again:

Incidentally, I still prefer to game with the metal and resin tanks from Battlefront (there's something comforting about that weight!) but the PSC plastics are just so well priced, and so much fun to put together and paint, that I think that I shall definitely keep buying them...especially where I need ten to twelve of the same tank.

Next up: the Brits. Some PSC Fireflies and normal Shermans. Two boxes worth! 

Panthers from Plastic Soldier Company

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Originally posted 25th March 2012

Here are my latest tank models from Plastic Soldier Company:  a Zug of Panthers.

Although up to now I have focussed on the early war period and tended to buy Battlefront tank models, with my movement into the later war period I have expanded into using other manufacturers. These Panthers, along with the Panzer IVs, are plastic models from Plastic Soldier Company, and three out of four of the SdKfz 7/1s are from Forged in Battle. 

The reason?  Simple:  expense. I can field five tanks from PSC for at least half the cost of the Battlefront models: worth it when you're buying tanks by the Zug even if in principle you prefer metal to plastic!

One thing to note, however, is that the track assemblies can be a real pain to put together. If you look closely, you can see the difficulty I had in matching the top and the bottom of the track up properly on the bits right at the front and back. I don't understand why they can't just cast the whole track area as one piece, like Battlefront do. It would make life much easier!

Here's another shot of the Panthers:

Plastic Soldier Company T-34s

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Originally posted 3rd March 2012

Buying Battlefront tanks can be an expensive business, so recently I've been augmenting my collection by adding platoons of Plastic Soldier Company 15mm tanks to my core Battlefront platoons.

Next onto the building/painting table were the T-34s...or, as I should say, the T-34s and the T-34/85s, as each kit comes with two turrets and guns allowing you to field both. That's one hull and two turrets per model : damn good value if you ask me!

Building them proved easy: even the track assembly wasn't too difficult (unlike the flipping Panthers I'm working on now which are a right pain in the arse). Painting them was equally easy.

So, in summary, PSC T-34s (and 85s!) are highly recommended, even if their weight (or lack of) does take some getting used to

Deployed as T-34s

Now deployed as T-34/85s: same body, different turret

LCVPs from Battlefront

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Originally posted 12th February 2012

Here is the LCVP (Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel) set from Battlefront. The ships are nice models, and paint up well, but the infantry-being-carried were bloody awful: badly cast with none of the usual detail.

Incidentally, the infantry come in strips of four half-bodies. I mounted six strips in two rows of three on a thin base so that I can either have the LCVPs full of men, or empty, or put a vehicle in them.

These three are now all ready to carry the Rangers ashore for the fourth scenario from the Sicily pack: Gela 1!