Destroyed Building, Bocage, and no time.....

Hey folks,

I've been kinda busy with life and the holidays this past week and haven't made much progress on my projects.  If you follow the What Would Patton Do blog you'll notice I did one book review and there's one more to be posted.  Please check them out and let Steven over there know if it's a good addition or not.

Thanksgiving week was a loss as far as modelling but I did get to hang out with the "Unofficial East Bay Wargamers" at Steve's house.  I did get some dry brushing in and took a few photos of Steve and Josh's game.

And one last thing.  Since I recently found a copy of "Flames of War" in Spanish I gave it to my dad.  I immigrated here from South America when I was seven and my dad, who pretty much got me into WWII history and modelling, and I will try to get a game in next tiem I'm down.  If any international followers out there know of any players in Spanish speaking countries point them to this blog and I might start doing a blog in Spanish!


Steve and Josh setting up for a 1500 point Late War US Legs vs. German Landsers!



Cross of Iron Update:  70 pages into the book.  Very good so far and the translation from German to English is pretty good.  The characters have depth and the friction between Steiner and Stransky can already be seen building and the characters have not even met yet!!







As Shawn Morris would say, "You GODDA have cows!!"





Steve's Germans dug in waiting for the assault.

 

 One of Steve's two sniper teams.  These are Josh's.  Sorry abotu the poor quality of the photo.

Just some more random pics.  They aren't very good I took them with my  $Phone.  These show Josh's leg infanty on the move.  Josh is a phenominal painter.





Some more of Josh's US legs.  I think these were his Chemical Mortar Plt.  Nice to see my terrain being used.

I continued working on my second ever demolished building.  I'm using a Game Craft Miniatures model and demo-ing it for the "Ville de Mort" board.

This is a 5.5"x6" base two story building I'm workng on.  Its getting there.  This one will be both bombed out and burnt crisp.

And finally a prototype Bocage idea I've been working on.  Took ideas from Shawn Morris and two more ideas I found on teh web and added them into the recipe.  Since I have storage issues I have to make my terrain modular.  Taking Shawn Morris' technique but using smalled diameter rocks (this may change to adding larger rocks into the mix), I'm using 1"x1" green foam onto 2" wide 3mm board and building them as Shawn does.  I used cut straw (thanks Shawn!) to mount the 2"-3" tall trees onto the Bocage.

The prototype is not done yet and I will post more pictures later this week.I'd love to hear what you guys have to say.  Tips and critiques welcomed!!!!

WWPD #6, More FJ Pak 38, and Heer MG-34 crew.... oh and a few buildings.

Well I got do catch up a bit today (my first day off) as the wife and little guy went to do some bonding with her horse.

Pulled out the old buildings projects and started the base colors and such. I was re-listening to WWPD and patiently awaiting Episode #6 to hear the interview with Shawn Morris.

About 8pm or so I logged on and downloaded the episode and to my surprise Steve and Joe mentioned me and the blog in the podcast!! Thank you guys!


I picked up a copy of Willi Heinrich's "Cross of Iron". This is a fictional book about a platoon of Heer grenadiers (supposedly mountain troops) in the Eastern Front. I'll write a full review of it when I finish it.

Also, just finished reading two sets of rules cover to cover. Too Fat Lardies "I ain't been shot, Mum" and Old Dominion Games Works' "Mein Panzer". Two very different yet very good sets of rules. Review to follow.

Here's the pic of the Heer lMG team from earlier this week. Still not done a bit more highlighting and a coat of Magiic Wash. I'm slowly getting the hang of "leg" infantry work.

I pulled out the buildings for "Ville de Mort" today and started with base colors. Not even close to being finished but I'm one to show pictures of stages just to show you guys what I do. The small two story is the "Cafe de Mort" and the one to the right is what I call the general store.

This is two of three residential buildings for the board. The roofs are all removable. The base colors are down I need to go back retouch a few things, magic wash and dry brush.

Here's a picture of the 5 buildings still in various stages of completion.

And finally a few more pictures of the Pak 38 from earlier this week. Unfortunately the pictures did not come out well.

The crew is from the artillery pack with no modifications. Two were painted wearing tropical pants, the other two continentals (wool). Just a note, originally FJ leather gear was brown and an order in I think 1940 stated all leather gear was to be died black. Well FJ tried not to do this and attempted to hold off converting as long as possible. The "Alte Lehr" troops kept their old brown boots, belts, cavalry Y-straps (as opposed to the regular Y-straps) to show the new troops coming in they were veterans.

On the other crew I'll probably paint one crew members in a step in grey green jump smock.

The Pak 38 model is from Old Glory/Quality Castings. Its a multi-piece kit (they sell them in 3s). The detail is much crisper than the Battelfront kit. The ammo box and ammo are from the BF "German Ammo Pack". I cut the box down to size and cut the rounds down by about 1/3rd.

Enjoy!!

Brought to you by Pak 38.....

I always liked the Pak 38 5cm AT gun. Don't know why but I think it looks kinda cool. Anyways, the pak 38 I think is under rated in FOW. With ROF of 3 and an AT of 9 nine it won't do much to Shermans but it will wreck havoc againts Stuarts and half-tracks.

I've never played a Afrika or Italian front battle and I've been meaning to do either an Italian armored force or continue with my fallschirm. Well with Christmas coming money is a littel tight to go out and buy Italians so I decided to paint up a Pak 38 with FJ crew.

See what you think.

Sitting bored in court....

Yet more Fallschimjagers.....


I was sitting in court all day today (on overtime thank you very much) and was looking thru my photobucket pictures and thought I would share some pics of some omre FJ stuff. For those of you who haven't figured it out yet I'm a nut for Fallschirm stuff. I guess re-enacting in an FJ unit for 15+ years will do that to ya.



A pair of my late war FLAK 36 Fallschirm guns.

Sentinel Miniature Painting's awesome MG bunker with Fallschirm sMG.

These are a few Fallschirmjager conversions I've done. The one pointing anf the one with the MP-44 will be for a late war platoon. The one holding the MG-42 and the last figure will be for a mid war Italian Front platoon.

I was looking forward to getting a game in tomorow night with the fellas but unfortunately Steve had to move our regular game night from Weds to Thurs this week. So looks like I won't be able to move lead around for a few weeks due to my works schedule.

Basing 101st Airborne Guys and MORE FJ

A while back (summer 2010) I made a how to video basing your minis. I posted them on you tube.

Pictures came out a little dark. 

Part One

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycK-a3ljn0U

You might be able to see the painted re-enforcement patches on the sleeves and knees.

Part Two

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ATZDxjr5bw

Part Three

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQgXqFpeFZQ

I built two of these (#101 and 102).

These were my first Battlefront and 15mm miniatures. I learned a lot from building these two Marder IIs. First off, BF got the gunshields wrong so they had to be modified. Thee Marder II is a great tank hunter in FOW. I never got to play with these as I sold them to a friend of mine who really wanted them. These are on my painitng schedule in the future.

Fallschirmjager

These are some older pics of my first army. I built a Late war (Festung Europa) FJ Kompanie. I've since changed my painitng style for FJs but I still think these hold up. It took me a LONG time to paint these.

To the right here is one of my platoon command stands armed with SMGs with panzerfaust.

This is one team of my 12cm mortar platoon and one of the Spotter teams.

These are a pair or Marder IIIs. They were fun to build and paint though I painted them in a semi "Ambush" pattern which would be wrong for the time period. I think they look good though.

A pair of Stug IIIs with 75mm L48s. I'm building two more, one with the 10.5cm option as I think they are under rated. I was not happy with the way the decals came out. since these pics were taken I fixed the decal issue.

I forgot....

I've forgotten I had this blog.. Never really intended to use it as a "standard" blog just a way to post some projects and such.

Over the last year my 15mm wargaming has been sporadic. Not until about 2 months ago when I re-connected with a few guys in the area that play. These guys are good people and we all seem to get along. Steve, Armando "The Crazy Italian", Nick, and Lt. Adan. I met Steve through a good "kid", Josh. I get together with them about twice a month, role some bones, and move some lead around. Good people.

Another thing that got me full-tilt into wargaming was WWPD podcast with Steve and Joe. WWPD (What Would Patton Do) is a podcast abotu wargaminng. hopefully the boys will stick to mostly WWII stuff and FOW but hery its THEIR show.

This week I was inspired to work on some Fallschirm minis I had on my workbench. Carlos from Sentinel Miniatures Painting gave me some tips on painting. If you ever need an army painted or any miniature painting (he does fantasy as well) look him up and tell him I sent you. He also does some kick ass resin buildings.

"Ville de Mort"......

I had been on vacation two weeks ago vising my folks and brought down some buildings to work on. This go me re-invigorated to work on my "Ville de Mort" project that has been stewing for many years. Shawn from The Terrain Guy is a master and has some great terrain builds on You Tube.

"Ville de Mort" is a grand 4'x4' section for 15mm wargaming. The project has 27-30 buildings including a large church. I laid out the beginnings of the board this week with a few of the buildings I have started. As i was drawing the layout Cole, my 4 year old, was making sure the buildings will hold up to playing abuse. So far they are "wargamer proof".

About 3'x4' of the table will actually be all buildings. The buildings are all custom made using GameCraft Miniatures kits. The Ville will include a large 9"x6"x5" church on one corner. The center of the town, about 3 square blocks, will include a 4 story tall "Hotel du Mort" and the "famous" "Cafe du Mort". 1/4 of the ville will be shelled buildings and the rest will be multi story large living areas. Its ambitious to say the least.

Early war stuff.....

I got the early war bug about the same time i was down at my folks place as my dad and I sat down and watched a few WWII documentaries on "The H". I got home and dusted off my early /mid Grenadiers and decided to test out Carlo's new technique on some non camo guys. Ill taker some pics later but here's a Sdkfz. 250/3 I did up a few months ago.

And finally.....

My dad gave me a book on the 653rd Independent Jagd Battalion for my birthday last year. I was hoping Battlefront would come out with a JagdTiger by now but they had not. I went ahead and purchased a Quality Castings/Old Glory JagdTiger and it got here this week. I guess I'm spoiled because the quality of their stuff is way sub-par. It was the mold lines from hell kit and it is much smaller than any of the Battlefront stuff. The JagdTiger is slightly longer than a Tiger II but this kit is a bit smaller than BFs KonigsTiger. I wasn't sure if I was going to paint one up for use on the filed or just as an objective marker for FOW. I think it'll probably be an objective marker. I've added a picture of it primered. I'll end up painting up in panzer gray with ordinance tan lines.