Time Is Flying By in 2016

Man, where have the first 3 months of 2016 gone?  It seems like it was just New Years.  I certainly haven't been as active posting here as I would like; it seems like I find excuses not to post when it doesn't really take all that much time...something I need to work on for sure.

The good news is that I have been pretty active on the gaming front.  I've played a lot of different games, including playing in the Shifting Sands Flames of War event in January, and the Gathering in the Desert Bolt Action Operation Torch campaign event in February.  I enjoyed both thoroughly...played some excellent opponents and had a fun time.  I actually managed to be the top Axis commander with my Italian Paras in the Bolt Action event with a 1 win, 1 loss, and 3 tie record...just goes to show how poorly the Axis did!  Next year Shifting Sands is supposed to be Team Yankee, so I'll be passing on it...not that I have anything against Team Yankee, it's just that I have plenty else to do and I need to draw some lines.  Gathering in the Desert next year is supposed to be Normandy, so I am more likely to build a force for that than I am getting into a new period.

I haven't completed much painting this year, though I have been working a a few different things.  I prepped a couple of 15mm WWI armies for Great War to be painted by Saguaro Painting Service, painted some 28mm WWII, based some figures for SAGA, and have been rebasing a 10mm army as I shift to that scale for my big battle ancients and medieval gaming.

Here are 3 Perry Brother WWII German Fallschirmjager MG teams.  I am going to use these as additions to my Italian Para force when I want to play Chain of Command as the unit structure is different than that in Bolt Action.  They are nice figures, but a little smaller than the Warlord Games Italian Paras as you can see in the comparison shot:

 Comparison - Perry on the left and Warlord on the right

I also contracted some 28mm Varangian Guard for my SAGA Byzantines.  The painter, Andrew K., had posted some stuff for sale on a forum and I liked his work.  He was great to deal with and said he liked painting these up.  The figures are from Crusader Miniatures with the exception of Harald Hardrada which is a Gripping Beast figures.  All have LMBS shield transfers.

Harald Hardrada

 Command

 Spearmen - Front

 Spearmen - Rear

Well, that's it for now.  The next post will definitely be sometime in April as I show off the 10mm figures I've been working on.  I am not sure what I'm going to work on after that...it will be something as I think I'm starting to get back into a groove.

Bolt Action - Painting Motivation and an Update

It's hard to believe that it's been since the end of March when I last posted.  I've kept up on my game totals on the side bar, but that is all.  It's not that I haven't been doing anything...I've actually been getting in a lot of games...it's just that I haven't been motivated to paint anything or do updates here; maybe I'm just enjoying playing to be bothered?  I don't know.  Anyway, I finally got a bit of motivation; last week I played Flames of War and we agreed to play Bolt Action this Sunday.  I've had the last two units for my 28mm Italian Para's sitting around untouched for sometime.  I figured now was as good a time as any to knock them out.  So in the past 5 1/2 days I prepped, primed, painted, washed, drybrushed, based, poly-coated and dulcoted an AB41 armored car from Warlord Games and a Breda 20mm AA gun with 3 crew from Company B. Hopefully this has knocked me out of my painting funk! 

Here's one view of the AB41.  The camo is a variation on a pattern I saw in a color plate online.

 A second view of the AB41.  The resin was pretty clean with only minimal excess to be removed.

 Rear-view of the AB41 with the rear-facing MG and rear-driver position.

 The Breda 20mm AA gun with crew.  The models come in shorts; I had Tim K "green stuff" pants on them and I think it came out OK for the most part.

 The Company B models are nice and in scale with the Warlord Paras that make up the rest of this army.

 The one "fiddly" part of this model is the crew seat; very thin metal holding the seat and crewman up.  I may have to fabricate something in the long run if that doesn't hold up.

Well, next up is to finish off some Vikings I've been painting for Mike for some time.  I hope to keep my motivation going and have a good rest of the year.  I'm ahead of last year's pace in both the number of figures/models painted and the number of games played with a full 6 months to go in the year, so I'm optimistic at being able to do so.

28mm Italian Paratroopers - Bolt Action

Like my gaming, my painting has also been doing ok for the year.  Just today I completed my first force for Bolt Action - a 28mm Italian Paratrooper force.  Completing this puts me on a good path to getting more painting done this year than last; quite an accomplishment in my book since it's still February.  Though I've only played one real game of Bolt Action, and I've never used this force before, I'm going to use it in a 1000 point tournament this weekend.  I figure it will be a good way to learn.  I've painted up more than I can use at 1000 points, but it does give me flexibility to configure the army several ways.  I have a commander with 2 riflemen, a medic, a forward observer team, a sniper team, a flamethrower team, 5 squads of 8 men, a medium MG team, a 46mm mortar team, an 81mm mortar team, and a Semovente 75/18.  All of the infantry are from Warlord Games; these are metal figures that painted up quite nicely.  My only criticism is that a few suffered from mold lines down the middle of the face...that's something I never can understand, no matter who makes the figures.  I am modeling the force after the Italian Para's that stayed fighting with the Germans after the invasion of Italy.  The Semovente is a model I purchased years ago as part of a collection and sold to Drunken Samurai only to get it back recently in another trade.  It is a resin model from NZWM, and I believe it was a limited production run as it is numbered "6" on the bottom.  I believe the NZWM line was sold to Army Group North, but I could be wrong.  It is a nice model that was basic grey; I've added the camo and some more detailing.

Up next for me on the painting front is some more 15mm WWII along with some 28mm Ancients and Medievals.  I hope to keep my painting momentum going and posting more frequently here too!