Lady In Red

Just finished painting up this figure from Hasslefree Miniatures. I've had her for a while but only just got around to slapping some paint on. I went with a light coloured trench coat (rather than the more traditional black) and red for the cat suit. I'm pretty pleased with the results, the red in particular turned out just how I wanted it to.

More 6mm Brits

So I realised having painted my 3 Carrier Platoon stands that I needed a fourth carrier stand as the Platoon HQ. So here is the 3 Platoon Stands with their HQ stand which is just represented by the Carrier with an officer figure.

This means that my Battalion is now completed and I'm pretty pleased with how it looks

You can see the Carrier Platoon at the back, the four infantry company's that make up the Battalions strength and the command stands. On the right are the 6 trucks that represent the Admin Platoon (motorpool)

I'm down to dribs and drabs in my 6mm pile, not enough of any one thing to create a full company or group. I was however able to scrape together enough bits to make the 1st Company for one of the Machine Gun Battalions that was attached to the Division, which was better than nothing.

Pictures a bit naff on this one (light's going) but again I'm quite happy you have the three Platoons and the HQ stand which is represented by the Tilly.

Covenanter Troops

I have spent the last couple of nights painting up my first six Covenanters in Government grey! The figures are from the Perry's range and the base is one of Warbases 2p MDF multi bases. I opted to base my figures on 2p pieces and then just use a multibase so that I could use the figures for other things, and on bigger bases if necessary.

These were supposed to be painted quickly and more simply than usual but I basically couldn't break from my normal painting pattern. I think in total it took me something like 18 or 20 hours to paint up and base these figures. Hardly quick but I'm pleased with the results and that's all that really matters.

I might press on and do more of these for the regiment or break and paint something in 6mm over the weekend and paint the next batch next week. Who knows.

Partizan 2013

This weekend was Partizan in Newark, as per usual Panzerkaput and myself came up with and put on a VBCW game. It was a busy year with about 10 of the guys of the Very British Civil Forum turning up to game the demo in the end ,which made for a frantic but very fun game.

The game itself was set on the very edge of Leicester with Royalist/BUF forces attacking the city through the Village of Evington aiming to capture the General Hospital (the large building in the background of the picture above) As far as I am concerned the game was a roaring success we seemed to attract a fair bit of interest from the public and I spoke to lots of people about the game and terrain etc.

I was particularly pleased with how well my Hospital and terraced housing looked on the table as I had built both in relative isolation and was worried pretty much right up until the moment people started gaming that they would look too big or not right etc.

 This was our "period" display at the end of the table, Art and background on the battle by Panzerkaput with period weapons and equipment provided on the day by our forum member Captain Bigglesmay, who also spent the whole day in WW1 British uniform with webbing. Given that I was wearing jeans and a Shirt and today my back is killing me, I shudder to think how sore he must of been by the end of the day!

 Picture of my Hospital on the edge of Leicester, I was so pleased with how it looked on the table!

 More of the table with buildings brought along by a number of our forum members. Tym off the forum built the wonderful allotment squares seen in the bottom complete with greenhouse!

Another shot of my Hospital and my terraced housing which I used to edge the board.

Arty shot looking down the road towards the Hospital (just visible) I was really pleased with how "full" the table looked.

More arty farty picture taking, again I am chuffed with how nice our game looked.

Shot of forum member Burnin' Coals Mower Bomber, words cannot explain how fantastic this looks in the flesh, there are more pictures of this over on the Forum and it really is a work of art.

And what with spending money, chatting, and minding our own game I completely forgot to photograph any of the other lovely games which were there. However I did take this snap of my personal favourite which was this WW2 Desert Scrap which was on the table behind ours. The figures and terrain looked amazing and there where some great entrenchments which had been built into the terrain boards so they were actually below ground level.

Loot wise I picked up loads of ECW figures for my Scots army and some Warbases 2p multibases so I can have the figures for skirmish or bigger battles. I got some Highlanders from Warlords which are nice sculpts but I think I may now be a devotee of the Perrys. I have not previously looked at their ECW range in the flesh (as it were) but had a look at them on Sunday and bought a load of their Scots straight away. Nice simple, but detailed, clean sculpts and lovely casting, I think I was paying something like £6 for 6 figures so it was great value as well.

The question of what to do to top this years game is immediately at the front of my mind (being the sad git that I am) and I do have a probably over the top, difficult idea which I will probably start planning quite soon.

Thanks to everyone who came and said hello and looked at our table, Partizan felt very busy this year (which was great) and I had a top weekend.

Just Trucking

Continuing my 6mm project this is the Admin (motor pool) element for my first Infantry Battalion. I just need to finish off the carrier platoon stands and the Battalion will be done! Rather than press ahead with the next Infantry Battalion in the Brigade I will probably do one of the Divisional support elements, armored recon, AT or something so I can paint something different. Then I'll switch back to an Infantry Battalion and go back and forth like that until the Division is completed.

Off to Partizan on Saturday! spent last night packing terrain and miniatures into boxes and now have 6 large plastic crates of terrain blocking up much of the bedroom. Looking forward to meeting up with the chaps, and seeing the game come together (as well as picking up some traditional loot!)

6mm Battalion Support Elements

You may recall a previous post which showed off the 4 Company's which make up the Infantry elements of the 2nd Battalion Seaforth Highlanders which in turn form part of the larger 51st Highland Division which I am working on.

Well having finished most of my Partizan stuff I had time last night to paint up and base 4 of the stands which are part of 2nd Battalion's support elements.

As before I have tried to make the command stands as little diorama's and I'm pleased with the results. I painted the trucks just green and canvas this time as the camo pattern on my previous ones was not working for me, and wasn't really accurate anyway. Not pictured are the previous Company HQ stands which I have also repainted to match these.

This is the Battalion Commander stand, which comprises of 3 figures a truck and staff car.

AA Platoon, which in this period in an infantry Battalion was just the Bren Gun mounted on the air defence tripod. I modeled this to look like one team has already setup and the other two have just piled out of the back of the lorry and an officer is pointing them to their setup point.

Mortar Platoon, in time I might make some stores to put in the trailer from putty or something.

Signals Platoon - I just decided to go with a Tilly and trailer here. I think in reality these guys had a truck, but I went with the Tilly as I used to be in Signals in the RAF and we rocked around in land rovers with trailers so I went with this as the period equivalent! I overdid the reflection on the glass a bit so the front of the Tilly looks a bit like it has eyes, but its all good.

Still do do is the Carrier Platoon and Pioneer Platoon as well as the Admin Platoon. The Admin Platoon was basically the Battalion motor pool so I have just got a selection of trucks for this, same goes for the Carrier Platoon I have just based some Bren Gun Carriers.

The Pioneer Platoon is more difficult, in reality it had access to Motorbikes (one I believe) and I would like to model this, if anyone knows if any figure makers make a 6mm motorbike please leave a comment, otherwise I will bodge one from putty.

Once the remaining Platoons are painted (I only have the Pioneer Platoon to make) the 2nd Battalion Seaforth Highlanders will be complete!

The benefit of building my units in the way I am is that I can use the stands to represent Platoon's and Company's or squads depending on what size of 6mm game I wanted to play.

The eventual order of Battle for the Division will be as follows

1st (Highland) Infantry Division, 1939-1940

152nd Infantry Brigade

2nd Battalion, The Seaforth Highlanders (regular army)
4th Battalion, The Seaforth Highlanders
4th Battalion, The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders

153rd Infantry Brigade

4th Battalion, The Black Watch
1st Battalion, The Gordon Highlanders (regular army)
5th Battalion, The Gordon Highlanders

154th Infantry Brigade

1st Battalion, The Black Watch (regular army)
7th Battalion, The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
8th Battalion, The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders

Divisional Support Units
1st Lothians & Border Yeomanry
75th (Highland) Regiment, Royal Artillery
76th (Highland) Regiment, Royal Artillery
77th (Highland) Regiment, Royal Artillery
51st (West Highland) Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery
236th Field Company, Royal Engineers
237th Field Company, Royal Engineers
238th Field Company, Royal Engineers
1st Battalion, The Princess Louise's Kensington Regiment (The Middlesex Regiment) (Machine Gun)
7th Battalion, The Royal Northumberland Fusiliers(Machine Gun)
7th Battalion, The Royal Norfolk Regiment (Infantry Sappers)
6th Battalion, The Royal Scots Fusiliers (Infantry Sappers)

As you can see I have a hell of a lot to do before this project is anything like complete, but its meant as a seriously long term project as the Division's history in the early period has always interested me.

Wheel Arch Repair

 As the name of the post suggests this is a quick post about how I spent the last couple of very sunny days. If your interest in cars is no existent then by all means run for the hills now as you will no doubt find what follows a bit dull.

As the first picture shows I found some rust had developed around my rear drivers side wheel arch over winter. Living in rural Scotland I wasn't really surprised as the car spends a lot of the year coated in salt from the roads. My car is a little over 10 years old and not worth much more than a few grand now a days so I wasn't going to pay to have the paintwork repaired. So I decided to just repair the body work myself, I've never done a large repair like this before so it was a bit of a learning experience.

 Firstly I masked off the wheel arch so I could sand off the paint and rust without fear of slipping and knackering the rest of the paintwork. I masked off to the first lip of the arch so that when I spray the area the edge where my new paint meets the factory paint is more natural and looks like a shadow.

Working first with aluminium oxide sandpaper to remove the rust I then used varying grades of sandpaper to sand the metal and paint work as smooth as I could. I'm not looking for a pro finish as the car is old just something I can live with.

You can see from the circular marks on the metal where the rust had been starting to affect the metal given enough time the rust would have eaten through the wheel arch. 

 All smoothed off and ready for undercoating. If the car was newer and I wasn't lazy I would have used anti-rust treatment over the area to prevent the rust coming back. As the car only has a couple of years life left in it I didn't bother with the anti-rust treatment.

Undercoated using red primer, having first masked off the area using newspaper and sheets. I covered the back end of the car in newspaper and the rest of the car in a big dust sheet. Its important to cover all the glass on the side you are spraying on as the particles can travel quite far and whilst they might not show up on your body work they will on your glass. 

Having left the undercoat to cure overnight (24 hours) I then hit the area with the correct top coat, I didn't bother sanding between primer and topcoat, but if you want a smoother finish you should. Again my car is old and I wasn't hugely bothered by the finish.

And here's the finished result. Please note the white bits visible in the picture are just bits of masking tape I haven't picked off yet. 

I will wait about 48 hours to make sure the paint is fully cured and then use hot soapy water to take of the last of the masking tape which is still stuck along the spray line. Personally I'm pretty happy with the result its not perfect but unless you stand and stair at the wheel arch its not obvious that its been sprayed. The only bit I didn't do very well is in the bottom right of the picture. I should have taken the paint further over to make the line smoother, but I can live with it.

Anyway that's how I spent some summery afternoons on the driveway, it was cheap easy and quite rewarding. I've got some more major body work repairs (Panel damage following a bump the wife had in the car) to bore you all with at some point in the summer so there's something to look forward to! :D

In modelling related news I had a bash at putting together the Warlord Plastic ECW infantry, they are nice casting but reawakened why I usually avoid plastic infantry like the plague. Will be switching to lead highlanders from their range, and lead Scots from Perry's or Renegade.

This also appears to be my 300th Post so yay me. thanks for all of you who have followed my meandering blog and all the nice comments left by you kind folks over the years. The comments and support received for posts always spurs me onto keep painting and work harder.

Cheers