A Sandbox

My To Do pile has included Trumpeter Helix helicopters that I was gifted by m'colleague Andrew. They have been, frankly, a right royal pain to assemble and paint! There are 5, but the spindly undercarriages are so frail and seem to be made of a plastic designed to resist any and all adhesives, that I have lost some and so will have to model one as a crashed example and cannibalise it for parts for the other 4. I already have 2 H&R examples anyway. But they can provide some transport for my Soviet naval marines and some light attack capability as well. Although I gave up in fury on trying to add the side rocket sponsons and pods. 

I bought a copy of Adeptus Titanicus a while ago, having always wanted it. Me and Andy had huge forces of Eldar, Orks, Imperial Guard, Dark Angels and Space Wolves for Space Marine in its second incarnation and played a bit of Epic 40K although I never got to grips with that last version, although I'm sure it warrants revisiting. So, once we'd cleared off the 18th century forces and the farmhouse, we got an Eclipse and a Death Bringer Warlord and a brace of order counters and had a quick Duel to the Death in a game that we haven't played since Friday night games at our school Wargames club in 1989!  i got the worst of it in about 4 moves. The Void Shields were stripped out by auto cannon fire, then the generator was destroyed, followed by the defence laser. I tried to close the range to bring it's las cutter to bear in close combat, but the damage rolls turned to critical and then the Mind Impulse Units burned out and the crew were killed or turned into gibb...

Andy T made the trip over the passes from the Palatine County to South Yorkshire. We had a game of Maurice planned and used the scenario from the last issue of Wargames Soldiers and Strategy magazine of the Battle of Hubbardton - part of the Saratoga campaign.  We fudged the forces to suit our favoured ruleset of Maurice. I was the Americans, with a force of 6 Regular line battalions and 3 Irregular skirmishers (1 of which was represented by some Woodland Native Americans). Andrew brought a force of Brunswick grenadiers, British regulars, some light Highlander infantry and skirmishers plus a cannon. We added some Notables to represent the traits of the various forces. More details of his own account of the ection will be found on his  blog Lavrenti accompanied one of the skirmisher units who had a range of 6 BW's, which was to prove incredibly useful.  The Earl of Bragge was somewhat incongruously attached to a unit of American regulars. Who knows ...

This weekend was the annual CWC game hosted at The Unit by the inestimable Richard Phillips. The set up was the proposed invasion of Denmark by various Soviet and East German NVA forces.  The area of operations was a bathtubbed area around the splendidly named Middelfart and it's bridge linking the island of Funen/Fyn and the city of Odense to mainland Denmark. My battle was to involve naval infantry and VDV forces on the eastern end of the bridge seeking to sweep aside Danish forces defending the bridge approach. The main table was the Western area with a combined force of motor rifle and tank regiments taking on scratch NATO forces of West Germans, US Airborne and British.  The view looking west along the E20 highway. NATO to the right of me, WarPac to the left, here I am stuck in Middelfart with you...  Myself and Simon landed with the best part of 5 battalions of Naval Infantry plus tank support of T55AMs and mighty PT76s. We had one round of s...

Finished the plane and as well as doing some 1:1 terrain construction (some railway sleepers in the front garden) I have finished the transfers. I was hoping that the transfers would have included an active squadron but instead it gives you the markings for a 1950's reserve training unit in Florida. (You can guess where by looking at the wing...)  They went on very easily though. Still, it looks handsome enough and the little blue pot that came with it is another addition to the paint supply. The Anthracite colour is rather good too and will be used on vehicle tyres.  The thing with aircraft is how to finish them, would dry brushing be too much? I limited a wash to the area around the engine. Anyway, that scratched the itch of 'a change from 6mm.' Although I did also find some random transfers that allowed me to 90% finish a Vichy Dewoitine 520 for my side side side project of Syria 1941. Nice colour scheme and the Vichy certainly seemed to want to know who was ...

The summer holidays this year have been a whirlwind of trips away: Northumberland one week, Norfolk the next. So no hobby work has taken place. I did, however, managed to find a few moments to wander into  Hunstanton Models  , a well appointed shop with friendly owner and I picked up a summer diversion project, a Revell F4U- 4 Corsair. A plane I've always liked- the gull wings, the daft proportions of the set back cockpit, like some pre war racing plane and it's fearsome reputation. I'm going to paint it as is- a US Navy fighter.  The multi coloured cliffs of Hunstanton.