TFL Painting Challenge: Thursday Update

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Lots of lovely entries this week, but I'm already late for a meeting so will have to just rattle through the list:

  • Lloyd sends in some lovely 28mm mounted Auxilia and a host of 6mm ancients
  • Keith Davies pops in a company of Panthers in 6mm
  • Mr Helliwell has more Confederates finished
  • Mr Burt has more Egyptians done
  • I Am Bruce offers us six Time Robbers and some dice holders
  • Richard Naylor has some nice Austrians done for SP2
  • Chris Stoesen sends in a lone horseman
  • and last and certainly not least, Mr McCarthy sends in a huge 15mm Soviet entry

Scorecard will be updated tonight, but here are Mr Naylor's Austrians, the Hat's Auxilia, and some of Andy's Soviets:

IABSM AAR: Avanti Spumanti!

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Great battle report from Dr. the Viking of a game set in the Western Desert: defending Brits versus attacking Italians.

This report appeared both on Dr. the V's blog, which you can visit by clicking here; and on the Lead Adventure Forum, another good source of wargaming chat.

Click on the picture below to see the report in full:

More Sabot Bases

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Regular visitors may remember that I had Warbases make me up some custom built sabot bases to accommodate the way my 15mm WW2 infantry are based.

To remind you, a standard squad consists of a two-man LSW mounted on a 2p piece and six or eight single figures mounted on 5p pieces. Together with a hole for a dice to show Shock, each sabot base carries a single squad.

The difficulty is, however, dealing with squads with two LSWs, such as my later war Fallschirmjaegers. Here, each squad consists of two LSW teams mounted on 2p pieces together with four singles on 5p pieces.

I'd been fudging it for some time, but last week decided it was time to get some more sabots to accommodate these double-LSW squads. One quick e-mail to Warbases and a few days later I had the bases in my hands:

Quick spray of green paint, bit of glue and some flock, and away we go. All ready for the big game next month!

Thanks to Warbases for their usual excellent service.

6DW: Self-Propelled AA Guns

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Okay, so I'm painting Israelis at the moment...but I needed a break...and these were languishing in the lead mountain looking sorry for themselves...

Two Soviet ZSU-57-2 self-propelled AA batteries in UAR (Egyptian) service during the Six Day War:

Models are from Battlefront.

PS  The Scorecard for the Painting Challenge is now fully up-to-date.

TFL Painting Challenge: TGIF Update

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The end of a long week, and just time to pop in a quick update to the painting challenge. In no particular order we have:

  • Carole, with two entries: some ACW terrain and standard bearers, and the first of her imagination troops
  • The Mad Padre sends in an excellent Anglo-Saxon house and a couple of riders to defend it
  • Chris Gilbride enters some gladiators and a biscuit tin...but, unlike last time someone sent in a biscuit tin, this one counts!
  • Stumpy is still re-basing Zulus like mad
  • Steve Burt sends in some Bronze Age civilians
  • Matt Slade with three entries: some ECW casualties, some British Nappies, and some rather nice paired Wild West figures
  • I Am Bruce submits a mixture of 28mm figures
  • and finally Mervyn gets ready for some Sharp Practice with his Indian Mutiny figures

Today's pictures:

Sarissa Dark Ages house with home-made thatch from the Mad Padre

Some of Matt's Napoleonics

The Biscuit Tin of Doom! from Chris Gilbride

6DW: Magach (M48) Tanks

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I seem to be unusually committed to finishing my Israeli force for the Six Day War!

Here are three Magach "Battering Ram" tanks i.e M48 Patton's in Israeli service.

Lovely models: the only pain was cutting the decals in half to fit either side of the handrail on the turrets.

If anyone's interested, my interpretation of Six Day War Israeli tank colours is to undercoat in black, then block paint in GW Death World Forest, heavy brown wash, the dry-brush in GW DWF, then Vallejo Green-Grey.

Here they are:

TFL Painting Challenge: Another Big One!

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Things are really hotting up here: I can't leave updating the challenge longer than a few days before my inbox starts bursting with new entries!

So, today, in no particular order, we have:

  • Carole with some ACW figures in 15mm
  • Chris Stoesen also in 15mm, but with figures for the AWI rather than the ACW
  • Mr Naylor returns with four buildings and some Austrians
  • The acronyms are flying everywhere, as Kev pops in a couple of units for his ECW collection
  • The Great Gatzemeyer sends in some lovely half-tracks...and my money is on it being earlier than August!
  • Mervyn has built a couple of buildings
  • Sapper has gone mad for Vikings: fifty-four of them to be exact
  • and finally Stumpy has been re-basing like mad: Fallschirmjaegers, Zulu War Brits, and some civilians for Sharp Practice

Today's pictures are as follows:

Carole's Confederate Commanders

The GG's German Half-tracks

Some of Sapper's Vikings

TFL Painting Challenge: Big Update

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Good work on the brush front: plenty of entries coming in every week. Here's a large one from after the bank holiday:

  • "I Am Bruce" is back, with a collection of Arthurian figures
  • Kev "Fat Wally" adds to his ECW collection
  • Matt Slade goes all LOTR, with a side order of chips
  • Egg has gone moderns-mad, sending in forty 15mm AFVs
  • Steve Burt enters some more Egyptians and some farm animals
  • Mr Plowman takes a break from his exquisite sci-fi figures and sends in some walls
  • Andrew Helliwell rescues more Soviets from the flea market
  • and finally Chris Stoesen pops in some infantry...and an outhouse to take care of their baser needs

A couple of the usual suspects for today's pictures:

Some of Egg's lovely moderns

Kev's Parliamentarian Dragoons

6DW AAR: The Pumping Station

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Having spent the last few months building up my forces for the Six Day War, it was time to get the figures onto the wargaming table. For the first game, I decided to keep things relatively small and relatively vanilla: the Israelis would be attacking a UAR/Egyptian force defending a pumping station of some sort.

Click on the picture below to see all...

6DW: More Israelis

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More 15mm Israeli troops hot off the production line: finished earlier this week just in time for today's game.

First up, the Company HQ: two Big Men, two 60mm mortar teams; two LMG teams and a two-man Forward Air Controller team.

Then I had a spare Patton tank. Not really a gripe, but why, when Israeli tank platoons are three strong, do Battlefront sell tanks in boxes of two?

Anyhoo, as it was a spare, I modelled it not as a standard Magach 'battering ram' tank with the 90mm cannon, but as the up-gunned 105mm version. The Israelis had converted about a company's-worth before the start of the war.

First 6DW game was today: report soon!

TFL Painting Challenge: Update

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With the weather all over the place, it's nice to have a constant to rely on...so here's today's painting challenge update!

In no particular order we have:

  • Mark Luther with some more 6mm 'planes
  • Egg comes in from the cold with some 15mm Soviets and Americans
  • The hat (Lloyd Bowler) sends in three 28mm units
  • Mr Helliwell paints some Prussians and rescues some Soviets from a flea market
  • Kev, our beloved Fat Wally, moves from X-Wing to the English Civil War 
  • Treadhead has some more Napoleonics finished...likely to be the last we see of him for a bit (twins, not jail).
  • Jon Yuengling pops in some more 15mm WW2 kit (I'm still vacillating about that Kfz 13)
  • and, finally, the Mad Padre has finished another two bases of 6mm Napoleonic cavalry

Today's pics are another mixed bag. So many to choose from...

Kev's tribute to his now-deceased spaniel, Alfie

Lloyd's Romans

Prussians from Mr Helliwell

Better put a couple of these in!

Egg's tanks

6DW: Sho't (Centurion) tanks

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My third models of Israeli tank for the Six Day War to roll off the production line are a couple of Sho't Centurion tanks:

 By the time of the 1967 conflict, Israel had nearly 300 Centurions in service. All but 12 used around Jerusalem had been upgraded with the new British 105mm L7 gun.

These are, again, Battlefront models from their Fate of the Nation range and are, I think, my favourite of the tanks used by the Israelis so far.

One thing: again the gun barrels arrived twisted up almost like a pretzel. Why can't Battlefront manage to get you straight gun barrels? It can't be that difficult!

6DW: M51 Ishermans

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The next tanks for my Six Day War Israelis to roll off the production line are the M51 Ishermans:

Now these really do look slightly ridiculous! Not the models, they are great, but the enormous gun mounted in the equally enormous turret.

As a response to the heavier Soviet tanks gifted to the Arabs, the Israelis mounted cut-down French 105mm guns (i.e. the guns were originally even longer!) onto heavily modified M4A1 Shermans with the HVSS suspension. The turrets had to be up-sized, and the tank's weight increased by some 20% as well.

Again these are Battlefront models from their Fate of a Nation range.

Q13: Odds & Ends for the Dwarves in Space

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Been filling in some of the gaps in my Dwarves  in Space army.

First up are the command figure and a sniper for Khurasan's Thrainites:

These are nice models, as you would expect from Khurasan, and paint up well. There's only one slight problem: the command figure stands easily taller than most 15mm figures, so unless his actual legs end at the figure's knees and the rest is battlesuit, he is about as un-dwarvish as you can get. Harold Hastrada the dwarf!

The sniper is better sized, and my painting hasn't really done the little devil justice.

Next up are some command figures and support platform for the Cactus Mine contingent:

The two figures come from CP Models' very limited line of space dwarves. The Armadillo support platform is from White Dragon and is a most unusual model. It is a quadruped walker with an armoured skirt on just one side. It mounts a gatling cannon on top, and has a couple of light mortar batteries on its armoured side. It's a unique model with just one drawback: the price. That little thing cost me £7 at Salute, which is why the little men will have to make do with just the one. I mean, that's as much as a whole tank...and one from Battlefront at that!

6DW: M50 Shermans

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So now that my decals have finally arrived, here are the first of the Israeli tanks for the Six Day War to roll off the production line.

They are a couple of M50 Sherman tanks:

These are Sherman Easy Eights up-gunned with the French 75mm CN-75-50 gun from the AMX‑13 light tank in a modified 75mm turret. By the start of the Six Day War, the Israelis had about 180 of these "French" Shermans available.

The models are from Battlefront's Fate of a Nation range, bought in their 40%-off sale. The only pain is how to mount the company indicator on the toolboxes on the side of the main body: even with decal softener these took some time to place. Nice models, though.

6DW: Blinds Markers for Download

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I'm getting ready for my first game with my new Six Day War armies: an Israeli column attacking a United Arab Republic position.

One thing one does need for a game are Blinds markers, so I've put together a set for Israeli, UAR, Jordanian and Syrian forces.

You can find them on the main Six Day War page (see under the Charlie Don't Surf! area of this website), or download them straight away now by clicking on the image, below: