Current project

I have been going pretty hard on the painting lately but haven't stopped long enough to take any pictures. Silly me, not taking pictures doesn't leave me much to share on the blog, and if I'm not going to share why bother. I guess the answer is to take a picture. So here is a sneak peek at what I am currently working on.

  

To quote a shirt I recently saw "Share the love, Lend Lease"

 

My soviet army is about to get its own recon Company and thus far what a pain in the rear it has been. I decided to build this army awhile ago but took a little time getting the funds to buy the needed models together. I decided to buy some Old Glory Scout cars from the command decision line as I needed 13 of them and the cost of buying Battlefront made my wallet kick me in a naughty place. Well after a month of no reply to repeated emails and phone calls to the retailer I ordered them through I gave up and ordered Battlefront through My local shop and had them in 2 days. So much for my wallet, it's really mad at me right now.

On to the building of these things. Trying to clean mold lines and flash off 52 little wheels last night about drove me nutter than I already am and I now have some nice file marks embedded into my fingers. of course then you have to get the wheels all glued on and even so the trucks don't wobble around on 3 wheels, which 3 or 4 of them ended up doing anyway, thankfully its minor. in the back row you can also see the 3 quad .50 half tracks, these aren't so bad as they use the plastic sprues for the wheels, tracks and front bumpers. I honestly prefer the metal parts to the plastic here though I do wish the quad guns were plastic as keeping the 4 guns straight is a nightmare, most of my German quad AA guns are missing at least one barrel due to breakage from fixing the over the last few years. Thus far everything is together and primed with the new Vallejo Color surface primers in Olive Drab. Detail work will continue on these over the weekend hoping to get them on the table this Monday night. They wont be done then however as I have the Soviet crew figures to fill them out with, Cant have anyone thinking these guys are fighting for the Americans now can we?

A sneak peak

One of the guys I game with regularly went to cold wars this weekend and had a small picture to share. He got the ok from the BF reps there for me to share it with you all.

I realize just uploading this picture is a huge tease seeing as how I don't have any other information other than a Mid April release. Once I talk to him next week I will share whatever Info I can get.

I just found a good bit of information on the book and what it contains over at the Flames of war forums. here is a link to the Topic

Plastic soldier Panthers

Yesterday I went over to the model shop hoping they had some of the new PSC Panthers or half tracks in stock. I scored a box of the Panthers to make a decoy Tank platoon for my soviets. Once again PSC has outdone themselves, while these aren't 100% what i would have wanted them to be they are another fine kit for a fabulous price. I myself like Zimmerit on my German tanks, while I know not all tanks had it and some people just don't like it I found myself wishing these had it. This is the only possible issue I could find with the tanks themselves and as its more a personal opinion as to what I like than it is a complaint. This box gives you 2 options which I don't believe are even available from battlefront, Panthers with no Zimmerit (if that's what your after) and the option to make a Auf G model. Another area where these shine is that they don't have the ball MG mount on the hull for the A and D model, Which my quick research tells me was more common on these models than the ball socket. However if you want to add it it would be very little effort to scrape off the MG hatch and mount the ball socket on to that hull.  Dam, I just admitted there is a benefit to plastic over metal / resin, don't let this get out as my reputation will be ruined.

Fresh from the factory, they haven't even received paint yet

note the lack of a MG ball socket in the hull.

Once again Assembly was a breeze. I did make one small modification to these however. I have taken to using magnets on my tank turrets lately and I regret not doing it with the last PSC tanks I built. I like this for 2 reasons, first the turrets stay with the tank better in the bag and second when one gets destroyed my smoke markers have little washers glued to them so they can stick to the magnets and not keep falling off the tanks.

All I did was super glue one under the deck before putting the tank hull together centered on the turret peg hole. Next I cut the peg off the bottom of the turret and glued a thin magnet in its place.

Magnet under the upper deck

Magnet under the turret

 These worked out really well. I did use a thicker magnet in the hull so I had a bit more pull on it but I think a thin magnet may have worked just as well.

the next thing to do is get these boys painted up so they can start harassing some Germans.

Here are some shots of the sides and rear so you can see what detail is on these.

What I do

saw this today and just had to share it. its oh so true.