Some half tracks - yes, I actually did some modelling today...

... in amid the domestic chaos that is usual on a Sunday.

Three PSC SdKfz 250/9's - that's the recce version with the 20mm cannon in a turret. Dead easy to put together - typical nice PSC kit, very hard to get wrong.

One Flames of War SdKfz 250/5 - that's the 'Rommel' command blister. Resin and metal, and absolutely bloody horrible to work on. The tracks didn't fit without some pretty ruthless application of a file, and the bedstead aerial requires you to be capable of microsurgery, as far as I can tell. As I grumbled on Twitter at the time:

At risk of sounding like a bit of whinge, really not sure how ordinary people are supposed to attach the bedstead aerial on the FoW SdKfz 250/5. Essentially its five bits of whitemetal held on to the resin hull by 8 0.5mm^2 tiny dobs of glue and much prayer and cursing.

— Trouble At T'Mill (@TaTM_blog) March 17, 2019

   To add insult to injury I dropped two of the stanchions on the floor somewhere during the third and fourth attempts to get everything to stick, and completely lost them, so two of them are actually thin bits of MDF. For future reference, a cheap UHU clone and lots of patience actually works better then superglue + accelerator.

That said, they're all now undercoated with AP Desert Yellow (my goto Dunkelgelb/Mittelstien) ready for a quick camo job tomorrow lunchtime. I should also note that unlike, say, PSC and FoW Shermans, they are pretty much exactly the same length to the millimetre.

Battlefront "Colours of War" paint system

Looking at the behind the scenes article on the their website, I think Battlefront may have actually got this one right. I'll reserve judgement till I've seen the full range, but if it's there at Salute I'll be checking it out.

It includes:

• The Quartermaster's set. This time, it's not just black. white, the primary colours etc. It's also the colours that they wind up putting in multiple of the national/army paint sets, like flesh, khaki, gunmetal, canvas etc. so that there are no unnecessary double ups between the national sets.
• National paint sets. One for each army, except for the Germans who get one for infantry and one for vehicles.
• Large bottles (20ml) of the stuff you use all the time, smaller ones (12ml) of the paint you don't (e.g Para beret red!). 
• Washes in suitably matching colours as part of the range.
• A distinctive dropper bottle with a 'bullet' top, so you can identify the Colours of War paints - not necessary, but since they had to design their own bottles for the various sizes anyway...
• The Book. A painting reference for the four main counties (US, Britain, Germany, Russia) with a slight emphasis on late war but basically covering everything you need to know to paint your amy.

I'm very keen to see this in action - it sounds very well designed.

You know you've been painting the same pack of figures too many times...

...when you can spot that someone's stiffed you on an eBay sale because you don't recognise a pose.

The last Battlefront assault boat section I picked up on eBay definitely contains some figures that aren't from UBX09/US747 - that and it's a mortar section short.

Hrmph.

The busyness continues apace - busy painting the third wave for Bloody Omaha (that's going to wind up over 400 figures total, I think).

To cap that off, I'm musical director for a fantasy rock musical at the World SF convention (Loncon 3, weekend of 14-18 August at the Excel), which takes place on the Monday (just in case any of my readers are going).

After that? I'm due a vacation (as are my wife and son who are both in the band!).

Battlefront, WW1

I note with interest that Battlefront have - I think the best phrase is snuck in, with as let little fanfare, an announcement for August for, wait for it...

... Flames of War "Great War".

Yes, really.

Reading between the lines, it does appear to suffer a little from Battlefront's desire to turn everything into a tank battle, but (as someone who probably owns more BF figures and vehicles - at a rough guess about 8-900 and 100 respectively, even if over half are unpainted - than most FoW gamers), I'm interested to see what the figures come out like.

The rules are coming out in the August Wargames Illustrated, and I'll certainly give them a once over, but if I do succumb to the figures, I'd be going for "Through The Mud And Blood" or Warhammer Historical's "Great War" rules.

And yes, this is post #750...

Battlefront 'Nam sale

[As a complete aside, I do think it's rather unsporting of the US to deprive me of another hour's sleep just when I've about got used to the timezone...]

A heads up for players of FoW 'Nam, Charlie Don't Surf, and anything else that suits itself to 15mm Vietnam-era minis. Battlefront are currently offering 40% off the entire FoW 'Nam range.... The sale starts on 13 March 2014, and ends at midnight on 31 March 2014.

"As many of you may know, the end of March marks the end of the fiscal year for many companies. Here at Battlefront, our taskmaster of an accountant has given us a mandate: Make my end of year Stock Takes easy!"

Battlefront claim they have at least some of all items in stock...

I'm quite intrigued by the fact that they feel the need to emphasise this, especially given the paucity of FoW stuff (from any period) that was available at Hammerhead - literally the only people with any stock were Caliver, and they were bemoaning the fact that it when stuff arrived from Battlefront seemed to be extremely random and at the mercy of, rather alarmingly, BF's cash-flow (regular readers can find examples in the past of retailers for whom that got very messy indeed). It's been a disturbing trend over the last year or so, in fact - at the Milton Keynes show last year, every single trader with FoW stuff was shifting what they had at a discount.

I admit? As far as the game goes, I'm not massively fussed. But I do probably own more painted and unpainted Battlefront 15mms than a lot of people, and while I welcome any chance to get them cheaper, I'm a little concerned....

Question is, do I pounce now for 'Nam forces... :D

WIP and a small grumble

I love Battlefront dearly...

...OK. No I don't, but I love most of their miniature ranges...

...but when they supply a blister which clearly a) needs assembly and more importantly b) contains MORE parts than appear to match the description on the pack, it would be really really nice if it also contained at least an exploded diagram of what's what. Or even a HINT that there's assembly instructions on the website.

That aside? Productive day.

So far I've assembled and undercoated 4 15mm US .30 Browning teams, 3 60mm Mortar teams, and a spare bazooka team, as well as doing the base groundwork for yesterday's Germans and Brits.

I'm currently in the middle of assembling 2 57mm AT guns, which is the source of the above irritation as the blister pack doesn't actually mention that it includes both the infantry and airborne versions of the gun. Fortunately, the website, now I've found it, does. So I love Battlefront a little more again.

[Later...]

Although perhaps a little less given how fiddly both it and the 3" AT guns are. They're very nice sculpts, but the guns are a pig to keep held together until the glue takes.

[Later still...]

Done. All the AT guns (2 x 57mm, 2 x 3") undercoated, as well as three more Big Man bases. I undercoat my US in spray AP Matt Black, for historical reasons, and the fact that I tend to do a bit of a mix-and-match of M1941 and M1943 uniforms, some with HBT jackets or trousers. The 3" guns were separate from their bases, so I took the opportunity to undercoat those with the PSC US Armour War Spray (in other words, Olive Drab).

Quite the productive day.