On the Workbench: WOTR & WW2 Naval

I made pretty good progress this week towards completing the latest Wars of the Roses batch of figures plus a little dabbling in WW2 naval:

Completed and ready to join the ranks are two units of Shire Longbowmen. 

Also on the WOTR theme, almost finished crossbowmen, handgunners and a unit of Pikemen. All WOTR figures are by Baccus.

And now for something completely different:

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A Haul of WW2 Ships and Vehicles

During our recent move, my eldest son cleared out his loft and presented me with a couple of ageing boxes. "Look what I found" he exclaimed.

The first box contained a mix of old Heroics & Ros armour and vehicles. I even found an old AA Crusader tank with pins for barrels! That has to be one of their earliest sculpts from the '70's. I had forgotten about these and it must have been about 25 years ago when I gave them to him. At the time I had ditched 1/300 completely for 15mm. In my defence, the micro-scales have come along way since then. 

I am hopeful that some of these, the softskins in particular, will be usable bulking out my existing collection.

The second box contained 1/3000 scale WW2 Navwar and Davco ships for the British, German, Italian, Japanese and French navies. I have begun sorting these out and it would appear most will fit in nicely with my present collection. I have never stripped paint from models so an experiment is underway. I am soaking a German destroyer in slightly diluted Dettol bleach which I shall leave overnight. If all goes according to plan, a scrub with a stiff brush will hopefully remove any stubborn paint. 

On the Workbench: WOTR & WW2

Well having unpacked and got all the furniture in about the right place I have been able to turn my attention once again to wargaming.

A home has been found for my painting desk and now there is no small matter of wargaming space! And on that score things are looking up! A room we had allocated for storage should be surprisingly empty. It will hopefully give me enough space to carry on from where I left off although my Waterloo sized game would be unlikely.

So having the painting desk installed I made some inroads into my lead pile:

Clockwise from top left: the last of my Baccus Wars of the Roses figures primed for the next battle in the Kingmaker campaign; primed H&R SS infantry; prep'd for priming 2D6 WW2 Soviets; very nearly finished WOTR archers; and 8th Army figures in various stages of rebasing to thinner bases.

It could be a week or two yet before I get anything on the tabletop but will hopefully be a continuation of one of my existing projects.

During my down-time I have been perusing some of my WW2 scnenario books - primarily designed for Rapid Fire rules but easily converted to Blitzkrieg Commander IV. One particular action caught my eye set in Normandy 1944. The road system on the scenario map matched the style of the roads on my terrain boards. They have been designed more for larger scales and are slightly sunken into the board. I have intended for some time to do something with these, basically raising the road to ground level and making it more suitable for 6mm. I would use it primarily for WW2 with a tarmacked  or similar surface. I will probably add this game to my 'to do' list which will give me the impetus to do something with this presently redundant terrain.

With regard to the blog, I hope now to provide more regular updates now that the house move is complete, helped of course by the lockdown! 

On The Workbench: Panzer IV F's for Africa Corps

Several years ago I purchased a GHQ Combat Command pack for the Africa Corps of 1941. I had considered selling it along with my clear out of 15mm figures last year having made the decision to switch completely to the new H&R sculpts. However, along came 2D6 Wargaming with their superb models leading to a rethink.

So in between painting Wars of the Roses and rebasing my WW2, I decided to open up the box and paint a few:

These are the 3 Panzer IV F's contained in the pack. There are also 3 Panzer II F's and 3 Panzer III F's along with 3 Sdkfz 222 armoured cars, a couple of Kubelwagens, 4 m/c with sidecars, an 88mm, a 20mm AA gun and various figures. 

These 3 tanks were something of an experimentation. For the first time I primed them grey and went for a slightly darker shade of sand than those previously painted. Overall I am pleased with the result and will probably stick with this shade for the Germans. Anybody who is familiar with GHQ will know how excellent their models are, the only sticking point being the cost (in the UK) and the fact they are sold in packs of 5. Hopefully we will see more from 2D6 which are comparable but in the meantime it looks like I may have to bite the bullet and buy a few more GHQ.

This will be my last blog update prior to moving house which is occurring over the next few days. It does not look as though I will have a dedicated wargames room so I may have to review some of my current projects, possibly placing them on ice for a year or two. At the very least I hope to explore gaming in a small space which is less of an issue with 6mm. 

So I will sign off now and will be back post house move when I hope to post more AAR's being the primary aim of the blog.

Figure Review: New WW2 Soviet Naval Infantry by 2D6 Wargaming

2D6 Wargaming have kindly sent me samples their new WW2 Soviet Naval Infantry to review. At the time of writing this they are available for pre-order and will be released imminently.

The above from left to right: R110 Command Strip; R111 Signals; R112 Riflemen 

 L to R: R113 SMG's; R114 LMG Team; R116 82mm Mortar with crew

L to R: R117 120mm Mortar with crew; R118 PTRD Anti-Tank Rifle Teams.

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First to Fight - Poland 1939

Arriving back in the UK on 17th March I was met by a Tsunami of problems and then there was the weird world of Coronavirus! A combination of which has kept me from wargaming and a delay in resuming this blog. I have yet to sit at the workbench and may be a couple of days yet before I am able to do so.

I would though highlight a great read while I was away:

The September war in Poland tends to be a footnote in most WW2 books referring to an unstoppable German Blitzkrieg rolling all before it followed by an even briefer reference to the Russians stabbing the Poles in the back. And then there's the myth of the Polish cavalry charge against German armour that had been dreamt up by the Goebbels propaganda machine.

This book is a fascinating read even if this is not your period/theatre of interest. The Germans were yet to perfect Blitzkrieg and found themselves in difficulty on a number of occasions suffering heavy casualties by bold Polish actions. The Soviets suffered even worse but the Poles simply did not have the resources to capitalise on their successes succumbing to overwhelming odds compounded by total axis air superiority after the first few days. 

The Polish civilians as well as their armed forces suffered from extreme cruelty by both their adversaries and from all arms of service, not just the SS. For the Germans it was about race, for the Russians it was class. 

There are numerous potential wargame scenarios from skirmishes up to large Divisional actions, even a cavalry v cavalry melee. Many of these saw the Germans and Russians defeated so any games will not have inevitable results.

I have toyed with gaming the early war in Europe over the years and this has provided me with the incentive to add it to the projects list in the not too distant future. A thoroughly recommended read.

On the Workbench: Rebasing WW2 Infantry

After much dithering, and following some of your helpful advice in a previous blog on this subject, I have finally settled on a thickness for my WW2 infantry bases:

The rebased Russians to the front with some rebased British paras to their rear, contrasts with the original card based Germans on the left.

I purchased several test sheets of plasticard ranging from 0.25mm to 1.5mm thickness. My original plasticard used was approximately 0.3mm - 0.35mm thick which I considered a little too thin. It was therefore a trial between the 0.50mm and 0.75mm sheets. 

There was little to choose between them with regard to figure handling and overall look. After a good deal of head-scratching I settled on 0.5mm. It brought the figures slightly more into height proportion when stood next to unbased vehicles and although a minor issue, it was easier to cut. I also decided to stick with the same basing finish.

Having rebased a number of figures I am now convinced I made the right decision. Unfortunately this will mean rebasing all my WW2 collection, but thankfully is not too great at this stage. 

This will be my final post before commencing my holiday next week. I will be accessing the internet periodically so will endeavour to deal with any queries that surface while I am away.

In the meantime enjoy your wargaming over the next few weeks and service will resume in late March.

On the Workbench: WOTR - Lots of Armour!

After a rather busy week I have managed to complete all the additional mounted and dismounted men-at-arms required for the forthcoming Wars of the Roses Kingmaker game - The Battle of Shrewsbury.

Light cavalry was also finished and as a result it is only foot figures now required before gaming can proceed.

I am still experimenting with the armour and reasonably happy so far. Basically started with block painting of silver, black wash and then a drybrush of the same silver (in this case Foundry). I had initially tried the GW Nuln Oil but it did not define the features as much as I would have liked. It could be because of the small scale. Their old Armour Wash was better. A thinned down black was used instead but in the longer term I am planning to knock up my own 'magic wash'. i.e. floor polish mixed with black paint.

On The Workbench: Trees Finished

Finally I have completed the tree upgrades:

I did not count them but there are a lot! To give some idea, there are 30 pine trees in the bottom left. These are all cheap trees purchased from China and can be seen in their entirety in the ACW Battle of Seven Pines. They have been bulked out using Woodland Scenics clump foliage. Their bases have also been improved with various foliage hiding the sharp edges of the mostly mdf bases. A number of them, including the pines, have penny coins for bases which I will be using in the future. Their weight gives added stability.

In time these will be added to, especially the pines - you can never have too many trees! For the time being I will be placing terrain on the sideline as I concentrate on completing my Wars of the Roses figures for the next game in the Kingmaker campaign. With only 2 weeks to go before my long 5 week break I will also be suspending my games to get as many figures painted as possible beforehand. So please bear with me as there will be no AAR's for a couple of months.

As an aside I have been listening to the back catalogue of podcasts by the comedian Al Murray and historian James Holland called "We have ways of making you talk".

https://www.history.co.uk/article/we-have-ways-of-making-you-talk

If you are not aware of this podcast I highly recommend it. It began earlier last year and concentrates on WW2. Great to listen to as you paint.

On The Workbench: WW2 Infantry Base Thickness Test

A question for readers of my blog.

I have finally got around to trying out Peter Little's suggestion of using thin plasticard to reduce the thickness of some bases.

A trawl through my 'odds and sods' boxes located a sheet of plasticard I had acquired in the 80's, possibly even the 70's! The thickness appeared to be in the region of 0.3mm - 0.4mm. I painted up 4 Russian riflemen for a trial:

The bare card prior to completion and gives some idea of how thin it is. 

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