flames of war Archives - Page 16 of 42

Felix’s Gaming Pages – Top Ten Posts of 2012

Another successful year for Felix’s Gaming Pages with around 360 blog posts put online. A fair few less hits this year, but that was in the main as I didn’t attend GamesDay 2012 or many other shows and therefore didn’t live blog as I have done in previous years. So what were the top ten posts (by visits) for 2012.

10. Forge World Diorama – Games Day 2012
Well the only post from 2012 which makes my top ten posts of 2012! This was a post of some lovely photographs from GamesDay 2012 of the fantastic looking Forge World display table.

9. Plastic Imperial Guard Valkyrie at Design Studio Open Day
This post from 2009 was confirmation of the plastic Valkyrie rumour that had been floated about for a while. It has got quite popular in recent weeks, not sure why though.

8. Chaos BaneBlade
This photograph of a Chaos Baneblade that won the Silver Golden Demon at GamesDay 2007 is my eighth most popular post, last year it was number two and the reason it is, is that if you put Baneblade into Google this image comes up! It use to be the number one image result on Google, but probably due to age of the photograph has dropped down. Still a splendid model though.

Chaos BaneBlade

7. Warhammer Fantasy Village
This post from 2009 was a series of photographs from a fantastic looking Warhammer Fantasy demonstration game at GamesDay 2008.

Warhammer Fantasy Village

6. Forge World Chaos Brass Scorpion
I’ve never liked Chaos, however Forge World’s Brass Scorpion is probably one of my favourite models of all time. This blog post from 2009 discussed the announcement of the model by Forge World. I suspect that the release of the most recent Masterclass Book by Forge World (which covers the Brass Scorpion) may have increased interest in this post.

5. US Army “Bolter”
This was a news item on a new weapon that was been tested by the US Army; it was originally posted two years ago in 2010.

4. Warhammer Siege Diorama
This post was a live blog post from GamesDay 2010. I was posting photographs from the show live to the blog via my phone. This was of a fantastic Warhammer Fantasy diorama, the Siege of Altdorf. I also took a fair few photographs of the siege using my DSLR. Some excellent scenery and very evocative of the Warhammer world.

3. Marneus Calgar of the Ultramarines’ Land Raider
This post was all the photographs I had taken of Marneus Calgar of the Ultramarines’ Land Raider from the ‘Eavy Metal display cabinets at both GamesDay 2005 and Warhammer World.

2. Flames of War – Battle of the Bulge
This was the fourth most popular post in 2011 so has climbed two to number two. The post was from 2011 and discussed the possibilities of a Flames of War Battle of the Bulge supplement that Battlefront mentioned in February. Within the post I discussed the tanks that I hoped we would see in any such release including the M24 Chaffee and the Comet. I also speculated how nice it would be to see some Late-War Monsters. We have now seen the Chaffee, but as yet no Comet (maybe we’ll see it in 2013). As for Late-War Monsters, well Forged In Battle have produced some really nice post 1945 models.

1. Death Korps of Krieg
So my most popular post of 2012 and was also the most popular post of 2011 was a posting from February 2009 about a link I had found in the community feed of some beautifully painted Death Korps of Krieg tanks.

Death Korps of Krieg

So will these same posts be just as popular in 2013, we will have to wait and see.

15mm German Königstiger

In the process of sorting some old gaming stuff out I found a bundle of old SDD models. These are 15mm metal castings that I bought back in the 1990s. It makes me think that the other metal models that I have been painting are also SDD.

This box was mainly late war stuff and included a King Tiger. Having constructed the model, I gave it a white undercoat.

The undercoat has shown that the quite severe casting lines, something you don’t always get with a resin casting.

Undercoating the 15mm ruins

Having washed and cleaned the castings of two of the ruined buildings from the Total Battle Miniatures range of Western Europe 15mm buildings. They are the ruined café and ruined shop with passage. I gave both models a light white undercoat.

Not airbrushing the Tiger IE

After trying out a non-airbrush method on an old metal SDD SdKfz 251 and been happy with the end result, I decided that I would start to paint my German big cats using a similar method.

Having given the model a basecoat of Warpaint German Armour the next stage was to add the disruptive camouflage. What I did was take an old paintbrush and cut off the bristles leaving a quarter inch. This brush is then used to stipple on the camouflage pattern. I used initially Chocolate Brown (872) and will use Reflective Green (890) later.

I was quite pleased with the initial effect on my SdKfz 251, however I think I may have made the pattern too wide on the Tiger. What I will do is tidy up the camo pattern with some Middlestone (882).

Though the official German manual during the war told how the camo pattern was to be applied, it said the raw paint mixture was to be mixed with petrol and sprayed onto the vehicles. Reality and short supplies of petrol meant that more often the camo pattern was “painted” onto the vehicles, sometimes with brushes and sometimes with rags.

15mm Ruins

I have some of the 15mm ruins from Ironclad Miniatures.

At this time I am using a few of them to check how certain paints of mine are working out, as well as testing out different colour combinations before I try them on the (more expensive) bigger models.

One of the conclusions I have come to is I do need to replace many of the paints in my collection.

Painting the 15mm Ruined Houses

I have the ruined row of three houses and the ruined row of four houses, from Total Battle Miniatures. Having cleaned the models, I gave the inside of the models a black undercoat and then masked the inside of the windows (with masking tape) before I give the model a white undercoat on the outer side of the model.

I then started on the basecoat of one of the houses that forms part of the building, for the brown I used a Tamiya acrylic. I intend to use a lighter brown for the remainder of the model.

I used a thinned coat of paint, as I will be adding a drybrush and some washes.

Once I have finished painted the ruins, I think, as I mentioned with the row of three ruined houses, I will add some additional detrius, broken beams and so on to add a little more detail.

Painting the 15mm Ruined Houses

I then started on the basecoat of the various parts of the building, for the brown I used a Tamiya acrylic.

I used a thinned coat of paint, as I will be adding a drybrush and some washes.

Once I have finished painted the ruins, I think I will add some additional detrius, broken beams and so on to add a little more detail.

Ruined Ground

A week or so ago I mentioned that I bought a couple of wooden buildings from 4Ground. I’ve always liked the look of the 28mm ruins so was pleased to find out today that 4Ground have released some ruined 15mm buildings.

Some are better than others, but they do look good, they do need some rubble though to add realism.

Housing Crisis…

I mentioned a few days ago that Battlefront were releasing another house in their series, the Dunkirk House, which on their website looks like this.

Dunkirk House

Mine has arrived and it looks nothing like that!
It looks exactly like the (proposed) Antwerp House!

Antwerp House

So what’s going on then?

I can understand that when they first thought of releasing the houses they made mock-ups on the boxes and houses and when production started they may have to change them from what they planned. However now they are in production and been sold, why aren’t they showing the actual model they are selling over the proposed one.

No idea.

Still it’s a nice house.