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On a recent visit to Warhammer World I purchased the boxed Orc Warboss on Wyvern for Warhammer: The Old World. I never had this (originally) metal kit, this version is resin and I did like it. After constructing and basing the model I gave it a white undercoat.
I also undercoated the Orc rider.
One of the Clash of Steel Starter Sets have been on my wants list ever since I found out about them at the beginning of the year.
I ordered Operation Unthinkable boxed set containing the British and German tanks.
Operation Unthinkable was the name given to two related possible future war plans developed by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee against the Soviet Union during 1945.
In the box, as well as the rules, counters, and dice, are seventeen tanks.
For the British you get
The Germans have
This was the main reason for buying the box, I wanted some Centurions and the Tortoise. Getting the other tanks was just a bonus.
Here are the sprues from the box.
I am not sure what I will build first, but looking forward to constructing and painting these. This is from the back of the box.
Thinking I might get the USA versus Russian starter set as well.
This is the Operation Unthinkable Workbench.
On the cover of Miniature Wargames this month was a free sprue of SneakFeet from Wargames Atlantic. Of course in any other place these would be space hobbits or halflings. Another place calls them Ratlings.
I recently ordered the Provisionally Prepared miniature from Games Workshop, which is a great model. I did then think about getting the new Kill Team supplement, Brutal and Cunning, this contains a Halfling Ratlings squad. However I have seen it has sold out online, everywhere it seems. I will probably have to wait now until the Ratlings are released separately.
Having said that the free SneakFeet sprue gives me a chance to make up and paint some space hobbits, oh and a frying pan with eggs in it, second breakfast and all that.
These Bolt Action Winter Fallschirmjäger were a free sprue that came with Wargames Illustrated. I am intending to use them in Operation Sealion battles, on the assumption that if the German invasion was successful then there would be fighting in the winter of 1940 and early 1941.
January 1941 was dominated by bitterly cold easterly winds with frost and some snow. The minimum on the night of the 15th/16th almost fell to minus 6°C.
This was one of those free Warlord sprues from the cover of (probably) Wargames Illustrated, though I don’t recall which issue.
When I put together the recent werewolves I did come up with some scenario ideas.
Another idea for a scenario. During the Peninsular War the 95th Rifles are on the move to hunt down a French spy in a Spanish village. However unknown to them, the village is cursed and there is a full moon.
Well I thought, as well as the 95th and the werewolves, why not throw some French infantry into the mix.
There are four infantry figures on the sprues with a choice of heads, there wasn’t any bases.
They were really simple to put together, a body, a head, and a back pack. Taking the cue from the werewolves, I based them on some two pence coins.
I then used some Citadel Sand, using PVA white glue to adhere it to the coins. I also used some slate as well.
The next stage was to give them a white undercoat.
Now onto the base coats.
On a recent visit to Warhammer World I purchased the boxed Orc Warboss on Wyvern for Warhammer: The Old World.
I never had this (originally) metal kit, this version is resin and I did like it. I did think about using it for my Feral Ork army. Though I might paint it for an Orc and Goblin army for The Old World.
The model comes in a plain Forge World box. The original version of this model was metal. This has been re-released as a resin model. The castings were excellent. I washed the resin pieces which I then cleaned up.
I removed the extraneous resin and cleaned up the mould lines. I then put the model together. The model comes with plastic wings, the rest of the model is resin. The original release of this model was in metal.
There aren’t that many pieces and it has been well designed to fit together. I think it works better as a resin model than it did as a metal one. The body consists of three parts and a leg. In addition there are separate horns for the head.
The positioning on the base was similar to what GW had done with their model. The wings affixed really easily and certainly look the part.
The rider is a large orc and looks great. He has a separate shield, and there are three horns to add to his helmet. I kept him attached to the resin sprue for ease of painting.
There is lots of great detail in this model.
After putting the model together I added some sand and slate to the base.
I bought my pot of sand years ago, but as I was running low, I realised I wanted another tub, but Games Workshop had stopped selling it. I was lucky in finding a tub on eBay. I like the sand, as it also contains small stones, which enhances the bases.
The slate was from the Urban Basing Kit. This was released as part of Cities of Death. The box set contains 2 pots of slate, 2 pots of resin details and 1 pot of razorwire.
I saw that there were some gaps where the parts joined together, so I used some Green Stuff to fill the gaps.
Next step will be a white undercoat.
I have been thinking about getting some miniatures for Legions Imperialis since it was released. So was pleased to get the Legions Imperialis: Rhino Transport boxed set as a present last Christmas.
The Rhino is the most widely used armoured personnel carrier in the Imperium. Based upon ancient STC technology, the fundamental design is robust, reliable, and easy to maintain, with an adaptive power plant that can run off a wide variety of fuels. Within the Space Marine Legions, the Deimos pattern was the most widespread, serving as the basic armoured transport available to the Legiones Astartes and the foundation on which a number of other war machines were based.
In the box you get two sprues that can be used to construct ten models.
I am thinking I will paint these as Imperial Fists.
The first stage was constructing the models. Unlike the older Epic models, which were a single casting, these are multi-part kits. They were not as fiddly as I thought they would be, however there are quite a few parts, for example all the exhausts are separate parts.
I constructed five of the models.
You get various options when modelling these in terms of the hatches.
I have constructed one as a command Rhino.
The detail on these small models is quite amazing. It will be challenging to do them justice when painting them.
I think it would be great if there were conversion kits for these models from Forge World, but that isn’t going to happen. Thinking about the other five models in the box, if I might do something else with them, but I will probably paint them also up as Imperial Fists Legion Rhino Transports.
The next stage was to give the models a white undercoat.
The next stage will be the base coat.
On a recent visit to Warhammer World I purchased a blister pack of four metal Dwarf Engineers. I did baulk slightly at the price of £37.50, nearly ten pounds per miniature. I know it’s been nostalgic when I remember buying a blister pack of five dwarves back in the 1980s for £1.95. These were originally released about twenty years ago. I never bought these, as my original dwarf army comprised miniatures from the 1980s and 1990s.
Within the blister are the four dwarf models, separate weapons and tools, and four 25mm square slottabases.
The first thing I did was clean up the models, sorting out casting lines, and the little bits of metal that are on the model from the casting process.
I then attempted to slot them into their slottabases. Alas the tabs on the models were too wide for the slots. This is something that I remember from days of yore. The main issue is the writing on the tabs, the name and copyright information. It was a simple matter of getting out the file and filing the tabs down to the right size before slotting them into their bases.
I have decided to paint their quite detailed and bulky backpacks separately.
I then added texture to the bases using Citadel Sand.
I bought my pot of sand years ago, but as I was running low, I realised I wanted another tub, but Games Workshop had stopped selling it. I was lucky in finding a tub on eBay. I like the sand, as it also contains small stones, which enhances the bases.
The next stage will be a white undercoat.
I did think I had this model somewhere, however the pilot has turned up.
This was the original Dwarf Gyrocopter and personally I think the best. It comes across more as an autogyro rather than a helicopter, whereas the later models do feel more like helicopters, almost too sophisticated for a fantasy setting.
This is the original pilot, later Citadel did a pilot with a helmet with a winged helm, which you could argue was more fantasy than this pilot.
You can tell there are issues with my modelling here as the seat of the dwarf pilot has a large glob of epoxy glue there, this was when I use that over superglue.
Now I just need to find the Gyrocopter.
A few decades back I wrote an article about a modern era English Civil War that was published in Issue #43 of Wargames Illustrated in April 1991.
” … its six o’clock, on Tuesday the 27th October 1998. This is the Royal Somerset Broadcasting Service, and now the news from Wessex and around the world. The headlines: Scotland has seceded from the British Republic, fighting has broken out along the border. Royalist army and volunteer militia units have pushed back across the border an armed incursion by Democratic Guards into south-west Dorset last night. Bristol Docks were once again the target of bombing over the night, but damage has been minimal. The United States has once again confirmed its commitment to the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Wessex and Duchy of Cornwall.”
The main inspiration for the background was the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and wondering if a similar scenario could play out in a disunited broken Great Britain. It was also an opportunity to bring in modern armoured trains as well.
After a visit to The Tank Museum I posted a photograph of the Alvis Saracen.
I also wrote: As part of the Second English Civil War, you can imagine the use of the FV603 Saracen to patrol urban areas and to suppress armed resistance.
So when I saw Battlefront were releasing a 15mm FV603 Saracen for Team Yankee, I thought it was time to reboot my Second English Civil War and start painting some models for it.
The FV603 Saracen is a six-wheeled armoured personnel carrier built by Alvis and used by the British Army.
Along with the Saracen release, Battlefront also released the Saladin armoured car.
I also posted some photographs of the Saladin Armoured Car from The Tank Museum and said of possible Wessex scenarios: You can easily imagine how these armoured cars would have been used for reconnaissance, keeping down unrest, and defending key installations against attack.
So I have ordered one pack of each.
I already have some Scorpion light tanks and along with some recently ordered Militia Pickup Trucks as well, I have the first makings of a 15mm army of Wessex. I have noted that Hornby have started a TT120 range of 1/120th scale trains, which would sit well within Wessex. Some ideas to work on there now.