On the Painting Table

After getting kidnapped by work for a few days.  I'm catching up on the hobby again.

In my last post, I mentioned painting some miniatures. For the last few weeks, about every third or fourth day, I've been doing a little assembling, priming, painting, etc., as time permits.

Most of the miniatures are 15mm vehicles for (what else?) Barbarossa.  There are a bunch of German Pz II, Pz III, and Pz IV models in process, all my own casts.  Some of these were made from "blowout" parts with occasional bubbles and whatnot. 

The Pz IIs and Pz IIIs are almost done with most of the Pz IIIs being E-models with the 5cm L42 gun and a couple having the older 3.7cm gun.  The Panzer IIs are mostly "F" models and some earlier types as well.  

Pz III E

Pz IIs F and B models, a couple Sdkfz 251D, and 

Pz IVDs behind them.

There are also some Soviet tanks, mostly a mix of my own and Gaming Models casts: three T-35s, a couple of T-28s (there will be more), 10x T-26Ss (my second sculpt ever 36 years ago, and yet to see the games table), three BA-10 (I think) armored cars (these are old, like 1980s vintage, not sure of the make), a single KV-1, and a Soviet truck.  

T-26S (center), with a KV1 and a KV2 turret mostly 

hidden behind it.

T-35s, T-28s, three BA-10s, a Soviet truck, and a stray 

Dingo.

That Dingo has been waiting for paint since about 1989

Additionally, about twenty-five Star Trek starships are in process, most being Federation ships.  A couple are 1980s vintage Task Force Games ships; the Federation tug and a dreadnaught both required a good cleaning and some repair before priming.    A bunch are Studio Burgstrom (beautiful models, no flash, easy to assemble) and the classic Lou Zocchi models all now primed and in various states of base coat.  The base station is from Amarillo Design Bureau, and the three Reliants are from the "clicky" game.  The Klingons get a little bump too, with three more Bergstrom Klingon cruisers, and three smaller IKS Gunboats from Space Facade on Shapways.  These are all in various stages of receiving their base hull colors.

Most of the Bergstrom models appear to be from the TOS period or a little earlier, resembling some of the "Axanar" style ships, and I'll be going two different directions with them, using them both as traditional classes from Star Fleet Battles in bigger fleet and campaign games, and also doing up SFB style SSDs to play in the pre-TOS Klingon War (4-Years War) games in the Axanar (-ish) setting.

For 6mm Operation Barbarossa, my GHQ order arrived today, so I can get the German trucks painted up for my campaign battle west of Lvov.  I might be able to get those done tomorrow.

And, graced by a little bit of luck, early this week, my neighbor's cat got into our garage and knocked over a stack foam that had been on a table in the corner, probably since about 1998.  Most of it was 2" foam cut for a project that didn't happen, but part of it was a bunch of long forgotten 1/2" thick pre-cut tiIes, perfect for river sections.  I'm hoping to get the new river tiles done by next weekend.

That's it for now, stay safe out there.

Big Surprise... (Operation Barbarossa)

 ...the German offensive is being slowed by lots of rivers and a lack of trucks.  

I've actually been planning to build a set of wider river tiles since last September, but all of my local suppliers have stopped carrying the blue Dow-Corning foam board.  I had been holding off, hoping to discover an alternate source.

My preference for the blue board is caused by the pink Owens-Corning product always being thicker than advertised, usually pretty uniform, but about 1/16" over adversied thickness, and the green gray Lowes brand varies within the sheet from as much as 1/16" over to 1/16" under listed thickness.

Historically, the blue stuff tends to be pretty uniform and very close to listed thickness.  The other stuff requires notable extra work and mess to avoid creating "steps" in my terrain.  In some of my game photos, you can see some of tiles that were completed in the past, before I noticed these differences in thickness.

I had been putting off making the new terrain, including the river, until I could find some blue foam, or make the longer trip to get the pink stuff.  Lowes is by far the easiest store for me to get to, but I keep measuring the foam thickness, and theirs is simply never uniform, varying as much as 1/8" in a given sheet, and creating a lot of extra work or wasted foam.

Four of the five remaining battles in this first series of German attacks involve a river crossing requiring some new terrain, which I figured that I'd make over the this past week and next, but work has gotten in the way.  I will likely be able to pick up some foam late this week and get that moving along.  

To keep the campaign moving, I intended to get the battle west of Lvov on the table yesterday, then discovered that I had a significant shortage of German trucks, given the forces that happen to be present, so sent off an order for more trucks (plus a couple of other bits that I need). So until more trucks arrive, the Germans have been temporarily brought to a halt.

Yesterday was a bit of a write off, as I spent the day recovering from a rather laborious week at work.  I am officially old.  I finally did some honest work for a few days and none of my hinges want to bend.  Yesterday, it hurt just to try and hold a miniature to paint.  Sad. 

Today I feel a little better, so if nothing else, the break in Russia will give me a chance to paint some figs.

And with any luck, I'll be able to get the battle near Lvov going maybe as soon as next Sunday.

Stay young out there!!