Slow Progress with African Imagi-nations

Back in November, with much enthusiasm, I rolled up the next batch of scenarios in the Uwanda-Mugabia war between my African Imagi-nations.  I worked out a list of new miniatures  that I needed to play out the scenarios.  My wife offered to order many of the figs as a Christmas gift, and I figured that I'd paint and play shortly after Christmas during the time off that I would be taking.

As I rolled through December, I realized that I was simply going to lose a week of that time off, as work was just  too busy. Christmas came, but the my wife's order didn't.  So I waited on Imagi-Africa, and made some progress on old sci-fi projects. 

After 145 days of waiting, we cancelled the Christmas order.  Meanwhile, I had altered my scenarios and list of figs to permit me to order some different stuff  from another company in February, a company that has always given me great service.  As fate would have it, after two weeks, nothing arrived.  Trying to be patient, I waited another two weeks before contacting them, and after about six weeks the order showed up, mis-marked by the post office for surface shipment only.  By the time it arrived, I was back to working crazy hours, and it took a few more days for me to inspect the package.   As it turned out, a part was missing from each of the key vehicles in the order.  I'm still waiting for the missing parts.

In addition to the new miniatures, I needed to build some new terrain for the upcoming battles; a Mugabian border checkpoint, bunkers, and 10-12 new town buildings.  About a week's worth of evenings work.  Started on this back in November too.

So here we are seven months later, and my only accomplishment is to have started on some of the bits for the border checkpoint.  Here are a few photos:

That's it, seven months work, not including the armored car and the little dude.  Here is a close-up of the watch tower.

And one of the obstacles.

The border check point still needs an immigration office, a couple of gun emplacements, some  other defensive positions, and some clutter such as "Welcome to Mugabia" signs and whatnot.  I'm thinking that I'm just going to scratch-build the missing parts of the vehicles, and once this is all done, at least I can get to playing the first battle of the next phase of the war.

The way my own personal little cloud of doom has been, I'm guessing this may take me into next Christmas.   I will do my best to post again soon with more photos and less whining.

ERC 90 F4 Sagaie Progress

Long time, no post.   With time in short supply (as aways), I've slowly managed to near completion of my 15mm master of the French ERC 90 armored car.  I still need to finish the wheels and do some clean up work, but the beast is basically done.  Here are a couple of pics:

And an overhead for size comparison with a US M2A2 Bradley and the French VBL armored car.

This is one of my all-time favorite armored vehicles, and I will be very happy, when  I can add these to my French forces for my fictional African campaign.  It is very sleek, like a Corvette with 90mm cannon.  Check out the cool video at the bottom of the page here. 

The complete model will consist of 9 pieces; hull, turret, gun tube, and six wheels.  It will take a couple of weeks to get through the mold making, assuming that I don't stumble on to any glitches in the casting process (the gun tube may be a pain).  Next up for completion is the M-ATV and post war T34/85.