The Breaking Point

I've spent much of the last few weeks in a sort of hobby limbo, with some of my free time occupied with making masters, molds, and casting.  And much more of it spend waiting for glues, solvents and molds to set up or dry.

My paint table, build table/casting area, and game table (plus a few other spaces around the house) have all generally been filled with molds, masters, and castings.  And it seems that no matter how impatiently I watch these drying processes, they simply will not speed up, feeling no sense of urgency what so ever.

So this past Sunday, I had gotten to the end of mastering the buildings and boxing them for mold making, and while searching for some lost models and bits, ended up with one of my tables covered with trays of Soviet vehicles.  Somewhere between 900-1000 micro scale models, roughly half of which need painted or re-painted, just screaming for attention.

They taunted me.

About 220-240 miniatures fit in the larger wooden trays, and I can 

fill about five of them with Soviets.

I agonized.  

So much to be done, so much time wasted, watching stuff dry.  I cracked.  Needing a fix, I managed to clean off the front edge of my painting table, and started an assembly line of Soviet tanks and vehicles being prepared for battle.  

T-62s, T-55s, BTRs slowly began moving along my table, receiving successive stages of cleaning, primer, base coat, finish coat, tracks, weathering, etc.  Comrade Khrushchev would be so proud.  A couple of hours painting on Sunday, 15-20 minutes a night since, and about 120 vehicles are in various stages of paint.  The first 20 are done.

Work progresses at the tractor factory, 

with T-62s coming off of the line.

I'm going to alternate between casting for orders, and painting Soviets over the holiday weekend.

I'm feeling better now.

More Progress on Modern 6mm African Buildings

Though slowed somewhat by an ailment and casting vehicles, I have managed some progress on the next batch of 6mm buildings for my modern African imagi-nation project.

The next batch of buildings consists of 4 house "compounds".  Each consists of three or four structures, wall sections, and a gate.  The plan is to cast them each as kits of around 10 pieces, which will then allow for mix and match variations, as well us using some buildings as free-standing structures. 

I still have a little cleaning up and detailing to do, but here are some pics:

Awnings for the buildings set in front of where they will eventually attach.  

Additionally, some wall/gate sections are laying flat.

I added the GHQ Centurion to give a sense of scale.  Each 

compound fits in roughly a two inch square footprint.

The last photo shows the compound in the lower right 

of the third photo with all of the parts separated to 

better show the individual pieces.  This one has four 

buildings, two wall sections, a gate, and two separate awnings.

It will probably be Wednesday or Thursday night, before I get a chance to finish them.  Can't wait to get them done though, so that I can cast and paint up of few of these guys.   

Irishserb's Miniatures Update

For the last month and a half, I've mostly focused on mold making and casting, and though I'm running behind as usual, my 15mm modern vehicles will be available for sale again sometime later this week.

When I haven't been casting vehicles, I've continued making masters of  6mm African buildings.  Here is a pic of some of the progress.  A GHQ Centurion Mk III is included in the photo for scale reference.  

In the near term, I will be making some of my 6mm WWII European , Arab-Israeli War Arab, and modern African buildings available for purchase as well.  

For now, I've still got to clean and bag a lot of castings, and maybe make a few more castings of miscellaneous vehicle bits to complete a few more models.  I'll post another update, in the next few days.  

Charlies Journal - Long Range Recon: The Briefing (Post-Apoc)

We got briefed on a special mission today, a long range reconnaissance mission.  I guess we're gonna head east, further than we ever gone before. 

HQ figures that there's probably communities like ours or organized places like the Confederation out east, but we ain't never heard from any.  They want us to  see if we can make contact with any, establish relations, maybe start up trade, and hopefully expand civilization in the wastes.

We've also been told to be on the lookout for Greenies.

I guess there's been a lot of reports of 'em recently, mostly small groups showin' up, here and there, to the east and north.  Little gangs of 'em just show up out of no-where, they kill whoever they can, then just leave.  They don't take stuff, no scavenging, just kill and leave.

Supposedly, they are some kind of super soldiers; really big men, powerfully built, carrying giant guns, covered in green paint.  Thy act insane when they fight, screaming all crazy like, celebratin'  when they kill.  We've seen cults before; reported as being monsters, end up just being crazy people.

Nobody here never seen one, so who knows if they're real, but with so many reports, something is goin' on, and command wants to figure it out.  So, we're gonna head out east for I don't know how long, see what we can see, and report back.

Another thing, or maybe its related to the greenie problem, there been gangs moving south and west lately, more than there used to be, so we're gonna check that out too, I guess.  Word is that something is chasing gangs out of their homes up north, then they come this way and start trouble.  HQ wants us to talk to any of those that we find. Always love tryin' to talk to people inclined to shoot first, and shoot later too.

Anyways, they're sendin' out a bunch of recon teams like us, to fan out east and north and find out what we can.  Of course, they want us to go make contact, but not make enemies aware of the Confederation. Not sure how we do that.  When someone sees that Goat, they now something is up out there somewhere.  Ain't like we can pass though unnoticed.

Sam and I gotta load up the and prep the Goat.  Sam says that something bad is going to happin', but she always says that.  Says something bad is always going to happin', cause nothin' good ever does.  usually the Goat has a lotta room inside, but this time its gonna be crowded, we got a ton of supplies and extra equipment to take.  this mission is definitely something different.  

After the briefing, the CO talked to Panky and the rest of the section leaders for a while longer, so she has more info.  I'm pretty sure it ain't good, cause she was quieter than usual afterwards, but she ain't saying nothin' either way yet.  I'm just gonna go for the ride, see some new land, and explore.  Can't wait to leave, hope we don't die.

My First Order from Heroics & Ros

Despite having purchased my first Heroics & Ros 6mm infantry circa 1983, I only placed my first direct order with H&R a few weeks ago.  I ordered infantry, vehicles, and aircraft for the 6mm version of my third world imagi-nations war.  Immediately after ordering , I received a message from Andy at H&R who noticed an inconsistency in my order, and asked if I meant "this or actually that?". As it turned out, he was right in his suspicion, and corrected my error.  I was quite impressed with him at that point.

My order was quickly dispatched, and arrived across the big water at my local post office in about 9 days.  My postal carrier then tried to deliver two packages, left a note saying that I had a parcel to pick up at the post office, which I picked up the next day, and all was well.

Unfortunately, I actually had two parcels to pick up, so I waited another three weeks, before e-mailing Andy at H&R.  Andy again took the initiative, and chased down the fact that the parcel was sitting at my post office for the last three weeks (my apologies to US customs, who I thought was once again having fun with me), waiting to be picked up.  The package was retrieved later in the day, and I am thoroughly delighted with everything.  Most importantly, I cannot express how impressed I am with Andy and the service provided by Heroics and Ros.

If you are not familiar with Heroics & Ros, or have possible interest in H&R products, please visit the H&R site.  Andy has set the standard by which other others should be compared for offering exemplary service.

Here are the toys:

BM75  Vickers Mk III

BM14 Ferret

BM32 1/2 Ton Landrover

SMA401 Mig 23/27

SMA204 Yak38 Forger

SMA405 Mi2 Hoplite

M26 1980s British infantry

M27 1980s British Infantry Support

M28 Soviet Motor Rifles

M29 Soviet Motor Rifle Support

Overall, I am quite happy with the castings.  The Mi2 Hoplite is just too cool, and will be a proxy for Mugabian Mi4s in my game.  The infantry are the newer castings, and the most upright standing figures measure about 6.5mm tall bottom of foot to top of helmet.

The new infantry appear a touch taller and more crisp than the older style, but I think would work fine on the table with units made of the older figs.  I know that I will have older and newer figs on the table at the same time, with no reservations.

Anyway, hats off to Heroics & Ros for the fabulous service.

First Two 6mm Modern African Buildings Built

I finally finished the first two 6mm buildings for my modern African imagi-nation games.  They are patterned after 15mm buildings that I made previously, which are based on actual buildings from various African countries.  These two are more or less ready to be put into molds:

The nearer building is about 1 inch wide and roughly 1.25 inches deep.

Showing the pieces for the porch, the rectangle 

in front of the second building is the sign board.

These two are their 15mm counterparts:

Though I don't expect too much interest in them, I plan to make as many of these 6mm models available for purchase, as I can.  The porch rails will come as either plastic or brass rod.

If nothing else, it feels good to have at least got something built.  Hobby progress has slowed quite a bit as compared to the last couple of months.  I'm hoping to have a couple more done by the end of the weekend.

Nostalgia at Sea

I haven't accomplished much of anything over the last couple of weeks, except a little molding and casting, but while searching for 6mm buildings and supplies, I stumbled upon more old school leftovers from my early 1980s gaming.

I was introduced to naval gaming through Avalon Hill's Bismarck, for which a friend had added every battleship from Dreadnought to the four turreted Montana's that were never built.  So somewhere around 1982, I decided to try to provide bits for a modern naval game.

Originally, I think we were going to base it on some of the Bismarck mechanics, but that never happened, as I remember it.  I'm not sure what we used originally, probably some half written home-brew stuff, but I tumbled on something called Naval Battle Group (might have come from Superior/Alnavco?), which as I remember it, required us to fill/add in a lot of detail.

Anyway, we didn't have any miniatures when we started, so I made hand drawn counters for most classes of ships in the Soviet and US fleet circa 1978-1982.  The counter sheets were then photocopied, glued to matte-board, and hand colored with markers.  here is a large portion of the markers:

Our US and Soviet fleets

Better views of the US ships:

Subs, cruisers, amphibious ship, and carriers, including Nimitz, 

Carl Vinson (probably our newest flattop at the time), Enterprise, 

Kittyhawk, Ranger, Midway and others.

FFGs, DDs, Ashville PGs, and Minesweepers.

The refitted New Jersey was added a couple of years later.

And the Soviets:

Pride of the Soviet Navy; the Kievs, Moskva, a couple of the

 Sverdlovs, various cruisers, DDs, FFs, and PGs such as the

 Nanuchka and Petya.

Soviet Amphibious ships, Ivan Rogovs, Polnocny class

 (which is misspelled n the marker), Alligators, and mine sweepers.

And the Soviet submarine fleet.

I don't specifically remember the scale of the markers, though they were drawn in a constant scale.  I was thinking maybe 1/4800, but measured it out based on the length of Nimitz, and they appear to be about 1/5400th.

After playing a bit with the markers, I discovered that I could order 1/2400 Alnavco (Superior) ships through our local hobby shop, the long defunct Modeler's Haven in North Canton, Ohio.

Front to rear, Superior's C.F. Adams x2, Long Beach, The refitted 

New Jersey, and the Soviet Kirov, which I apparently never 

made a marker for.

Missing a few masts, but otherwise, not too bad off for 33 year old models.  Paint was pretty basic (then again, photos of modern vessels were pretty scarce back then).  I think that I had a couple of Kashin class DDGs, but sadly, they were apparently lost in transit over the years (A moment of silence, please).  Unfortunately, I think that was as big as my miniature fleets ever got.  

I played around with Harpoon a little, but by the late 1980s, both my miniatures and markers fell into dis-use, and they've been making the journey with me in mothball all these years since.  I've always wanted to get back to Cold War Naval gaming, and have considered in recent years picking up some ships and aircraft a number of times.  

There is a decent selection of US and Soviet stuff out there, though other Navies are more limited.  I figure that I could scratch-build (and cast) what I needed, that couldn't be gotten otherwise, when the time arises to do so.