The Comms Station (28mm Post Apoc)

Panky briefed us on the mission.  One of the other scouts had found somethin' called a  "comms station".  Seen it up on some mountain somewhere, and the boss decided to send out a team to check it out.  

The team is us, some grunts and a couple techies.  Them techies is a weird group, they try to learn the stuff from the before, and make old things work again.  Nice people, but a little out of touch sometimes.  The grunts is good people too, usually, but not always so good out in the wastes.  Too noisy, and don't always know about the dangers.

The Grunts, Techies and recon team not shown.

Anyway, we headed up north for three days, road a couple of infantry carriers out as far as we could go, then started hikin' and climbin'.  A pretty tiring day, but didn't make no contacts, at least not confirmed, though a couple of the grunts thought they seen something a couple of times.  

Did find some abandoned houses and whatnot; probably old farms from the before, judging from how bad off they was.  Spent a night in one of them, gave us some protection from the wind, plus cover if we'd needed it.

We finally caught site of the comms thing. From where we was at, it just looked like a big antenna tower type thing.  Really surprised that it was still up, after all of these years in the wind and weather.  One of the techies said he had some signal from it, but not sure what he meant.  Ya couldn't hear anyone talking on his radio or anything.

Anyway, a tiresome trip, tricky going, but all good 'till we got near the place.  We got pretty close before I saw them.  Some squatters was set up in a little compound with the sloped-sided weird little building.  Reminded me a little of that blockhouse thing we saw on that trip out east, sometime back.

The recon team advances on the Comms station.

 

The team lead by the Lt. enters the table.

The recon team starts to move to the left, the Lt's team is 

climbing in the center, and Sgt. Hand's team is advancing to 

the right (out of view).

Sgt. Hand's team strung out on the right.

The Lt's team makes the last climb in the center.

Sgt. Hand's team preparing to attack on the right.

I was pretty sure I saw someone movin' around up there during our approach, left the other scouts know about it, but not much you could do 'till we got up there.

The Comms station from the southwest.

The Squatters lean-to.

A view looking south.

Wasn't too many of the the squatters, four or five maybe, and really stuck in a hard place; kinda cold, windy, and no way out.  Guess they liked the high ground.  Don't know when they saw us, but when we got close, they wasn't too happy about it.  

Panky, Sam and I started to work our way up the west side of the thing, trying to stay near cover, and trying not to seem like a threat.  But soon as they got a shot, they let loose on Panky with a whole lotta unfriendly.  Submachinegun hit in the chest, knocked her down, but didn't get through her vest.

A squatter gets a shot on Panky, didn't wound her, 

but made her really mad...

Panky got outta there; I stepped back and was able to get a shot on the guy that shot Panky.  Popped 'em pretty good, he dropped.

A moment later, Charlie hits the squatter.

The rest of the team was movin' and started shootin'. Wasn't too many squatters, so they wasn't going to last long.

The Lt's team took out the squatter at the 

south end of the station. 

One trooper was hit with a minor wound.

Sgt. Hand's team took out the squatter on the right, with 

one of hit troopers getting hit pretty bad at point blank range.

By that time, the recon team finally made it to the top on

 the left side of the station.

The female squatter on the building roof was 

shooting at the team to the south...

...so Panky put an end to that.

By the time we got to the top, there was only one squatter left, oblivious to us on the left, Panky took her out, without her even noticing us.

The teckies were hanging back during the fighting, but now somebody signaled for them to come up.  Meanwhile, Sgt. Hand climbed on top of the building and found that one of the hatches was open.

The teckies waiting out the fight.

The rest of us gathered the three wounded squatters, took them down the cliffs, and sent them on their way with two rounds for each of their guns.  Sgt. Hand was ready to just shoot them, but the Lt reminded us that our goal isn't to kill everybody left in the wastes, even when they start the fight.  The Sergeant wasn't too happy.

Squaring away the station.

While the techies were looking into the Comms building, we set up a perimeter around the station, and after only a few minutes, one of Sgt. Hand's team, trooper Lewis, saw some movement down below.  They missed  Lew with a laser.  Big mistake, she had rotary support weapon, put a ton of ammo down range and looked to hit one of them pretty bad.

"Bad guys" can be seen in the distance, 

upper left.

The bad guys limping away.

A moment later another shot hit Panky in the torso, and she screamed and dropped.  Lewis apparently shot that guy too.  Sam and I both ran around to Panky, while a couple other troopers moved to support Lew.  

We thought Panky was dead, but when we got to her, she was trying to get out of her armor.  She was burned from where the laser hit her armor.  The armor stopped the laser, but heated up so much that it burned her pretty bad.

Attending to Panky.

I read about lasers in the books from the Before, but didn't think there were any these days.  The LT was really concerned about it, and wanted us to get one of the lasers, but even though we wounded two of the guys, we really didn't know how many there were, or what we might be getting into.  Sgt. Hand talked the Lt out of chasing them, and just focus on completing our mission. 

Settling in for the night.

The teck guys seemed really excited about what they learned in the building, said we might need to station troops there regularly.   We stayed the night at the station and headed back the next morning.  We had three wounded soldiers, one had to be sort of carried, so it was going to be slower going on the way back.  I just wanted to get home with no more excitement.

A Few Additional Terrain Bits

Over the last week or so, I've been working on a few more cliff sections, needing more pieces that permit movement up or down the cliffs.  Additionally, I added some more small rock formations and boulders.  Here are a few pics:

This is all of the pieces after glueing up and shaping the foam.

The same bits after adding paint and flock, the shading got

 really washed out under my fluorescent lights.

The shorter 3" tall cliffs with a 28mm Hasslefree fig.

The 6" cliffs with an older 28mm-ish GW fig (I think) for 

reference.

Another angle of the 6" cliffs with the Hasslefree fig 

from above.

Hoping to get a game on the table next weekend, will see if life cooperates.  

That's all I've got for now, be careful out there.

General Update

This past week has seen me get back to hobby business.  I finally finished the painting of my 6mm WWII Soviet infantry stands, over 400 of them, as I decided to build infantry four different Brigade TO&Es.  With these I can piece just about any variations that I might need and will be able to play some pretty big battles should they materialize in my Barbarossa campaign.  Here's a pic of the figs (mostly) awaiting flock:

With the Soviet infantry off most of my paint and build surfaces, I was able to get back to building some stuff.  In this case a few additional pieces of modular 28mm cliff terrain.  It will be a small batch, with about half a dozen new cliff tiles with paths allowing figs to navigate the elevations more readily, and some more rocks and rocky formations to scatter around.  I'm still gluing up and rough shaping foam, but here is a WIP from Sunday morning:

Also, I discovered that 3M Styrofoam Spray Adhesive (item no. 6070) was no longer available from any of the my usual sources, and confirmed with Scotch/3M that the product is no longer in production. 

Having used up my stash of spray adhesive, I purchased a can of 3M Super 77 Spray Adhesive which was reformulated in the 1990s such that it would attack XPS foam insulation board, and it appears to have been reformulated again, as it does not as aggressively attack the foam.

I found that with a light application, I can avoid any noticeable damage to the foam, and that after  a few minutes, I had no separation of layers while cutting, sawing, rasping, and sanding it.  I tried pulling layers apart after 24 hours with no separation.

For the last 36 years, I've used spray adhesive, rather than liquid or paste type glues for gluing up foam terrain, as the turn around time for the process with spray is seconds to minutes v. hours to days of drying time.  If done properly, the spray adhesive lasts for decades, as I have terrain assembled with spray adhesive in 1989 with no signs of delamination.  

I intend to buy and test several different brands and types of spray adhesive in the coming days and will post on my experience with these.

My goal regarding the new terrain is to have the new it ready for a game this coming weekend.  Given that last night, I was only able to partially shape on tile, that goal may be more of a reach, than I anticipated.

Squirrel!

Over my hobby hiatus during the last couple of weeks, in the evening hours, when I'm too pooped to do anything hobbying, I've been watching "The Rise of Empires: Ottoman" on Netflix and rather enjoying it .  

The first two seasons span the rise of Mehmed II, the conquest of Constantinople, and the defeat of Vlad the Impaler.  This is a period that I know relatively little about, and I haven't attempted to research the historical accuracy of the show, but have to admit that I've become quite taken with the period and particularly the Ottoman uniforms as depicted.

Strangely for me, I've found myself considering how enjoyable it might be to paint up figures with such uniforms, leading to some basic searches for availability of 28mm figs.  

As I suggested above, it has been quite some time since I've felt any fire for painting figs of this type.  Not sure if this is due to general stress at the moment, and my brief time away from the hobby, or if this is part of a greater sense of simply not having made anything of note for the last twenty or so years.

As I consider the project, I envision a table covered with elaborate landscapes.  Not sure how I would game the siege of Constantinople, but certainly the table would be amazing; while, building the world of Vlad would result in a totally different, but potentially fantastic table.

But inevitably, I know that somewhere around the third battle, I would start to grow bored with the limitations of warfare during the period, and I'd probably start to look for avenues to turn it into some sort of adventure game, where my Janisaries would never have need to be on the table again.  Stll, building it would be tremendous fun, but I really can't  afford the time for another project.

And additionally, I have that promise to myself about maintaining focus, sticking with 10 periods/projects that are already in process, and I realize that I am having a typical gamer "Squirrel" moment.  I close my browser window, open to the 28mm Ottoman figs, and lament another project that will never happen.

The images in my mind fade, reason begins to return.

Its not fair really, having such short life spans, when there is just so much to build and play.

Maybe if I just bought a few figs?  Just to paint?

SQUIRREL!

Things Really Slowing Down

The last few weeks have been busy outside of gaming, and the busy has finally blead over into my weekends, so hobby progress has really slowed down.  I did finish up some Russian tanks and trucks over the weekend, but they were a three day project that took three weeks.  Sorry, no pics as they are just solid green with a little dust, and I put them away as they were completed, not thinking to take pics.

Terrain in the form of field fortifications will be the next step for Barbarossa, but I still have to arrange getting the sheets of foam first.  I'm also waiting for a GHQ sale before buying the last few packs of miniatures for the campaign.

In other news, I found a copy of Fall of France to use as a strategic framework for my France 1940 camapign.  I still don't know if it will be a bathtub campaign, or will focus on a couple of thrusts at one to one representation.  

Probably won't be much hobby activity for the remainder of the month, as the next two weekends are already occupied with non-hobby stuff.

See you in May.

A Few Bumps... and Counters

Yes, it seems that I've hit a few bumps in the road.  I was checking the statis of my Russian infantry order for Barbarossa earlier this week, when I realized that four packs of figs are missing from the order.  They were there when I was putting the order together.  Somehow, I must have deleted them, before placing it.  I must have check through it a half dozen times, and just can't get over making the error.  So I'm still five-plus weeks from getting all of those trays of infantry stands off of my painting table. A total bummer.

Painting progress on vehicles was moving along smoothly, until yesterday morning, when I ran out of my "Russian" green.  Would have finished up the last of 44 T35s, BT-7s and T-60s.  Turned out that my back-up bottle was a mostly used bottle.

No problem, off to the hobby shop, right?  Yeah, so now we are back to the shop not being able to get restocks of paint in.  This started before covid, and is still going on.  So off to the big city to Hobby Lobby.  Same deal.  Not in stock.  Been this way with them as well, as I tried to pick up an extra bottle a couple of times int he last two months. No dice.

Yeah, I know, internet, plus a week or two and $6.95 shipping will yield a bottle of paint.  I miss the good old days, when things were sold at stores.

Soooo, I cleared the miniature painting "fallout" that had collected on the game table from all of the painting, and started setting up terrain for a game.  Figured I'd play a game today.  Then got the text from work, that the test I was notified about on Thursday, is now due on Monday.  I was already scheduled out of the office friday, so now I have to go in today and build the test fixture.  No game.

Oh well, all is not lost.  I made use of the time yesterday and completed counter sheets for the Soviets for the Barbarossa campaign.  I had finished the Germans earlier in the week.  The Germans are done for the initial setup, and Soviets for the set-up and first few turns, minus the militia formations.  Here are some pics:

The counters just identify the units; they don't have any combat stats on them.  And the unit numbers are completely arbitrary, there are no historical unit numbers.  They are just for the Barbarossa bathtub campaign.  I've deviated from the original "Barbarossa 25" TO&Es, using several different Soviet Tank brigade TO&Es, and some different German formations as well.  

Also, the cavalry formations are missing, as I don't have figs for battalion sized cav formations, and don't want to paint a bazillion horses.  Not sure if they will be omitted, represented by smaller formations (maybe Cavalry Squadrons), or repalced with motorized infantry or something.

The counters will be used on the Europa map for strategic movement and to decide who fights where.  Generally, there are counters for all division, brigade, and battalion sized formations, as well as, some company and platoon sized supporting units from the larger formations. 

I'll still need to add counters for reinforcements once the game starts, but this is the majority of the beast.  A little progress amongst the bumps.

Hopefully see you again next weekend.

Great Weekends, Tiring Weekdays

The last couple of weekends have been very productive.  I finished painting 62 stands of 6mm Soviet infantry; assembled and primed 103 6mm Soviet, German, and French vehicles; got paint on about 70 of those vehicles, and got 2x 15mm and 6x 6mm Cold War jets to the decal stage two weekends back.

I added in maybe 18 "straggler" vehicles, later stuff that won't be seen in Barbarossa, just odds and ends that still needed paint, and this past weekend saw me complete 57x 6mm Russian vehicles and 4x German.  Not as dynamic as the weekend before, but not bad productivity, even if most were just solid greens or grays with some mud and dust.

6mm WWII Soviet infantry, 6mm CF-100, F-86s, and Hunters, 

a 15mm Hunter and Venom...

... and 6mm WWII German and Soviet vehicles, 

in various stages of paint at the time of the photos.

I could have, and probably should have played a game this past weekend, but I'm still hyped up on how fast the Barbarossa progress has gone, and just wanted to keep it going as long as the mojo flows.

I've got the second round of Soviet infantry ordered and in route, as well as some reinforcement for the Soviets, more "BT" series and other light tanks mostly, so those will hit the painting table soon.  Probably could have lived without the extra tanks, but decided to round out some extra units, just in case my battles get bigger than originally anticipated.

Otherwise, I need to paint some of the aircraft and need to order a few buildings to paint, and 6mm barbrossa will be done.

At some point, I will be picking up a large order of 15mm resin Russian Tanks from Gaming Models, will need to paint a half dozen Russian planes and add a few buildings to wrap up the 15mm side of Barbarossa.

Over these last couple of weekends, the weekdays have been in tremendous contrast to the weekends, with the weekdays filled with work and life stuff, and by the time I'm done with the "have to" things, I'm burnt out.  Can hardly keep my eyes open, let alone paint a miniature.  So nothing "hobby" is getting done during the week.  Even my forum and bog reading time is way down.

On a side note, I've been blowing through a lot of old paints, mostly colors for weathering that I've been using for decades.  I used up or found dried out, about 15 bottles in the past two weeks.  It saddens me to see my supply of Polly S, Polly Scale, ModelMaster, and old Pactra Military colors go away.  And my weathering has gotten outright crude in some instances, as I work through new paints, colors, mixes, and brushes to find my way again.  At least my painting table is gaining a little space.

That's it for now.  Until next time, be safe and stay well.