Dear Diary - a rolling 4 months of comment
Reinforcements in the post.
My latest purchase from Anschluss came in the post today. I tend to buy from them in small groups like this and it is amazing how quickly the vehicle pool can build.
The two important buys were to get the three Soviet trucks, so that I can motorise one platoon (or a company in a higher level game) and the two SU 152’s, simply because I like them! (Though I like them - they don’t seem to last very long in my games, as every German gun tube available seems to have them in their gaze).
While ordering, I added one Hetzer to complement the one I already have and two Marder II’s, which are universally useful and particularly nice models here.
They are all in 3D resin, so very light and nicely detailed. You can click on the image to get a better idea of that.
The trucks will get done first to increase the functionality of my just completed Soviet Pocket Army.
I do have other, previously bought Soviet vehicles that are also in the painting queue, which include 9 x T-34 (mix of 76mm and 85mm versions), JSII’s and SU 76’s - the latter by Victrix Games. At the level that I game that should be enough ….. until I push to early war!
I have put a One Pound coin in the box as an indicator of scale (12mm or 1/144).
There is so much goodness, how does it all get painted in this life-time :-)
Soviet WWII 12mm Pocket Army
My second WWII Pocket Army is now complete and it pretty much mirrors the German force in content.
9 x Rifle Sections (3 platoons or one company)
1 x 82mm mortar platoon
2 x 45mm A/T guns deployed
2 x Maxim machine guns
1 x observer and radio
2 x SU 122 self propelled gun
This is the basis of a mid-war Soviet force and over time I will increase the infantry element to battalion size, so that it fits with both the Rapid Fire rules and ‘O’ Group rules.
The figures are very nicely sculpted 12mm in hard plastic from Victrix, the two vehicles are SU 122’s, which are 3D prints from Anschluss Wargames and the pair of anti-tank guns are metal from pendraken.
One of the advantages of this scale and period are that the forces are relatively easy and quick to paint, so these ‘starter’ sized forces can be expanded alongside painting other things.
As with the German force, I like to have something at the front of the anti-tank gun bases, so that their barrels have something to rest on, protecting them from handling and being dropped! Here I have used a cut down tree frame that Woodland Scenics sell.
The mortar teams have positioned themselves behind a wall, which is cut (outside in the fresh air because of resin dust) from a section of 10mm resin wall, made by the wonderful Battlescale and sold by Pendraken.
Anyway, I now have the beginning of my two Pocket Armies, so time to get some action to the table. I have been researching some actions that involved the SU 122.
There are a few more pictures up on the blog. LINK
Oh Dear, I am not needed to blog anymore!
A.I. wants to help me!
While writing here today, I saw a new egg shaped icon, which I now know to be ‘Kai’ the A.I.
I never click on anything these days that I don’t recognise or understand, but an e-mail popped up in my tray from my web host, telling me all about my new A.I. Buddy!
It says ‘Kai can proofread your text, expand your rough notes into well-written content or change the writing style without changing your ideas’.
Apparently it works best for people with a lot of content (me) because it has more information to draw upon in emulating my style / content / thinking etc.
On the plus side it says ‘Unleash your creativity without overthinking spelling or grammar’ ….. so a posh spell checker then?
Anyway, there we are, no big deal, but certainly a peak behind the curtain into what the not too distant future holds for us and another stepping stone on the way to a shallow relationship with those that read you, beaten only by the joys of monetising your blog!
I would be more impressed if it would paint my figures for me, but it strikes me that writing is a very personal thing, why would you want someone (something!) else to do it for you, when I can spend hours agonising over format, content and spelling?
It reminds me of a cartoon joke that my music shop has put in front of his racks of vinyl albums which reads something like ‘the two things I enjoy most about vinyl are the expense and inconvenience’ :-) very funny.
Here are the rough notes to my next post - ‘scenario building and the price of fish’ ….. good luck with that, my little A.I. buddy.
Question - is it likely that A.I. could (At the moment) write the above passage, with the kind of nuance that is in there and how the hell would it know about the cartoon in my music shop? Answers on a postcard please.
Rapid Fire East Front £5
For the past couple of years, I have been collecting the Rapid Fire Reloaded series, which includes rules and a number of scenario booklets in the A5 format.
The latest A5 booklet is now out, Monty Vs Rommel, which covers four desert actions. This is not a particular area of interest or knowledge for me, but I am something of a completist when it comes to collecting series, so while searching the Rapid Fire website for the booklet, I came across their latest news, which is that the OLD Russian front supplement has been made available again in PDF format.
Now there is a caveat with this. They have lost the original files and in any case the publication was somewhat pre good DeskTop Publishing software, so layout and maps are rather old school rudimentary and the visual quality is a bit mushy (soft) because they have had to rely on scans of old documents …… but they are up front about this and compensate by providing the PDF download at just £5, a bargain for something that I am not likely to come across again.
Anyway I thought it would be useful for Rapid Fire games and even a source for ‘O’ Group games and having just built up two Pocket Army forces for east front 1943, the scenario information might be a guide as to what to build / paint next.
My present forces are mid war and I immediately fell upon two interesting scenarios. One being Ponyri 9th July 1943 (Hill 253.5) and the Minsk highway 23rd June 1944. Both grabbed my attention as being on themes that I have previously gamed.
The Ponyri scenario mentions a 5’ x 8’ table, but the system is based around 1/72 figures, so my own 12mm armies should be able to use a table half that size, easily fitting in a 4’ x 3’ space ….. I think!
Anyway, regardless, for a fiver, it is a nice thing to have, just to sit with and browse through the various scenarios with a certain flavour of yesteryear presentation, which I like for its simplicity.
Painting mojo, I'm coming to find you!
I have always had a resistance to painting, much prefering to spend my time gaming, but of course 'no effort' = no result, so there were are!
To keep a painting discipline, I try to do something every day, whether that be priming, painting, inking or basing etc, while always keeping a batch primed, so that there are no disruptions between getting one lot of figures done and starting the next.
However, the past few weeks have been totally brushless! So yesterday, I had to kick start hard to break that cycle, giving myself two long painting sessions.
It was enough to move my Soviet WWII 12mm from the painting department to the mucky wash tray. Today I will will throw in some khaki highlights on the uniform and then brush apply a matt varnish.
By tomorrow the figures can be glued to their bases and the base edges painted.
That just leaves the adding of basing paste and flocking, with a final light matt varnish spray to lock everything down. The weather in the UK is presently ideal for that.
So within a few days, I should have the first stage of the Soviet WWII Pocket Army done, something that really could have and should have been completed a couple of weeks ago.
If you are in one of those 'inactive' moments, you might benefit from forcing a painting session of 1 hour over the next day or two, just to get that painting momentum moving again .... before the inactivity damages productivity too much - which it always does!
Hopefully the completing of two WWII Pocket Armies will see some near future tactical games at the table, which have been totally absent since I sold off my 1/72 collection this time last year.
