AVBCW: HQ options

02/08/2015 2 Comments

I’m building a new version of Malvern Hills Conservators, as a flying column, with lots of cavalry and other fast units.

Here’s my dismounted cavalry HMG – Great War Miniatures WW1 figures.

Here are a couple of runners:

Very useful under the rules we are developing for “Went the Day Well ?”

They’re Foundry Home Guard which I didn’t build until now because their left arm with the rifle came separately. I took one look and thiought ‘I caqn stupid glue them on, and every time I pick them up the arms are going to come off’….so I got Byakhee Richard pin them on instead – probably 5 minutes for him, and probably years off my life in terms of irritation.

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Bandits, Cats and High Five Commanders

18/07/2014 1 Comment

The Copplestone Castings collection for Bob is pretty extensive, except for the mounted commanders, which ended up in the rather comical high fiving incident between two opposing commanders at the big game. So, I let Rich loose with a suggested simple conversion.

I’ve tried cajoling Mark C to no avail, to produce a separate set iof mounted commanders.

So it was a quick hand swap with a Circassian Cossack. Rich pinned and greenstuffed the hand into place (thanks). The Circassian got the hand in return (!), so a unique command figure as well.

Now the next lot of figures that Rich brought round on Sunday deserve an entire posting in their own right, and will get one, but for now here they are:

Yes, Copplestone White Russians with Great War Miniatures German heads. This will be a unit from the Baltic/NW Russian RCW theatre, or indeed could be used for Bolshevik International brigades in Central Asia.

Simple head swaps using the German stahlheim heads from the mortar crews I’m also working on.

Having done the shotgunners for the MHC, I also found the bandits – a unit of 10 with rifles, some assortted assault types and their leaders. So having actually enjoyed painting the individualistic shotgunners decided it was high time to do the same with the similarly disparate bandits.

Again by coincidence JP sent out a calling note for our planned AVBCW Big Game on 27th September, so I thought it timely to get another unit sorted for that game as I know several players will be coming cap in hand to borrow figures.

The cats weren’t impressed with any of this, and played dead because its really hot, and I don’t blame them….

It’s hot – The March Violets:

I’m gonna tell you a story
About love about love…c’mon

Living with a family that ate rock and roll
I discovered hunger
Discovered the rise and fall
Of going under for the third time

Obsessed with nails
And leather shades and lizard scales
And maybe Hades looked this good
But I don’t think it’s good enough to eat
Real cheap Jesus
Leatherhead incinerator
Nail head try to break the atom

Head head

It’s so hot in here it’s running down the walls
And it’s dripping in my eyes from my hair
It’s hot it’s so hot

Living with a family that ate rock and roll
I discovered the golden rule
That big brother wasn’t watching me at all
Watching me at all

It’s hot it’s so hot

Living with a family that ate rock and roll

More to come on the WHFB game, and the AVBCW Big Game tomorrow.

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For Sale

01/08/2013

New page added to cover some of the stuff I have For Sale.

Does what it says on the tin !

First up late WW1 Germans.

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This week’s challenge – Thursday

20/06/2013 1 Comment

The Musketeer miniatures got finished off.

The hybrid Cooplestone/GWM mortar was finished off as was an HMG.

A 1st Corps building that got spackle was repaired, and the a/c s also got painted.

Weather nopt good for paint to dry off.

Still made good progress with the second mortar and crew; the second HMG and crew and the remans of what I need to do for Saturday.

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BoB: German Artillery

17/05/2013

I painted this a few days ago, but until now have been unable to get even a half decent set of photos of it:

Being dark grey against a dark grey field piece its very difficult to get anything other than a dingy monochrome picture.

From Great War Miniatures, comes with a good compliment of crew too.

Painted with Foundry Early War German Grey uniform colour which looks very green on the mid coat, but when applied to the very grey base coat turns out fine.

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BoB German HMGs

15/05/2013

First trache of painted Germans for my BoB scenario I will be running in June.

Two HMGs, both by Great War Miniatures (North Star Miniatures are the distributors).

For the second I swapped the spotter for a German NCO to be able to distinguish the two HMGs.

Painted using Foundry Early War(2) German uniform colour.
Should have been published yesterday but the static grass had not dried out in time before my social engagement.

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BoB: Building a new army

23/03/2013

You don’t often get to purposely build a new army, well I don’t.

On my list of stuff to sell was a rather randomly bought pile of WW1 Germans from Brigade and Great War Miniatures. Nothing wrong with them, I just bought them on whim and found I had no need or them really. Well up untiul I decided to do the Big Game for BoB this June.

So I sorted through them and found I needed to round it out (yes really).

So I could have three core infantry units plus a command unit and HMG.

I decided to add to that another HMG and an artillery piece.

The Germans didn’t use any tanks on the Eastern front at all, and had only a small amount of A/Cs, so if I was to field them they would have to be balanced out with more HMGs, and maybe a fourth infantry unit – the infantry not being armed heavily with LMGs or SMGs, and not trained as stormtroopers either !

So that’s about 4-5 units of 10 troops and a couple of HMGs, plus the artillery.

There you go, the full force, now all I need to do is paint ti by June for the Big Game…

Now to dispose of the 40+ troops I cdon’t need.

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AVBCW: BUF Artillery

18/10/2012 1 Comment

One of last Xmas’ presents was a Great War Miniatures British WW1 Artillery piece and crew that I have got round to painting up for my BUF force, possibly for use at Evesham BG5 at the end of the month:

A good number of crew servicing the gun.

You can’t see them well, but there are also piles of spent shell cases on the ground as well, they come with the crew pack.

Hopefully I’ll get a couple more of these artillery sets so I can do more BUF and MHC artillery.

‘Artillery brings dignity to what would otherwise be an undignified brawl (Sid Meier)’

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AVBCW: Equine Madness

09/10/2012

As most painters and gamers know, painting horses is one of the most difficult things to do. So, having painted all my Colourful White Russian Cavalry, what do I do ? Yup, embark on some AVBCW BUF Cavalry….

As you can see, they are multi part figures. Both the Great War Miniatures, and Musketeer cavalry are multi part figures.

Each have about five (5) parts to put together all told. The GWM have integral horse and rider pieces, but then have separate arms for sword, lance, rifle or pistol. The Musketeer riders are separate and have a solid fist that needs drilling out to accept a steel pin for a lance (thanks Rich). Both have separate attachments for rifles and sabres to the horses’ furniture.

I’ve already got a dozen or so BUF Cavalry, but over the last year for Xmas and b’day pressies have accumulated more, so that I have some proper squads for both BUF and MHC forces.

Not all this pile of lead will get painted by Evesham, as half of them are for the MHC which are not appearing there – I am typecast as a BUF commander it seems. 🙂
That’ll teach me to wear so much Black.

I’ll b e using Kevin Dallimore’s painting guide books to paint the horses.

Given that the BG-5 Evesham event is coming up, this is my next goal to finish off another unit or two so I can field them there, especially as JP is convinced I’m going to screw up his forces. I don’t know why – I am so innocent (he says polishing his halo).

And then, there is another set of Equine madness that should come week after next…

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