Two Dozen Reinforcements.

Recently I purchased online a quantity of cheap plastic tanks of the type often found in sets of plastic toy soldiers.

I purchased six bags like this. 

 Based on the pictures I thought these might be knock offs of the plastic knockoffs of Matchbox Battle Kings. While the Chieftain turret is extremely similar, the hull is quite different. My belief is that these are inspired by the knockoffs, rather than copies of them.

12 Chieftain like tanks, and 12 M-47/48 like tanks.

 Still, these are very useful, although they will require some work to bring them up to standard.

Sorted by colour and markings

Another view.

 Of course having this many means that I can think seriously about making some specialist conversions using some of their hulls. The turrets could then be used for other purposes.

Moving down the line.

Time for some heavy metal scenarios.....

18th Century Teeth and Tail Round Up!

I'm been painting up some more bits and pieces for my AWI Volley and Bayonet forces - a project which is probably going to morph into something much larger no doubt - and have been attempting to finish items that are sitting on my work bench.

Some field works from an Italeri set.

An Airfix Hessian Jager Amusette - a view of the business end.

And the view from behind.

Currently these Jagers are amongst the very few stands of AWI Airfix that I have painted from bare plastic. (Click here for the previous post on these)So far I have been able to produce stands by refurbishing figures painted by others. On that note I would like to thank Geoff (via Glenn) for providing the figures for the below stand. All I needed to do was touch up the very nice existing paint job, wash them, and then base them. Easy!

Another stand of Airfix AWI for V&B!

The same stand, but from behind.

So that's the teeth part of the round up done, now on for the tail! First up I have a canoe from Nexus reissue of the Atlantic "Davy Crockett" set. (As always here is the link for the review from PSR). The set contains a number of very useful items for making up logistic and transport stands for both 18th and 19th century North American games.

A trapper in a small canoe.  I have another to paint up.

Another view of the canoe. This will be dwarfed by the big canoes from BUM.

 And of course I have more wagons. First up are an Airfix wagon that I got from Glenn. I replaced the team of small horses with two from the Revell Thirty Years War Artillery set. The second is a rather cart like wagon from one of the ranches in the Bum Wild West Town range. It has gained a driver from the Airfix Wagon set, and a horse from the French Artillery set.

Wagons? Or a wagon and a cart?

 I am also trying to make up my stockpile of Conestoga wagons before I start on my other wagons. The reason being that they are the most 18th century American wagon I have, and I figure I should make them up before I start on the others. So I finished the one I had started on here - and this time I managed to put the driver/rider in the correct place!

Another completed Conestoga Wagon., and the one I made previously....

Two more Conestoga await construction..... 

 And naturally, I have started another project before I have finished any of the others, but I have managed to have a cull of surplus items (look here for such items) - or use the shiney new tab at the top!

New stuff via Glenn - Alexander and some friends...

The Big Red Brick Factory - a manufactorium themed BUA for Volley and Bayonet

As promised in the last post, this one will feature an industrial themed BUA. The original plan was for this BUA to represent a nice red brick church, but having been playing a little bit of Total War: Empire lately, I decided to go with something else, something more industrial.

A stand of Airfix French troops  stand guard.

I also thought that having a nice cannon foundry on the table top would be a nice homage to RTS computer games that I have played over the years that have players stick factories down on the virtual battlefield.

The view from above - I was very tempted to add smoke coming out of the stack using pillow stuffing.

The rear view.

I did some basic research on what 18th century factories and foundries looked like, and on the processes used to create cannon. Given the constraints of the 4 inch by 6 inch BUA template, and my desire to have a 3 inch by 3 inch lift off section, I tried to create something that gave the suggestion of a 18th century foundry, rather than a detailed model of one.

The front yard, complete with conical furnace.

The cone also makes a convenient handle.

I still have a number of BUAs to finish for V&B, but I have also been working on making various teeth and tail elements for my 18th century forces. Hopefully I should have enough finished soon to be able to make a posting about them.

The Old Red Barn - a rural BUA for AWI Volley & Bayonet

Recently I finished work on another BUA for use in AWI Volley and Bayonet games. I decided to build one with a barn for the major building and put a drying shed (or corn crib) and some fencing on the rest of the base.

Some Airfix AWI French mill around the barn.

Two regiments of French garrison the BUA.

I went with a traditional red colour for the barn as when researching the colour of AWI gun carriages it had been suggested that red was a very common colour  available due to its use on barns. The other factor was than I wanted a structure that looked used and well maintained, rather than rundown and abandoned.

The drying shed and a broken fence. I dropped the building just prior to taking the photos.

The rear view. I cunningly replaced the rear part of the barn with flat matchsticks.

I used as the basis of my construction a Plasticville HO scale barn that I purchased second hand when I was in PA last year. I also managed to pick up a boxed set that I will probably make up straight from the box for use in ACW games.

The box showing how the barn should be made.

Defended BUA and lift out section with drying shed.

Next up is the V&B 18 Century Industrial BUA.

Dodgy Armoured Car

A while back I decided that I needed a Panhard AML 90 (click here for details on on vehicle), and that I didn't want to track down a plastic kit or resin model of one. Rather I wanted to see if I could produce a suitable proxy from my bits bin.

Picture sourced from E-bay of a much nicer toy than I used as the basis for conversion.

I started with a rather play worn Corgi Daimler Dingo armoured car, which I roughly cut the sides down on.

Corgi Dingo sans sides and crew.

I added an Airfix Sheridan turret, and added the barrel from a Roco Tiger II. I then added a figure from a Hawesaga kit to act as the vehicle commander.

The proxy takes form.

The paint scheme is loosely based on a vehicle on display at Bovington (click here to see pictures)

And now painted and washed!

The business end.

This should serve as a suitable proxy until I decide to replace it with an actual model of an AML 90. Should I do that then this proxy model will be used in Harad games.

Side view.

The view from the other side.

 Given the way Command Decision treats vehicles (one model represents 3-5 actual vehicles) I shouldn't need more than one AML-90 for the Falklands, as their battlefield use was quite limited.

A view from above.

On an unrelated note I am currently looking for a rules system similar in approach to Megablitz, but for modern (read 1970s-1980s) forces. I had an idea that I could use such a system to fight the larger actions of Harad's civil war, and use CD for fighting the smaller ones.Should anyone have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments. Of course it may well be that Megablitz is perfect for what I want, in which case I then have to track a copy down!

Getting Organised.

I had Obsidian Portal recommended as a planning tool for organizing my Harad campaign setting. I have had a quick play with it and it seems to do the job. Click here to see my efforts so far.



And now for a couple of pictures....

Crates

A container of Furniture from Korea

A Haradian Cafe

Construction site for the new Sports stadium

The local Police Station

Burnt out Hum Vee.

Burnt out cars.

Close up view.

Tiberium?

Satellite Dish.

Building on the table.

A while ago I took these pictures of  some of the terrain I have for use in Harad. I figured now was a good time to post them.

Matchbox Juggernaut and MPCVs

Back in July of 2012 I made a post about some Matchbox toys that I would be repainting with a view for using them for gaming.(click here to see that post) I have just recently finished painting them.

A rather large vehicle.

My normal method of repainting die casts is to drill the rivets out, disassemble, and then spray the appropriate sections with grey primer. These had the added step in between the disassembly and priming stage of sitting in a box for a year and a half.

Close up on the large yellow thing.

I still plan to use this beast to run some linked games loosely based on the premise of the novel "Juggernaut" (click here for more information on the novel) In CD terms the truck and trailer will be around half a mile long, so I intend to have it represent a small convoy of associated cargo and pilot vehicles.

The view from the front. 

The Matchbox MPCV is quite a nice die cast vehicle which has been produced to box scale. as such it is difficult to give a scale any closer than "Large HO' or "Looks workable". Various reviews on the internet have given it a variety of scales - the major commonality of the reviews has been that it is very usable for the reviewers preferred figure size-  be it 15mm or 20mm. Such is the joy of box scale!

A rather useful addition to my forces!

Two of them parked side by side.

All of these were dry bushed with Vallejo Dark Sand, and then given a brown wash. I just need to hunt through the plastic stash to find some suitable figures to create some engineer stands to go with them. I think  a suitable figure might be the one in the EOD suit from the "German Crisis Reaction Forces (KRK)" set by Revel (click here for the PSR review)

Another view of the two MPCVs.

Now I have to get back to making buildings!