New Gāmūs APCs for Imperial Army WIP

A couple of months back I obtained a few more Airfix Attack force vehicles from Glenn. Amongst them were two of the Troop Carriers that are modeled after British FV430 series of APCs, but are larger than 1/76 or 1/72 scale. Most likely they were made to a box scale in order to make them roughly the same size as the tanks releases by Airfix as part of the same series.

Oversized guns removed and plastic card hatches glued on.

 I have already added one of these vehicles into my Haradi forces as a mortar carrier, (details here), and courtesy of Don M of Brazos Evil Empire I obtained the name for this class of APC - the Gāmūs - which is Haradi for Buffalo. Now that I have three of these APCs I am tempted to use them as command or support vehicles for the 155mm SPG units.

Plastic card added to create bottom front plate.

A better view of the hatches.

Grey undercoat primer added.

A coat of Vallejo Iraqi Sand is then brushed on.

I also finally finished work on another vehicle for my Haradi forces, a 37mm autocannon mounted on a light truck. The truck is a c heap plastic toy that used to be included in sets of Army Men (an earlier post about these trucks is here), while the autocannon is made up of parts from a Hasegawa German 37mm AA gun, an Airfix 75mm Gun from their armoured car kit, and the gunner is from the Airfix Opel Blitz.

Basically it's another technical.

A very simple and basic addition to my collection of technicals  this AA truck is lacking in a number of details, but looks the part. I hope to add some more technicals and armoured cars to my Haradi forces in the next couple of weeks

A closer view of the gun.

I might even play a game and post it on the blog!

An Experiment.

I have been playing around making  short clips using photos of various wargames. Here is one I made earlier tonight. It will be interesting to see if it uploads successfully....

The music used is called "Chase Pulse Faster" and is Public Domain (Available from here) I find it to be quite pleasant, but tastes in music can vary widely. Making the movie was simple enough - Windows Live Movie Maker seems very user friendly. Potential wargaming use for short clips produced this way seems to be limited to either tutorials or propaganda reels - which does seem to promise a certain amount of fun. 

More trucks for Harad.

A collection of playworn diecast toys.

Recently I acquired a number of diecast vehicles that had seen much better days. The collection did include a   Matchbox Battle Kings Tank Transporter, which was the main reason for me acquiring the collection. I rather like the Battle Kings Tank Transporter, and I have already repainted one for service in Harad (details here), so I thought I would do the same with this one.

This is one of the later production battle kings as it is a more military green, and the  plastic parts are a more muted  colours such as black and grey.

The rerar wheels of the tractor unit are buckled and one of the exhausts has snapped off. Fortunately I still have the piece. 

The cab (and upper trailer deck) have been repainted a darker green. Nothing Simple Green can't solve.

This truck as been used by Matchbox as part of a freight set (with forklift) and as  an armoured car carrier.

Size comparison shot.

 The normal process of drilling out the rivets to seperate out the vehicle parts and give them a good clean, and soak in simple green (if required) was followed. but I didn't take any photos! I used pliers to straighten out the wire on the tractor rear wheels to unbuckle it, which was quite a simple operation.

The parts were sprayed primer grey, then painted over with Iraqi sand, and the reassembled and given a brown wash.

Both Tank Transporters side by side.

So I now have a heavy truck and another tank transporter to use in CD games set in Harad. I plan to recycle a few more vehicles from this diecast collection,then I will sell or trade the rest.

Lucky Products AWI Mohawks

I have painted and washed the first three V&B Mohawk skirmisher stands. I still have to finish the basing, but I am quite happy with the way the first nine figures have painted up. I have only done a very basic paint job on these figures as I wanted to see what a group of them would look like painted (as opposed to the horrible red and blue plastic they were cast in - pictures here)

In V&B terms each of these stands represents a sizable force of Indian Warriors. 

Unfortunately, in my haste to paint these fellow up I didn't remove all the flash. Some of the flash was useful in helping to suggest the scalp lock at the top of each figures head. Evidently int was considered good form to maintain a hairstyle that would produce a good trophy to whomever finally ended a warrior's life.

I am considering painting on extra detail for the muskets.

I only added  basic warpaint to the faces of two figures. 

 I also quickly finished up the first of my three 'contoured' V&B stands. I decided to see how the autumn leaves flock would look on this base with the fallen logs, and I am not unhappy with the result. The paint jobs on the militia figures were quite rushed as I really wanted to quickly finish the stand off.  The figures on this stand are all from the Imex/Revell AWI Americans set.

Front view. in V&B AWI militia stands are considered permanently disordered..

Side view. I really like the pose of the red coated figure.

And a rear view.  

And together with their Mohawk friends.

I also started work on painting the first of the Lucky Products British artillery. The MDF base is a standard V&B artillery base (3" x 1.5") so as you can tell, the gun is quite large, so only having two figures on the base works well. At the moment all I have done is undercoat in black and block in some basic colours. Doing this lets me see how much detail is actually on the figure, and how much needs to be painted on.

Very much a WIP. 

Early on I was worried that the gunners and drummers from the Lucky Products set were wearing the wrong headgear - they are wearing tricorns, rather than their correct headgear - but it appears that tricorns were often worn in the field as they were more practical on campaign.

 The current plan is to build up both the British and American forces needed for the Battle of Brandywine in 1777, with additional units - such as Mohawks - for use in other campaigns.

Lucky Products AWI Troops - Recent Reinforcements

Recently an online auction site based in NZ, had some of the Lucky Products AWI troops for sale. They were offered in two separate lots, one of the British forces, and one of the American forces. I got very excited by this and ended up paying NZ$164 for both lots (including shipping). This was slightly more than I had hoped to pay, but I am still happy with the amount I spent. In the big scheme of things, it is a very small price to pay for being able to achieve a minor childhood dream!

The blue lot contained some 10 cannon, 29 cavalry, and some 113  assorted foot.

The red lot contained some 5 cannon, 27 cavalry, and some 101 assorted foot.

This means that I should be able to field some quite large AWI forces for use with Volley and Bayonet. Now while the ad gives a list of what set should contain, it doesn't provide a means of matching the figures supplied to what they represent. While many of the figures are quite straight forward, others are less so. Using a combination of logic, and the research of others I am labeling the following pictures with what appears to be the the most likely title for its pose.

Cannon mounted with loader on a V&B 1.5" by 3" base with a  dragoon  for size comparison.  Also included is the original ad in a 'Scrooge McDuck' comic.

Dragoons.

Shooting infantry.

Marching infantry.

Crouching infantry.

The officers.

Fifers. 

The advancing pose. This is meant to be the charging infantrymen in the set description.

Sharpshooters.

The cannons. They look much better once glued on a base.

The cannon loader figure in all its awkward glory!

Drummers. The drum is a much better size than the ones often found in  Esci sets.

Minutemen - These figures should only be supplied in blue plastic as part of the American force.

Hessians - These figures should only be supplied in red plastic as part of the British forces.

Mohawks.

While virtually every other figure manufacturer producing AWI figures has produced better figures, these figures will always hold a great deal of appeal to me due to their comic book ads. Now to base and paint them and fight the battles I imagined having when I was a kid!

Dry Dock

I took these photos yesterday of my carrier fleet. During my last visit to Glenn, I mentioned my carriers, and said I would do a post on them. My purchase of large toy aircraft carriers started in around 2003 or 2004, when the Countdown chain of supermarkets brought in a range of large toys for sale at around the $100 price point. These toys were largely of the large truck/ fire engine variety - but there were also aircraft carriers. taking my inspiration from a couple of articles/pictorials that had appeared in Wargames Illustrated using large cartoon scale scale ships I purchased two - and the second one took some doing to find!

The fleet of six sitting in drydock - my driveway!

 These first two purchases are the largest of the carriers and have a rather nice black flight deck. Naturally, they came with an air wing, electric sounds and lights and can move well, albeit slowly. Racing them has also proved to be a surprising popular activity.....

I have placed  a 1/72 Esci figure for comparison purposes on the flight deck.

The other four ships of the fleet were all purchased during the New Years sales in around 2006. They were significantly cheaper - and of lesser quality - than the earlier larger units. I plan to convert two of these carriers into amphibious warfare ships, while ideas for the smaller pair range from replacing the angled flight deck with a straight thru one and using them as generic WW2 style escort type carriers,  or making them amphibious platforms, or even using them as carriers.

The holes in the flight decks of the closest two carriers are where I removed a large and silly looking missile turntable.

Third carrier up from the bottom has an AAVP-7 on deck.

Close up of the AAVP-7 on the deck. In is a 1/72 die cast model from the  Combat Tanks Collection.

The third and forth carriers (counting from the bottom) in this picture are the two destined at this stage to be used as amphibious warfare platforms. While these ships are all grossly oversized to be used in a standard CD3 game, the idea was to use these ships as an off board assembly area for players to organise their forces. They are planned to be used in a large moderns amphibious game I hope to run - similar to the large Tarawa game I ran at the UCSA many years ago.

As I slowly gear up for this I will post information in this  blog - but I can't imagine anything happening soon! - This project has been brewing away for some time and progress has been some what glacial in nature! That being said, most of the major purchases for the game have already been made - I just have to do some painting and assembly work!

Lucky AWI British - Painted and Based

I have finished painting my two lucky products AWI British figures. I enjoyed painted this two figures up, and found that there was more detail on the figure after I undercoated them black. According to the comic book ad, the foot figure is an officer, and the mounted figure is a dragoon.

An officer and a dragoon...

More details on the Lucky Products AWI figures can be found here for those that are interested in my earlier post on the subject.

While I have painted both figures, I have opted for a generic paint scheme on both of them, mainly because at the time I thought that I wasn't going to be increasing my holdings of these figures. I have based the 'Dragoon' to match my mounted command stands, but I have left the officer unbased for now.

In the background is the Airfix British Grenadier Officer,  while the two Lucky British look at  American wounded.

 I used my fast paint method to paint them, undercoat black, flesh, white, then block in colours and give a brown wash. I am quite happy with the results. The original plastic was not the best colour for showing detail.

A step back.

 I am still trying to decide if I like the autumn flock, and how I can best use it. I suspect I might have to do up a bunch of figures to make up my mind - perhaps a unit of Native Americans might work well with this flock?

Dragoon close up - The blacking process revealed the details of  buttons and frogging on the Dragoons front. 

Side view of Dragoon, same view of officer.

Of course I now need to figure out how best I am going to use this officer, and if I am going to give him his silver epaulet on his right shoulder that his officer status is meant to have. I am also thinking of giving him some paper in his raised  hand - perhaps a map?