15mm Peter Pig Pirates

 About 20-25 years ago, my late friend, Colin, and I put on a demo game at the Shrewsbury Wargames club show. Whilst we were there, we were fascinated by a new manufacturer who was selling his 15mm Pirate figures range. 

The last batch on the bench - painted exclusively with Contrast Paints

Not only did he have 15mm pirates he also had resin pirate ships to match (I later discovered these were made for them by another manufacturer. Originally "SDD Models" and then latterly, "Stronghold Miniatures" neither of whom I believe are still trading?). These were lovely models with customisable white metal parts (ship's wheel, cannons, balustrades etc) and had soldered steel masts with optional vacuum formed sails.

As a show special, they were offering a small pirate force, matching ship & a set of the first issue of "Pieces of Eight" rules for £10 (I think).

3D printed base designed to protect the oars

We were smitten and bought a set each together with an additional rowing boat + crew and some spare cannons!

The bases were then textured with artists acrylic paste before painting

Roll on a couple of decades - My figures were painted (badly) and in a box. We never got around to playing the game with them for all the usual reasons and when Colin passed away, I inherited his equally badly painted figures and ship!

Finished figures in their magnetised RUBs

Then along came the IPMS show at Thornbury and what did I see on the B&B stall? A box with two Peter Pig pirate galleons & 10 packs of figures for £25.

Needless to say I had no cash and they didn't take cards😏 So a quick bit of wheeler dealing with the guys on the door (repaying my wife and I's entry with a card in return for some cash) and I was back to the stall. It was meant to be, it was still there and off I went into the sunset with a very nostalgic package!

Some experimental 3D printed furled sails in the box as there were no vacuum formed ones with these

Over the last few weeks I've been painting these up (together with repainting our original figures) and basing them on 15mm diameter bases. Some were on MDF, others on 3D printed ones that would accommodate a self-adhesive 12.5mm magnet so I could store them in magnetised  Really Useful Boxes.

I'm not sure exactly, but I think there are around 150 figures + 30 or so cannon. I now have 4 galleons in total and will paint these up next. What rules to use I'm not sure....maybe home-written? We'll see.

3D Printing Wargame's Markers

Whilst searching online for a file to modify to create my Palm trees I stumbled across a simple file for a bush for use in the Gloomhaven board game. (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2328240)

It occurred to me that this roughened "ball" could be the foundation for several other items for use on the table.

Firstly, I combined five together and enlarged them in 3D Builder, to produce a 75x25mm (3x1") smoke marker. Printed in black PLA they only required a dry-brushing of white to finish them off.

The next idea was to stack several smaller balls up on a 25mm diameter base to create a smoke stack to indicate a burning vehicle.

Finally five in a row printed on a 2mm thick base will make a very serviceable hedgerow.  This particular file could be stretched upwards and squeezed inwards to produce taller, narrower hedges to suit  a variety of different scales. I will experiment further with this.

Other ideas include modelling shell bursts as well as creating small scale deciduous trees. A very useful little file.

Zvezda 1/100 Ferdinand and Sturmtiger

I bought these two (and a few others besides) early in 2018 with a view to building them up to review and add to my collection. I started this piece of work in May, but then forgot about them until last Sunday when I found them whilst was looking for something else!

 As ever the box art gives you an overview of assembly, which looked to be straight forward enough.
The parts come on two sprues moulded in a hard grey plastic. Parts are easily clipped from the sprues though (as ever) it is hard to do so without leaving tell-tale marks on the track surfaces.

These five parts are required to build up the chassis. Beware there are right and left hand track units....check before you glue!

 The chassis once it was assembled.

Next stage is to assemble the fighting compartment and attach this to the upper hull. There is a separate front armoured plate to fit with locator pins so you get it the correct way up. The fighting compartment has some nice detail including the interlocking armour joints at each corner of the superstructure.

Finally attach the completed upper hull and fighting compartment to the chassis and attach the 88mm gun/mantlet and the model is finished.

Very quick to assemble and a lovely little model of an early (pre-bow machine gun) Ferdinand. I guess this would be best suited to Kursk era battles, though the MG and a STUG III type cuploa would be easy enough to add for later battles (i.e. Italy) turning it into an Elefant!

 The other model was the Sturmtiger Heavy Assault Mortar/Rocket Launcher.

This time the box artwork just showed the finished tank as the assembly instructions were on a printed sheet inside the box.

 They obviously thought it too complex to rely on an exploded diagram on the box!

 Once again all the parts are on two sprues, moulded in light grey polystyrene.

Starting again with the chassis, the kit uses what seems to be one of Zvezda's rather over complex means of attachment. I guess this is to make the model truly snap-fit, but does seem just a little over-engineered.

 Once assembled it looks like this, ready for the track units to be attached.

 Also there is a front armour plate at the bow to be fitted along with the tracks.

 Once again, I have a tendency to mark the tracks when removing them from the sprues, no matter how hard I try not to.

The body of the hull comes in one piece. Nicely detailed with interlocking armour plates engraved. All that needs to be done is to add the main gun etc. and the winch for spare ammo.

 With care the back piece can be held in place whilst the front is glued.

 This then enables the gun to elevate freely.

There is a large gun mount surround to add afterwards, and a mantlet, before the barrel is fixed in place. There is a finely moulded bow MG mount (take care with the barrel!) and the aforementioned winch to attach. The rear plate has the exhausts already moulded in place, but there is a part of the air ducting to add to the engine plates.

 Finally attach the completed hull and rear plate to the chassis to complete the model.

Another really nice little kit. Simple enough to build and gives a nice rendition of a rather rare Panzer. The late type steel rimmed wheels of the track unit, might prove to be suitable to produce a late model Tiger 1 when combined with another kit?

To finish these off I gave them a spray coat of Vallejo Air Desert Yellow over a coat of white primer. Then followed Vallejo Air German Green over spray, and in the case of the Sturmtiger, Vallejo Air German Brown too.

The Sturmtiger was given desert yellow flecks to the green and brown areas to create an "Ambush" finish and then both models were weathered with Vallejo Sepia wash and high-lighted with Vallejo Iraqi Sand. They were both based on sand covered mdf bases (as all my AFVs are) and markings added from my ever diminishing supply of surplus Dragon decals.

Excellent little models, fairly straight forward to assemble and enough detail to lead to a good finish. These are such good value at approximately £3 you cannot go wrong. What's not to like...?

PSC's The Great War - The French Army Expansion - figure painting

Just a quick post to prove I'm still alive.

Family holiday + another work trip abroad have limited my blogging time these past two weeks.

However I've done some modelling and finally got around to playing a game with my TravelBattle set - more of which in  a future blog.

One of the challenges I've been facing myself with these last few weeks, is how to tackle the new softer plastic French army figures I'd just received from PSC.

Two problems came to mind; -

1. There's loads of them!
2. Soft plastic and acrylic paints .... will the paint flake off.

These days I tend to look for a suitable spray paint to base coat my figures to try and speed things up. But I couldn't find a suitable blue anywhere. Even if I could....would the paint stick?

Then I had a light bulb moment!!

"What if I just left them the colour they came in and just painted the details? Better still what if i coated them in a blue wash first to pick out the detail and then painted everything else?"

To test my theory, I picked a figure up and tried to coat it in blue wash (Army Painter).... epic fail 😣 the wash just pooled due to the release agent coating the figure.

I should have known better! So I gave the figure a light scrub in some detergent solution, dried it and tried once again. Success 😁

Once it was dry I painted the details (flesh, weapon, webbing, boots etc) and then in turn, washed them with sepia wash.

Result was a very quickly finished figure that looks just fine, And it appears to hold the paint well too. When I base them I'll spray them with varnish so I think they will be just fine.

Zvezda 15mm M1 Abrams

This model comes on two sprues packed in Zvezda’s usual cardboard carton together with a small decal sheet, Art of Tactic data card and instruction sheet.

Now one thing I cannot get my head around is their pricing structure for these kits. The WW2 range all cost around £3.50 each these days, however there are some anomalies.

The Tiger I comes in at £6.50 (which makes it more expensive than the PSC offering) as does the T35. However the Maus is only £3.50??

The entire Modern range is priced at £6.50 and I’ve read on-line that this is because of a "more limited market"? But the models themselves are no more complex to produce than their WW2 brethren?

Anyway, we are where we are! As ever the moulding quality is good. The plastic material used takes glue well and there is the bonus of some very simple decals.

The model goes together well. It is of the IMPM1 with the 120mm gun.

There are the usual Zvezda wacky ways of attaching some of the parts (I guess this is to keep it snap-fit?). You can see what I mean from the pictures the means of attaching the tracks is a little over complicated to say the least.

However……and it’s a big however… the detail on the moulded parts is pretty basic……

I fact I’d go as far as to say it’s really quite poor.

The side plates have no engraving whatsoever….just one big plate! And the tracks are over simplified.

The turret is probably the worse bit. to start with the detail is pretty light, and there is no environment sensor, but I guess this would be easy to add. But the lack of smoke dischargers is inexcusable and the greatly over simplified stowage rack is shocking.

As there were no Commander or loader MGs included either, I used my spares from the Battlefront offering to jazz things up a bit.

Size wise it compares reasonably well with the Battlefront M1 although the main gun looks really puny...or maybe the Battlefront one is too big? I'm not certain..

Hull dimensions and turret dimensions are broadly similar.

I think once painted the same, they will mix OK on the table together. 

Sadly this is overall a really disappointing kit. When I think back how much I have enjoyed their other models (And I have built examples of the entire WW2 range) this one doesn't really hit the mark, and at nearly twice the normal price does not represent good value for money.

Team Yankee – Hammerfall Starter Set

I made a start of the plastic kits that came with my Hammerfall set this weekend.  The set comes with two M1 Abrams and three T64s. In addition there is a quick start guide with assembly instructions, an A5 version of the original Team Yankee rule book, some 2D cardboard terrain, dice and some tank commander half figures.

I started with the M1 kit which comes on two sprues in a horrible shade of green. 

You have the option to produce the original M1 with 105mm main gun or the IMPM1 with the 120mm Rheinmetal cannon and some other minor mods. I chose to build the later.

The hull and running gear goes together really well. There is nice detail on the tracks and the side plates are nicely engraved. There is a choice here of which guards go over the drive sprocket.

The turret halves go together easily and it is at this point you have a choice of stowage racks to fix to the sides.

The position of these was not entirely clear to me from the assembly instructions included, so I referred to the Battlefront website, where all became clear.

There was one US tank commander (in white metal) include with the set so I chose to model the cupola hatch open.

There are also nice renditions of the commander’s .5” HMG and loader’s GPMG to add to the turret. A nice touch here was to include two of each, in case you broke a barrel or something removing them from the sprue.

The turret was finished off with the environment sensor mast and a selection of stowage for the basket (jerry cans, boxes, spare wheel etc.)

Altogether a nice little model. Goes together well, good detail and captures the look of the real thing.

This prompted me to remember I still had two Zvezda 1/100 M1 Abrams in their boxes, as yet unmade. Why not build them too so I could do a comparison?