An Actual Metal Post!

Just discovered a great speed metal band called Powerglove. Anyone who remembers either the old 8-bit or 16-bit consoles of the 80s and 90s, and has fond memories of watching 90s Saturday Morning cartoons at some stupid early hour will feel a surge of nostalgia!


X Men Theme

Gotta Catch 'Em All ;)

Tetris!!!!

Check 'em out :)

This is actually what started it off...

err.... Bad Romance?

Attention all Planets of the Solar Federation, we have assumed control !

Well, Carronade was a good lark yesterday. In fact I thoroughly enjoyed it even though I'm still suffering from sensory overload...

So what shiny did I secure at the sacrifice of Robert the Bruce and his co-horts?

Mutineer Miniatures had a rather snazzy sale corner going on, and if it wasn't for Gordon i would not have noticed. So thanks mate! :D

So that was 25 Warlord (Bolt Action) Germans for a sweet, sweet tenner. I nearly bought 2 but that's greedy! Besides, Neil got too, so plenty enemies for my 101st :D More on Jerry later. £10

A couple old Intelligence books for FOW: Afrika and Festung Europa so my dream of fielding Polish and 82nd at the slopes of Monte Cassino is getting closer :D 2 beans and 4 beans respectively from various flea-marketers. £6

A couple of Highlander vehicles and infantry for my Mechwarrior force... which reminds me Neil still has these! £5

A couple of classic plastic Tyranids to boss my Rogue Trader zoats around :) £3

A metal and plastic pull-back panzer from Gateshead. Needs a bit of work but it's useable! £8

FOW Polish Dice for general rollage :D £7.something



A very cute Gamera "gashapon" Japanese blind-boxed figure for my Kaiju gaming. A wee bit big but should fit in, plus he's awesome! £10

A pie and apple: £2

Total: £51.something (unless my maths are worse than I thought!)


So onto Jerry...

As far as I understand, the standard Jerry infantry platoon (Grenadier?) consisted of:

HQ-
NCO or officer with MP40 and pistol
2 runners with Kar98 K rifles
a stretcher-bearer (is this a medic???) with pistol
Horse master with rifle
Wagon driver with rifle

3 rifle sections-
1 NCO with MP
5 squaddies with Kar98ks
1 squaddie with MP
1 MG-er with either MG34 or 42
assistant gunner with rifle and all the ammo for MG-er?

Does this sound correct? because if so then for a tenner (usually a still-reasonable £15-18) I've gotten 2/3 of a late War platoon in plastic?


I'm going by this anyway. It sounds fairly reasonable. ToE from bayonetstrength.150m.com.

Pics will follow soon.

Long time no see!

Well it's been a wee while since my last entry... What's been happening?

Well, I folded and bought the Flames of War: Open Fire set, with 3 nice M4A1 Shermans and 2 StugG assault guns, all resin. And a FOW US para platoon. Looking to build up a company.

In 28mm I've also picked up some reinforcements for my 101st Airborne, taking full advantage of sales and free postage, mwahahahaha! So From black Tree a nice, manned Willys jeep and some Airborne casualties will be arriving soon (sadly Hitler was sold out... so no "what if" raids by the Screaming Eagles to assassinate herr fuhrer at this time), and from Warlord, a couple of pathfinders to get the boys down on the ground safely, and a prone MG team, oh and something else a little special which will be revealed in time!

With the onset of work once again, projects have ground to a standstill, and even during the long weekend as I was working Saturday. But I've brought my painting gear down to Fife so hopefully I'll get something done this week! Sadly no buildings though.

Last week I also made some foxholes from polystyrene, useful for Bastogne, or really any theatre/er so hopefully will get onto these too.

Since this post is a bit text-heavy and pic lite, here's a couple of fairly unrelated piccies. And perhaps some related ones...

oohh.. it looks al old! My fave pic from the last lot :)

And from the Bishop Hill on Friday 29th, because I did something more constructive than watching toffs get married...

Aye that's a grouse!

Interesting larch. Ideas for terrain?

As Promised...

Here be the piccies of my boards in action! Check out my post below for how I made them.


Minis: Bolt Action/Warlord Games Us Paratroopers
Buildings: PMC Games and Citadel (chapel)
Rock: scratch
Woods: scratch
Dykes: not sure but they came from Letham Craft Shop

 The Screaming Eagles enter the village, with Sherman in support

 Through the woods

Bazooka team covers the advance

 Mortars ready!!

 Infantry rush in to clear the street for the Sherman

 Staff Sergeant orders his men to take the giant dining chair sticking out of the road...

The medic

The street's pretty well covered

Taking cover

rumblerumblerumble

So yeah... messing about's fun. To be honest it's good to see how the board looks when it's populated, and I'm quite happy with the results. Wonder if it'd work for 15mm though...

It's quiet.... TOO quiet!

Yeah it's been quiet over here are Heavy Metal HQ although that doesn't mean I've been laying low! Far from it in fact.

I've just been really busy doing the stuff this blog is here to talk about to have time to talk about the stuff I've been doing... on... this... err... blog...


Anyway!

2 projects started, one almost finished, and of course my 101st Airborne are now gamable (is that a word?! Gameable? Gamible? Gullible?). Basically one of the projects is the aforementioned (second post) buildings!

The full set of buildings. In kit form. Just like real life, hey?

The "hotel" pub, with extension

3-in-a-row! Terraced cottages, fronts, backs, sides. 

So there it is. All the kits are ready to be cut out and stuck together with the balsa prisms to be cut and stuck in each corner! Then roofs; think I'll just go with cereal box card with a prism of balsa across the length of the building.

Next up... 

Inspired by an awesome article in Issue 279 of Wargames Illustrated (Jan '11) I decided I wanted to have a go at designing some modular town-y gaming boards with roads and all!

So a trip to B&Q later, I arrived with my squares of MDF salvaged fro mthe bargain bin and kindly chopped up in store. The cost??? A whole £2 for something about 4foot X 4foot. While there I picked up some grey paint, a sample pot of darker grey (the cost split with Neil McG for his project which I'll leave for him to reveal ^_^ ) I set to work!

The roads were marked so that they all connect, and the boards are all double-sided. I only have 4 just now, but I may well make more in the future. Here are the steps:

 First coat on Friday 15th, finished (2 coats on each side) Tuesday 19th.

This is today; when everything else happened!

 Roads pencilled in with my 1/50 Sherman for scale

 Blocked in a tarmac colour. Sample pot with a little Chaos Black

 Space Wolves Grey kerb with permanent marker, Skull White road markings (I think I'll leave at that, so they are pretty generic)

 Another possible layout (note the "Town Centre" and "Dead End")

And another. Herman just loves trundling up and down those roads!

God I love holidays! They're great, I get stuff done! Wish I could have holidays all the time.



I then posed up a board with some buildings to get some flavour shots, using my 101st! ^_^

I'll post 'em in a separate entry though as I've got a few piccies of that!

Updates...

Well it's been a quiet couple of days... but I've been busy! When I've not been building garden arches I've been painting up my Screaming Eagles which are coming on... nearly done... They're OK but I could do so much better...


Anyway here's some pics of one of my other projects, just to keep you all entertained.

 Using the Destroy All Monsters rules (free!) I hope to one day recreate the greatest giant monster movies of all time! Here's the Big G with his arch nemesis... King Ghidorah

And a Big G on the verge of meltdown against Destoroyah (all from that movie)

Shopping can be such a drag sometimes...

So, these figures (about 2.5 inches tall) would sit comfortably against 2mm tanks! Now, to make some small trees for said tanks to hide in, here's a step-by-step guide to making easy, cheap forests for 2mm! Awesome!

 Plasticard is cut into equal squares and then based. Green pipe cleaners are then chopped and superglued onto. Finall, the whole thing is sprayed brown, and the base given a brown ink wash. Gnarly!

Here's what it eventually looks like. Notice how the spray didn't obscure the green, but just muted it? Radical!

Currahee part 2

Well, since it's all-day gaming bonanza next Saturday at Forfar I should get my posterior in gear and get these paras painted!

The plan is to spray them with Humbrol Grass Green, brown ink and then begin a highlight layering of progressively lighter tan and hopefully that should be it, picking out details etc.


While I'm at it might get some of these Deep Ones done too! ^_^ (blubblubblubblub)Something to help those who have NO idea what I'm talking about :P



2130 Update:


So it was a gorgeous day... and yet I needed painting done! So what's the solution????

Music, sun, paints, and water.... pity it wasn't beer but hey.

Right, sprayed grass green, and left inked brown. 

The uniform's pretty much finished now. Just need to paint up the knee and elbow pads, and do all the attached fluff, and then move onto faces, then weapons, then bases ^_^ so all going well these should be finished by end of week.

Think I'll cheat and buy some transfers though...