The last few Arrowhead 12mm WW2 vehicles

With Arrowhead selling up (and hopefully finding a buyer for the business), I recently picked up a small set of Late War British vehicles to round out my army for BKC.

It's two Cromwells (giving me a troop of 3 in total) and a fabulous scene-stealing Staghound

 The unit markings are a bit of everything really, just to get some colour onto the models - which are really great little kits. Vallejo Bronze Green is the go-to colour (of course) 

Fingers crossed someone picks the range up and carries on with it.

10mm WW2 German Support from Red3

I'm always happy to have the chance to pick up some stuff from Redders at Red3 when I go down to the PAW show in Plymouth, and this January with the show returning after a Covid hiatus that meant a small but perfectly formed purchase of half track support options for my existing German Panzergrenadier force.

Having managed to remember what paints I'd used to do the last lot I managed to get these three done fairly quickly - it's always motivating when the casts are so crisp and go together so well.

Here you have two late-war 251's (the single sloped back to the body apparently gives it away) with the 251/9 75mm short support gun and the longer barrelled 251/22 with Pak 40 options, along with a 250/7 with mortar team included.

As is usual with Red3, the guns and crew are a separate, one-piece casting that just slots straight into the back of the vehicle really neatly, so you can paint it before dropping it into place.

And now all three are ready to support my Panzergrenadiers as they roll into combat on a 10mm tabletop in the near future !

 

Victrix Fireflies... at last...

 What with Victrix selling their 1/144th scale tanks in rather unruly packs of 6, and already having some of their "standard" Shermans the OCD Wargamer in me has been dithering for quite some time about whether I should replace my perfectly servicable (..yet not quite the same as the Victrix ones) Fireflies, I think from PIthead, with some from Victrix to match the rest of the fleet. 

Having been unable to find any on eBay at a sensible price, this had been going on for some time until finally a mate suddenly decided he wanted some too, so the possibility of a pack-split became the solution to my tight-fisted dilemma

And this is the result:

Yes, three rather spiffy British Firefly Shermans, with 17pdr long barrel guns painted in Vallejo Tank Colour Bronze Green. 

The guns were so long - and also so thin - that I managed to break one in half while putting the transfers onto the front of the tank hull, and then a second one also snapped whilst showing it to my webcam when recording the latest Madaxeman Podcast. 

So, I replaced the barrels by snipping them off flush with the mantlet, drilling a hole (very easy with this plastic) and glueing in place a length of broom bristle. They were pretty much exactly as thick as the barrel supplied with the tanks, and are flexible enough to never break. 

The final touch was to add a smoke extractor at the end of each barrel. 

This I cheatingly got away with by just dabbing a blob of extra paint on the end of the bristle, which at this scale gives a bit extra thickness that does actually look close enough for government work to being a muzzle brake smoke extractor thingy.  

Job done!

A few festive bits and pieces

Over the festive break I managed to do a bit of painting whilst avoiding getting myself any more wargaming stuff (there are 3 armies in the paint queue already...), and also fit in a trip to Guernsey.

The end result is a rather random mix of WW2-themed photos for your delight and delectation! 

First up is a pair of Sdkfz 251/9 engineer vehicles in 10/12mm scale from Redders at Red3. These complement the rest of the German force I painted up last year, and give me some guys to jump out and blast their way through any field defences I might encounter in BKC or O Group.

Next up was a dog-walking excursion to Batterie Dollmann in Guernsey - strangely enough the first time I've managed to get to it on many trips. The restored French 10 tonne, 22cm gun sits overlooking the coast in the nicely restored open bunker

There is also of course also the nearby Pleimont Observation Tower, which I think is open for visitors during the summer months,

The battery is defended from the landward side by a load of refurbished trenches, and what looks to me like it could be a Somua turret (although I've since had it suggested that it's more likely to be from an FT17) dug in as a bunker.

You can get into the turret from the adjacent trench, but as it was about 6 inches deep in water when I visited, there was no "Madaxeman in a Bunker" photo opportunity this time around!

More bunkers make up the complex, overlooking some seriously impressive cliffs. 

The biggest risk now however is not the big guns, it's falling into the well-camoflaged trenches!

Back on the small scale stuff, these M3 half tracks with British crew from Red3 again were a joy to put together - this shows all of the bits, as vehicle is pretty much cast as a single piece, with the turret gunner and cupola all cast as a single drop-in item. 

Using Vallejo Bronze Green as a base coat is pretty simple - and here you can see the cute strips of crew as well all painted up in British Khaki ready to be glued in. 

 

Some weathering and a few stars that I have accumulated over the years - most of these are spares from the Victrix Shermans I did last year I think

And this is the full set of 6, ready to take the Tommies into battle.

  

Medieval Apocalypse - in 10mm !

 Listeners to the Podcast may have heard me mention some 10mm Barons wars-type medieval 10mm miniatures a few times, as Ryan from Apocalypse Mini's was kind enough to send me a few samples. 

I've not really got a plan to build a 10mm army, so they have languished a little in the lead pile, but finally I came up with a plan to potentially use them as game counters for some very lightweight Medieval board games which came as part of a Battlegames book about "Knights at War" which I've owned since I was a kid - it probably helped propel me into actual wargaming if I'm honest, so whilst the games are pretty flimsy I have a lot of affection for them even now.

There's a mix of foot spearmen, mounted knights and retainers, all of which I've done in basic Contrast paints and then based up on 15mm rounds - ideal to act as 3D game counters

Not bad at all!     Now... I wonder what other games I can use them for... maybe I need to buy Kingmaker, and then a few more of these figures... aaarrgh!! 

WW2 Germans - the full set

 More than a year after picking up some new 10mm tanks from Red3 at the PAW show in Plymouth, I've finally finished the daunting project of re-doing my WW2 10mm German forces, all with a coherent, hand-painted 3-tone cammo scheme.  

I've also uploaded all of these to the 10mm Gallery on my website: 

Puma, from Arrowhead - a stunningly detailed multi-part metal kit

Dragon King Tiger, with Arrowhead tank riders. I left their faces un-inked to make them pop a little more at this small scale. 

Arrowhead Tiger 1's - another stunning model

Pendraken Wirbelwind

Pendraken (I think?) Quad AA 

Pithead Diana. I know they were only used in the desert, but I ordered this one by accident and hey, one 'might' have been cobbled together and saved for later...? 

Nashorn from Minifigs. 

Arrowhead StuG with tank riders

Front view. 

Theree StuGs. From left to right, Arrowhead new kit, Pendraken old casting with Arrowhead barrel, Arrowhead now-discontinued one-piece model 

Old & new Arrowhead StuGs

Red3 PzIV  Really clean two piece casting (turret and "the rest")

Arrowhead PzIV with no Shurzen

Butlers Printed Models Steyr truck. A lot of printing lines on these which the cammo just about hides at wargaming distances.

Dragon pre-paint JagdTiger. The barrel melted when I was stripping the old paint job, so I bodged together a rather unappealing substitute.

Arrowhead 88. Something like 2.3 million pieces in this kit - but worth it!

Arrowhead and Pendraken 88's side by side

Pendraken Pak40. Crew could be anyones - I  mixed them up 

Pithead (I think?) 105mm infantry support gun

Slightly enhanced Dragon pre-paint Panther

Spinning StuG

The rest of the Germans are on this blog already

And, finally, a video of these and more photos and turntable clips as well: