Airfix Time for the LVT

 Having just realised that it's been quite a while since I posted anything on my site, here's some shots of (gasps!) an Airfix kit build (!!) and some other WW2 bits and pieces. 

Yes, a classic Airfix kit picked up at the IPMS Avon show a couple of months ago which I bought and built for a bit of Chain of Command action with the USMC/Japanese island hopping campaign which I've just started playing with a clubmate. 

After a mildly taxing build (I suspect I'm better at building kits than when I was in my teens, but this is a pretty old kit, quite fiddly and also needed a bit of filling... which I'm blaming on the kit rather than my skills!), a spray with Army Painter Army Green, and a heavy dip with Army Painter Soft Tone finished with some drybrushing, this is the result:

Even the stapled together rubber tracks aren’t as obvious as they were last time I think I made this kit back when I was a teenager.!

I was particularly pleased with the Microsol/Microset finished transfers which have ended up with no visible transfer edging at all. 

Here's a shot of the LVT with some 20mm infantry from Plastic Soldier Comany, on "1p" multi-bases from Warbases.

I also bought (on eBay) a sort of tank-like LVT. This is a die-cast pre-paint model which was actually cheaper than the Airfix kit - and didn't need building!  

I again hit this with the Army Painter and then matt varnished it to finish. 

Finally, this is also a die-cast Stuart, resprayed with Army Painter green again, and with some bits-box transfers including the "SQUIRREL" name from the Victrix 1/144th scale Sherman tank set. 

Of course, as soon as it got on table the Airfix kit got shot at once, and then my opponent rolled enough hits to force it to fall back off table immediately! 

  

The only upside was that the Chain of Command rules are so (ahem) randomly organised that we weren't able to find the section that explained what happens in that situation, so I managed to get away without rolling a morale test for losing it!

Line Up, Line Up.. for some Egypto-Greek ADLG action at the Seaside!

The second full set of post-Lockdown match reports hit the South Coast this time in 5 games of Egypto-Greek linear nonsense as a lockdown-repainted set of Hoplites meets some lockdown-rebased Egyptians to cobble together a podcast-busting Saitic Egyptian army to take on all comers in a Greek & Roman World themed event.

Marvel as possibly the most one-dimensional army to hit the table in years attempts to outfox, out play but much more often simply outlast its varied opponents as they take on the Graeco-Indians, Seleucids, Late Romans, Ch'in Chinese and Classical Indians in these 5 ADLG match reports.

As usual they feature all of the nonsense you have by now grown to expect, including comments on local wildlife, restaurant reviews, beer analysis, very bad puns, randomly generated Egyptian curses, priapic wooden war wagons, a smattering of Greek and Egypto-Arabic swearwords and buckets of pictures with somewhat inappropriate captions and speech bubbles.

The reports are online and available to peruse now ! 

Chain of Command 20mm Yanks

 Having languished in a drawer for many years since being bought and painted on a whim way back in 2013 with no real plan as to how they might be used, I've recently liberated a load of 20mm mostly-PSC WW2 Americans from deep storage and used them in some initial forays into Chain of Command.

The first couple of games quickly taught me that my single-based figures really needed to be deployed in teams, and also that I definately needed to make sure I had enough Garand teams (of 3), scout teams (of 2) and support weapons (5-6 guys). 

With a load of 3mm rare earth magnets already in hand, and the figures based on new 1p pieces, Warbases ended up getting a decent little order from me for their "1p" small group bases. With a few metal 20mm figures and a gun added from SHQ, the end result are these teams.

The 6pdr/57mm gun is also on a penny so it can be taken out of the tray, and the tray can be used for other weapons teams.

Some of the PSC HMG teams are too close to put each man on a separate penny, so a couple of the teams have 4 slots, and 3 guys on one slot. By the time the team is reduced to 2 guys it's dead anyway so it doesn't matter than much that they can't all be taken out individually. 

Likewise with this mortar team, where the mortar is attached to one of the team

And the same with this HMG - 5 people, one of whom has the gun. 

This is a 4-slot, 5 man team base

Bazooka team with PSC Sherman

The officer is from a Matchbox 1/76th range of GIs. Great little figure for a leader.

Brand New Battle Reports!

Yes, after a near-18-month hiatus I have actually played in a real live competition and almost-immediately written up 5 all-new battle reports from the recent 3T's competition held in York ! 

This means that the commentary alongside the photos might actually bear at least a passing resemblance to what actually went on on the tabletop during the games - and I may even remember some of the results as well. 

The reports also feature many references to roadside retail establishments on the Great North Road, as well as the usual animations, captions and speech bubble nonsense. 

The matches in question feature a lockdown-painted Thracian Army taking on all comers, in the form of Carthage, Palmyra, Sassanid Persia, Triumverate Rome and finally the Seleucids.   

The road to the competition also saw us visit the Newark Air Museum, and there's a separate gallery of photos from that trip now online too.  

Finally - of course - there are TWO Podcasts, one featuring the Madaxeman Podcast team trying to predict the winners from the event (before it happened) in a Euro 2020/21 style, and then a second , subsequent Podcast in which the Thracian list and four others are all discussed and evaluated. The List Pod is available on both Podbean and YouTube. 

Read the reports now!

Forza Italia!

With a real competition looming, the personal painting has been tricky to fit in lately however the eBay campaign for selling Clive's stuff has thrown up some really nice armies this week, all of which are on eBay under my eBay ID of the_lithuanian 

The pick of the bunch is certainly this very, very nice (and large) 15mm Flames of War Italian army, with loads of customized options. 

There's so many figures, guns and tanks it'll be shipped in 2 separate boxes!

Also on the FoW front is this stunning Finnish army, with what looks like spring/summer and winter options. 

Not sure I've ever really seen that painting technique used on tanks that well before now.

On a totally different vein, there's also an "old school" Hinchcliffe/Garrisson/Lamming style Hellenistic Successor army that would make a perfect ADLG Successor force (with a spot of rebasing and some minor repairs) 

Great to see some of these old figures again! 

They are all on eBay now under the ID the_lithuanian