The Baker's Dozen. Update #13, The Failings Of A Frother

    

Intro

      Failings of a Frother indeedy, Another irregular update and I have ran out of witty starter comments (yes, the other updates do have witty starter comments...well, at least what passes for wit around here 😃). And it's my thirteenth update! Thirteenth!! It should be one hundred and thirteenth surely! And that''s where the failings of a, or at least this, frother lie; I should be updating much more regularly; much more!

    Take this post for instance, my first update since the 20th of April, two months ago! It's not as if I don't have content. I get so distracted with projects and side projects and the side projects of those side projects that I neglect to update this blog! 

     And all down to frothing!!And because of this...this symptom, this effect of full blown frothing I have had to trawl back through two month's worth of photos and more to remind myself what I have done since April 20th, gaming-wise. Hopeless! Perhaps I should make an appointment with a local, qualified Frotholigist to seek help.... Well, while we wait for that branch of medicine to develop let's have a quick look at what I have done (and can recall) since 20/04/20.

Progress Reports

     In my previous update (20 April 2020, in case it had slipped your mind) I mentioned the Soviet theatre selector force from the Bolt Action campaign Fortress Budapest supplement. This is a recce force mounted up in Lend Lease vehicles that I will use in the scenario Back Door Left Open (this is based on an actual incident when a Soviet recce force managed to penetrate into the heart of Budapest before the Axis forces spotted them) I had gotten as far as putting the vehicles and crew together. Well things have progressed with them to the point were I all I have to do is add the decals and fit them onto bases and then I can call them done.... 

Forward Reconnaissance Party vehicles 

     I have also added a couple of tank options to the force, a T34/76 and an M4 Sherman. Both Warlord/Italeri kits. They need weathering as well as decals and I will probably add tank riders at some point in the future but for the moment here they are.

 

     Back in April (and before that, to be fair) I was shying away from biting the bullet and finishing off the 4Ground hotel building. Well, the bullet has well and truly been bitten and the beast is done....well, I say done as I intend adding some of Warbases roof tiles to it as the kit roof looks really meh! This needs a base added and a rear courtyard of some description. I am thinking to get walls for the back yard either from Hovels or Anyscale Models. But that's in the future when I can bear to look at the hotel again.

My own, personal heartbreak hotel

     One other part of the whole for the Back Door Left Open scenario from the Fortress Budapest book is an ambulance; and not just any ambulance but an Opel Blitz ambulance from Anyscale Models. Now the scenario doesn't call for an ambulance but, hey, you can't have a hospital without you have an ambulance. In the last update I was musing on what paint scheme to go with and after a wee bit of digging about online I found a fantastically painted 1/35 scale model ambulance and copied it and here's the result. Very nice I think you will agree.

     I really like the Opel Blitz vehicles from Anyscale Models. In fact I have seven of them all told, three cargo trucks, one Maultier, one flatbed with a flakvierling mounted on the back, a wrecked one as well as the ambulance variant here.

New Stuff

     And continuing with the Soviet theme, I also indulged in this from Rubicon, their SU85. Can't quite recall why I got this kit but I am sure there was a <ahem> valid reason for it (as there is for all my purchases, no matter how daft they appear in retrospect). Again, it needs decals added and a wee bit of weathering. The commander was part of the freebie gift I chose when I took part in the Great Wargames Survey conducted by Wargames, Soldiers and Strategies. 

     

     I also indulged in the new Bolt Action campaign book; Campaign Stalingrad and yet more figures. It's all grist to the mill...possibly Grudinin's Mill.....

    A much easier and slightly more enjoyable building kit was this Ruined Hawking Academy kit from TT Combat which I put together yesterday and started painting today. I really like this kit. It's ideal for our WW2 games as well as other periods. There's a lot more I plan to do to this kit; add rubble, broken glass, shattered timbers and some scattered furniture and fittings as well as attach it to a base. For the moment, it's ready for the table top tomorrow as we have a game arranged from the Fortress Budapest book (am I obsessed? Possibly...but bah! it's a healthy obsession....that's what I keep telling myself ) 

£20 for this! An excellent kit from TT Combat. Figures
added to give you an idea of scale and because I like
posing my chaps in my terrian.

     Another back burner project has been turned from "on a peep" to "fully off". This is my US Infantry force originally painted for D Day games onwards but had been repurposed for our Bulge themed games by the rather cheap expedient of painting hands as if they were gloved and then splodging snow paste on the bases. Now that I have a winter themed US force (see my US Cavalry posts) these chaps needed re-basing and sending back in time to the summer '44. I had been putting this off as it had all the appearance of an onerous chore. However I was struck by inspiration and by painting a thinned wash of watered down brown paint on the snow paste I managed to avoid a lot of unnecessary labour and, by the addition of some flock and Gamer's Grass floral tufts they are once more ready for Normandy etc

"In the bleak mid-winter..." From cold...

...to hot, hot, hot...."Summer time, and the living is easy.." as
was the re-basing

Future Wars part 1
     Other "new stuff" is yet another side project, this time Zona Alfa published by Osprey. Set in the near future, in and around Chernobyl, it's a really great looking skirmish game. I heard about this first on the Cast Dice podcast and watched a couple of gaming reports on YouTube and decided to give it a bash. The fact that I managed to get a load of suitable Copplestone Castings figures from Colonel Bills had absolutely nothing to do with me getting into this game....well maybe not absolutely nothing.

     And since I don't do gaming things by halves (generally), I bought a new 4x4 gaming mat from Deep Cut Studios for Zona Alfa, and dug out my old sci fi terrain and gave it a wee bit of TLC

Deep Cut Studios Gothic Ruins mat 

...and with all the sci fi terrain I possess added...oh dear,
I may have to go shopping for more terrain..

My old sci fi terrain. I can't recall who made this but it does the
job. Will easily stand in for nuked Ukraine, Mega City One and
somewhere in the great 40K universe

      Another TT Combat kit I bought was from their Industrial Hive range in the shape of a Storage Tanks set. Very nice for £6 and there are lots of other, cheap as chips kits in the range. I'll definitely be indulging in some more of this range.

Tester TT Comabt sci fi terrain

 Future Wars part 2
     Another project that has sprung up has been the result of my gaming chum, Danny, moving north to Sunny Aberdeen (nothing to do with me, honest 😀). What with him moving all that way away we have had to reconsider how we are going to get our games played and the most obvious, to us at least, is to meet up at Common Ground in Stirling as a sort of midway point. Now this will mean a bit of forward planning and preparation to get the most from our necessarily condensed gaming time. One of our "plans" is to do a two day gaming splurge with day one being devoted to playing, let's say, Bolt Action in the afternoon and then Test Of Honour in the evening then day two being devoted to a BIG game of Black Powder as Common Ground gives us the room for BIG games.
 
      So, with a BIG game of Black Powder on the horizon (we're speculating that this will happen around mid November) and with the game, in all likelihood, being set in the Peninsula I have started building and painting British Line Infantry with a view to having a couple of Black Powder sized brigades of infantry and one of cavalry for the game, I will also be bulking up on my French forces as we will be looking to invite some other players along to join us.
     Thus far I have started on what I have in the McCubbyhole which includes a battalion (24 figures) of Foundry British Line and a heap of second hand British Line figures that I bought from eBay. Some of the need striping but the others I have started on. I also have Perry British Hussars and Dragoons and bought another box of Line Infantry so I am off to a good start.

Foundry British Line Infantry

Do I need to caption this?

    And speaking of things Perry I couldn't resist buying a box of their new Austrian Cavalry. This is another of those side projects that will seldom see the light of day once complete; an Napoleonic Austrian force for Black Powder. But, hey, who cares? I am obsessed, alright...a proper frother...in need of the help of a qualified Frothologist...okay. Sorry...I am getting abit defensive there, aren't I? 😀

Corrr! Lovely stuff

Last But By No Means Least
      Finally, I have also painted up a few more figures for In Her Majesty's Name. First and foremost a couple of Afghan Tribesmen from Foundry Miniatures North West Frontier range. I received these in an order from Foundry as a freebie and, at a guess, that must've been about 6 years ago. They've lain in the lead pile awaiting their day in the sun and now it has come. I will write more about these in a future IHMN post.

     The next IHMN related figures are a small vignette set from Colonel Bill's Depot Battalion range and it's a pair of Victorian photographers. Though they are non player characters I am pondering how I can maybe use them as a Victorian surveillance team. More on that later if I ever come up with something suitable.

Last bit

     So that's it for this update. I have done more painting but as it was mostly stuff I have sold I didn't see the point in adding it in here. Suffice to say, all the money earned has been, shall we say, reinvested....and wisely....or maybe not....

     On the front burners at the moment are some more Soviets, Napoleonic British and, tahdah! Romans for Hail Caesar and..tahdah part 2...Infamy! Infamy from the Too Fat Lardies...I went for the big pre-order bundle and hope to get my grubby paws on it soon...

But for the moment, that's your whack,

Pip pip for the mo,

GJ