Battle of Britain on Kickstarter

Hi gang, just a quick one, I'm supposed to be on vacation.

PSC Games is doing a kickstarter campaign for a re-release of Richard Borg's classic Battle of Britain boardgame. With updated rules and new funky plastic planes in 1/300 scale this looks like a winner.

Box mock-up

Spitfire model render

Heinkel 111 render

The campaign is already funded and we are currently hunting a lot of stretch goals. There is also the opportunity of buying extra planes as add-ons to use in Bag the Hun or similar dogfight games.

In case you are not interested in funding the kickstarter but think it's a nice idea, please go to Boardgame Geek and become a fan of the game (by clicking on the little heart icon) -- one of the stretch goals is bound to the number of fans on Boardgame Geek, and we are ever so close now. 

Pretty please with sugar on top?

Horizon Wars and Polyversal stuff

Inspired by pictures in the Horizon Wars rulebook I decided to try out some of the new 6mm companies out there. Well, new since I last played any 6mm S/F game at least.

First I jumped onboard an order my mates Håkan and Mats placed to Vanguard Miniatures, sampling a couple of different ranges they carry. I ordered some vehicles and walkers from the Defeat in Detail range.

Top: Novan Scout buggies: Bottom Cybershadows Warcrabs.

I ordered some acrylic explosions and an MDF landing pad as well, but I don't have any good pictures of them yet.

In Horizon Wars the crabs will be P1 Mechs and the scout buggies will be Light Cavalry and Recon.

Size comparison with an EM-4 Mech

I then also placed a small order from Brigade Models to try out their stuff. I chose units from the Pacific Federation and the South African Confederation factions, because they looked very distinct from eachother. The PacFed uses gravtanks while the SAC uses lots of wheeled vehicles. I also ordered generic powered armour infantry.

PacFed infantry, 24 models, 6 diffrerent poses.

Power Armour infantry, 24 models, four different poses.

PacFed Cougar gravtank, Tanami SPG and Kakadu Rocket Artillery

SAC Wildebeest APC's. The middle has an AA turret and will function as a HQ element.

A closer shot of the Wildebeests.

If you compare the Defeat in Detail miniatures with the Brigade Models stuff, Defeat in Detail has more detailed sculpts. Yet I'm not sure that's a good thing, since it's 6mm after all and I want the models to be quick to paint. Lots of details will take more time. On the other hand, good relief will take washes better so it's a fine line to walk. But if we look at the wheels for example, I thought the Brigade Models APC's looked a bit boring with their smooth tires, but then I realised that at this scale you shouldn't be able to pick out any thread details. The scout cars also has a finely sculpted rear door with hinges and locks and stuff, but they are attached to the sprue right on that door, making it impossible to cut them loose from the sprue without damaging the details on the door.

Size comparisons. The Tamami gravtank is on a 40mm base, while the Warcrab is on a 60mm base!

By coincidence, right after I placed these orders the new Polyversal Kickstarter came live, and one of the battlegroups featured in the Kickstarter game uses models from the PacFed faction, but not any of the ones I ordered. The powered infantry is the same though, but that's ok, I was probably going to order more someday anyway.

One of the battlegroups in the Polyversal Kickstarter. Anything look familiar?

 Furthermore, a couple of freebies exclusive to the kickstarter are small walkers not yet relased from Brigade Models, and a Spaceport terrain piece that will go along nicely with the landing pad I ordered... it's almost as if I'm psychic.

A nice big chunk of resin... excellent. Looks big enough to hide a mech behind too!

I'm glad to say the kickstarter has funded now, so I will be able to slot those models right into my existing collection when they arrive sometime next year. (And if I don't like the game I can use the miniatures for Horizon Wars.)

Go check it out if you haven't done so yet, at the time of writing it's eight days left so plenty of time to throw some money at it. What are you waiting for?

EM4 cheap-ass mechs and spaceships

Inspired by Horizon Wars I decided to get some battlemechs to try out the rules. As I wrote in my previous post I have ordered some cheap plastic mechs from EM-4 miniatures. They are molded in a hard silvery plastic on two sprues. The plastic takes ordinary model glue fine and five 25mm round slottabases are included.

The first sprue

The second sprue. The two standing mechs are identical to the first sprue.

To summarize the parts there are two identical smaller bodies, two identical slightly larger bodies, and a large body with large hind legs. Weapon-wise we get two right arms, two left arms, a pair of double lasercannons, three autocannons and two missile pods. I thought the missile pods were a bit large, but otherwise the designs are nice.

A quick dry-fit of weapons and bodies. All arms fit all mechs, but some look better on certain bodies.

What I really fancy is some real Battletech figures since I played the boardgame a lot during the early 90-ies. The best looking mechs were those that really were copies of the Robotech anime designs; The Marauder, Warhammer, Rifleman and others I can't remember anymore. Unfortunately the metal Mechs are quite costly and -- I think -- that the classic designs are no longer available due to the blatant copyright infringement. But in the mean time five mechs for the princely sum of £2.55 will do nicely.

The cheap Spaceships/Flyers.

Twelve different sculpts, quite impressive.

Along the same vein, you can get 12 different spaceships and/or flyers for £2.55. Also included are 12 flight stands, which is insanely good value since often just flight stands cost more than that if you buy them separately. Not all designs look like airplanes, some look more like the spaceships they are sold as, but hey, at 21 pence a pop who's complaining?

EM-4 I'm told are mainly doing pieces for boardgames, and you can buy a lot of dice, counters and other accessories on their site. These models were originally designed for boardgames, but they will do nicely for Horizon Wars or Polyversal. 

To summarise I give EM-4 Mechs and Flyers 4 out of 5 heat-seeking nuklear missile salvos.

Sure they look cheap, but they are even cheaper. For the price you can afford to sacrifice the occasional odd model or iffy sculpt to the bits box. Check them out.

Some thoughts about Horizon Wars

Horizon Wars by Robey Jenkins is the new set of wargames rules from Osprey publishing. This time it's all about big stompy robots and tanks in a not all too distant future -- albeit in 6mm or 1:285 scale. The game is designed to be generic which means you can use all the 6mm S/F stuff you already have, be it Battletech or Epic40k stuff, or maybe even Hammer's Slammers or other figures. [Edit: as someone pointed out you can use 10 or 15mm troops too!] There's a setting and a background included for those of us who need a little bit of inspiration for our games. It's quite funny actually. There's a Youtube video explaining how to play via a short battle report, I'm sure you can find it if you search on Youtube.

The pre-release blurb from Osprey

Before I go into the my thoughts about the game, lets take a detour shall we.

Small but beautiful

A couple of weeks a go I finished some british armoured cars from GHQ models, but I haven't had the time to write up a report on them.

Daimler armoured cars armed with 2-pounder guns.

These are 1:285 scale, or 6mm scale. 40k players might recognise it as Epic scale, although GW never wrote out the actual scale. It's more commonly known as microarmour.

Leven miniatures review, part 2

As I mentioned in part 1, I also recieved Jocke's buildings. We figured we'd save the nice guys at Leven some postage since they were giving us the stuff for free. Now me and Jocke don't live in the same town, so he's a bit curious to see his stuff. Therefore he gave me permission to review his pieces as well.

 Dimensions. length 40mm : depth 35mm : height 22mm

Leven Miniatures review

I recently won 10 pounds worth of buildings from Leven Miniatures in the Blog With No Name prize draw.

Leven Miniatures, if you didn't know, manufacture resin 1/300 scale buildings. Most are WW2-ish in style and they have plans on producing 10mm buildings as well. 10 pounds may not sound so much, but these buildings are quite cheap.

By random chance my mate Jocke (The Miniatures Man) also won 10 pounds worth of buildings. We decided to join forces in order to save some postage for the nice people at Leven Miniatures and Jocke mailed me his wish list which actually came to £9.50 letting me choose another 50 pence worth! (Yeah, I'm sad and cheap...). Jocke chose a bunch of desert and airfield themed stuff while I concentrated on civilian houses for the Western and Eastern fronts.

So what did I think of the buildings then?

Leven Miniatures giveaway

There's a chance of winning some very nice 6mm terrain over at The Blog with No Name. (Awesome name, btw, wish I had thought of that.)

Just what I have been searching for, a stone water mill. I'm serious, I need one for a scenario.

So far Leven Miniatures (which sponsors the giveaway) has released some very nice 6mm scenery, and they are also working on a 10mm range. So head over there and win some stuff! On second thought, I want the stuff myself so don't go there. Oh, all right then...

Advancing on all fronts!

Two weeks have already passed on the new year. Since it's my goal to update this blog once a week I'm already behind! But I haven't been sitting idle, on the contrary! I have been working on a number of different stuff, snapping pics occasionally for a future blog post, and here I am with two dozens of Work in Progress-pictures... doh!

GHQ SdKfz 11, small but insanely detailed. The base is only 30x20mm.

In the left column you can see I have started a list of painted figures during 2013. So far there's only one item added it to it, a german half-track in 6mm scale shown above. I have even played a game already, but I don't have any pictures of either the finished figure or the game... Double-doh! The game was IABSM, an old scenario of the month called "Two fat ladies -- 88", set in the desert during 1941. It was a blast, everyone had a fun time while being flabbergasted (love that word) by the resilience of Italian troops and tanks at this stage during the war. What about the rest of the stuff I have done then? Well, I'll show you.

Desert desserts

There's some bits and pieces left from Operation Supercharge that I haven't shown you. First off there are some cute little softskins to show.

15cwt lorries, bren gun carriers and a dingo scout car.

The lorries are part of the infantry company and scout car represents the FAO attached to the regiment. In El Alamein the british drilled their artillery arms heavily with integrated observers in the forward units. Most significantly they developed "the stonk" where a single observer could call down a barrage from all available guns covering an area of 2400x1200 yards within minutes. Many axis counter attacks were broken up as soon they were spotted by such stonks. The carriers are from the AT platoon; when the 6-pounders deploy you can leave the carriers on the table to provide some light support or in case you need to move the guns to a better position.

3rd King's Own Hussars, 9th Armoured Brigade, British Eight Army

I promised some more shots of the tanks I painted for Operation Supercharge, so here they are:

A troop of US-built Grant tanks. Note the camo.

Although I have found some info on the total strength of the brigade the numbers are conflicting. One source says about 90 tanks, one around 110 tanks. Both sources claim some tanks were lost or broke down during the assembly and march-up prior to the attack; it's possible the conflicting numbers is because of this and the lower number is simply the total that took part in the actual charge. None of my sources details the individual breakdown of the three regiments making up the 9th armoured brigade however, only that each regiment had mixed compliment of Crusader II's and III's along with the newer Grants and Shermans. The 3rd Hussars are listed as having 35 tanks at the start of the operation so I have simply gone for the easy way out and decided on ten tanks of each type as they are bought in packs of five. The difference of five tanks is to account for the tanks lost before the actual attack (see below).

Accomplishments and disappointments

...no, not a newly discovered novel by Jane Austen. It's about our Operation Supercharge game.

As I wrote previously; our little band of gaming nuts were going to arrange a WW2 game at Flemcon this november. The con was slated for 17th and I had cleared and rearranged my calendar to be able to attend. Then it was moved a week to the 24th with short notice. Some sort of trouble with the building being water damaged, or something. Anyway I was unable to attend at the 24th, too much reshuffling of other events and family arrangements was needed -- Disappointment! 

Preparing for Operation Supercharge, part II

Well, we had a playtest a couple of weeks ago, and it was a blast. Literally. The desert was littered with burning little tanks with the survivors racing around trying to squash the enemy guns beneath their tracks.

One of the tank battles during El Alamein. Visibility is extremely long, but identifying friend or foe is very hard.

Now all I have to do is finalize the scenario details, write them down before they escape my mind, write briefings, and paint the rest of the models! No mean feat, indeed.

Pimp my hills, part 3

Work on my hills continue. After finishing the thistle-covered hill it was time to go back to the desert hill. While it was in essence finished, Jonathan at the My Tiny Things blog pointed out that weathering the small rocks would blend them in more.

That's better!

So I popped out the white paint and the trusty old drybrush and went nuts with them. More pictures after the break:

Pimp my hills, part 1

Hi gang.

I'm a big fan of Amera Plastic Moulding's vacu-formed terrain. Made from plastic styrene sheets it's light-weight and cheap. Details are a bit vague, a limitation of the medium really, but it's not hard to improve the models. They have specialised in terrain in various scales and offer something for both fantasy, sci-fi and historical gamers.

A couple of cream pies? There are surface details on the hills but the white shiny plastic makes it hard to photograph.

Today I decided to make something of a couple of hills I bought a while ago. They are part of the F213 scenry set of three hill shapes, one low, one medium and one rocky. They are all around 15-20cm in diameter; the lowest around 3 cm high, the highest around 7-8 cm high. The set is quite versatile so I bought two. I had a couple of different ideas for the lowest of the hills.

Total Battle Miniatures review, and stuff...

Bit of a slow rate for my updates now, because I'm actually playing games. I'm currently planning and playtesting the Operation Supercharge scenario as well as trying out Fantasy Flight's X-wing game that I have finally got hold of. However, the playtests are hardly blog material because of the unfinished minis and the generally slow action because we now and then stop to discuss some issues that have cropped up.

Likewise, my X-wing games have been with my sons and I wanted to focus on the game and help them maneuvering and so on instead of taking notes and photographing each turn. I did take a picture though to prove I did play a game :-)

Look at the size of that thing!

Instead I want to take the opportunity to catch up with some stuff I have been meaning to write for a while now.

Preparing for Operation Supercharge

The time is nearing for our annual demo game in some suitable local convention. The idea is to game something that happened in WW2, 70 years ago. So something from 1942 then. We originally envisioned a 20mm game with skirmish-y rules featuring the LRDG attacking an italian airfield in the desert. For various reasons that plan fell through, and we redirected our goal to something more realistic perhaps. Still bent on the desert the obvious plan was to game El Alamein.

No, not the whole battle, obviously, but some part of it. Operation Supercharge, the break-out operation during the second battle of El Alamein was deemed suitable. This is where Monty finally managed to smash through the DAK lines and started to roll up Rommel's lines.

Montgomery anxiously watching the advancing british tanks from his Grant command tank.

Angel Barracks pulls through!

I want to talk a bit about Angel Barracks. It's a site, or company if you will, that sells 6mm terrain and stuff. Since the start Angel Barracks has branched out into 2 and 3mm scales as well! They have also released a couple of rulesets but I can't comment on them since I have never played them. Michael who runs Angel Barracks has an interesting blog where he shows off some minis and terrain and the occasional battle report if you want to check them out.


As well as stocking other companies terrain and figures Angel Barracks have started to release their own small (pun intended!) range of sci-fi scenery and figures. While I do enjoy a game of Epic40k now and then they aren't really my cup of tea. However, Angel Barracks recently added some sandbag emplacements and improvised barricades that wouldn't look out of place on a WW2 battlefield. 

The emplacements are approx. 40x25mm.

Pimp my ride, desert style.

Started work on some Marmon Herrington armoured cars from GHQ, for our Italian-British games set in the eastern desert in 1940, before Rommel and his DAK turns up. "South African Reconnaissance Vehicle Mk II Armored Car, Marmon-Herrington Mk II" is the official name.

The Marmon Herrington is a strange beast indeed. I had thought it was something like the Rolls Royce armoured cars that were more or less converted civilian models, but this was something more extraordinarily. Ford chassis were ordered from Canada that were then modified by Marmon Herrington in the US, before being shipped to South Africa where they fitted purpose-built armour plates and english weaponry to the cars.

This vehicle in dug-in position has aquired an extra Vickers for AA defense.

The first mark had a Vickers water-cooled HMG and a LMG (presumably a Bren), but the Mark II recieved a Boys AT-rifle instead of the Vickers, so it could put up a fight against other armoured cars. It was also stretched a little bit compared to mark I. Some thousand units were built of the first two marks. Mark III had a completely different shape to the armour and over two thousand where built, but for 1940 we want to use the Mark II.

Late versions of the Mark II had welded armour instead of riveted. Note the extra Vickers again!

The cars where heavily modified in the field, even to the extent of removing the turret and dropping in whatever gun you had lying about, welding a couple of steel plates to it as a gun shield!

A late Mark II with an italian Breda 20mm gun instead of the turret, outside Tobruk in 1941.

On to the models!

Drive the italians into the mediterranean!

I started with a basecoat of Vallejo Dark Sand. I then picked out the tires with dark grey (just anyone will do) and the caunter camo scheme with Vallejo Khaki and Vallejo German Fieldgrey lightened a little bit with Dark Sand.

One of the cars has a 47mm gun which the crew "found".

The entire models were then drybrushed with Vallejo Light sand, and finally given a light wash with GW Gryphonne Sepia.

Notice the tiny rivets!

I don't really know if the colours for the Caunter scheme are correct. It's hard to judge from B&W photographs, and I have seen pictures of models and illustrations in books that vary from light blue and dark grey stripes to dark green and light grey! But I think the models look good in it!

The crew of the center vehicle was quickly blockpainted with Vallejo Khaki and Flesh.

The models were mounted on square 20mm bases from Renedra. I nearly botched the basing, using Vallejo Basing gel and Mig Powder. At first the gel almost didn't take any colour from the pigments, so I added a little vallejo paint. Then it got too dark. So I dolloped the gel onto the bases and sprinkled pigments on them while they were still wet, hoping that the pigments would seep in and settle on top, but the powder just clumped together. Luckily, after drying the clumps could be brushed out with a soft brush, and then fixed with a pigment fixer.

Next up for painting are the Rolls Royce armoured cars, and I was clever enough to fix bases for them too while I was doing the bases for the Marmon Herringtons.

2011 review

Jag noterar att en massa andra bloggare lägger upp summeringar av 2011, något jag egentligen hade tänkt undvika. Det är lite som att gå till tandläkaren, man vill inte veta hur mycket hål man har och vad det kommer att kosta att laga, men man måste gå. Alltså gör jag en årskrönika för 2011, och listar vilka projekt jag gjort klart, vilka som havererade och vilka som inte ens kom igång...