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?

PSC Panther A with Zimmerit Review

This will be a quick build and I will let the photos do the most of the talking. Afterwards I will give you my thoughts on the kit.

The finest Krupp steel, but in plastic.

For those unfamiliar with The Plastic Soldier Company, they do fast build affordable WW2 models and figures aimed at Wargamers. They recently released a kit with two Panthers with Zimmerit in 1/72 (or 20mm) which is what we will be looking at today. You get two model tanks in the box for £13.95. Presumably the Zimmerit is harder to sculpt and mold since you get three tanks for the same price in PSC's other kits.

4Ground 20mm Hayloft build and review

As you might be aware of, 4Ground are makers of very fine, pre-painted MDF building kits. So far their kits have only been available in 15 and 28mm much to my sadness as they look very good indeed. Now Plastic Soldier Company have released  a line of 20mm buildings made by 4Ground to specifications by PSC. The first release is a Normandy farm complex available either as one large bundle or as individual buildings.

The whole shablooie. The Big Kahuna. The Mother of all Farm complexes. You get the picture.

I couldn't resist ordering one of the buildings when PSC had their black friday sale recently and opted for the Hayloft, top right in the above picture.

PSC Stug WIP Progress!

I have been making progress on my PSC StuGs. I managed to find the side skirts which I had placed "somewhere easy to find" -- which of course meant it wasn't. But I digress. I bought three sheets of the GW Kampfgruppe Normandy transfers when they were on sale but of course I can't find them now either. Luckily I managed to find some transfers in an old Esci StuG kit.

The skirts camo pattern and decals done. Now they just need fading and weathering.

The Esci kit had four sets of crosses and different numbers but in the same style. This meant that they were sufficient for all my PSC StugS and I will have one set left for the Esci kit. Eventually it will be the fourth StuG in my unit.

PSC StuG WIP

These three babies have been poorly neglected since January, when I built them and their Universal Carrier brethren. In a bout of sudden guilt-fueled energy I decided to do something about this. A sunny sunday afternoon was spent in the shade furiously mixing and brushing paint on the StuGs while the kids sloshed around in the pool.

Three little Stuggies went to the market...

PSC british infantry finished shots

It's been a while since I finished painting a squad of Plastic Soldier Company British infantry, but I couldn't varnish them because of the cold weather. Well, now that Sweden has finally thawed I was able to spray them. In the mean time I had managed to paint a command stand as well and I decided to tart up the bases on the finished figures for this photoshoot.

Forwards men! For King and Country, Tea and Bisquits!

PSC Carriers finished!

Its been a while since I updated, sorry about that. I went away during Easter but I did finish the carriers first.

A nice little trio.

I took these photos on my workbench as the newly-glued static grass still was drying. I used my mobile phone since my regular camera had gone AWOL. I think you can make out the details anyway.

Modelling update

It has been a slow couple of weeks lately. We have been moving books and bookshelves at home in preparation for the gaming table that will finally grace my home. But that takes space, which means a lot of books have to go into storage or just plain being thrown away. (Mostly old crime novels or obsolete history and programming books.)

Carriers being painted, drivers and metal detailing getting some colour.

Work is progressing in teensy-weensy steps, but I have also hit on a couple of snags.

British work in progress...

I have been a bit busy with other stuff, among other things I'm working out plans for a gaming table for me and the kids. Yay, gaming table FTW! I suspect it will be covered in Lego and other toys half the time, but it's better than trying to squeeze a game in between meals on the kitchen table. I have also bought a combined lamp and magnifying glass to combat my poor old Mk. 1 Eyeballs. It's not so much a case of my eyesight deteriorating as my light sensitivy going; in short I need more and better lighting to see what I'm painting than before. Yes, I know it's a sign of aging too, and I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone getting the magnifying lamp right now before I really need it.

My painting table. The circular hatch on the lamp opens to reveal a magnifyer.

With my new shiny (heh, get it?) lamp I have been doing some work on my brits, as well as a couple of LotR figures, but I'll save those for another post.

British infantry painting guide

I promised you guys a painting guide for the Plastic Soldier Company british figures, so here it is. I have been painting british before, but it was a while ago and I took my time more with those, doing layers and highlights and stuff. Here I wanted to explore a faster way of painting the figures in order to produce more finished figures, but still get decent results. In cases like these Army Painter dip is your friend. 

The dip (or QuickShade) is both a varnish and a shade. It contains pigments that will swirl about inside the varnish and settle in the recesses while it dries. The result is gloss however so you need to kill the shine afterwards. I usually wait until a whole bunch is done, then I do their bases and spray them twice with Tamiya Flat Varnish.

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.

PSC StuG III mini-review

When I bought the Universal Carriers I couldn't resist getting a box of SturmGeschütz III (or StuG III for short), also from Plastic Soldier Company. Today, amidst all the christmas preparations I managed to assemble one of them without SWMBO noticing. Well, she noticed, and she didn't look too happy, but I survived. I didn't take as many pictures (because I was in a hurry) so this will be a fairly brief review.

Starting the assembly with my trusty knife, clippers and a cup of coffee.

PSC Universal Carrier review

I'm going to reminisce a bit first, if you are just here for the review you can skip right ahead to after the break where I will actually talk about the kit. Don't mind the train picture, there are no trains after the break!

I started my wargame hobby playing "carpet wars" with Matchbox and Airfix figures like many other wargamers of my age. We didn't have many vehicles since all that was available were the model kits from the same companies and you could get a box of 50 soldiers for the same price as the smaller kits. The choice was easy as you didn't have to build the figures. Some vehicles were eventually bought and assembled with great globs of glue and those that didn't get stepped on saw countless battles. The rules were very simple and homebrewn but slowly got more complicated. Esci began to release figures and models in 1/72 but to get them I had to visit a "real" model shop located in the outskirts of my hometown. As my model railroad layout also doubled as my wargames table, my allied forces travelling in Airfix carriers usually attacked a Scandinavic looking village and battled germans in Matchbox Panzer III's and Panthers transported by a German freight train.

My layout didn't look as good as this, but the train is the same one as I got. It usually transported Airfix Germans.

The Airfix carrier kit was one of my favourites since it was easy to put together and you got a 6-pounder gun  too. Those days it was all about getting stuff on to the table as fast as possible and getting more bang for your buck. Although the more complex Esci kits were better I still preferred some of the airfix kits (some were horrible though) and most of the Matchbox ones. I then started with Warhammer which fulfilled all my gaming needs. I still kept modelling but now the more complex esci kits and larger 1/35 Tamiya models were the focus of my interest.

As I rekindled my WW2 gaming about ten years ago I rediscovered the joy of building an easy kit for wargaming purposes. Now as much as before the main problem is getting the most bang for the buck while actually putting stuff on the table. Yet my standards have changed and I'm much more critical of the kits I build. The term rivet-counter is not that far away, I fear. When Plastic Soldier Company announced they were going to release their version of the venerable british Universal Carrier I was very happy as the Airfix kit really is quite bad, both under-scale and under-detailed. For far too long it was the only available carrier in plastic and a staple of many wargames despite its shortcomings.

So enough rambling, on to the review!

Plastic Soldier Company SdKfz 251/1 D.

Another essential release from Plastic Soldier Company is the german half-track Sd.Kfz 251, or "Hanomag" as it was called after the main automobile company that produced it. It went through four different versions -- A through D -- and was in production for the whole of the war. Each version was further modified into different variants depending on the their battlefield role; the /1 is the basic troop carrier and the most common variants. Other variants include the /2 which is a mortar or rocket carrier (given the same designation as they are both mobile artillery), the /3 which is a radio carrier and the /10 which is a platoon commander. All in all there were over 20 variants produced.

The WW2 equivalent of an SUV?

I want it all

I have been diagnosed with RAD: Raging Aquisition Disorder or Gamer's Magpie Syndrome. It's sometimes unscientifically described as the "Oooh, shiny!"-weakness... Basically, what it means is that while I labour away, painstakingly painting three hundred and fourty-two greek spearmen in 10mm scale, I get seduced by something new... we all have it in a fashion, how else would you explain people who buy new phones every six months?

"Hallo? I would like to order a platoon of Tigers please. What do you mean I must build all the Panthers first?"

But I digress. What I was going to talk about is the various stuff that recently have caught my eye.

Panzerkampfwagen IV Ausf. F2, finished!

I have been busy painting my Panzer IV's from Plastic Soldier Company this week. After painting the first I wanted to finish the other two while I was on a roll -- and while I was remembering what paints and what techniques I used -- and get them all based and ready for varnishing.

You see, I have lots of Vikings vying for my attention and I'm yearning to get a test game of Saga in. At the same time I needed to get the Panzers finished for a convention game in two weeks and didn't want to get sidetracked and leaving the project half finished. I'm pleased to report that I did indeed finish them on saturday and managed to base and photograph them today!

Panzer Vorwärts!

Paint it grey

I have been ill during easter, but at least I managed to slap some paint on my Panzer IV's. I had a cold, complete with head-ache and a fever, but not enough to knock me out. So while the rest of the family went out for easter lunch I watched some movies and base-coated all three tanks.

Blue? I thought you said grey???

Real Steel

I have finished building the PSC Panzer IV tanks and they are now ready for painting.

Three widdle tanks were going to the market...

As you might recall I wanted to build them as the F2 variant and ordered some snazzy aluminium barrels for them. I have also added some metal stowage from SHQ for that gypsy-caravan lived in look.

RB Model Metal Barrels

You might remember that I recently bought a box of PSC Panzer IV tanks. As I want to use them as the F2 version I decided to try out the RB Model range of metal barrels to convert them.

A Panzer IV F2 during combat in the the Volkhov pocket in 1942.

As you can see on the photo above the F2 variant has a very distinct muzzle brake, not used on later versions. I have been tempted by the products of RB Model in poland for some time now and this was an excellent opportunity.

Plastic Soldier Company, 1/72 Panzerkampfwagen IV build

Well, my eagerly awaited box of Panzer IV's from the Plastic Soldier Company finally arrived. It was an impulse-buy following the announcement from North Star Military figures that they had recieved a few pack of Viking Dice for Saga. While ordering these I happened to order the Panzer IV's as well. It was an honest mistake, guv, swear on my mother's grave. Collateral shopping you might call it.

Anyway, I ordered two weeks ago. A parcel from UK to Sweden used to take about a week. If you were lucky you could order on monday and have it arrive on thursday, but usually it would arrive the next monday. I was able to calculate that the mail flights were on sundays and wednesdays from the regular arrival of my orders; always on mondays and thursdays. But nowadays it usually takes almost two weeks. Either the UK or Swedish postal services have really cut down on their staff or the amount of packages has increased enormously.

But on to the kit. The box contains three Panzer IV tanks and costs around £13. The tanks are fast-build, meaning that the kit has few parts and is aimed at wargamers. It is computer-designed and simply an up-scale of their 15mm kit. Although some of the details are simplified the overall detailing is good and the tanks really do look the part. Fastbuild kits for wargamers have been around for a while, but what's unique about this kit is that it offers the possibility to build four various versions of the Panzer IV. But more on that later. Let's take a look at what's in the box!