Building Brutish British

Confession time: I hate painting.

No, no, no I don't, actually. But I like building more. I love building. Converting, carving, glueing, trying out different poses on miniatures, adding details like stowage or battle damage on vehicles. So when I bought the first box of Perry desert rats I quickly built all of the figures, and then painted a handful of them. And lost interest. Same thing with the Deutsche Afrika Korps; built every figure; painted five or six of them, and lost interest. By juggling painting projects around, switching between different subject I can usually keep my interest up a bit, but then another problem appears.

I was so bored painting figures I bought a Tamiya model kit. Of course, now that it's built I have to paint it. Doh!

When I'm steaming ahead I usually manage to build the figures to the wrong organisation, with too many submachine guns per platoon, or not enough light machine guns, or just plain using the wrong bases. With the desert rats I built two figures per squad with tommy guns but Chain of Command specifies only the NCO has one, and I have realised that not every player can discern big men by their equipment, so I needed to rebase the leaders on hex bases. So I ordered another box, of course. I can use the extra figures for dismounted scout squads and crew figures for support weapons.

Is it just me, or do they look like badly shaved gorillas? They look better IRL though.

At the same time I ordered a box of Bolt Action late war British Infantry. Since the Perry box is quite low on extra equipment I'm going to nick a few weapons and backpacks from the Warlord box, and I have plans for a special character using parts from both boxes. Although I already have a platoon of late war brits from Crusader Miniatures it's the bare minimum of figures, so the rest of the Bolt Action figures will be reinforcements for them.

But I have painted some stuff, among others the 2-pounder I bought from Perrys.

Blogging is not painting

Ooops, nearly two weeks without an update. Well I've been busy, painting and visiting Stockholm for a work course, among other things.

The great Henry Hyde has some tips about blogging in his Battlegames magazine, which says you should update often and be brief. Well I'm just the opposite, I don't update if I don't feel I have something to say or show. And when I do, I can't keep it short. Anyway, lots of WIP stuff, but nothing finished, or rather, I have no photos of finished stuff, because that involves me getting the camera out, setting up the light booth, etc.

But I have a couple of things to show you. First work is progressing on the kubelwagen and captured carrier I wrote about earlier. They are about 90% done including crew, just small niggling stuff like details, some stowage and weather. No pictures though, except for this one.

Perry 28mm kübelwagen with Tamiya 1/48 scale jerry can.

You see, I decided I needed some extra stowage on my vehicles, and perhaps a couple of fuel drums and what not to make some Jump Off points with. (Jump Off points are sort of deployment markers for Chain of Command, marking points on the board where you can deploy your troops.) So I picked up a Tamiya Jerry Can Set in 1/48 from my local friendly hobby shop.

I went in to buy a Jerry Can set, nothing more. And look what followed me home.

I also, somehow, managed to pick up an armoured car, oh dear. I have no idea how that happened. It seems that the British forces will have a numerical superiority at the convention though, so the armoured car will come in handy.

Mean green grassing machine

Being at home with man-flu (mucus seeping from my skull) gave me a chance to try out my new static grass applicator without endangering any other family members. Since this is a highly advanced electrical device, deadly in the wrong hands and not to be used by or on children and those of frail health, you can understand my worries.

No Beatles were harmed while testing the device.

The design is simple: the static grass is electrically charged by an electric source, one pole connected to the grass container, the other pole connected to surface you want to glue the grass to. In the old days you put the grass in a plastic container and shook it violently before pouring the grass out hoping that it would generate some static electricity. Another way which functioned marginally better was a "puffer bottle"; same thing, you shook the bottle and then pressed on it to blow the grass out. Anyway, the electricity makes the grass fibers stand on end while the glue dries and thus looking more realistic.

The wire inside the container is also connected to the metal mesh, charging the grass as it passes through.

A couple of years ago Noch unleashed their electronic grass applicator on the model railway market for a cost of about a couple of hundred euros or about hundred and fifty pounds. Other companies quickly followed suit, but the more ingenious railway modellers made their own from electric flyswatters. Now the fad has reached the wargames market. There are several different designs, but they all work on the same principle and yes, you can build your own, just google it. Being somewhat lazy I decided to buy a cheap Chinese version on eBay for 25 dollars including shipping.

It even has a "NO" switch. Luckily I'm a highly trained engineer with a specialty in "engrish".

A closer inspection revealed that it was indeed, a rebuilt electric fly swatter. No worries, it's not as if I paid a hundred pounds for it. I even got a small bag of unrealistically green static grass. So did it work? Read on to find out.