non pasaran

the Spanish civil war,
1936 to 1939 a war about many things, land freedom, Communists V's fascists a period i have done in miniatures twice now, first time was in the early 80's after reading some articles in military modeling about converting plastic airfix figures into the right figures. the second time was when i replaced the plastic figures for metal ones and also got hold of resin armoured trucks.
having not payed the period for some time i sold my forces on eBay but now i think i am ready to start the revolution again.
only this time in heroic 28mm scale


after browsing the anglian miniatures site and force of arms i am thinking about starting with anglian figures and force of arms for the home made vehicles that make the period so appealing to me.
i will be using some force of arms figures and probably some from other inter war ranges such as the Irish/black and tan era if they fit in figure wise

initially i will be aiming for battalion sized forces and probably using rompan el fuego for a rule set.
the pictures here are from my 20mm stuff i sold




so to start me off i expect about 40 to 50 figures a side with a small amount of vehicles such as the Bilbao armoured car
T-26 tanks
Pz 1's
all the crap tanks of ww2 making them the tigers/panthers of their day

ss battalion finished

what a busy week as you can see my SS camo is getting better, finished this battalion on sat evening and for a change i got hold of a box of hat pak36r a/t guns, don't know why but they are made from rubber instead of plastic, it took ages to get the barrel straight ans i had to use pva to glue it together. not on my recommend list.

so on to the next stage, despite my daughters dropping in for the weekend i did manage to build another German battalion using mostly the classic infantry box set from valiant with only a few from the Normandy set. but i have made another pak 36 r!!!!!

also cleaned up from the lead mountain Spanish civil war figures i got from liberation miniatures a few years ago, one falange battalion, one international battalion and enough gun crews for 6 guns, total 130 figures built/prep in the day.
in doing the scw figures i am thinking of redoing it in 28mm scale but in keeping with the battalion level for the game side.
possibly using rompan el fuego for a rule set.

still waiting for my hanomag 251/1 to arrive from warlord games, its only been 2 weeks but i want to paint them while i have the impetus...






not much new on the TV/film front, battlestar good but not as good as last week, lost very good other than that I've been re watching ashes to ashes, shame no one makes any figures in 28 scale for them.
also found on the net snapdragon studios web site, i had not seen them about for so long i thought they had gone bust, mind you i only found them by accident as the web is under www.moondragons.com

they make some very nice 28mm scale stuff i could easily spend a lot of money with them.


so that will do for now, the total painted this week is 42, making the monthly total at 189 figures painted but with no work being done on the vehicles side.
one day i may even get to have a game with my figures.

born to the purple

finished another cohort of plastic Romans, this time the veterans box with damaged Shields,bandaged heads to give them that veteran look.
i like the currant plastic figures making the larger army's more affordable and appealing, cant wait for the plastic auxiliaries from warlord.
the veterans were painted using the quick shade method but I'm not 100% sure about using silver as a base coat, the next box i will go with a black undercoat to see what that looks like.





















also finished the mounted general and officer on foot.
these were done without the quick shade to make them look better than the rank and file of the men as officers would have looked.

also just seen pictures of warlords new emperor figure Marcus Aurelius i can just picture him on the table top with a couple of boxes of Praetorian guard around him.

so this makes the total for the month so far 147 painted figures with another 42 valiant Germans in Normandy built today and based and undercoat done. in the end a productive weekend.

valiant americans

well another rapid fire battalion is finished for eBay after a good start to the week it went down hill with production reaching zero due to problems on the home front,

but thanks to the weekend i managed to pull it back and up production to complete this battalion of 48 figures

i did manage to watch battlestar galactica giving me ideas for space fighter combat if i can get hold of some vipers and cylons

.

also managed to see Gettysburg for the first time, not a bad film but not as good as glory could have done with more action scenes in it and less talking.

much better was street kings with keanu reeves (think i spelt it right). drama about police corruption in l.a.

glad lost is back on can't get by without a weekly fix of confusion even though i have watched every episode i have no idea what will happen next or were the story is going but that is what makes it good

Surviving Panzers

Surviving Panzers

this is the link i was trying to put in the last post

save the panzers

last week i found these images on the web and the story behind them,

about 40 ww2 German panzer's buried on the Bulgarian border with turkey a forgotten defence line from the cold war.

they were found first by the scrap dealers who started cutting them up for scrap but the Bulgarian government stepped in and rescued them for museums.

after much serching i found surviving panzers http://the.shadock.free.fr/surviving_panzers.html

this lists every known tank were they are and with photo's as well,

also worth a look is the kevin wheatcroft collection at http://www.wheatcroftcollection.com/

a busy sunday

well i didn't manage to get the Romans finished they still need dipping in the quick shade, and the shields need transfers putting on before i will class them as finished.

i did finish this British infantry battalion for eBay, another 52 figures painted this week to add to the acw cavalry total is so far at 76 for the month.
also built an American battalion again valiant miniatures, they will be for painting in the week.

managed to watch battlestar galactica what an episode it keeps getting better each week, you never know which way it will turn and i have no idea how it will end as this is the last season it will be missed.

also watched mutant Chronicles not a bad film but it lacked the tension that alien has, as it was trying to copy the idea pf a squad of troops against hordes of aliens.

28mm germans

after assessing my 28mm scale ww2 forces i have ordered 2 sdkfz 251/1's from warlord games, i was tempted with panzer IV's from jtfm but i think transport should be done first as i have 2 panthers and a tiger in this scale.

i must get the yanks done as well as i only have 14 figures finished even though the rest are half done.

so today i hope to get my roman veterans finished before i get on with the 28mm yanks, as well as building more valiant figures

painting horses with army painter dip

this is how i painted these horses, using the army painter dip method,

bear in mind that horses are not my strong point as i never get them looking right until now.

step 1 i used 7 base colours going left to right they are games workshop snakebite leather, black, desert yellow, vermin brown, grey primer, (Vallejo ) us field drab and gw bestial brown.

after painting the rest of the colours for the confederate cavalry i painted on the quick shade varnish and left to dry, (24hrs) next i Matt varnished them using humbrol Matt and the results speak for them self

and this is the finished unit of Perry's acw 28mm scale cavalry.

quite pleased with the results, but when painting horses don't forget to paint the legs in black i used a thin colour on these before adding the white socks , on some of the legs.

the colours that i think came out best were snakebite leather, desert yellow and us field drab , next to see if these will sell on eBay so i can get some roman cavalry from warlord games for my roman army.

good weekend

had a good weekend, got hold of a copy of passchendale very good film, think saving private Ryan in WWI for battle scenes with the usual soldier/nurse story in between the battle scenes.

also watched mongol about Genghis Khan very good apart from its all subtitles good battle scenes and a good story as well.

on the painting front I've finished my acw cavalry photos to follow when their dry from matt coating, so 12 riders and 12 horses done on the first day of the month and also built a rapid fire British infantry battalion 52 figures strong