SS Panzergrenadiers - Battlegroup Kursk

 

I have finished my first platoon for Battlegroup Kursk at the same time I have attempted to paint SS camouflage.  I employed several different methods and none were better or worse to do.  They have come out ok but whether it is worth the effort for 15mm I am still undecided.  Up close they look quite nice but at arms length they look like anything else at this scale.  I will listen to comments from the chaps and decide what to do with the next unit.

It is also the first time I have painted Plastic Soldier Company 15mm figures.  I like the true scale over the more usual heroic scale of Battlefront, Peter Pig etc but they are more challenging to paint.  I have plenty of figures left so will continue with them, although from the box i do not have anymore of the prone LMG teams. I like them to be deployed in any scale which is why an MMG is standing in for the moment.

It's safe to say that this is the last hobby item I will have finished this year.  Not the last item to be started though :o).  Ah well back to work on Wednesday

Happy New Year.

Chaos Cultist Clone Wars

2012 is almost over, and to round off a good year of painting for me, here are some Chaos Cultists for my 40k Chaos Marine Army

Having bought two of the Dark Vengeance Limited Edition 40k starter sets (selling all the Dark Angels to cover the cost of the boxes), I have enough to field two decent sized units units.

One with Autoguns.

And the other with Auto Pistols and Close Combat weapons.

Up next is a converted Helbrute.

Hope to get these guys on the board for some 2013 40k action very soon.

Battlegroup Kursk Progress

Whilst it has been a very busy Christmas holiday so far, I have managed to finish off a SdKfz 251 Recce troop and call signs 412 and 414 of my Panzer IV platoon.

I will leave the vehicles for the moment and do some work on the infantry platoon.  I am going to have a dabble at some SS camouflage patterns.  At 15mm it will have to be an approximation but hopefully it will be good enough

New Year Resolution Time

Its that time of the year again, time to make those hobby related new years resolutions.

I have a good idea of what I would like to achieve next year, but first, lets see, and analyse, what I said last year...

2011 has been very successful for me in the painting department, and I plan to continue this through 2012. I hope to finish what I've already got and limit purchases to filling the gaps in my current armies rather than starting new ones. Ok, I have almost painted what I already had, My Warhammer Savage Orcs and Vampire Counts are fully painted, my Lizardmen still have a dozen cold one riders and a carnosaur to do. 40k wise, my Necrons and Dark Eldar are finished, and my Chaos would have been, had the new 40k and new Chaos Codex not come out; only a few cultists and a Helbrute to finish. As for purchases, less said about that the better!

2012 has come a little early for me, but not as early as some, so I hope to play more FoW and WW28mm games. I'd like to attend some local tournaments ( hopefully not on my own) and am looking forward to our Warhammer campaign, the eventual appearance to 40k 6th edition and the continued fun of Wednesdays nights. I have played some Flames of War, but no where near enough, I do have a fully painted 2000pt American army though. WW28mm (Bolt Action) has taken off and again I have an almost full painted 1500 points of Germans. Elliot and I did attend a tournament, and although 6th edition 40k did arrive, it didnt have the impact most of us would have predicted.

This brings us to 2013, and my resolutions, so here goes...

1: Finish painting stuff I have; in this order: 40k Chaos, Bolt Action Germans and then Saga Skraeling. After that I hope to start on my Nurgle Blood Bowl team, before starting anything else.

2: Start some skirmish games and get small forces for these rules systems; namely: Musket And Tomahawk, Dystopian Legions and Force on Force.

3: Play at least one game of 40k and one game of Warhammer every month, leaving the other Wednesdays for other games. I still like playing these GW games and dont want them to slip away, after all I've spent a lot of money on them over the years.This may see smaller games being played, maybe 1000pt games, who knows might even fit two games in a night, if we get a move on.

4: Would like to play more campaigns, even if they are just between me and one other person doing a simple campaign tree over a number of months. Something to spice up the gaming night, a step away from the 'one off' games.

I'll leave it at just those four, otherwise its going to get messy when I read these back this time next year.

So what have you got planned for 2013, what are you going to hope to play or collect? Let us know in the comments section.

Anyway have a good new year and see you on the other side....

The Good Life

The Gaming Good Life

If you are old enough you will remember a BBC TV programme called the Good Life.  If you aren’t it was British situational comedy.

The show centres on Tom Good and his wife Barbara and their Neighbours Jerry and Margo Leadbetter.  On his 40th birthday, Tom is no longer able to take his job seriously and gives up work; their house, in Surbiton Surrey, is paid for so he and his wife Barbara adopt a self-sufficient lifestyle.  They turn their front and back gardens into allotments growing fruit and vegetables. They introduce chickens, pigs (Pinky and Perky) a goat (Geraldine) and a cockerel (Lenin). They generate their own electricity, using methane from animal waste, and attempt to make their own clothes. They sell or barter surplus crops for essentials they cannot make themselves. They cut their monetary requirements to the minimum...

 

Say Hello to Tom

1: How and when did you start wargaming?

 

Was a gradual progression. At school when i was 7 years old we read The Hobbit and i loved it. I loved board games like Advanced HeroQuest and Risk. My older sister went to university when i was 11 and started Roleplaying a lot with her friends. Traveller mostly from what i recall. Her then boyfriend was GM and during visits we’d play games of Call of Cthulu and others. I had already started painting old lord of the rings models and others and was having White Dwarf delivered to my local hobby shop. This was long before the days of GW having a store in every town and city in the land! After graduating my sister and her boyfriend moved back to my home city. It was then that i really started wargaming. So i was 13 or 14 years old. I collected a WFB army and also a couple of Space Marine (6mm now called Epic) armies and my brother and i used to go to my sister’s flat then house to wargame. After my sister and her boyfriend parted company i continued painting the occasional model but didn’t game for quite a while due to lack of space and opponents.

2: What was your 1st wargaming purchase?

 

My first purchase of pure wargaming wouldn’t have been the Space Marine boxed set as i’m sure i got that for Christmas or my birthday. My first purchase would have been with gift money from Christmas or my birthday and i’m sure it would have been 6mm imperial guard sprues.

3: Do you remember you 1st painted models? How bad/good were they and do you still have any examples?

Hey, You, Get Offa my Kursk...

Firstly, all hail!!
The camera charger has been found. It somehow got buried under a pile of Christmas presents......
Yes, really.

Anyway
Following the Zedmeisters's post I thought I'd follow up with my own Battlegroup progress with some badly shot pics!

Here's the whole recce company awaiting paint etc. This includes weapon/support teams that have been based for FOW that will translate into BGK just fine (with the odd "wound" counter")

 And then a progress pic.
One squad done (a second is close behind) and the AT gun.
I think I've over weathered my BA10.....

Battlegroup Kursk - Clash of Reconnaissance

Getting ready for our first, delayed, game with Lordy so rather than paint everything as a batch as intended that I would concentrate on finishing the vehicles I will need for the mission Clash of reconnaissance.

I still need to do a tiny bit of correction and a coat of varnish but these are essentially done

2012 Year in Review

Its not quite the end of the year yet, but here's a quick review of what The Lone Wolves got up to in 2012.

What will it be remembered for most?
I would say it was the year we really embraced war games outside of the confines of the worlds of Games Workshop. We have dabbled in Saga, Warmachine, Flames of War, Bolt Action, Wings of War to name but a few and have already started looking at Battlegroup Kursk, Dystopian Legions and Muskets and Tomahawks... will we ever learn!

So here we go, kicking off with...

January

January saw us all hastily finishing off 2011's projects, I finished my Necrons and my Savage Orcs, Elliot finished his Ogre Thundertusk.
We were getting ready for version 3 of Flames of War, and Simon was building, well, buildings.

February

February saw us begin the short lived Blood in the Badlands Warhammer campaign, with many of us painting up new units and characters especially for it.

Preparing for Battlegroup Kursk

Myself, Dave and Lordy have the new Battlegroup Kursk (BGK) book and a wonderful rule set it appears to be.  I say appears because we have not yet played a game.  Lordy and I were set for Clash of Reconnaissance last Wednesday but a family priority delayed our opening game.  Next week hopefully.  It has allowed us a little more time to work on our Battlegroups.  Why the delay when rules came out in October and so many people across the globe had to wait a number of weeks to get their copy?  We decided that with a significant commitment in 15mm Flames of War (FoW) figures and generous amount of in scale scenery and terrain that it made economic sense to reuse these figures rather than go to 20mm; tempting as it was.

However, it wasn't as quick or as economical as expected.  A decision to use some spare 15mm figures and to base them, more appropriately, for BGK was sensible.  We could have used wound dice or counters but my habit of 'clearing' the battlefield to keep it aesthetically pleasing has caused issues in the past.  Then a few extra tanks were needed; unfortunately our preparation coincided with a trip to the Warfare show at Reading and all the Plastic Soldier Company (PSC) deals mean I now have enough tanks for North Africa as well as the Eastern front and my painting queue has once again increased. 

Lordy finally realised that his ever so cheap Gamodls T70's weren't actually what he desired in a miniature tank and replaced them with newly released and ever so splendid PSC version and topped up his T34 strength.  I think he has plans to replace his KV 1's in a similar manner. 

I did manage to keep the spending at a more respectable level by purchasing Zvezda Sd Kfz 222's rather that go for more expensive versions.  The snap together kit needed a bit of glue and some swearing but for £2.50 vehicle it is worth it.

So where is the pay off, the punchline to this post?  There isn't one yet.  Just a picture of some progress I have made on my vehicles.  The camouflage is done, next will be the pin washes, the decals and then the weathering.  I am undecided if I should 'chip' at this scale.

Stay tuned.

I would just like to say for the record,  for a change it was not me that 'encouraged' someone into a new set of rules but Lordy himself.  Just sayin'.

Say Hello to Cortez

1: How and when did you start wargaming?

Started when I was about 13 so 25 yrs ago, best friend Tim had an older brother who was into 40k and both of us looked at the marines he had built from RTB01 and were amazed about the whole idea.

2: What was your 1st wargaming purchase?

Surprisingly nothing to do with 40k it was the Warhammer metal Orc bolt thrower. 

3: Do you remember you 1st painted models? How bad/good were they and do you still have any examples?

See above, absolutely shocking although for a 13yr old I thought it looked great.

 
4: How long have you known the other Lonewolves/how did you meet?

How long....umm not sure really, all started with Neil (Lordy) getting me back into gaming at Cribbs with a quick game of BB back in 98/99, then started working with him in GW in 99, I guess both of us then met Zed, Cyrus, Jonno, Dave around the same time in Zed's garage with a single 6x4 table after being dragged along by Neil some time in 2000/01 maybe. Chris (Binx) moved from being a regular at Cribbs to working and was introduced to the fold, there was a few yrs before the next which was Tom and lastly Ball Boy Elliot.

 

5: Do you have a game that sticks in your memory (for good or bad reasons) that you'd like to recall?

For some reason my mid normally goes blank after games (being blonde doesn't help) but I reckon the 2 week game with Zed is my favourite due to the constant back and forth of who may win.

6: What’s your all time favourite games system?

Don't have a favourite, although 40k has taken a dip with the new set of rules....

7: Any wargaming regrets/ things you would have done differently with hindsight?

The amount of stuff I purchased when working for GW.....still looking at it thinking "I'll paint that next......" never happens though.

8: Any wargaming experience/ army/ model/ story that you are most proud of/ like to brag about?

Crimson Fist Landraider (only one painted)....Got it before release due to working at GW at the time, the model came in a bag with no instructions, had it built and painted within a week then it went into the Cribbs cabinet.

9: What do you see happening to your wargaming wise over the next 5 years?

Bolt Action and FOW being purchased, possibly painting a complete army.........you can all stop laughing now!!!

10: Any final thoughts?

Umm.........Nah!!

Bonus section, for those that have worked at GW

A: How long did you work for GW?

About 3 yrs

B: Which Stores?

Cribbs Causeway and Bristol.

C: Fondest memory

The occasional pre release free stuff inc the Lord of the Rings book set. Although the Sunday big games were great.....maybe the night before helped :-)

D: Least fondest memory

The money.

E: If the money was good enough, would you go back? and why?

If the money was good defo, you get paid for doing your hobby why wouldn't you.

Most Prolific Year Ever!

Just spotted that Zed's post the other day made it 137 posts for the year 2012 beating our best post total of 136 in 2009.

Well done to all Lone Wolves that participated!

Still a few weeks to go and we can set the target for 2013