Christopher Samuel Youd dies

Yesterday it came to my attention, that the author Christopher Samuel Youd has died last Friday aged 89. The name will most likely not ring a bell with most, but rather one of the pseudonyms he wrote under… John Christopher. I imensely enjoyed his works in the 1980’s when I was a young lad. It started off with his Tripods series, but I liked “The Guardians”, “Empty World” and the Fireball triology even more. In a way, he also started me on the road that brought me here. For his works got me hooked on Sci Fi literature, which was the startpoint for the winding road that got me to historical wargaming.

Thank you for that Mr. Youd and rest in peace.

Christopher Samuel Youd

 

The coolest thing

Today I saw one of the coolest things… Literally.

It is bleeping cold here in Germany right now. Now we store our bottles in the garage. Which is not much of a problem, since it hugs the house and with the car in there it is not that cold. And even if it is… It is all plastic bottles and they can not burst.

Anyway when I just got me a bottle of water from the garage. Funny thing was the single bottle of coke between the water and juice was frozen. I do not know why it was just the coke, but that was not so special. I went back into the house and poured myself some water. Now the moment it came from the bottle it turned into gelatinous ice. I am not sure how many factors need to come together for that, but it was extremely cool to behold!

 

Napoleonland

Today this one came to my attention… according to the Telegraph there are people in France planning to build a Napoleon theme park on the Monterau battlefield. Not really sure what to make of this. Usually I really appreciate it, if someone tries to bring history closer to people, but I am not sure if rollercoasters and waterrides are the right way to it. Especially when it is built on an old battlefield (even if it just a minor one), thus destroying anything that might be left of it.

At first I though (and hoped) that this might be a joke, but the story made several news agencies today, so it seems to be for real.

 

Warehouse

Ok, yesterday I finished painting the warehouse and I am quite happy with it. The structured paint gave it a nice plaster look. I added some lamps over the doors. Quite simple actually.

The are just the round shields from Warlord Games plastic Romans (I do not put them onto the minis anyway) with the handles cut off and a hole drilled through them. Glued some thick floral wire through the hole and glued a plastic bead underneath to represent a light bulb (which can not be seen on these shots).

The loading ramp will be the right hight for my WWII truck models and the ramp and stairs will be the right hight to provide cover to minis in a game. So right now I am really looking forward to the first game with it!

Warehouse front

Warehouse back

Warehouse inside

 

WIP weekend

I took a break from the past few weeks of Napoleonics painting this weekend and thought I should show some of it. Why did I take a break… well for one I felt like I needed another topic on my table for a change and my hands were a little shaky on Saturday and I was in no mood to correct all the mistakes that it would result in.

So first things first. The French Marines for the “La Bricole” painting competition have progressed nicely over the last week. Their clothes were base coated dark blue and got their highlights. Their epaulettes and uniform details are red and highlit, too. The backpacks are completely done (not sure if you can see them in the middle between the minis). I also started on the crossbelts and that is about where I left off on Saturday.

French Marines WIP

So on Saturday I actually sat down to clean up one monster of a WWII model… JFTM´s BR-52 steam engine. I have to say it is one really pretty model. Great detail and no bubbles as always. The fit was great (as you can see from the minimal amounts of green stuff on the model). The biggest problem I actually had was the space between the wheels. Now the JFTM model is meant to fit S-scale tracks, but I am using 0-Scale tracks for my wargaming. I knew this before I bought it and Jeff was nice enough to send me some pictures of the un-assembled model. That way I knew that I could modify it as needed. On the engine I “just” had to add some spacers between the wheels and the lower boiler assembly and everything was fine. Still took long enough though. On the coal tender I just cut the wheels off, glued them back on further apart and added some green stuff supports. Now they also required some filling since I managed to damage two when cutting them off. By now the loco has been primed black.

BR-52 WIP

BR-52 coal tender WIP

I also assembled a Artizan PaK 38 (5cm) on Saturday, since we will need it for our next Kursk game in the coming weeks. Now unfortunately that was not such a nice model. Even though I bought it a couple of years ago when it had just been released (and the mould should have been in mint condition), the gun shield contained lots of flesh and the wheels contained so many holes that they were useless. I still had the wheels from a Bolt Action PaK 40 lying around. Unfortunately those were a little larger, which resulted in a gap between the gun shield and the carriage shield. But that has been covered up. No photos of that one though.

The biggest mistake I made was watching “The Eagle of the 9th Legion” and “World Invasion: Battle Los Angles” in the back ground. Now I am also in the mood to paint up some more moderns and ancients, too.

On Sunday I scratchbuild a warehouse for the same game I need the PaK for, although it is meant to be generic for any theatre in WWII. All the construction is foamcore, wood from coffee stirrers, a few matches and corrugated card. Roofs are completely removable. I just brushed some structured paint on today and should start painting it over the next couple of days.

Warehouse WIP front

Warehouse WIP back

 

Greatings from the future…

… well at least if you are in a timezone west of CET. In that case… greetings from the year 2012! 😀

London Fireworks 2010-2011

The picture above is from last years New Years celebrations in London. Unfortunately we will be spending this year at home, but I felt it would be a fitting image for this post.

I just want to say thank you for this past year. While I only started blogging this April, I feel it was a very good year to start. Just a few stats:

This blog reached 25.000 hits this week

There are 20 people following this blog through various means

The most hits were recorded in November

The ten most popular posts (by hits) were:

Basing 101		1,927
Crisis Antwerp 2011		1,723
Victrix Plastic Austrian Review		1,198
Warlord Plastic Russians Review		1,198
Brandenburg Uhlanen Regiment		957
3tes Battalion, 13te Schlesische Landwehr		846
Napoleonic WIP		801
Großdeutschland at Kursk Game 6		574
Grossdeutschland at Kursk Game 5		526
Russian Mountain Troops		490

So what is next? Well later today I shall finally post pictures of my latest Napoleonics unit. In this sense… A happy and above all healthy New Year 2012 to all of you!

 

Merry Christmas

Well… I will keep things short today. In that sense a very merry Christmas to you and the people close to you. Hope that you have quiet and above healthy holiday wherever you are and whatever you believe in!

 

Off diving

Well there will be short interruption in service till Christmas from me. As off today I am off to Egypt for a two-week diving holiday. I was there in December 2007 and while it is not the best time to dive (visibility is poor by Egyptian standards, but still far better than any European lake during summertime), it is mostly devoid of other tourists making it a real holiday to enjoy. We will be going to the western Red Sea (about 150 klicks from the border with Sudan), which is not as much as a tourist hotspot as Sharm El Sheik or Hurghada anyway, with the coral reefs being in far better shape. So it should be good.

I just hope the political situation stays calm and our return flight is not courtesy of some NATO airforce flying foreign nationals home.

(copyright Walt Disney Studios and Pixar)

In hobby related news. I did manage to finish the Régiment Joseph Napoléon just in time before our trip, but did not find the time to take some pictures. So you will have to wait a little while for them.

Anyway… I wish you all a very nice festive season and see you in two weeks time.

 

Crisis Antwerp 2011

Since I was I Crisis in Antwerp yesterday, I also want to share some photos with you. While I had planned to host an Operation Barbarossa game, that did unfortunately not happen, since other members of my club did not have the time to attend and it would have been too much to host on my own. So I only came as a visitor.

Except for the obvious amounts of shopping (mainly Perry Napoleonics from Dave Thomas and bases from Warbases) there was a lot of talking to do. Some of it yielded some very interesting facts.
First of all this will be the last Crisis held at Metropolis. The new venue will be about one klick (kilometre for those not into military speak) away. The new venue will have free parking again, more space, better lighting and a better air circulation. Catering will be done by the Tin Soldiers and include food (opposed to just drink).

In other news there were flyers around for Action 2012 to be held at JHQ Rheindalen sometime in March. Now this came as a big surprise since this years Action was supposed to be the last one. It was also surprising, since the flyer had the logo of the AWA (Army Wargames Association). Now on the AWA newsgroup there is discussion about a replacement convention called Tactics in JFC HQ Brunssum (Netherlands). I will try to keep you posted when I know more.

As some of you might have heard there is a company called Fireforge Games that will release plastic mounted Crusader (Teutonic) Knights soon. Now they had a table at Crisis showing some 3-ups pf the upcoming minis and they looked real nice:

These are not exactly anything I will do in the near future, but still they looked mighty nice and should prove more than just interesting for anyone into this period.

Next up are the games being presented. Now if you hosted a game that does not show up here it has nothing to do with me not liking it, but more likely with my camera messing up the shots I took due to the poor lighting.

This is a 28mm back to back WWI game by the Marie Louises de Flandres:

Staying with World War One, this time in 20mm… Crush the Kaiser. The game and rules looked nice, so I decided to buy the rules to give them a try in due time, too:

One of my favorites was Barry Hilton’s (The League of Augsburg) Beneath the Lilly Banners game. I enjoyed a great chat with Barry, too. I have exchanged a lot of online chatting with him over the past few years regarding his R2E rules for Napoleonics and it was great to attach a face to the name! The “ironic” thing about his game (being hosted in Belgium) was, that it depicted a battle in Ireland but featured a lot of Flemish troops. Sorry for some of the strange unit shots… they are rather meant to show the basing then the minis:

Some 28mm Vietnam:

The Italian Invasion of Ethiopia in 1935:

Pardulons demonstration table:

And my other big favorite… Leipzig 1813 by THS (Team für historische Simulationen):

And last some shots from assorted games:

 

Back from our holiday in Wales

Well I have been back for over a week now, but things like catching up with work and a minor flu last weekend kept me from posting.

Cymru (Welsh) flag

So how was it? Well we can not complain. While we only got the last two days of fine weather (= blistering hot and sunny) in the UK, we still had pretty good weather. Except for one day when we were caught smack in the middle of a 14 mile hike by rain and wind that would drive the rain horizontally, we had perfect weather for an early october.

The Canterbury Wargods tournament went fairly well, too. I became second on account of my dice failing me miserably in the last game. Sad thing is… this will be the last tournament. 😦

All in all it started quite well. We made good speed Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France to arrive at the port of Dunkirk. While it had not dawned on me when we planned this trip, it would be a journey through time. Obviously Dunkirk for its role in WW II. But we would also visit sites from the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, Roman times, Norman times, the Middle Ages (mostly Edward I). Truly a trip to behold.

It was great to be back in the UK and being there with my own car was great fun, too. Never had too many problems with driving on the left side and it was just marvelous to take the car over all those winding Welsh roads.

I will try to give you some impressions of the castles and forts we visited when I have made my way through all the photos we took, but for now I will simply do with some impressions:

Wales countryside as seen from the battlements of Harlech Castle

Welsh coast (Cardigan Bay) seen from Criccieth Castle

Creek inside Snowdonia Natl. Park

Conwy Castle and part of the town itself

Old towpath near Brecon

The mighty charger that took us through the trip

Yours truly on top the remains of defensive wall around a bronze age village in Brecon Beacons Natl. Park