Marvel Crisis Protocol Avengers, Defenders and Midnight Sons

So, without much further ado… the last instalment for this year.

Ms. Marvel

I have some mixed feelings about this mini (or rather the two of them). They do their part and they certainly fulfill their comic looks. But they are fairly bleak when it comes to detail and even those few folds that are in their clothes seem to be in the wrong places. I personally wish I had painted her after the Disney+ show had released since I rather prefer their colour choices over the comic one.

Captain America (Sam Wilson)

I personally would have liked Sam Wilson to be depicted as Falcon and not Captain America, but alas, I am really happy with the mini. It has great detail and was a joy to paint. If anything. The original pose was a little too compact for my taste, so I folded his wings into a straighter shape using boiling water and now you get a much better view of Sam himself.

Warmachine

This one was another fabulous job, although a very complicated one to assemble. Actually the first MCP mini where I needed the instructions to assemble it. It left me a bit “scared” before I started, since the whole mini is essentially different shades of metal and gun metal which all needed to be shaded as well, but in the end he was a real fun experience to paint.

Hulkbuster Ironman

The Hulkbuster Ironman is maybe the most impressive mini in the whole range. It took ages to paint (maybe 1 ½ weekends), but I really like the results. The shading looks more dominant in real life.

Luke Cage

For Luke Cage I had been thinking about giving him a t-shirt from a rap / hip-hop group like in the TV show, but his arms block out so much of his chest, that it would have been unrecognisable, so I just went for classic colours. I went for a very washed out look for his jeans, since I felt this gave the mini a better contrast.

The Iron Fist

The Iron Fist was fun to paint and most importantly fun to paint. Simple mini with a great pose. I did the Iron Fist as blue energy, since I felt it made the mini stand out, even though I think this was never used in the comics.

Blade

Blade proved to be a more interesting mini than he would appear at first sight. While he is mostly dark colours, there is enough variation in colours and little details that really make the mini quite piece. And the misty spectral hands really added contrast to the mini. While I usually try to keep the street theme of the AMG bases as much as possible, I felt this would simply not work here, so I added a headstone from Perry Miniatures and some weed tuffs to give it a derelict cemetery look.

Moon Knight

The same holds true for the base on Moon Knight. While I,would assume, he has his right foot on some ornamental piece of a building, it was just to low (in my opinion) to make it look right. So I gave the base some kind of park look.

I am starting to develop a liking for painting minis with lots of white, but I felt he needed some contrast so I gave him the black face mask from the early 1980s (Even though the rest of his costume is in 1990s style).

And this is it for now. In this sense I wish you all a very happy new year. May it be filled with good health and peace for you and your families!

 

Late Romans (Western Empire)

Compared to the last few posts we are now going back in time quite a bit.

One of the armies I have always wanted to do was a Late Roman Army for the Western Empire. So a couple of years ago I bought some minis from Footsore Miniatures, but never got to paint them. But every year the German distributor (and publisher of the German translation) of SAGA runs what he calls “Die Heerschau”. All in all you need to paint a point worth of troops per month for six months plus the Warlord sometime during that period. Essentially it is a motivator at the beginning of the year. So this year I decided to get myself motivated and to finally paint those Romans I had lying around.

So let’s start with the Levies. I decided, that I wanted a Balista, which means you need to trade half a point away in return for the Balista. I feel you get the best deal with the Levies. So it is half a a point of Levies with close spears and a Balista. I always loved the poses of those late Romans crouching behind their large shields, so half the unit is depicted this way. I wanted to make the units easy to distinguish. So every class got a different uniform and shield design. The Levies got white tunics with simple red patterns and red shields with a yellow serpent. The only body armour they have are helmets (at best).

The normal foot troops are by Footsore (as will be the rest of the troops with the exception of the Balista), while the Balista is by Gripping Beast. Back when I bought these, the later was the only Balista option on the market. I think less than a month after I bought it , Stronghold here in Germany announced theirs, which is far nicer. But alas I did not want to buy another one. The shields are all by LBMS except for the one on the Balista base, which was hand painted to match the rest.

The Warriors are slightly better equipped with chainmail or boiled legged vests and helmets for everyone. These guys have dark green tunics with red trim and red shields.

Up next are the two points of Hearthguards on foot. While their armour does not get much better, their clothing are more expensive Blues and their shields feature elaborate designs.

These are also Hearthguards in horses. I went for the Cataphract Models planning to use them either as Cataphracts or regular Hearthguards. These models did not come with shields or visible tunics, so there is not much that could show them off as Hearthguards here. But their massive armour should do the trick. But the sheer amount of armour made them a bit dull to look at. Since I absolutely hate leather dyed in bright colours I decided to give them painted lances (which I also hate but no near as much) to add some colour to the minis.

And last are the Warlords. I feel this Warband could work with both. warlord on foot or a mounted one I did. up both options. Colour wise I went with the Hearthguard colours for their companions.

The mounted Warlord is actually King Arthur from Footsore. The animation of the mini is simply great and the armour fits the period, so he seems like the perfect choice. In those Case the shields were hand painted. I have to admit, I should have (tried) to imitate the more elaborate Hearthguards shields, but these days mounted minis tend to bore me fast and I wanted to get them over with.

There are still a unit of Levies with bows and a unit of mounted Warriors to do, but I hope those should be done fast over the winter.

 

Targaryen Heroes, Swordmasters and some Zorse Riders

As my ongoing side project, I managed to put some work into my units for A Song Of Ice And Fire (ASOIAF). As long time readers of this blog will know, I (usually) only play with painted units. Usually, because ASOIAF is the exception. But that does not mean, that I do not try to have as much painted as possible. With Lannisters still being seven units shy of being fully painted, but my Targaryens being up to date, the later and the Neutrals will see the most love when I find the time to paint a unit now and then.

The Characters have been painted according to their descriptions in the books. The one who gave me some food for thought was Her Baristan Selmy. The books give no mention of his shield after he joined Daenerys, but the shield he carries rather looks like it requires a sigil. So I wondered if it would be the Sigil of the Selmys or House Targaryen. In the end I settled for the later, since it provided a better contrast with his otherwise light colours.

Ser Jeorah Mormont, Strong Belwas and Ser Baristan Selmy

Ser Jeorah Mormont, Strong Belwas and Ser Baristan Selmy

Unsullied Swordmaster Captain, Xaro Xhoan Daxos, Pyat Pree and Grey Worm

The Unsullied Swordmaster were also done according to the books, as far as they are described. I gave them bronze armour, although a very dark one and black tunics to give them a generally menacing look. I also gave them a varied skin colour to underline that these were slaves bought from all kinds of places. The only downside is that the black skin of some of them (like the Captain above) provides very little contrast to the rest of the minis.

Unsullied Swordmasters

Unsullied Swordmasters

Unsullied Swordmasters

Unsullied Swordmasters

Last for now are the Brave Companions (aka Bloody Murmurs) Zorse riders. I went a bit wild with their clothes and make-up to give them the motley looks they are attributed with in the books. They were fun to paint, but took relatively long for a four miniature unit. For that reason I am not exactly looking forward to their twelve men infantry unit.

Brave Companions (aka Bloody Murmurs) Zorse riders

Brave Companions (aka Bloody Murmurs) Zorse riders [front rank in focus]

Brave Companions (aka Bloody Murmurs) Zorse riders [rear rank in focus]

 

Merry Christmas

The last few months have been hectic, so I am more than happy that things are getting quiet now.

But I really hope that your Christmas is both merry and peaceful! Have a great time with the people you love!

 

Crisis Antwerp 2018 picture report

Today saw this years Crisis in Antwerp. And without much further ado… here are some pictures of the games that were hosted:

And last but not least our very own Operation Cobra using the Battlegroup Overlord rules in 28mm (more pictures to come over the next few days):

 

Run out the guns

For some time I have been a fan of artillery in our Battlegroup games. This was only enhanced last year when I tried out something new during a game set during Kursk when my heavy soviet artillery annihilated the German tanks virtually on its own. Unfortunately heavy artillery is hard to find for 28mm minis so my best option was the Schweres Infanteriegeschütz 33 (SiG 33) from Warlord which will have to stand in for other heavy guns.

SiG33 battery

The models are essentially out of the box, but I replaced some of the crew (at least those not holding the shells and charges, with those from the Warlord 105mm guns to add some extra variety to the bases.

SiG33

SiG33

There is also some AT-guns I did recently and those are a pair of 3,7cm PaK 36s. I was at first sceptical of the PaK 36 having played only mid to late war games over the past decade where the 3,7cm is not exactly the big start. But Martin wanted to give his French Army a game last year and I have to say I was more impressed by their performance than by the short barreled PzKw IVs. So while I had originally planned to do just one and use it as an AT-gun option for the infantry platoon, I now plan to use them both as a tank hunter unit of their own. Only need to finish their Krupp Protze tows.

One is the current Warlord offering, the other a vintage Bolt Action gun that was still sold by Bolt Action until about a year or two ago. With the later, you can clearly see that this is one of Paul Hicks earlier offerings, as the poses are more wooden and the faces less detailed than what he sculpts these days, but none the less, once based and on the table it looks just as nice as the new one.

PaK 36

PaK 36

And up last some fire support for the infantry platoon by means of a 8cm mortar. Again the minis are by Warlord. Not sure how good it will be in the game. Having to pay a n order to spot for just one mortar seems excessive, but maybe it plays out well.

8cm mortar team

 

Dear Facebook followers….

… I know there are some readers out there following this blog via Facebook by linking to my personal account (which is more or less my hobby account anyway). As some of you may have noticed, Facebook has recently had some problem due to the way they (ab)used their users data.

As a result of this many sites, like this blog, will no longer be allowed to share to personal accounts as of next wednesday. But they will be allowed to share to pages on Facebook, which is more or less a company or club version of a personal account.

As a result, I have created a page for our club on Facebook which can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/DHCWargamesClub/

So if yo would like to keep following this blog via Facebook, I would kindly ask you to go there and like the page.

I think this might also have a positive side effect. I have always tended to post just finished work here, to kind of keep this blog neat. Now I am contemplating using the Facebook page to add some work in progress pictures from time to time, or maybe some photos from games when I know I will not have the time to write a proper report anyway. So maybe this can also enhance the experience for some of you.

(Just to underline this… if you are following this blog via Facebook, this will probably be your final warning, as this should be the final post shared on my personal account!)

 

8,8cm PaK 43 auf Kreuzlafette

Playing late war games in a World War II setting, especially on the eastern front large-caliber Panzerabwehrkanonen (PaK / anti-tank gun) are a must to give you some edge over the heavily armoured tanks like the JS-2. The long-barreled PaK 43, both on a Spreiz- and Kreuzlafette are perfect for this.

8,8cm PaK 43 (Kreuzlafette)

Playing in 1:48th scale, the later is not too easy to get. But some years ago, I had the good luck to get my hands on the, now long OOP, Verlinden model. It is a very nice model, but even by modeling standards it is not an easy model to build. So I had to make some modifications to the connections between the gun and the shield to make it work out and stand the rigors of game play. But even that way, it will better be picked up by its base and not the model itself. Fortunately I have decided to base all my future AT-guns and indeed put all my old ones on bases for Battlegroup, so that will not be much of a problem.

8,8cm PaK 43 (Kreuzlafette)

Like the Jagdpanther, this was a testbed for the new weathering methods and I have to say… I feel it turned out exceptionally well on this model.

The crew itself is the 8,8cm FlaK crew by Warlord. It is a bit small even for their own 1:56th scale models, but I feel it still looks OK. While the gun was painted this winter, the crew was done about 15 years ago. I only redid the skin on the minis. I think that is where my technique changed the most during that time and I wanted them to blend in with my current models.

8,8cm PaK 43 (Kreuzlafette)

 

A tale of three Jagdpanther (Part one)

Some time ago I wanted to try some new weathering techniques. Namely special washes, filters and oil paints. I had three Jadgpanther models at home. Two from Tamiya, one unpainted build as an early model and one build as a late model. I had started painting the later in a 1945 pattern, but never was too happy with that, since my airbrush had acted up that day. So it needed a repaint anyway. The last was a Bandai model, but in a late version. I had bought that one used 15+ years ago with a very sloppy brush paint job. Repainted it back then, but I had gotten the colours wrong. Tried to salvage it by doing a winter camo, but that came out badly as well. So another repaint was required.

I had initially planned to form these three into one unit. That is until I realised, that under the Battlegroup rules a Jagdpanther is too rare and expensive to actually form a unit. So I decided to paint them up one each for three different settings… Normandy to Market Garden, winter 1944-45 and spring 1945.

Jagdpanther (1944)

Jagdpanther (1944)

The one above is the Tamiya early version and meant for Normandy to Market Garden.. The paint job resembles those often seen in 1944 that tries to simulate the sunlight hitting tank through a leaf cover. Not sure why there is fogging with the decals, since there is none in real life.

Jagdpanther (winter)

Jagdpanther (winter)

This is the Bandai one meant for the winter of 1944-45. It sports a very similar camo to the one above. But this time with a winter whitewash applied over the tank. I used  AK washable white for this. Which was great to achieve a look of the whitewash already starting to wear off. Since the previous owner had messed up the tracks, I had applied a mix of sand, white glue and brown paint back when I repainted it. Airbrushing the model anew had messed that look up. SomI applied two different mud pastes from Vallejo and Mig over that that. This created a nice effect like the tank had driven through wet fields at the end of winter during the thawing season.

And the third Jagdpanther.. Well that still is not finished, but it will be in a few weeks. So stay tuned.

 

 

Additions to my Combined Army

I am still in the process of learning how to play Infinity. The game has a tough learning curve and not getting to play that often does not help either, but I am getting better. Lately games have been getting closer and I even managed a win. What I found most helpful was concentrating on playing with the units I knew well and than adding a new one every now and then to see how it works for me. I found changing many units at once overtaxed me, since I had to keep too many new units in mind.

Anyway, since I only play with painted minis, this has resulted in a constant influx of painted minis.

 

 

Combined Army Fractaas

Combined Army Ikadrons

Combined Army Makreep Tracker

Combined Army Raktorak Morat Sergeant Major

Combined Army Unidrons

Combined Army Yaogat with multi sniper rifle

(I am trying out some new settings here, so please feel free to click on any of the tiles for larger versions here.)

As previously shown, I went with a Havana Brown base and sandy yellow markings. But the more minis I painted that way, the more I felt something was lacking. So I added red markings from here on. And I liked that. So I went back to the old minis and added red markings to those as well (no worries… not going to bore you with photos of those).

As far as I understood the Infinity background for the Combined Army, especially the Morats, they go with a base colour for the environment they are fighting in. In this case brown for the muddy ground of the jungles on Paradiso. Over this they often apply the colours of the fighting unit, in this case red and yellow.

For the Morat units not completely covered in armoured suits (like Rodoks or Suryats) I also added camouflage clothing. With all the bright colours on the minis, camouflage does not completely make sense, but I felt it added some extra character.

 

 

Combined Army Sphinx

Combined Army Shasvastii noctifier with rocket launcher

Combined Army Malignos sniper

Now for the Shasvastii based units I went a slightly different route. The infantry has brown armour, to tie them in with the others. But I felt they were more interested in not standing out. So no brightly coloured markings and rather camouflage clothing or capes.

And I went the same route with the Sphinx TAG.

 

Combined Army drones

Combined Army Pneumarch

The only units to which this colouring idea does not apply are the TAGs and drones. Those are done in a dark grey. Why… I always liked that look on the official minis.

I had always been a bit annoyed at the fact, that this meant they did not really match the rest of the army. When they released the Pneumarch of the Ur Negemony as the HVT for the Combined Army, I decided to use that mini to tie them all together. He has the dark grey armour of the TAGs and drones and combined them with the unit colours.

All these minis were painted over the course of the last 1 1/2 years.