The Comparison

Over Christmas/New Years I got some 40k from my brother and dug out some of my older stuff to assemble.
I just happened upon the comparison below, so I've taken a picture.

Left to Right we have; an old Eldar Guardian (the new ones are bigger!), a Battlefront Anti-Tank Rifle team, and some Irregular 6mm Modern US.

Or to put it another way (the increasingly inaccurately named) 28mm, (the creeping larger) 15mm and 6mm.

Man, those 6mm guys look small in comparison!

Christmas Loot Part 2

I also received this from my wife:

Can you say "lead-tastic?!?"
It's all the figures I need for my 6mm Flames of War British Para Company.
Painting ahoy!

Christmas Loot Part 1

My awesome wife got me "dolls" for Christmas!

First up some 6mm Terrain from Irregular:

Pond with Trees

European Farmhouse set

European Village set

 

 

A big thanks to Nic at Eureka for taking care of her and making her first venture into miniature buying a very positive one!

6mm Weird War

I've just learnt about a new range being planned for release this year from MAJIC Miniatures.

They're releasing a Pulp World War II range.

More details at the site.

I'm quite excited about this.

In related news, my wonderful wife bought me a company of British Paratroops and a village and farm in 6mm for Christmas!  More news (and photos) soon.

Happy New Year!

LOOZ Battlegroup completed

Well I finally got those trucks finished, and here are the battlegroup on parade.

I'm not at home; so I'm only shooting in the light of the dining room, but the new approach to the manual settings seems to really be bearing fruit with depth of field.

Here are some more shots.

  

Today I have also undercoated the modern US, afghans, and VC from the previous order, along with the Centurion tank, Greyhound and Panhard armoured cars.  Hopefully I'll get some paint on them soon!

LOOZ infantry finished

I've finally finished all of the infantry for the army of the Loyalist Officers of Zumsia.

The only items left to be painted are the trucks in the background of the picture.

It will be good to have them all done.

I'll be putting up full battlegroup photos once their done.  Hopefully there will be a lot more time for painting and modelling over the christmas break.

DIY Hot Knife

check out this little project where someone has combined an old soldering iron and an x-acto blade to make a "hot knife".

Here is the link.

I can see a number of applications for cutting plastic for bases and modelling, and also for cutting and shaping foam.  Maybe some interchangeable tools?

I also have an underpowered soldering iron downstairs......

Taking Photos

I've been pretty busy the last few weeks with non-gaming things, so I haven't got any more progress shots to show at the moment.

I have, however, been researching a few things and trying to pull together content for TPLC.

Recently I came across a very good article about photographing miniatures.

Check it out at : http://www.hodgenet.co.uk/minpics/index.htm

I've been doing it all wrong!  I'd arrived at settings just by playing with the manual exposure settings on the camera without knowing what I was doing.  As a result, the light at my disposal that first time shooting dictated my aperture and exposure settings.  

My aperture settings were set too wide, hence the depth of field issues I was getting on the massed battlegroup shots.  I've just tried setting the aperture smaller on some work in progress, and it does sort out the depth of field issue.  

The only problem now is that with such a small aperture, my exposure time blows out to 1/4 sec which means my shaky hands cause issues.  I think with better light sources, plus a tripod and timer settings, this could start to work.

The only problem is that now I won't be able to hide my dodgy painting behind blurry photography!

Another AA game

Managed to run another game of Ambush Alley over the weekend.

Two players with myself as the umpire. We played the "Contracting Trouble" scenario from the core rules. We didn't finish the game, as it was already quite late by the time we started, but the guys seemed to enjoy the experience. The marines managed to get the contractors off the board, but the majority of the marine force was still trapped on two rooftops as the contractors exited.

Some quick shots from the game are below. I forgot to take the good camera, so these are just quick shots with the camera in my phone.

The marines were advancing up the main thoroughfare to get to the contractors, when.....

The reinforcement roll for the Insurgent player turns nasty for the Regular player as 14 insurgents (2 with support weapons) suddenly appear on the roof overlooking the contractor vehicle.

I actually ran out of figures when this occurred so two of the insurgents are actually marine figures.

Unfortunately for the insurgent player, his next firing dice looked like this (4+ is a success):

Despite the poor rolling, within a turn both marine fire teams had been forced to retreat to the cover of the buildings to tend to their wounded.

However, with all of the fire being directed at the marines further down the road, the squad leader was able to usher the contractors to safety, narrowly missing an ambush laid by two insurgents at the head of the road.

Tin Pot Little Country

I'm starting a new blog for "in-character"information about the two forces for my 6mm AK47 games:

•  The Workers Intervention for the Nation of Ztumre (WINZ) and,
• The existing colonial power in Zumsia; the Loyalist Officers of Zumsia (LOOZ).  

The intent will be to document information about the fictional country of Zumsia and the conflict, including geography and history, orders of battle and "frontline reporting" (game after action reports).  

I hope to have a bit of fun with it!

Tiny Metal Men is going to remain the miniatures blog and I'm hoping to keep regular updates going for both.