Scotia Recoiless Rifle with H&R crew

One quick deviation before we jump into some more World War 2 models.
A while back I based up one of the larger (105mm-ish) Scotia Micromodels Recoiless Rifles with some Heroics&Ros WW2 US artillery crew (so sort of on track for the WW2 thing!).  This is again for my Argentine forces for the Falklands Project.

This shows the Scotia model a bit more clearly than some of my earlier shots.  I think they fit together quite well.

Conversion Attempt - part 2

A couple of days ago I took a quick comparison shot of my new "VC" against the H&R US figures.



 Unfortunately it turned out to be against some of my worst hat work, but the size comparison is significantly better that vs the Irregular figures.

Since then, I've started basing the figures.  This was a bad move, as I need to file off their webbing to represent poorly equipped Local Force troops in just "pyjamas" and a rifle. 

Note also in this picture the figure who is missing their hat because I tried to file some of the wonkiness out of it.  He's so depressed that his rifle barrel has gone droopy.....

The dodgy hats will need replacing rather than fixing it seems.

Plenty of work to get them to where they need to be, but it's a start!

Conversion attempt

Found myself with some time last night, so I had at putting some rice hats on some warsaw pact figures to convert them to Local Force VC.

Converted H&R Warsaw Pact Infantry

Conundrum

Okay folks, I have a bit of a problem.
I've gotten some more Heroics and Ros 6mm figures.  This time it's their modern US, that I plan to use for my 6mm vietnam project.  That's all well and good, but I need some opponents for them.
H&R don't make any VC figures.  I could try to convert their Warsaw Pact range, but that's likely to be a fair bit of work.
As far as I can tell, there are a few manufacturers who make VC and NVA in this scale:

• Mainforce - too big
• GHQ - too big and too expensive
• Irregular - my usual choice, but big against the H&R.

Below is a comparison shot between H&R US infantry and some Irregular VC.  I've lifted the H&R to account for the base on the VC, and they aren't too bad:



The problem really arises with the comparison against the NVA (really Main Force VC for the most part) range from Irregular:

Not as close....
Every time I look at the second picture, my response ranges from "That's not too bad..." to "that's awful".
My budget appears to have backed me into a corner on this.

Another 6mm Comparison Shot

Below is a shot I took earlier, comparing the H&R German Infantry to a couple of vehicles, from both H&R and Irregular (don't forget to click for the full size).

Left to Right we have; Irregular Toyota Pickup, H&R Panzer IV H, and Irregular M113 ACAV.

Scaling wise, I think the H&R infantry scales quite well.

As a result I ordered some more bits and pieces from them today......

Irregular 6mm US Firebase

Okay folks, as promised here are some shots of the US Firebase I just picked up.
All of the bits you get:

As you can see, you get 2 sandbagged buildings, 2 tents, 2 piles of barrels, 6 sandbag walls, 4 gun emplacements and 6 defensive mounds with sharpened pickets.  Plus a flag.

Below is a quick attempt at a comparison shot using some of the 6mm Brit Para's I've been working, along with one of the ACAV's that I received in the same order.

Note that the thick base on the Para's causes the ACAV too look a little small (and the hut to be too short).  I think that once everything is at the same height it will look great.
For those of you who want to look at the components a little more closely, I've taken some more picks and put them in the Picasa album : http://picasaweb.google.com/scannablegoose/6mmTerrain#

More Irregular 6mm

One of my packages just arrived today.  I ordered a number of items direct from Irregular in the UK.
First off, I should say that it has been quite pleasant dealing with Ian, and I will defintely be ordering more in the future (assuming the AU$ stays high!).

The majority of the purchase was 6mm terrain:

• A Zulu Kraal for my Cold War Africa conflicts,
• A Vietnamese Village and US Firebase for my 6mm Vietnam plans

These are quite bulky, so I'll take some snaps of them when I get home. 
I also picked up a couple of miscellaneous items for the above conflicts, and it only took a minute or so to take a quick snap with my phone camera:

• Toyota pick-ups with and without MGs in the back:

• M113 ACAVs

• LVTP-5 / LVTH-6 

I'm actually pleasantly surprised by the ACAV and the LVTP.  The photos don't do them justice.  The Toyotas are very good, but the gunner is a bit rough as you can see.

More bulletins as events warrant....

15mm Chinook from Old Glory?

Folks
Just came across this announcement from Old Glory UK :
http://www.oldgloryuk.com/disp_news_item.php?id=1003&sh=2
It appears that they are planning to release a 15mm Chinook kit - complete with components to enable it to be converted from Vietnam through to modern day.
This will be excellent news if they can pull it off (and at a reasonable price of course....)!
Check out their new Hesco-based buildings that are in the same announcement as well.

Main Force VC

Back from the wedding, and a good time was had by all!
Managed to snap a quick pic of the 15mm Flashpoint VC that I had photographed with my phone camera previously.
Here they are:

I need to paint up more, there's only these three so far.  I've done them in boots for these, but I'm going to try to paint some "Ho Chi Minh Sandals" on the next batch.

Main Force VC colours

Well, I finally got a couple of hours this weekend to sit down and do some painting.
Below is a VERY blurry picture of the end result of some work on some of my Flashpoint Main Force VC.  All of the cameras have gone north with my wife, so I'm stuck using the very poor camera in my phone until mid Aug.

If you think these look bad, you should see the three that I need to strip back after my initial colour experiment went HORRIBLY wrong.

Really as a reminder for myself when I get to snatch a few more hours to attack more of these, here are the colours I used in the order that I paint them:

Uniform and bush hat: Dark Angel Green with a light drybrus of Camo Green to lighten the tone.

Webbing : Desert Yellow

Packs, boots and Rice Roll : Graveyard Earth (technically I think the roll should be uniform green, but then it won't stand out from the uniform.)

Skin : Bronzed Flesh with heavy Flesh Wash

Weapons : Chaos Black with light Bolygun Metal drybrush.  Snakebite Leather on the butt, stock and grip.

I'm also going to alternate in some figures with a mix of black items (pants or shirt) along with the uniform green.  The look I'm going for is from the illustrations in Gordon Rottman's Viet Cong Fighter (part of the Osprey Warrior series).  This shows the Main Force troops in a mix of the Green uniform and the traditional black peasant garb.

Flying Lead

I've been a bit behind on my Meeples and Miniatures podcast listening, so I've put the last few on my ipod as I walked the dog this week.
Last night it was Episode 62 wherein Flying Lead from Ganesha Games was discussed.

I must say I was quite interested. I've never played any of the "Songs of" games, although I've been aware of their existence. The promise of a complete game within an hour or a campaign within an evening is very tempting for my tight schedule. Also I've been looking for something light and simple to lure others to their unsuspecting doom of getting hooked on historical wargaming.

And at $8.53 for the rules, it's very tempting...
Plus it would lead Eltnot to once again accuse me of a lack of focus!!!

I'd definitely recommend listening to the podcast and the opinions therein.

So what do you think? Have you played any of the "Song of" rules? Are they a good solution for a quick, fun night's gaming?
Let me know in the comments.

EDIT:
I just went and bought it.  It's Friday and it cost $8.80.  What more can I say...?

Quick Peter Pig vs. QRF M113 size comparison

I've just quickly thrown together a quick comparison of the relative sizes of a QRF ACAV and a Peter Pig M113 that I had in the cupboard.
The comparison is intended to be on size rather than the quality of the model, as the Peter Pig has been cleaned up and undercoated, whereas the QRF has been tipped out of the bag where it's languished for the past year of two and then clumped together with Blutack.
The QRF is also missing its headlights and the driver's hatch that I didn't blutack on (it DOES say QUICK comparison!)
So without further ado, here are the pics (hi-res if you click). I'll leave you to make your own judgements on compatibility.

Birthday Loot - Flashpoint USMC

As part of my birthday haul back in Feb, I managed to pick up some of the old Flashpoint stock that Drew had.  It came in a big baggie and I'd started to sort through it into poses, etc. I took this quick photo (phone camera) of the container that they are sitting in as I headed out the door to work this morning.

Because it's a bulk bag of old stock, it's not really representative of the product that Flashpoint are putting out now. Some of the figures will need some clean-up due to flash, but becasue there are so many I should be able to get an initial couple of platoons together without having to resort to clean-ups!
They should go nicely with my Marine Corps Helos.

Recon

I'm trying to keep some momentum on modelling for as long as i can, so last night I trimmed and based the LRRP platoon from Flashpoint that I got for Christmas.

These were old figures in the old packaging that I picked up from Drew at Dragonfire.  I know that Flashpoint is working through doing a refresh on the figure ranges, but I don't think they've done the LRRPs yet.
Across the 30 figures there appears to be 10 sculpts - not necessarily 3 of each.
The scults look quite good, plenty of sneaky movement poses!




You can click the images of the sculpts for a larger view.

I picked doing these first-up because I figured that I could get away with only painting and basing a smaller number (maybe 10?) to provide a patrol to go up against a larger number of either Local Force or Main Force VC for Ambush Valley.

So next up, I'll be cracking a pack of VC.....which will it be?.......
(oooh the suspense!)

Eagle Flight

My order from The Flying Mule arrived today. Very prompt service.
3 USMC Hueys:

There are a couple of reasons why I purchased these:

1. As a pre-painted diecast, there is nothing more for me to do.  No gluing, no painting, no basing.
2. They are comparatively cheap.   These were US$7.99.  Flying Mule also has 1/100 UH-1s with an airborne scheme as well for US$9.99.  The very nice looking (but also requiring assembly, painting, etc.) Hueys from Battlefront are AU$30 (US$28).  I bought all three of these for less than the cost of one from Battlefront.

Here is a zoom in of the helo with Irregular Modern US disembarking:

As you can see, 1:100 is actually just a little small against most 15mm (really 18mm) figures.
I have the same problem with the HMMWVs from QRF.
You can get 1:87 (HO) scale UH-1s from Flying Mule and other places as well.  I have also seen UH-1 gunships in 1:87.  I avoided 1:87 this time around because I didn't want the helo to be out of scale with other vehicles.  We'll see how it goes......

Edit: Some discussion in the comments below (notably from Geoff at QRF) indicates that I'm wrong about the scale comparison.  After a 2nd and 3rd look, I'm very happy with the scaling.

Final Christmas Loot

My in-laws gave me the gift that keeps giving - cash!

I have been able to get a copy of Ambush Valley, which I've printed but haven't had time to read it yet.
Looks very good though.



I've also renewed my Special Operators Group membership with Ambush Alley Games, and I have three diecast UH-1Cs coming from Flying Mule to provide some air-mobility or dustoff for my Vietnam games.



Thanks Garry and Kathy!
It's going to be a BIG year!

More Christmas Loot 2009

Okay, so here is the Flashpoint order that I purchased earlier in 2009 and that got put aside for Christmas.  These are were old stock that I picked up from Drew at Dragonfire Games.

Australian Support Platoon and an Australian Rifle Platoon.  The Rifle Platoon is in the newer Flashpoint packaging.



US LRRP Platoon



Main Force Viet Cong Rifle Platoon and Support Platoon
The Recoiless Rifle may find itself serving double duty between the VC and on a technical for my african militia.



Local Force Viet Cong Cell and Support Cell.
The round items in the Support Cell pack includes punjee markers and snipers emerging from tunnels.



And finally, Thomas' continuing efforts to get me to finish my Eldar army:

Christmas Loot!

As promised (and because it's also an easy first post for the new year), I give you :

The Christmas Loot

First up, some air support for my AA/FoF games:


Three Night Hawks (I'll probably drop the mods back to a typical Black Hawk) and an Apache.

Two M2 Bradley's and an Humvee Troop Carrier from QRF:

The Bradleys were inspired by reading House to House.  The Humvee was because you always need more!

Next up are 3 Pinzgauer trucks and a bag each of the new command and grenadier modern british figures from QRF.  Together with the figures I purchased last year, I can pull together a 8 british fire teams + some additional command; and with the Pinz and the earlier land rovers, they don't need to walk everywhere!


Below we have a platoon (3 sections and a command section) of Egyptians to be re-purposed as Iraqis for FoF.  It will also give me th opportunity to drag out some T-55 tanks I have kicking around.  I'll be attempting to keep these fairly generic for use as a general arabic army of the period.


I'll leave it at that for the moment.

Coming soon - pics of the Flashpoint stuff I got around Oct last year which got saved as a Christmas gift.
Also Ambush Valley and more!

More Books!

I had promised myself that I wouldn't by any more books, but I came across these three at my local QBD for about $25 total.

• Killer Elite by Michael Smith
• Midnight in Some Burning Town by Christian Jennings
• Fighting Scared by Robin Horsfall

I couldn't help myself. I'd just finished reading "Black Hawk Down", so I splashed out.

I started Horsfall's book (which I'd never heard of before) on the train in to work today, and I've been enjoying it.

QBD is definitely a great source for discounted books!

Flashpoint Loot

Since I'm recycling old material that I haven't posted, while Elora is settling in; here's a pic of the other stuff I ordered when I got the Flashpoint Moderns a little while back.

The moderns are the two little bags at top right.
The rest is stuff from the Vietnam range. I went a little crazy and got:

• ANZAC Platoon (in the new packaging top left)
• ANZAC Weapons Platoon
• Main Force VC Platoon
• Main Force VC Support Platoon (RCLs and mortars yay!)
• Local Force VC Cell (essentially a platoon)
• Local Force VC Support (as well as weapons this contains nifty things like pungee pits and tunnel entrances)
• and a US LRRP platoon

At around 30 figures per box - I've got a lot of lead to paint!