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!

100th post!!

It's taken me two years, but I'm finally at the 100th post!

I realised that this post was going to be number 100 back in Nov last year, and I've been planning on doing something big since then.
Unfortunately work took a decidedly busy turn and I haven't gotten anything done since the start of December.
Rather than having it linger, I'm just going to post and move on.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year!
I got a pile of "dolls" from my wife for Christmas, and I'll post them up in a following post.

At the moment I'm sick as a dog from over-extending myself at work prior to Christmas.  Third round of anti-biotics and it's not shifting from my chest. uck...

I'm planning on trying to minimise the purchases this year and focus on tackling the lead mountain that has accumulated.  We'll see how long that resolution lasts.....

Two key focus areas for gaming this year:

1. on-going Middle East and Africa games with Ambush Alley and Force-on-Force
2. Vietnam games with Ambush Valley and Flashpoint Vietnam.  This year is shaping up to be a big one for Vietnam with TooFatLardies also promising to release their "Charlie Don't Surf" rules (finally!).

Have a Great Year!
Paul

Inspirational Terrain Blog

I came across this a few days ago:
Take the High Ground
If you've never been there, you should definitely check it out.

This amazing flying boat station has me all fired up about terrain (although I'm sure that the burning will subside before I find time to do anything).

It looks incredible, but he makes it look so easy! I read the descriptions and it all seems so straight forward and simple. Why didn't I think of that? It's all so easy!

I'm sure that when I attempt some of this, things will not go so smoothly......

rotary tool-icious

I had been having some difficulty filing the thicker bases off the Flashpoint moderns.

My poor little, cheap files weren't up to the task vs. pewter.

On advice from Brevet on the Flashpoint forums, I tried hitting them with a dremel (actually it's a cheap knock-off Dremel).

First-off, I tried using the grinding stones in the kit, but they very quickly became clogged.

Then I tried the Carborundum tips....and they ripped through it beautifully.

A little bit of a rough finish, but then that helps with gluing to the base!
And now for the very blurry pic:

The figure on the left is intact. The figure on the right has been ground down.
The good cameras are out of town with my wife, so it's going to have to be phone camera shots again, until next week.

TPLC Update

I've done a quick revamp on TPLC, and also debuted the new format. Hmmm.....Can it actually be a new format if it's really the first post?

Tiny Metal Men is intended to remain as a "hobby" page with figures, painting and modelling. Tin Pot Little Country will be a narrative page for AARs and other supporting material for my games (when I find time to play any!).

For the near period, TMM will certainly remain the busier site whilst I get through the current pile of figures I need to paint!

Gloss Humvees - finale

I finished up the glossed Humvees on the weekend.
If it hadn't been for the gloss, I would have done these very differently.
They've ended up looking quite dirty and worn, and this is largely due to my efforts to sort out the gloss, rather than a focused approach to painting wear and tear.
Here are some pics, click them for the full size:

Now, to get back to painting infantry!

Gloss Humvees - now with pictures!

Okay, so I finally sync'd the camera and took some pics of the QRF HMMWVs.
Here are two of them with the unfortunate gloss undercoat. You can see where it's run in around to a lot of the detail. Check out the front wheel of the M2 HMMWV (left). Click on the images for the full size:

I've started trying to paint up an M998 first up. Here's a progress shot from my first Glass Humvee post where I found out that the paint would stick! I've also tried to matt-down the gloss with some paint.

And here's where I had to leave it last night:

It needs some further tidy-up and some inking and dry-brushing, it's starting to get there.
Hopefully finish up tonight, and then it's on to the Mk19 and M2 equipped models.

Gloss Humvees

I tried applying some paint to the gloss undercoated Humvees last night.
I painted one of the tires and to my joy it appears to stick!
I think I'll still need to give them a decent coat of clear coat to protect them, but I'm happy that I haven't completely destroyed them. And as it's dried, some of the detail has come back, so things are looking up!
The main cameras at home are full of baby pictures, so I haven't been able to use them. I tried to take some pictures this morning with my phone again, but these have proven to be terrible.
I'll bite the bullet and take some proper shots tonight.

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!

Slowly getting back on track.....

Finally had a slower weekend this week and actaully managed to get some hoby-related activity done.


I've glued down a big chunk of my Cannon Fodder militia, plus some of the Flashpoint US and insurgents. I need to trim down the bases on some of the Flashpoint figures as they're a little thick for my taste. I've purchased a rotary tool for the task, and I'm looking forward to giving it an outing.


The whole lot got an undercoat yesterday, along with some Peter Pig Vietnam snipers which I'm planning to use as snipers for AA, since no-one seems to make modern US snipers.


Here is the very blurry pic:

I also put together the 3 QRF Miniatures Humvees that I have, but I think I've ruined them with my impatience and the wrong type of paint for undercoat. I accidentally ended up using a Gloss spray, which has run in and filled all of the detail. Also I'm not sure how things are going to go with painting over the top of it. I'm letting it dry properly for a day or two, and I'll see how it holds paint.