Decisions were made....

So the Lancer is not built and there are a couple of reasons for this. One of them stems from me standing around in my office trying to work out how I wanted the legs to look and realising that I couldn't make it work the way I wanted to because it felt completely unnatural (for a robot) to stand like that. And the second stems from how I decided to fix it. 

The one bonus about building a second Cerastus Knight from GW plastics is that the leg assemblies are identical. Can you see where this is going? I decided I needed to swap the legs so I snapped the glue on the hip assemblies from the Castigator and rebuilt those legs to now be the legs for the Lancer. The Castigator gets a complete redesign and now looks like this: 

They're now the other way around and the Castigator is now leaning slightly back on it's right leg and stepping forward with the left. The legs had to be glued on given how the hip assemblies came apart so I've left all the armour plates separate so I can paint those and then I really only have to muck about with gunmetal. It'll be a challenge. 

Unsurprisingly, this has also created the opposite problem with the Lancer. Until I exactly work out how the arms go on, I am going to be challenged finishing the torso. But I had to start somewhere so start we have: 

 

 One Lancer head! Next I'll do the gunmetal and all the piping on the torso and procrastinate about the arms a little bit longer but I aim to have these done in the next couple of weeks. And if I get bored, Sturmtigers. 😆

Also, I had a great game against Pel's Gencon Paras with my Italian Guastatori yesterday that was pretty well on from turn one and I didn't take a single photo. What a mess. Given some scheduling drama llama, it's going to be workbenches for a bit but I have some cool stuff on the to do list so it's not all bad. 

Next Time

Knights and this random thing that's been sitting on my desk waiting for me to paint it since ValleyCon so I'm going to do it...   

Weekend workbench

I had a busy run getting some stuff ready for a couple of games of 40K last club day so first there's those. The Outriders: 

They didn't have a stellar day out and kept getting killed before they got to do anything. A bit vexing given the amount of swears that went into getting the shoulders on. But one day they''ll get to hit something and it'll be awesome. Next, a couple of the new generation of Land Speeders:  

They're both sweet models and while they were both garbage on the day thanks mostly to some shockingly poor dice on my part, I am optimistic that the pairing will be quite effective if I can roll some decent dice. 

 

Finally, instead of finishing assembly of a Knight that I *should* be doing, I painted some King Tigers I picked up at Panzerschreck instead.  

 I went hunting for new camo patterns and found brown tiger stripes as an option. I quite like it (and I don't think the photo does it justice) but it was a nice change. As I go through tidying up my Germans, I'm going to be doing some more camo schemes on other things. I quite like that I can keep some consistency with the Dunkelgelb and the foilage. 

Next Time

A Knight. I hope. And another run up against Pelarel's GenCon army after it pipped me last time I'mma have another go!   

My Generation Was Killed - Part 10 - BASE! How low can you go…

 

‘Sup Killers? Well, blow me down, part TEN eh? That’s a thing for sure…! It’s been a full on week here. I was away in the CHB for mahi most of the week, but I still managed to get some stuff done on the list 🤩

First cab off the rank was to finish the bases. I painted, washed and dry brushed them, then added some tufts to lift the bases. Next step was rubbish… No, literally, I wanted to add some rubbish to the bases. No way of saying this politely, in my experiences of Iraq, rubbish is everywhere… When your go-to for rubbish disposal is burning or just dumping, then its no surprise that it gets EVERYWHERE… 

And yes, I wasn’t helping either… Me and the other thousands of coalition troops in the AO that is. I can’t remember much about what I did with my rubbish, but most of it was either dropped on the ground, or burnt for OPSEC reasons 😑 

I cut up various things to make some different colors of trash, and you may notice the small, yellow bits with some black ‘writing’ on them. They represent the Humanitarian Meal Ready to Eat (MRE). These were issued by US troops to Iraqi CIVPOP and were a variation on the usual MILSPEC MRE. The main difference being the removal of the heater pack for various reasons. They came in a similar size plastic bag to a MILSPEC MRE, and I was issued a box to feed myself on once occasion, so they have some memory for me. I painted a piece of paper yellow, gloss varnished it then used a thin sharpie to add the ‘writing’.

Pic below shows the bases before I added the Hummers, see if you can spot the yellow MRE bags… 😉

I never saw a pink bag, just the yellow ones. Pic below shows the actual bags and some of the outer packaging, and what they looked like inside.

So, I had my bases, now to glue the trucks to them…! That was an easy job using some ‘Canopy Glue’ which as far as I can tell is a runnier, sticker version of white PVA…! Anyhoo, this is what they look like.

Brad’s truck from both sides. Note the yellow MRE bags underneath his door. You can just see the Iceman poking his head out with his NV scope…🫡

Next up the other support truck with a Fifty.

And then the two, TOW vehicles, these are the ‘punch’ for the PL!

And finally a ‘family shot’ of all four trucks together. It feels good to have one PL finished and I know this will inspire me to get onto the rest! This is a departure from my previous modelling SOM where I would do everything at once for the whole list before moving to the next stage. Undercoat everything, basecoat everything etc. That’s OK for what it is, but it can lead to fade as you never see anything completed. At least with this idea, I can see progress!!!

Well, to round up, this weeks ‘Tales from the Crypt’… I have so many memories, they get a bit out of place and jumbled top. Here’s two I remember that happened at the same FOB maybe a few days apart.

First up, as a SGT I alongside all other SNCOs and Officers pulled a number of duties. And one of those was to be on radio stag or radio listen. I got this one shift that started at something like 0200 hrs. This was right in the middle of things happening, so there was a lot of radio traffic going on all the time.

My job was to note any occurrence that would affect my unit, or anything that was on larger scale. I would possibly need to raise the NBC alarm, or the incoming ARTY alarm etc. Or get the CO / RSM if big things were happening above my pay grade…

It was 0200, I was knackered, and I was also super concerned about missing something that might lead to drama for myself and others. It now was around 0330 and I remember that sensation of falling, and jerking upright… Having a radio stuck in your ear with either traffic, or the dreaded hiss of white noise wasn’t helping…

Yup, I had nodded off… I had no idea if it was a 2-second ‘micro-nap’ or if I had been out for like an hour or something… 😳 I panicked, wondering if I had missed something, if something had happened. Had I let my mates down? Was there an Iraqi Republican Guard unit storming towards us..???

Once I calmed down, I thought, ‘How am I going to work out how long I was asleep for..?’ It was then I realised to check my radio log. 

Last entry was at 0327. I checked my watch and it was 0329. So taking off the approximate the minute I had been mulling this over, that meant a gap of around one minute… That’s like an eternity… I went into a panic and just prayed that I hadn’t missed anything and caused anyone any issues. 

The rest of my shift went with no issues as I was now SO awake it wasn’t funny… My HOTO person arrived, we carried out our HOTO and I slunk off to my pit, not mentioning my lapse…

I was real worried for days that I had caused an issue, and kept popping into the COY CP to check on any issues that may have occurred whilst I was on shift. Praise the Lord there didn’t seem to be any, so I just packed that away and carried on normal jogging.

First time I have shared that storey I think. Not sure how telling it makes me feel as I am not a fan of telling of my mistakes, but there it was. These are the things that keep me awake some times…

OK, lets end on a ‘high’ note… 😉

Same FOB, same week (I think..!), different situation. It was O-Dark hundred and I myself sat on an ammo tin chewing the fat with ‘Noddy’ Holder the Transport WO and the previously mentioned Lol Wood the CSM. We were bemoaning the fact that we hadn’t had a beer in who knows how long when Noddy piped up and says, “You know you can drink AL39 (Army issue vehicle antifreeze)?” ‘Fark OFF’ says Lol and I, ‘Whatever!!’ “Honestly you can”, Noddy went on…

“Just mix it with enough orange juice and you’re in!” ‘Right’ says I, ‘I’ll be back in 5 minutes, I’m off to see the EGGOPS (Chefs). Noddy, go grab some AL39…’

5 MIKES later I returned with 2 Litres of the worlds finest OJ, Noddy had 1 LT of AL39 and a bucket…

So, we tipped the OJ and about half the AL39 into this bucket, stirred it for 10 seconds with a tent peg, then all dipped our cups into it…

BANG!!! 😳 It was like drinking vodka and orange!!! Well, MAYBE it was like drinking vodka and orange…😂 We dutifully finished the 2.5 litres of Go-Juice, yarning until it was dawn at about 0500…

We all slinked off to our scratchers to get some sleep, feeling VERY merry…🥳 🤩

About 2 hours later, I woke up… First thing I noted was the heat, then approximately 0.1 of a second later, my head started to throb… And when I say throb, it felt like Tyrian Lannister was actually inside my head, and was attacking it to get out with the same vigor he used at the Battle of the Blackwater… 😫

I mean, I had had hangovers before, but THIS?! Seriously, this would have killed a civvy stone dead…😂

By now, Lol and Noddy had appeared and we kind of stared at each other wondering did we actually do what we thought we had done the night before. The half-empty can of AL39 and the stains inside the bucket were the silent witnesses to our madness…

SO, if anyone tells you that you CANNOT drink anti-freeze, tell them that’s rubbish… I mean didn’t hurt Austrian wine sales in 1985 did it?! Did it…? 🤔😜

On that note Killers, that’s it for this week! Appreciate all your kind comments and remarks, and remember, I might be saying things in this blog that sound odd, or that im struggling with something, but actually I am OK. And this blog is part of that being OK.

Till next time, Stay Frosty 🫡

Post-event lazy blog post....

 Ahoy readers. It's been a lazy couple of weeks on the blogging front since I haven't been in much of a place to post things. My hobby time has been filled with doing stuff. So, in the interests of getting restarted, here's as many armies as I managed to take pics of from Panzerschreck XXIV!  

Tank and my Bradley ACAV and Bradley Cavalry

Dan and Greg's M1 + M1A1 "horde"

Bloggers Pel and McBeth's British

Gav's Germans and his partner...

...Rob's Swedes

Blogger Scotty and his absent partner Wilson Pooch's Germans

Clubmate Chris' Germans and his partner...

...clubmate Ric's Americans

Chris and Wayne's Franco-German Alliance

Connor and Simon's (painted by Blogger Pooch) Americans

Russell and Graham's East Germans

Octavia and Richard's Grade 1 WARPAC Russians

Andre and Smudge's Israelis

Finally....

Phil's French, and his partner...

...Ian's UN Canadians

Ian deservedly won Best Army with these Canadians - they're absolutely stunning with one of the best white treatments I've ever seen. He shared his whitewash recipe with me and it's all drybrushed. I was, and remain, in awe. The presentation is just delightful. 

 

Finally, it was a great weekend. Excellent company, excellent food and some great gaming. TY is a solid  game when played for funsies on 8' x 6' tables. It was a lot of laughs. Rumour has it that EW Blitzkrieg next year for the 25th Anniversary of the event - that'll be just as absurd as anyone could want. 

 Next Time

I've been doing a bunch of work on my Deathwatch for 40K and I'm about to start a new building project....  

My Generation Was Killed - Part 9 - Miss Me…?

 

‘Sup Killers? Firstly, thanks for all of you that reached out asking why I hadn’t posted last week. Wait, what? No one reached out…? 😳 Darn, looks like my hopes of retiring on the profits of my soon-to-be-released book might not pan out…😝

Nah, all good…! Reason there was no post last week was, it was the annual ‘boys come down from Auckland weekend’, otherwise known as the 15mm gaming  ’Panzershreck’. This year it was Team Yankee, proposed by the mighty city of Dunedin… (If you know, YOU KNOW…😜) So I dragged out what I had and took a look… I was paired with the renowned ‘Meta Gamer’ Damien Reid, and together we knew we would be a competitive force, easily placing in the top three, and most likely given our skills, winning the event outright…

Reid and I getting smashed by a combo of Canuck’s and Frenchies from Ian and Phil. We lost, but a fun time was had by all!!

JOKES!! 😂 For those that know us, you know we’d be lucky not to get the spoon…! So, what did we take? A motley mix of Polish T55 and T72, and my Ukrainian list of 19 T64s, 3 BMP2, and 4 each of SA13 and ZSU23/4. 

We had a mixed weekend, one 8-1 win, but mostly losses or draws. It was enough to put us just into the top ten…  But the main point of PzS is meeting old mates and having some laughs, and in that regard, we were number 1 🥳 So good to see all my mates from around the motu, loves to you all 🙏 💟

Once the boys had left on Monday and Sarah and I had cleared up the bomb site that was our whare…😉 I cracked into the usual mahi. You’ll remember that I have been trying to mould the TOWs I needed and had not had much luck with the Blue Stuff, so I invested in some of this:

Made a mould from LEGO and stuffed 3 BF TOW into it. Then I applied some Vaseline to the mould to stop the halves sticking together and made the top of the mould. I used Grey Milliput to fill the moulds and the results are not too bad… They are not perfect, and if you look closely you can tell what they are, but I am happy with them as they are at least my own efforts 🤩

Pic below shows the OG BF TOW at the back, and my effort at the front:

The other thing I did was made some bases for the Trucks. The BF ones are rigid enough to be used free-standing, but the 3D ones are just a wee bit delicate. So, to bring everything together I have decided to base everything. This will not only add strength but also allow me to build a coherent theme for all the minis. Stage one was making the base mix, I used a mix of PVA, Rapid Fill, and two grades of model railway ballets. Mix that all up and slop it down on some medium BF bases and you are GtG!

Hopefully next week I can finish these, paint etc, then look at getting at least one PL of trucks mounted!

Data indicates that more of you are keen on the yarns than the minis, so here is this weeks ‘Letter from the Front’ 😉

The first half had kicked off, and we had entered Iraq. Mortar strikes and other arty fire were a daily, if not hourly occurrence and by now they were so frequent, we didn’t even bother getting into the sand trench. It wouldn’t have done any good anyway as it was not revetted and would most likely have just collapsed on us… 😂 

So, things are going on, and I am doing some stuff when the RSM comes over to me. “Hey Bob, what’s happening?” He asks in a ‘there is more to follow’ type of way…“Hey Sir, just checking on my CAMs and what not, what’s up?” I replied.

“Well…..” LONG pause, like long enough for me to wonder if he’s finally slipped into that coma… “Umm… I need you to drive me up to (Insert name of town I can’t remember), and I need to go right now”

“OK” says I, “what’s going on over there…?”

“Ummm… I tell you when we get going…”

So with that, I packed away what I was doing, sorted the truck out, and picked him up at his tent.

We were about 5 MIKES into the trip when he told me what the hoo-hah was. He’d left his S10 at this town we were headed to, and he OBVIOUSLY needed it back ASAP. You know, with the constant threat of CHEM and BIO weapons, and with him being the RSM, it would have been a bad look if we got an actual CBRN attack, and he was the only joker running around without a face-welly on 😂

As you can imagine, I REALLY, REALLY struggled with not just laughing as loud as I could and calling him a Fcukwit…😜 BUT, he was still the RSM, so I had to play it somewhat cool…

En-route to the town-with-no-name, we passed through another dusty poo-bowl of a town. This had been cleared by Coalition forces a few days previously, so was relatively safe. As I was driving into the town, we came into a cross-roads. As I recall the defining  feature was a large mural of Sad-Man Hussein that had been defaced and graffitied by the locals now we were here. As I slowed to admire the handiwork and obvious fresh wet marks that were splashed all over it… I saw two kids, one maybe 8-10, the other 12-15. 

Now, Taff (RSM) and I both knew that we were not supposed to give out lollies to local kids. We were not meant to interact with the locals at all, unless we were shooting them or repairing them after we had shot them…

But these two kids looked so forlorn and sad, I looked at Taff, and slowed the truck to a halt. In the same mindset, we both reached into our daysacks and pulled out a bag of lollies each, can’t remember the brand or type. I then drove towards the kids, and threw out the two bags of lollies. Both kids picked up the bags and the joy on their faces was a sight to behold.

The smaller of the two then ripped into his bag with gusto, stuffing a handful of (snakes I think) into his wee mouth. As he started to enjoy the sugar-rush, the older kids demeanour change rapidly… I could almost see the gears in his head turn as the plan formulated in his brain.

With a flash, he stuffed his bag of lollies into a pocket, and in a simultaneous move that would have made an elite gymnast proud, punched the little kid square in the face…

Immediately the small guy dropped his bag of lollies, spilling some of them onto the ground as he held his nose which was now streaming with blood from the assault. He then ran away as the bigger kid swooped up the spilt bag of lollies, and took to his heels in the other direction. He was like the Iraqi version of Iron Mike Tyson mixed with Zola Budd…

Taff and I took one look at each other, and almost at the same time we said, “Well, we wont be doing that again.” We drove the rest of the way in silence as we tried to process the event we had just witnessed, and perhaps more tellingly, had just CAUSED…

We were just trying to do what we thought was the ‘right thing’, but clearly the BDE S2 knew more than we did when it came to handling locals… 😔

We eventually got to the town-with-no-name, and yup, you guessed it, the RSMs S10 was NOWHERE to be found…😝 He was looking high and looking low. He was looking harder than Gollum after the One Ring…! I told him not to panic, I had a plan…

We obviously couldn’t just rock up to the QM, who, being a former RSM himself, would have just laughed…! And he might not have had a spare Rezzy in his size anyway…

So, I told Taff I would source him a US respirator, and he could put that in a spare S10 haversack. Unless we got an actual CBRN attack, no one would know, and if we did get such an attack, the US one would still work 😉

SO, for the rest of the deployment, he rolled around with a US respirator, praying that he never had to use it… Fun times…

And no, before you ask, I don’t have any pics of this event…

Right, that’s all for this week, al always, thanks for reading this far, I appreciate all of your kind thoughts and comments. Till next time, Stay Frosty 🫡