Have I mentioned that I hate rebasing

I really hate rebasing, really, really hate it. You think you have done a decent job on some bases and either they are the wrong size for the latest ruleset or you realise that they aren't as nice as you thought they were! In this case it's the latter situation, I based some 6mm micro armour and now I don't like the basing material I used, its a cardstock and has warped over time. So it's time for a slightly bigger and more robust base in MDF or mounting board.

You can see how this base has warped....bah!

The vehicles in question are mostly for the 1940 WW2 project which has lain unfinished (possibly they have been languishing, to be honest I haven't looked that closely in the storage box to check) for a couple or five years.  There are also some mid war Eastern Front models which were bought even longer ago, pre internet probably, as the German stuff is in Panzer grey not Dunkelgelb.  The main thing is that I need to do something with them and to finish painting the ones which are still in bare metal and to get on with rebasing the rest.

Painted 1940 German stuff, all for a rebase!

Mid war Germans for a repaint and rebase

Also from way back when is the Soviet contingent a mix of GHQ and Heroics and Ros (I think).  The hulls and the turrets could very well be miss matched!

Soviet armour, including two with lost turrets!

The Russian vehicles will do with a quick touch up and (the dreaded) rebasing.

Soviet artillery support SU-76s and an unidentified gun

Lend/Lease half tracks for Ivan probably H&R

The British Armour is mostly done with just some highlighting and shading to complete and tracks to paint.  Some of the German stuff is not even started, then their is the infantry and artillery to do.  

British Armour (GHQ) and some German transport (H&R)

Lastly I have several bags of Infantry, a battery of 25pdrs with tows, a battery of Hotchkiss 25mm AT guns and Austin tow trucks and a platoon worth of Universal Carriers to do something with.  So much lead, so little time! 

The Painting table - March 2023

I took a bit of a break from painting and modelling during March, so the report is a bit sparse this month. As regular readers will already know I finished the 2mm ACW project early in the month and towards the end of March I took a paint brush to two of my Vapnartak western shootist purchases but didn't completely finish either one. I also took a look around the various unfinished projects that litter the hobby room and decided that I would have to rebase the 6mm 1940 stuff as part of bringing that project to a conclusion, although I'm not sure that planning counts for the purposes of this monthly update!

One thing I have rediscovered is that my 6mm painting technique really doesn't cut it for 28mm stuff.  I was never a great painter at that scale and my old technique based on Humbrol enamels as used on 25 mm Hinchcliffe ancients doesn't look right, so it was back to basics.  I'm not 100% happy with my results but I'm hoping that with practice that will improve.

I have found the Galloping Major style of sculpting slightly easier to paint than the Empress figures as the folds in the clothing are more pronounced which makes shading easier.  I will have figures from both ranges completed soon and you will be able to make your own minds up as to which you prefer.

Galloping Major's 'Soldiers Free' figure

2mm ACW project - finished Federals

Sound the trumpets and roll the drums!  I actually finished a wargaming project, the first I have totally completed in over fifty years of wargaming!  The last of the Federal units has rolled off the production line.  All I need to do now is actually play some more games of Altar of Freedom with them.

The final fourteen Federal bases - all artillery

The very last base completed

The final unit totals are:

Confederates

39 Infantry Brigades

7 Cavalry Brigades

14 Artillery bases

8 (each) Generals and HQs

Federal

54 Infantry Brigades

9 Cavalry Brigades

18 Artillery bases

10 (each) Generals and HQs

That's a lot of American man power and horse flesh even in 2mm.   

Next projects up will be to finish the western shoot out figures and then for a change of pace complete a project which has been ignored for a couple or three years (make that about ten!) early WW2 covering France 1940/fictional Operation Seelowe in 6mm. 

I still have lots of unpainted lead in the pile so don't worry about the consequences of getting everything painted!  It's not going to happen anytime soon.

2mm ACW project - The Confederacy is done

Well painting their troops is anyway.  I now have all the bases completed which are required to field the Confederate side in any scenario for Altar of Freedom.  That is to say I have the maximum number of bases for each type, Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, Generals and HQs which I could need in any of the listed scenarios.  I made one change to the standard rules when building the army, I have mounted my artillery on 60 x 30mm bases rather than 30 x 30mm ones.   However, this messes up their firing arcs, so I had to calculate the firing arc based upon the assumption that the base was actually 60 x 60mm (the optional alternative base size) and using the standard firing arc under the rules of one rear corner to the opposite front corner.  Not particularly difficult but it makes a difference.

So having sorted that out, McClellan like I had to stage a grand review of the troops!  

All the Confederates you're ever likely to need

In the above picture we have (from furthest to nearest) eight HQ bases, eight Generals, thirty-nine Infantry brigades, seven Cavalry brigades and lastly the fourteen Artillery bases.

I have the balance of the Federal forces, amounting to a final 14 artillery bases, on the painting table at the moment.  Those should be completed in the next day or two at the present rate of progress.  So watch this space for the equivalent grand review of the Northerners.

The Painting Table - February 2023

I managed to move up a gear this month with progress on the 2mm ACW backlog and three MDF kit builds completed.  I also undercoated and mounted the 28mm gunfight figures I bought at Vapnartak ready for painting.  Even so there is still an embarrassing amount of lead on the table but at least projects are moving along.

You have already seen the completed kits for the saloon, forge and cart in earlier posts so no pictures of those in this blog.  I have based all of the remaining 2mm ACW units and completed a Federal Cavalry brigade and three HQ bases, which finishes off those parts of the army.  Two artillery bases were added to the Rebel forces.  

February's figure output, not great but it's something

The remaining Confederate artillery is part painted and just needs some detailing.  The Federal Artillery arm is lacking 14 bases which I have made a start on. I have glued the castings to the bases, added the sand texture and put a base coat of green on them.

This is the last of the 2mm ACW artillery it should be done in a couple of days

There has been no further progress on the 28mm Old West figures or the 6mm ancients.  The current oldest inhabitants of the painting desk are some Baccus Sassanids who are going to proxy as Justinian Byzantine Infantry.  They have replaced the Huns as my main point of shame!  In fact things have gotten to the point where I have a painting table upstairs in my office and a tray downstairs (where the light is better in the evenings this time of year) as it reduces the clutter in the office.  The objective for March is to complete the 2mm ACW project and start back on to the Old West figures, so no more buildings for a bit.

The table is a bit bare by my standards - mainly because a lot of stuff is downstairs

Not strictly painting table related but stage one of the office tidy up was carried out on Monday.  I cleared some storage space by moving some Vinyl LPs (ask Grandad he will explain what those are) into the loft and my Bike leathers and boots are in the back bedroom while I debate what to do with them as they don't fit any more!  I have decided that the 15mm Napoleonic troops should really look for a new home as it isn't a period I will ever contemplate doing in that scale, so I have to decide how to them on. The next step in the tidying up project will be to sort the bookshelves out.  We (that's Mrs E and myself not the 'Royal We') have been here for five years now and still don't have my Science Fiction novels in alphabetical order by author!  Not that I'm anal or anything.  So still lots to do

De Lancy - Blacksmith's Forge

The Dog House Saloon is completed so it's onwards to the Sarissa Precision Blacksmith's Forge.  This is a lovely little model and as a bonus I found a You-Tube video on assembling it.  To be honest the instructions which came with the kit were more than enough but sometimes it's nice to hear that there were no unexpected snags.  The kit consists of a stable with an attached outdoor forge so there is a bit of overlap with the Livery Stable but apparently a bit of competition is healthy for the market place (although Colonel De Lancy seems to favour the monopoly system as long as it's him who holds that monopoly).  Unlike the Warbase's Livery stable the Sarissa kit has internal detail so I don't need to do any scratch building on this kit.  Mind you it was also around 20% more expensive than the Warbases offering so you pays your money and all that.

It goes together very nicely but I didn't glue the forge roof, forge, troughs, or hitching rail into place so I could easily paint them.  I also wanted to texture the base which is easier without these being glued into place.  Other than that there is very little I can say about assembling the kit.  I made very few additions;  some off cuts of MDF into the forges fireplace as fuel, some ridge tiles to cover the gap where the two main roof parts meet at the roof apex and some rough covering for the forge roof's open area, but other than that I had no need to add anything major.

Blacksmith's Forge and wagon

Side view of the forge

I do strongly suggest painting all the door and window frames and the main structure before gluing the window frames to the (now painted) walls as it makes for a much neater finish to the edges of the frames.   In the photos I can see where some touching up is needed as I didn't paint before assembly, lesson learned for next time!  Other than that the painting was fairly straightforward as well.  The brickwork areas were painted in a Vallejo Scarlet Red to which I had added Orange fire and some Moon Yellow to lighten the mix.  This gave a nice brick red tone.  I added some Vallejo Black-Grey as soot marks around the mouth of the fire place and the top of the chimney.  The roof and beams were painted in Vallejo Dark Sand and then washed these with a couple of coats of  GW’s Agrax Earthshade.  I hummed and hawed about the colour of walls of the stable block but settled on trying for a slightly faded white wash look.  For that I used an off white which I painted on rather unevenly and then added spots of Agrax Earthshade which I smeared into streaks with a finger tip, making sure the streaks were parallel to the planking on the model.

To texture the floor I used the chopped sisal string 'straw' in the horse stalls but tried a new technique for the earth floor of the smithy area.  I used a sand texture paste from Hobbycraft and as it was almost dry used the flat surface of a plastic glue spreader to create some ripples.  Mrs E says it's a bit like the way she makes decorative peaks in Christmas cake icing but less tasty.  Once the sand texture dried I painted it Burnt Sienna (Windsor and Newton Galleria paint) then dry brushed heavily using Vallejo Earth followed by a lighter drybrush of Vallejo Khaki.  I quite like the result.

Inside view of the main building

Close up of the forge floor area

I also assembled the wagon which looks really nice alongside the buildings.  This was painted in the same way as the forge's timber.  As a bonus I added some extra signs to the saloon's frontage. 

New Saloon signs attached to the balcony and the roof has been finished

That's the new MDF kits completed which leaves the figures from Vapnartak to paint now.  These have only been spray undercoated so far.  I'm going to have to rethink my normal approach to figure painting for them and revert (or at least try to revert) to an older painting style of high and lowlighting similar to the Dallimore method.  They may have to sit on the back burner for a while as the next order of business is to finish the 2mm ACW project.

Norton anti-virus strikes again

According to Norton I shouldn't visit my own blog site as it is potentially dangerous (phishing).  Less helpful is the fact that it doesn't tell me what it's evidence for this view is or what I as the blog author can do about it!  This blog is created using Blogger third party software I don't know or want to know how to access the underlying code to embed phishing software. It's infuriating that Norton does this using automated systems but can't tell me what triggers those systems to have a hissy fit.

I have raised a dispute but apparently will have to wait at least 24 hours for a response.  It's a good thing Norton is free via my internet provider as I sure as hell wouldn't pay for this bag of spanners. It's not doing anything to protect me as it can't tell me where the problem is it simply tells me not to look at my own blog site, here's a heads up Norton.  I don't need to phish for information about myself, I already know it.  If the software has been compromised so its phishing via my site for third party data wouldn't it make sense to tell me as the site creator, or Blogger as the site software host so ,one of us can actually do something about it?

Norton you are not doing anything to gain my paid custom or even my confidence, let alone my respect.  You need to tighten up your act, and provide helpful information not just scream "don't do it".  Hopefully your web crawling bots will pick up this post and alert a real live human being, but it won't be to be helpful, it will be because someone is denting the corporate image!

UPDATE 

As posted in the comment the warning has gone following a 'successful re-evaluation' but with no other explanation from Norton!