Interlude..

I have not posted for a while. I went to Taiwan, Australia and (mainly) New Zealand for 6 weeks over the winter. With preparing to go, being away then back to cold wet UK I have not been doing much (January and February and never productive months for me anyway!) and I have been ill of the last month which has delayed me getting back into things.

I have been concentrating on finishing off a pile of things on my workbench - as I may have mentioned in earlier posts I do suffer somewhat from getting distracted by the latest thing and so end up with lots on the go. After a break I always try to finish all that off before starting anything new and so a lot gets finished in a fairly short time and I will be doing quite a few posts in the next week or so.

By way of a first post in the new year a few photos from New Zealand. An absolutely spectacular place to visit even if you aren't a Lord of the Rings fan - so doubly great for me!

A few shorts of Hobbiton (you get a bear in the Green Dragon Inn as part of the tool - specially brewed for the film, although the actors had it watered down heavily during filming!). A definite place to go if you are a fan or have kids.

The tree above Bag End was off for refurbishing. Apparently Peter Jackson wanted a particular look and so they built a tree - the leaves had faded by the time they came back to film the Hobbit and so he insisted that the leaves all got repainted by had - I forget how many hundred of thousand there were, but it only ended up in a long distant shot for a matter of seconds.

Weta Studios was an interesting visit, they don't allow photos inside but here are some trolls outside:

A very long drive on a crushed rock road gets you to where Edoras was filmed. Worth the trip as the scenery is spectacular with or without the connection to LOTR.

The national park with several volcanoes which includes the one used for Mount Doom is also worth a visit. We were luck enough for great weather and tool a flight over the volcanoes.

Other than Lord of the Rings, the scenery is just generally spectacular and the food is good as is the beer and wine and great value too. I just wish it was not so far away!

Some really vivid colours in a thermal area:

Normal service will be resumed shortly...

653. Schwere Panzerjägerabteilung - Elefants

Ever since I came across the Flames of War briefing for this unit I was keen to make one. And as I generally like to complete things I have done it at full strength. Not quite sure when I will get all 12 Elefants on the table but I am sure I can come up with some scenarios that require the Germans to move with tricky conditions so vehicles get left behind.

If you are interested here is a link to the FOW briefing.

I have done the more interesting HQ unit:

• Tiger (P) VK 4501 (i.e. the Porsche Tiger 1);
• Bergepanther with a stationary Panzer IV turret;
• Bergepanther with a quad 2cm anti-aircraft gun;
• Bergepanzer Elefant recovery vehicle.

 and for the Flak platoon:

• T-34 with a quad 2cm anti-aircraft gun.

I will talk about where these all came from alongside the pictures.

Can Do models are better painted than Takara but the downside is that it is then difficult to match colour if you want to change the tank numbers. For Takara it is easy to paint over the numbers and add new ones so a unit has a proper sequential numbering. I did not want to ruin the paint jobs so I made do with tanks having the same number.

This first platoon are all numbered 501 but I have added a Pithead crew man to one to indicate the command tank. All vehicles throughout have a wash of Games Workshop Agrax Earthshade and mud effect on the tracks and wheels.

The next platoon has three vehicles numbered 211 and the command tank with number 102.

The next platoon has three vehicles numbered 322 and the command tank with number 102.

The HQ

Tiger (P) VK 4501

This is a Takara model with a wash of Games Workshop Agrax Earthshade and mud on the wheels and tracks. There is a case special for the Can Do Elefant set (series 8) which is the actual tank for this unit but I have not managed to get hold of one. At some point I will do a Takara version with the right turret number.

Bergepanther with a stationary Panzer IV turret 

This is a Takara Panther hull with a Takara Panzer IV turret fixed to the hull. As normal a wash and mud on the wheels. Some crosses added to the turret armour.

Bergepanther with a quad 2cm anti-aircraft gun

This is a Takara Panther hull with a Minifigs 20mm quad painted to match and glued in place. A wash and mud applied. Some cross decals added to the front of the hull side.

Bergepanzer Elefant recovery vehicle

This is a pre-painted Can Do model (series 8) with a wash and mud applied.

T-34 with a quad 2cm anti-aircraft gun

This is a CDG model. I bought the pre-painted version. It is an early model so was when their 3D printing gave a fairly rough finish but it is not bad actually. I gave it a bit more of a dry brush and added mud.

For an easy way to see all my WW2 posts check out the WW2 Summary page.

British TOG 2 heavy tank

I got my first Shapeways models a couple of months ago and while the end result looked quite nice I was far from impressed with the quality of the casting. Those were in a reasonably expensive material, British Boarhound armoured cars, but the sides were like raggedly cut wood. It took 25 layers of acrylic paint to smooth everything out. That would have been the end of it but I got some Russian biplanes at the same time from the cheapest material and while a bit grainy it was consistent all over and does not look too bad. I decided to give the TOG 2 heavy tank a go after someone mentioned it over on the Pendraken forum. While the cheapest material it is still not cheap as a big item - just under £12, but there was a free postage offer at the time so that was the total price.

Unlike CGD at least Shapeways needs no removing of huge amounts of sprue and so it was quick to get into painting and I just sprayed it a few more times to help with the roughness and then did two layers of acrylic (with no flow enhancer) and that was sufficient to give a reasonable final finish. I decide to do the basic British green and not the 3 tone camouflage you can see on some versions - I was not convinced it would look that good at this scale with a reasonably smooth model (i.e. the large flat slabs have no detail like rivets or anything like that).

I am really pleased with the final model and may get myself one or two more next time there is a free postage offer on.

A few comparisons now of other monster tanks to give an idea of size.

First a Russian KV 5 (a resin kit).

Next a British Tortoise A39 (a CGD 3D printed model):

And finally a German Maus tank (a CanDo model):

For an easy way to see all my WW2 posts check out the WW2 Summary page.

British Congreve rocket unit

I have a huge pile of things to bases for Napoleonics - both my stuff, some repaints of eBay purchases and a load of things from Perfect Six (who has been a big boon on helping my armies along given the amount of 10mm WW2 I have to do). I am about to have my winter break - hate doing things when it gets too dark and cold - but decided to do this final Napoleonic item before I stop.

Everything is from the Adler 6mm congreve rocket pack.

The figures and horses were painted by Perfect Six. I made and painted the rockets and painted the two carts. I have just now finished basing it all up. I decided to do it as a diorama type base with everything on it rather than artillery bases for the two rockets and then basing the horses and carts separately. Basically because it is a single unit not one of many and the chances are the horses and carts would never see the light of day on the table otherwise (I don't use limbers on the game table).

In real life the horses would be much further back but it has to be a reasonable size for the games table - plus if you took into account gaming ground scale they are probably miles away!

[click on the photos for larger versions]

Also for an easy way to see all my Napoleonic posts check out the Napoleonic summary page.