The streets of Venice

A change to a bit of Steampunk this weekend. I have orderd a few things during the lockdown, and they have started to turn up (more on that later).
I'm not sure where I came across these kits, probably on someone elsesblog, but went for a look at the main site, TTcombat who amongst other things do quite a range of 28mm MDF buildings and bits in a variety of themes. I was drawn to the "Streets of Venice" collection. Who doesn't want to send their companies to fight across the canals and plaza's of Venice. And it is particularly evil to not just have pictures of the buildings, but also how they would look in a group if you just purchased another 3-4 buildings. Bastards.
In the end I decided to just buy the simple Venetian houses set (20 quid for 4 buildings) along with a bridges and some additional bits. To record t current state of international post delivery the order was posted 11th June and arrived at my home in New Zealand on the 9th July.

The kits are easy to assemble, each building taking 20-30minutes. The accuracy is outstanding in my experience of laser cutting (which goes a long way further back than you would think). Its probably toxic but I do love the smell of laser cut wood. The buildings come as flat A4 sheets of 3mm MDF.

 

So how do they look with figures?  I had to scale them with the men in stripy pants who, being niminally Ottomans, are at least close geographically.

"Almost feels like home, lads"

These are very nice and I'm struggling to not order their large pack to do a 3' square board (buldings, nridges and plaza's) for only 150 quid.

The international postage system seems to be returning to normalish, if a bit slower. However there's still a bit of a backlog to be cleared out. My Baccus orders from late May/early June turned up in reverse order. The main pack of French allies/Imperial guard turned up on Thursday, followed by an email Friday morning that announced that the Prussians that I ordered in the 24hrs that Baccus was open in early June had been posted. Thus I'm now going to have 6000 pts of Volley and Bayonette figures to paint in the lead pile in a very short time.

Air support part whatever.

More slow plodding on with the airforces. I've now done most of the WW2 aircraft and based them. Theres still a bit of painting to finish and decals to source. For the older gentlemen at the back with poor eyesight, I'll provide comments.

RAF Typhoons in a well organised formation

Likewise P-47s from the 9th AF

Russian Il-2s in a much more informal "come as you are"

 As the packets come with 8 models, its enough for 2 stands with 4 models on each. The second base of IL-2's is idential to the first. However for the second base of -47's I thought would go out on a limb with the fomation.

Classical diving attack to port.

Theres another 4 Typhoons that I'm going to have a go at doing in line astern.

Update; yes it does work.

"Tally ho, Chaps"

I must go and buy some Germans (bring on Mr Rudel in a Stuka) as well as a few more 1980's Russian helicopters. If only they would do 1/2 sized packages.

On decals

In the comments to the last post Luke commented that he had brought some Russian decal with a register missmatch which was visibly horrible.

I'd like to present the SF decals ( from I-94 enterprises ) that seem to be far better. They are for 1:300 scale so I've had to use the smallest ones on the sheet.

I've just noticed that one of the P-47s has the star upside down. The vents on the rear fusalage preclude the addition of decals on the sides though I might still have a crack at it.

Picoarmour and Flight Deck Decals do a wide range of 1:600 scale decals. The real problem is that SH/SH only require a few stands of aircraft and theres no point building up vast air fleets (not that I'll let it stop me). Helicopters however are another thing entirely....

More Aircraft

Further painting on the air support. Russian aircraft in GSFG seemed to carry 3 colour schemes in the early 1980's. Out with the paints and my best matches seem to be Nato green and brown. They then got a wash and drybrush.

 Mig 27's recieved a stripy scheme.

The SU-25 was supposed to have a factory applied scheme. I quick search didn't seem to bear this up, so I just painted a 3 colour scheme.

 Likewise the Su17's. I'm quite happy with the way these models have turned out (missing Russian stars not withstanding). They are working out as I had envisaged. I'm not to sure about the cockpit colour at the moment, I might need to look at something slightly lighter.

With the modern aircraft turning out well, I decided to revisit the WW2 ground support aircraft that I had purchased at the same time. I glued some brass wire to some Typhoons and gave them a dark grey undercoat. I had previously based some P-47's in a 4 on one base on one mounting armature. This resulted in a pretty structure but the aircraft were a bit close for some. The typhoons were mounted in 2's but with the armatures spaced out on the base which I think looks a bit better.

I was sure I had brought some decals for these models but it turns out they were an earlier purchase for 1:300 scale, so I'm going to have to order some more models. What a pity....

Out with the iron

A passing visit from Mr Page on the weekend answered my question from the last post.
Out with the clippers and 3 went to 2.

This looks a lot better.
And how did I get around not being able to drill into the metal? With a bit of bending of the brass wire and some superglue the project moves on again.

It's surprisingly strong. And as a lot of the aircraft have cast on underwing stores the wires have spots to clip/slot into. So I got stuck into the stack.

Mig 27's

Su25

And moving on to US Helicopters.

OH58  and AH1

I managed to solder everything up whie only burning my fingers twice. I found on my work storage area some thin PCB that was perferated into small rectanges that proved to be ideal bases for the models. Again lots of fun soldering to the base before the rest of the solder melted.
Now I just have to finish the painting.

Getting to the bottom of the lead pile

Looking round for things taht I could use and have yet to paint.
I did a bit of thinking about the Picoarmour aircraft that I purchased last year. The main problem was that they seemed to be made of titanium based on the number of drill bits that I've gone through trying to put holes in them. so the simple plan was to give up and try somethingelse. I folded up a support at the end of a piece of brass wire and then superglued the model on top.
First up were some Hind-D's.

The basing fits the TOE where a Russian diviosn in MSH gets 2 stands of Hinds based on a total of 6. However since my use of large numbers of aircraft on stands has been somewhat cotroversial I though I would see what everyones opinion is on 3 Hinds per base. I'll point out that I don't use rotor disks as I feel that they are just a pain in the butt, gather dust and don't look right.

A walk in the light green

Its been 3 months since the last post, or 1/2 a lifetime.

Things started to speed up at the end of March. The week of the lockdown in New Zealand was the longest fortnight of my life professionally as I had to confirm that my lab could continue to test and release product for sale for the foreseeable future ( which essentially decides if the company continues or folds. No pressure mind...). At that point no-one knew what that was going to be. The first couple of days were eerily quiet on the roads although cyclists became a real traffic hazard. Work became a cycle of sanitizer, personal distancing and zoom meetings, even when I could walk down the corridor and talk to people face to face. Both my wife and I had large work bubbles (she at the local hospital, fortunately not on the front line) and it became very wearing mentally. Not as bad as supermarket workers (who I take my hat off too) but still up there. And while I'm well aware that many have lost their jobs (including my brother) I'm not sure if the people who went out the door every day into the great unknown have been as well acknowledged. I sounds horribly trite at the moment but when you spend the evening following world events its always at the back of your mind when you go to work in the morning. However due to some sound leadership the country dodged the bullet and as the numbers of infections have come down so to have the restrictions and the chance to breathe again.

So wargaming wise, I've not managed to do much. I finished painting my Baccus Austrians, managed to get another order in to Baccus in the 4 days their website was open at the end of April, and then wound up painting odd bits to complete the units I had ordered (Vistula legion, Polish Heavy cavalry and Empress Dragoons). I admit I did wonder about the ethics about forcing people to expose themselves to illness while making and delivering toy soldiers to my door in the first couple of weeks of lock done (and still am having some quandaries about it) .I knocked up a storage box for the stuff (capable of carrying 108 brigade stand equivalents). It’s handy having a bench saw.

I even started doing odd things like some Tamiya British destroyers I had picked up a long time ago.

2 1:700 O class destroyers with an old Matchbox HMS Kelly behind.

One of the things that the lockdown did spur on was contacts with friends both old and new via videoconference. I finally brought a smart phone (those who know me will be surprised) which has proven to be a handy wee tool. I was lucky invited to join a Friday night chat sessions with a group of gamers from mostly New Zealand but with some foreign guests (thanks for this Keith, It was greatly appreciated in early April when I needed a break from real life). I had online beers with friends including workmates (which was really odd), but also those in Japan. One of the scary things we seeing just how much money was in the bank account when all you can spend money on is food.

Oh and last weekend I had my first game against a live opponent since late March.. it was only DBA but its a start.