Friday night

 A request from a friend during the week inspires this post, and apparently I owe him for making my dice look good last weekend (and he really outdid himself).

During the week I've had the 1:600 aircraft painting bench out. Among the pile I picked out the F4 Phantoms. Once described as proof that with large enough engines you could fly a brick, The F4 served untill the late 1990's with the US and some are still operational over 60 years after the prototype flew.

Surprisingly few NATO nations used the F4, prefering something cheaper like the F5 so I was somewhat limited in options for the paintschemes. So what did we get? (and sorry its so dark,I'm seldom home in daylight in winter)

Left to right we have the Luftwaffe splinter camoflage, At the back the Euro one (also called the lizard scheme), the front is the South East Asia scheme worn in Vietnam and then in US based F4 units untill the late 1980's (and hence a possiblity in Europe) which is also my favorite. Finaly on the right is the RAF verson.

Its been quuite fun painting a varity of schemes on the same aircraft. Not overly easy on aircraft from the 1980's.

Update: heres a couple of slightly better photo's.

Luftwaffe and RAF

USAF

The most normal of times

 Over the weekend I participated in the rarest of pastimes in these times.

They even washed...

 An honest to god in person wargaming convention, the Warlords Call to Arms in Wellington.

So, the day started at 6, out the door at 6:45. Had to defrost the car, and the groundfog in places was down to 30m. Sunrise around Paekakariki and it wasn't till Porirua that someone tried to kill me on the road

The game was Spearhead and the scenario was the German counter attack at Kurstin in 1945 outside of Berlin. The Russians had bounced the Oder in a last gasp seizing jumping off points for the final attack on Berlin. The Germans assembled every tank left on the eastern front (well, its what it seemed like) to throw back the invaders.

So whats holding the rest of the front.

The Russian defence was based around 2 villages. The railway line was a visual break. 

The Germans sweped forward and made short work of the Russian defence, aided by some spectacularly bad dice rolling. Several times we even checked the dice to see if there were numbers higher than a 2.

The Russians then organised an armoured counter attack. 

On my flank IS-2's and Su100's. They were faced off by a collection of dross which did have teath.

On the other flank and covered from the Tiger II's by the railway embankment was a thined down armoured regiment with T34/85's.

Once again the Russians took a beating but this time managed to hold the line.

The Armoured regiment traded blows with the germans but eventually broke

The Germans claimed a victory, the Russians called it a draw and said they would be back tomorrow with fresh troops and where were the Germans going to find those? A sacrifice was selected to go and talk to Stalin and the rest of the commanders vowed not to discuss the day again.

A great day out (if somewhat long annd I was driving on autopilot by the time I got home).