More Burma

I've been playing quite a few games of Battlegroup Panzergrenadier based in Burma, 1944.

These pictures can also be seen in a Picassa album here.

Star Wars fighter battles.

Models from Studio Bergstrom and Star Wars Starship Battles miniatures from Wizards of the Coast, a mat from Hotz Artworks and my own modification of the Bag the Jedi rules featured in the 2008 Summer Special from Toofatlardies.


Bergstrom's "Spilt Wing Fighter". As I see things the pins that make up the laser cannons are too long as supplied so I pull them out of the model, cut them down a bit and then glue them back in.


I'm using Y-Wing Fighters from Star Wars Starship Battles range - available reasonably cheaply on Ebay.


To my mind the Bergstrom Y-Wing equivalents, wedge bombers (top right) are just too small compared to the X-Wings. And the Y-Wings are the only Star Wars Starship Battles models that aren't hopelessley warped.

Tie Fighters

Tie Bombers

Tie Interceptors

Burma, 1944

No postings here for almost a year, but that doesn't mean I've not been doing any wargaming.

One of the projects I've had in the pipeline for a while is a Japanese infantry battalion to fight in Burma. They've been finished for a few months now and last Thursday they got their first outing on this fantastic table put together by Kevan Gunn, who also provided the British. Pictures by Colin Jack.

Edit: Models are all 15mm - mostly from Peter Pig, though there are some QRF guns somewhere on the table.

Jasta Boelcke

Just finished off six doing repaint jobs on six planes of the Wings of War Fokker DR I Fritz Kempf models to represent six different planes from Jasta 2 (Boelcke) in February/March 1918. Information for the repaint jobs came from the Osprey book Jagdstaffel 2 'Boelcke' in their Aviation Elite Units series.


All the planes have been modified by having their rear fuselages painted white on the port side and black on the starboard, a feature of Jasta 2 DR1s that's strangely absent from the WoW model. My white paint failed to match that on the white squares around the Maltese Crosses on the prepaints so I overpainted these markings and replaced them with crosses from Dom's Decals. The Kempf markings on the wings were overpainted with Knarlock Green from the Citadel Foundation Paints range, a colour that almost perfectly matches the green on the original model.

I've cut of the pegs on the underside of the models and replaced them with 1/8" rare earth magnets also available from Dom. I can now use the models with Wings of War stands that I've modified with matching magnets and also with the Litko stands shown in the picture above which I use for playing Algernon Pulls it Off from Too Fat Lardies.

All the planes have been given pilots from Peter Pig's Range 6, Odds and Ends. These look about a hundred times better than the mishapen blobs that made an appearance on the Wings of War Series 2 models.

Kempf

Baumer - the Bs are white decals that have been overpainted in red. It worked better than any of my attempts to handpaint Bs

Loffler - handpainted stripes round the fuselage.

Papenmyer. I wish I was better at painting stripes.

Plange - A white stripe edged in black with Maltese Crosses from Dom's Decals on the sides and top of the fuselage.

Vallendor - letter V decals with hand painted serifs. Not quite the proper shape of V, but good enough for me.

I'm quite happy with them, but I'm not at all convinced that the base shade of green is historical. I much prefer the finish on the Wings of War Fokker DR I (Arthur Rahn) model which looks much more like what I see in the Osprey prints and photographs. But I'm too lazy to change all that and what I've done will do for now.

Stuart Jalopies from QRF

New from QRF are these Stuart Jalopies (aka sawn off Stuarts) which were used in many British and Candian armoured regiments in 1944 and 1945. They were first used towards the end of the Desert War and came about when armoured commanders realised that the 37mm gun mounted in the Stuart's turret was all but useless in combat and that if the turret were removed the tank would have a lower profile and that the crew inside would have a better view. These were useful characteristics in what was used mainly as a recce vehicle - though the jalopies were apparently also used as general purpose runabouts, for carrying supplies around the battlefield or even as ambulances.


As far as I can make out 11th Armoured Division removed the turrets on their Stuarts after Operation Epsom and all the Stuarts that went into action in Operation Goodwood had been converted. To give the vehicle a bit more firepower they were usually equipped with .30 or .50 cal machine guns which were welded on to the hull. I've been waiting for models of these things for years.

The QRF models are nice enough, but they're not without their problems. The details on the models' running gear is not particularly well defined and the MGs supplied with the model are very thin and didn't look like they'd last more than five minutes on a wargames table. Also they don't come with any crew, though they do come with a canvas cover for the opening in the top of the vehicle (seen on the righthand tank in the picture above)


I've replaced all the HMGs supplied by QRF with some more substantial ones taken from some Peter Pig Shermans that are currently sitting in my pile of unpained lead. Quite appropriate really as this is where the troops got the machine guns used in real life (their Shermans came from the US rather than Peter Pig).

I cobbled together crews for two of the vehicles from Peter Pig tank commanders and troops with berets from their AK47 range. The markings come from Dom's Decals.

I find it really annoying that manufacturers making open topped vehicles like this don't supply crews as part of the model - the things just don't look right without them ! The only manufacturer 0f 1/100th WWII models that I've come across who do supply crews is Battlefront, whose Flames of War models usually (always?) come with crew when it is appropriate.

Hats off to Battlefront for that, though it is annoying that they seem to have finished with Normandy without making these handy little vehicles which were found throughout 21st Army Group.