Here come the lobsters!

Hoi,

A short while ago I indulged in the testshot sprues of 3 HäT sets, to whit the Peninsular British Command set, The British Colonial Command set and the British Colonial infantry set. The former is now finished and here are some pictures to wet your appetite. The heads are separate and what is new is the fact that the heads do not come with a peg, but the peg is fastened to the body while the heads have a corresponding gap. This gives you the option of making a pre- and post 1812 uniform or a mix. Also included is a head with, what I initially thought to be an undress cap. As it turns out upon closer examination it is actually a Scottish Kilmarnock with chequered band and all. Well I painted as an undress cap anyway.

The mounted officer:

Officers on foot:

Other ranks:

BTW: have you discovered the two glaring mistakes in this picture? Yep the serg has no rank chevrons and the drummers has no shako plate, I will rectify this asap.

Here an alternative head swap for the serg:

Cheers Sander

Listening to "Rock in Rio" by Iron Maiden

Les grenouilles bleu! Part III

Hoi,

While we speak the total Company of French Marines for the Crush the Kaiser project have marched of and arrived in England safely but I just had to show you the pictures of the command figures all of whom are converted up to a certain point.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Wishmaster" by Nightwish

The Great War Batrep

Hoi,

On February 23rd Koen came by and we played 3 The Great War games; one regular 1200pts battle and two trench-raid games. Now it has taken me ages to filter through all the pictures we took so now I can post them but have about forgot how the games went...

The regular game we played was a "village sweep" scenario my Germans (2 companies of 3 platoons each, 2 medium fieldguns and 3 HMG's) had to defend a village against Koen's BEF (he had about the same forces but with an added tank Mark IV Female). He had to conquer 4 buildings amongst which was a bunker. He advanced under a creeping barrage from the new rules from the Over the Top supplement.

Turn 1 and 2 saw my guns and HMG's do terrible damage to Koen's infantry but to both our enormous surprise his tank did not, I repeat NOT break down in turn one by rolling a one.

While the PBI died in groves Koen's plane arrived and it's bombs together with the British RA started to make it's presence felt and disabled my forward German field-gun and one of the dug in infantry platoons.

Turn 3 saw Koen popping smoke and his troops nearing the village edge. The tank rammed through a fence and the whitewashed farm buildings were taken by the advancing Brits.

The German plane arrived and a dogfight ensued in which the Fokker was shot down...

In the end more and more German positions were threatened and while they were not overrun the situation became grim in the end phase of the game. Koen had suffered from my artillery in turn 1 and 2 and so did not have enough infantry left to storm and hold the weakened German strong-points.

Eventually turn 7 came and I won by the fact I held on to 3 of the 4 buildings but only just.

Highlight of the game for me was this roll of Koen's to see whether his bomb killed my HQ squad, a real throw for Ray and his "don't throw a 1" philosophy...

The other 2 games we played were a scenario based on an Allied trench raiding force send out to destroy a German Big Bertha gun emplacement this because I do not have any trench modules yet.

We played it twice each of us playing both the German sentries and the attackers. Both times the attackers won. But in my case with incredibly more luck in killing sentries and loosing fewer of my own men.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Death Magnetic" by Metallica

Austrian Artillery

Hoi,

As I said earlier; my 7YW Austrian army is coming along grand! As I have two 3 gun batteries of arty, of which half is ready and the other half primed and awaiting a pj, I needed some limbers. My bits box delivered me two limber-teams, of sorts... I found one complete limber and team from the Revell 7YW Austrian arty set and one half team, I cannibalised two of it's horses for a different project ages ago. Now I based these on ad-hoc bases and here's the end result!

two horse galloper gun team:

I left the guns separate on both the firing and limber bases so here's the limbers with the gun added

 I hope you like them just as much as I did!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "History Lessens" by Skyclad

Vorwärts!

Hoi,

My 7YW Austrian army is coming along nicely. A while back I've based all models for the Austrians I had lying about and am now by and by basing, coating and painting them. The figures pictured below are a bit of a benchmark for me. They are actually pewter Fine Scale Factory Prussian Cuirassiers which must have been lying here for about 10 years... Finally I have come round to painting them as a generic Austrian Cuirassier regiment. I know these are not my best ever, I have cut corners where possible and as such am not overly proud of them but each time you finish a project that has been bugging you for such a long time you just can't help feeling good about yourself ;-)

So here they are

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "everyone else is doing it, so why can't we?" by the Cranberries

Terrain

Hoi,

Between serious projects I've been doing some small terrain features. The latest two I'll show you here. First up is an Italeri fence put up on a Renedra base. The fence has been made separate for diversity but also for storage.

Second is a set of jungle plants of which I am going to create a great deal for Pirate games (Freebooters fate and Legends of the High Seas)  but also for Colonial games.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "The Wayward Sons of Mother Earth" by Skyclad

Bring out your dead!

Hoi,

OK well not directly dead as such but close. I made this casualty marker using an Airfix Frenchie and a lasercut casualty counter bought at the Crisis 2011.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Dookie" by Green Day