Friday photo: Nazis having fun, I find it interesting, that I find this photo disturbing. I think perhaps we like our Nazis *fully* evil, if they weren't what dos that say about all of us and what we are capable of.

3 days before my end of march "reasonable hobby challenge' Deadline ...may i present 139.6 Tonnes of cricket-crushing goodness (!!)

I really enjoyed these. I will be posting a "Big Tiger Build' update on youtube at  the end of next week to bring you all up to date with the other vehicles in the build. In the meantime; hope you like 'em!!

 Photo from our latest game and video report (here)

Full res image here

Op Slapstick-Italy '43; The concluding second part of the mini campaign, German FJ vs British....

10 September, 1943. Operation "Slapstick".

• British Paratroopers from 156 Parachute Bn, having seized Key strategic points of entry into Mottola , now assault the German Fallschirmjager defenders in strength in what becomes a bloody battle for the town.
• Scenario; Meeting engagement. 1000pts per army.
• This mini campaign will utilise the rules for campaigns found in the Bolt Action; Battle of France sourcebook.

See here for battle 1: https://valhallagames.net/index.php/new-ba-batrep-on-our-youtube-op-slapstick-italy-43

 With 3 minutes to spare (based on Australian time) I have [mostly] finished my "reasonable hobby goal".

This is the first vehicle weathering that I have ever done and Dan has rightly identified that I was procrastinating. In the last podcast Dan challenged me to have it finished by 17 March the results are below. First time with oil panel tinting, weathering, streaking, and pigments.

Details to follow but for now I hope you like it as much as I do.

Before and after:

Peter West From Bolt action Australia already gave us the scoop on this but listed now with an image and blurb, due October 2019:

Bolt Action: Campaign: Mariana & Palau Islands
The Mariana and Palau Islands campaign, also known as Operation Forager, was intended to facilitate the recapture of the Philippines and to provide bases for the bombing of the Japanese mainland. This new Campaign Book for Bolt Action allows players to refight the fierce battles of Saipan, Peleliu, Guam, and many others. With new, linked scenarios, rules, troop types, and Theater Selectors provide plenty of options for both novice and veteran players alike.

As discussed in our last podcast [here], my project for 2020 (yes 2020 and I need to start now to make sure I gets done in time!) is a large number of some really nice scratch built Western France WWII buildings, however this technique would work for any era historical or fantasy. Before I clear the hobby desk for more pressing projects I wanted to share with you the small amount of progress I have made so far.
 
All the cool kids are making really nice buildings using clay over foam core that has been sculpted for the appropriate texture and I thought I would try may hand at that with/without subsequent duplication by casting in resin. To that end I have made a small test piece and explained the steps below.

Step I:

In the image below (1) I have rolled out some Das air dry clay to about 2mm thick and then stuck it to a scrap piece of foam core board with PVA glue.

Thing I learned in step I:

• Use Das clay not the random stuff you find at you closest art or junk store. My non branded clay all cracked within 24 hours
• Don't use too much PVA "just in case". A thin, even smear holds a lot better then what you might think.

Step II:
I used two different methods of sculpting some rough bricks, I have heard that people use both methods. Method A (2 in the image below) was a very rough try with a wooden cooking skewer (essentially a large wooden toothpick) immediately while the clay was still wet. Method B (3 in the image below) after 24 hours the clay was very dry (it's hot here currently) and the light, somewhat pathetic, scratches were made with a light duty craft knife and metal ruler.

Things I learned in step II:

• If you want a decently deep brick line without having to press REALLY hard then do it when its wet.
  

• Consider waiting a couple of hours? (testing required)
• If you do it when its wet it will leave some ridges. However they can easily be scraped off later

I made the brick engravings various sizes to try to work out what would look reasonable size-wise against the 28mm minis (not necessarily to scale). After thinking about final usage and working in with other configurations such as damaged walls with piles of bricks alongside I decided to purchase some precast bricks and look at what size they were. They have now arrived and a couple of sample bricks are shown in 4 and 5 below.

As a couple of final shots below show I have roughed up a design for single building frontage and compared everything to a 28mm Warlord games plastic miniature for scale.

This project is officially on the back burner now but it has been an encouraging start.

In theme with Budapest campaign release this week, a more sombre "Why we fight" photo.

My reasonable hobby goal from the last podcast (here) was to weather & complete my Panzer IV tank by 17 March, may not seam like a big job but this is the first vehicle that I will have ever weathered with oils, and pigments so its a big jump off. So, with 12 days to go here is a picture of what I have achieved so far...

​Comment (and subscribe to this post) below for updates.

The new Bolt Action Fortress Budapest Supplement is out now, I don't know anything abut this region and wasn't planning to purchase this book. 

However..., 15 min into this podcast interviewing Bryan Cook the author (and part of a team?) I have ordered. Another one to look forwrad to. :-)

Inspired to share by Brad Morrins "Cast Dice" podcast regarding chinese forces in bolt action, here is a nationalist poster i found tucked in a corner at the propaganda poster museum in Shanghai.

   It is worth noting that in Shanghai i couldnt find any museum with weapons , uniforms etc etc from the war....the nationalists have basically been expunged from history, and due to the coalition, my opinion is tackling how that worked for the war to be won caused too many headaches and questions...therefore simply not referencing that part of history started to be the norm.

   The main references i found were from the end of the struggle and the seizing of Shanghai by communist forces, in which the nationalists were referred to in every case as 'the enemy'. So much so, that i thought the pictures must have been the battle of shanghai vs the japanese at first until i rechecked the dates and detail of the pictures....

In this episode Rex and Dan discuss the recent Christmas break and the resulting all-you-can-eat wargaming fiesta. We also present the first part of our multi-part series on terrain where we begin a deep dive into the topic and look at the "basis" of wargaming tables, playing surfaces and play mats.

Show notes will be appearing at *link-to-follow-shortly* and while you are here we hope you will give us some feedback and perhaps send us photos of your best wargaming terrain build you can do that here: https://www.valhallagames.net/index.php/contact

Search and subscribe in your favorite podcast app or listen via the web player below.

British 8th army infantry paint guide, draft version in case your interested. I don't claim to be the best painter but if this helps someone you are welcome. Get it here

Squad of Tropical Fallschirmjager ( With breathmint reinforcements) stand easy on my shelf after varnishing. This is the last of the units i committed to finishing on our youtube channel on my channel update & plastic hoard vid....hooray!!

​Plus: 2 ponys and a peed mattress walked into a bar.......Oh wait. No....They got laid into the street as a barricade. (!!) I got this barricade finished also this evening also. 

   Its unfortunate the lighting was poor and the 'set up' for photo so poor, but heres another terrible shot focussing on the barricade  to see the barricade height and some more detail of horses markings etc.

 Painted Minis completed since Dec 15th, Dan;

28mm;

• 24 Italian Coastal Defense Division infantry ( Based by Rex- thank you!)
• 2x Italian heavy weapons teams
• 1x Italian Artillery piece incl. 3 crew and spotter
• 15 x German FJ in smocks
• 9 x German FJ Tropical fatigues

Terrain;

• 1x Italian Church
• 1x Stone Bridge
• 1.5 m2 of teddy bear fur hay and grass fields
• Painted ONLY; 1x medium (!) Hill ( Made by Rex)
• Painted ONLY; 1x small (!) Hill ( Made by Rex)
• 1x table worth of textured flexible rural roads
• 1 x street barricade ( ponys, mattress, crate & sandbags)

TABLE CLEARED READY FOR NEW TASKINGS!!

Dan​

Relatively easy terrain project, basically free unlimited Normandy houses & a great project for the kids. Start to get your D-Day/operation Overlord action going now.

Well done Dan Buman (and http://www.davesgames.net/)

Wanting to finally see proper pictures of the new commonwealth infantry sprue heads??!!? Here they are! close up and into detail. Hope they help some of you, as I was getting frustrated not seeing the full detail from Warlord....Enjoy!

So I purchased my first corgi die cast model in 1:50 scale. Im not going completely in that direction...just happened to see a bargain for less than the kitsets are being sold for!!  

   It needs weathering and detailing...but this pic shows it straight out of the box, and i thought that shows how good they are!

   I will do another post soon showing size comparisons to 1/56 etc. 

  Enjoy your weekend! Dan

 In a fit of rage I went out and purchased a new camera lens, new tripod, tethering cable for shooting connected to the PC and a wireless shutter release. (well… its new to me anyway)

Below are the first couple of photos out of the new lens, I'm a lot happier with these than the results with my previous gear still a long way to go in terms of skill.

It does bring about another question though, how close is too close in miniature photography, for my minis if I go too close you start to see brush marks and dust (a surprising amount of dust!) and that actually detracts from the image. Perhaps its mini dioramas that are the next step, a small squad, a building and some trees all arranged nicely.

Perfect miniature photography may be like the perfect battle report, perhaps it doesn't exist?