Dan introduces a new painting challenge; how to upgrade a second hand Waffen SS force hes purchased and incorporate it into his current armies.

Join Dan as he talks you through his work on creating a fairly era-and-front flexible, generic Heer army force for the tabletop For future games of Chain Of Command and Bolt action. We hope you enjoy this. Stay safe everyone and pick up the phone and call a mate or a family member who might be alone at the moment and say hi. 

Regards, Rex and Dan.

 I got these magnificent trees as a Christmas present in 2018 now I'm rushing to get them ready for the game in about 6 hours. Don't call me a procrastinator I started 6 hours before I needed them!

 "Master Crafted" YouTube channel is reporting that easyarmy for Kings of war is now ready for 3rd edition.

He is saying that its moved to "the mantic website" (inferring that its official?) its actually just another a subdomain of easyarmy.com and not Mantic. 

It's now a freemium model as well.

If you are a fan of easyarmy have a look at this video. I note that its also saying "This is currently a closed Beta testing site and is not yet available to the public. " so make your own investigations.

 Miniature XPS foam building first time build! Rex has lots of fun and ends up with a great result. Check out the finished product in this reveal video. A classic Mediterranean building for Bolt Action, Chain Of Command or any other 28mm wargame set in the Med. Hope the customer is happy! :-)

Infamy, Infamy forthcoming ancient wargaming ruleset.

I have to say I'm intrigued, not to sure about another whole wargaming period but it sounds interesting and who doesn't like a Roman or two? Look how pretty they are!. Two Fat Lardies I'm going to need more than a shiny new cover to satisfy cravings for a new rules-set, videos, diagrams and odd-cast banter should do it?

​Well, the holiday period is a memory of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away for all of us now! Remember holidays?!..me neither.

However, as followers will note, I decided to make a crazy commitment to paint 12 seperate sets of models in my "Twelve days of Xmas " blogpost i did immediately before Christmas. How did I do?!!?....

Well; I failed. 

BUT; Did I ? in the post-new years resolution semi apocalyptic wasteland of Mid February, where guess many people are regrettably feeling down- I actually dont! Why? because i set a massive bold target that was always going to be a big ask. With the ethos that anything worth doing is worth overdoing, i threw myself into the task and achieved WAAAAAY more than i possibly would have if i hadnt made a public announcement of crazy intent!!

Between travelling to a seperate piece of the country, enjoying family time over the holidays  and then getting deployed to an exercise mid/late Jan i was hamstrung for carting large pieces of terrain and tanks on my paint list away. But, excuses aside, i feel like i 'shot for the moon and landed among the stars' anyway with the quantity i did get done. so without further ado heres what i got done;

Hope you agree and maybe you can relate or you might find it helpful to take another look at some of your projects you feel you 'Failed' at yourself and see them in a more positive light...remember its fun not life or death, and if you had a great holiday but ALSO suprised yourself with better productivity due to the challenge, then its got to be good for you! so i AM planning to do the "12 days of xmas " challenge again next xmas- whos with me??!!?

Regards, Dan.

Join Dan as he reviews santas gift to him; boxed plastic Red Army kit from Wargames Factory. Unsatisfied with the info Dan could find prior to ordering these, he's reviewed the kit , assembled , and compared it for size with others on the market in 1/56 and 28mm so you can get a real idea of whether this kit is right for YOU!

 Mantic Vs GW twitter

XPS foam building, first attempt progress log, just a simple building for a start. Photos after the "continue reading"...

This time in the Valhallagames podcast we look back on 2019 from a wargaming perspective and we hand out awards in various categories for wargaming excellence. Bring your black tie and tuxedo or ball dress, find out who gets the imaginary valhallagames golden trophies.

Dan gives us the run down on his recent Bolt Action tournament "no surrender" along with all the cinematic drama.

Lastly, we look forward to all the new ideas valhallagames has for 2020 to do even better with the YouTube channel, podcast, and audience participation.

Web player here:
https://pca.st/31ung25h

Show-notes here:
https://www.valhallagames.net/index.php/home/2-uncategorised/10-podcast-e10-shownotes

The best fantasy miniatures from a company that Rex had never heard of!! Firstly, I have to buy one of these Yeti's it would make a great "cave dweller" for my Kings of War Northern alliance army. But secondly I cant believe I have never heard of these guys! Click on the images below or go to: https://www.atlantisminiatures.com

While your there have a look at all the other miniatures, I think you will agree there is some outstanding stuff there. (NOT a paid promotion)

Something completely different, zero dollar secret Santa

The good the bad and the ugly of mass army painting:

OK I admit it I love skirmish games for a number of reasons but tonight's painting efforts have revealed just one more reason.

• The good; my painting has improved each new army puts the last to shame so that's a good thing. Still plenty of room to improve but heading in the right direction.
• The bad (and good); bad news is that these new plastic Northern Alliance Clansman from mantic games are too good! The amount of detail is amazing, sure that's a good thing but its going to take a huge amount of time to paint them.
  
• The ugly; how will I ever get a full Kings of War army painted with this level of detail? Did I mention I love skirmish games​?
  

See below for a couple of snaps of the first completed test model, after that I'm looking for something in a shade of camo green!

Test piece... on day when I have the real thing finished I will post a video.

So at this exact time last year; the beginning of my xmas holidays I started a scorecard of what id painted in the year. 

I admit to not always being current in updating it , but heres the finished list, as its been a year and i will start the 2020 scorecard as of now.

 DANS PAINTING SCORECARD 2019

• 2 x King Tigers
• 3 x Tiger 1's
• 1 x German Opel Blitz canvas canopy/sideboards (interchangeable with existing passenger open back one)
• 24 Italian Coastal Defense Division infantry ( Based by Rex- thank you!)
• 2 x Italian heavy weapons teams
• 1 x Italian Artillery piece incl. 3 crew and spotter
• 15 x German FJ in smocks
• 9 x German FJ Tropical fatigues
• 17 x Late war German Heer infantry
• 7 x Early war Heer '88 crew
• 1 x Heer kwk 5 cm static gun and crew
• 25 x  British paratroopers
• 1 x Wehrmacht citroen staff car

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)
• 1 x table worth of textured flexible rural roads
• 1 x street barricade ( ponys, mattress, crate & sandbags)
• 2 x concrete pillboxes
• 1 x box Girder 'Primosole' Bridge ( Yes- I made and painted another one! Lol)
• 30 x 'infantry dug in' entrenchments terrain pieces
• 12 x urban rubble piles
• 20 low stucco wall sections
• 24 stone, wattle and wood fence/wall sections
• 1 potting conservatory
• 1 wrecked opal blitz with box loads
• 8 various field entrenchments
• 2 urban barricades
• 1 x Tobruk bunker for static german gun
• 5 x sandbag gun pits.

I dont think thats a bad list considering the amount of time i spend away ​and in the field in my job as well as working shifts whilst instructing  our trainees ..its one thing to  say one 'doesnt have time' its another to really physically not be with your models and hobby equipment for large chunks of the year, so...i think a job well done! 

I will start my new list as of now and keep anyone who cares updated on here! 

Regards,

Dan

Not a day by day mission, but i do commit to painting the following by 31st January;

If you don't know already, ​I am making terrain boards. I'm trying to do the best I can do to make them as realistic as possible, I'm using a lot of new techniques or pushing on further with techniques that I already do. To that end I have purchased a woodland scenic rock molds and have cast up and stuck on some plaster rocks now I'm learning how to paint them to my liking.  The "its easy just do it like this" video by woodland scenic didn't work quite as planned and its a lot harder then what I expected probably because i'm mixing my own acrylic washes rather then using theirs. That's because it would take me 1000 years to use up all the products and they are relatively expensive.

Test 1

​Test 1, too dark (WAY) to dark need to water down the paint a LOT more

Test 2

Test 2, this was a lot lighter but more or less the same result??? I must be missing something.

Test 3

 Test 3, getting better, nice in fact but too red...

Test 4

Test 4, I like the result (not yet finished) but not the red colour. Off to the shop to get some more paint. Plus a few more casts required!!

Test 5

Test 5, happy with the colour just a little too strong. Getting close to what I want.

Test 6

Test 6 too light hitting on a roll of 2+ next turn...

Stay tuned for more excitement. I have had to create a couple of new units of measure they are called the; The black-current (a "black-currents" volume of paint), a pea (slightly bigger than a black-current), and a "SG" (that's 75% of a shotglass of water). Yes... I know!

Improvised Hitler's buzzsaw (...and hot too)

In this episode Dan & Rex talk about "the trouble with 28mm". What even is 28mm… it's not a scale? Rex gets angry, will Dan soothe things out and will we come to grips with our scale woe's? Will we have a prime directive to give to all manufacturers to ensure that when we open the box will we have "joy"?

As well as that Rex talks about the performance of his new soviets at MOAB gaming convention in Sydney. 

Subscribe in your favorite podcasting app (search for vallhallagames) or click on the image below to view the web player.