Rex, Daniel and I ( Dan) all went to MOAB for the 2 Day Bolt Action event, September  27th & 28th 2018.

This was Rex's first event and coincided with his Birthday also...a worthy reason to take part and for me to fly over and spend some time with the whole family prior. We ended up oddly taking a Fallshirmjager army each! One being themed around Normandy, and the other the battle of Primosole Bridge in Sicily.

We had a cracking time, 5 rounds of fun but tough fought games, on great terrain/tables and fantastic blokes who we played. Thank you to Bryan and Andrew as the  great TO's especially Bryan, who dealt with our early enquiry so i coukd ensure we had tickets and helped with local accomodation before buying the plane ticket over! 

Thanks To our opponents, their great armies, and all those who provided the tables and terrain we fought over!

We will be doing a Podcast on the event, so this is just an opportunity to post some accompanying photos! One or two are shared from the Australia/New Zealand Bolt action group page , so thanks and credit goes to the photographers for these.

  Enjoy the photos and Join us on our forthcoming podcast...Will we be fighting with Storming Eagles or Lame Ducks??...!! tune in soon and find out......!!

Friday Photo... woof...

Bolt Action tournament/event at MOAB in Sydney October 2018, the last game... 

www.motherofallbattles.org

 Tank riders. Doesn't seam like a great place to take shelter to me, being that other tanks will be shooting at these tanks but what do I know.

Podcast EP3 (parts a & b) are live now: Operation Fustian & The Battle for Primosole Bridge, this should appear in your podcast app if you have subscribed (Search for valhallagames podcast in your app) or you can click on the image below for a web player (for part 1).

Battle for Primosole Bridge reference material can be found here

Episode 3a:
In this episode, the first of a two part history-to-wargame special, we discuss the build up for a key WW2 operation in Sicily, 1943.
Operation Fustian was the British airborne operation to seize and Hold Primosole Bridge, a strategically important gateway to the Catania Plain and vital for the advance of the Allies and the success of the Sicilian campaign.
Facing the British paratroopers were their deadly adversaries; the veteran German airborne troops of the 1st Fallshirmjager Division.....

Episode 3b:
We return- in this, the second installment of a two part history-to wargame special- to Sicily 1943 and the Battle for Primosole Bridge.
This second part continues the story of the bloody fight for the control of the bridge between the British and German paratroopers.
We also discuss some wargaming ideas around this historical action and how you, like us!, can get some ideas to play this as a scenario in your WW2 wargames.

Enjoy, and your feedback is always welcome.

Preparing a model for Operation Fustian planning. Don't know what Operation Fustian was? Watch this space...

So ...I have been busy!! As promised its time to start revealing some of my project we've been working on.....Enjoy some pics of the Sicily projects progress

   Work so far has been around the beautiful Charlie Foxtrot Pantile buildings collection, some new walls suitable for Mediterranean battlefields and my first dabblings in teddy bear fur ( A.K.A; Muppet Pelts!)

   Work does continue, however...olive groves, vineyards and fruit orchards for a start! whew....! i will post a few behind the scenes how to's after MOAB is done and dusted! I hope you enjoy these few pics.

   PS...the next Valhalla Games Podcast will feature an important battle featuring some of this terrain.......!! watch this space!!

Here is the latest installment of my Bolt Action Fallschirmjager. Finished except for basing this is a quick look there were 12 in total. Unlike my current Panzer IV project I'm pretty happy with these guys. How would you like to see a squad of those coming out of the orchard towards you? Thanks Dan for the super secret face paining recipes, I'll do some close ups when I have a chance so you can see the stubble. 

I have something to say about camo and washes at 28mm scale that I have learned along the way. To get the detail on that "comment" on this post and that will subscribe you to further updates on *this post*. That way I can just go on and on about it without generating extra main posts (and notifications) on the web site for others that may not be interested in this specific topic. This takes advantage of the web sites ability to subscribe to the whole site vs. the ability to subscribe just to updates (comments really) on a single blog post. And keeps all the updates and comments together.

I hope you like them, miniatures from Warlord Games and Artizan Designs (the chunky ones).

 Friday Photo - the Fallschirmjager bear as discussed in a recent podcast episode. I'm taking this to my next tournament! If anyone knows the story behind this photo we would be keen to hear it.

Work in progress on the latest batch of vehicles

As far as I can see there is no comprehensive Miniature Assembly guides/Construction diagrams storage for Bolt Action on the warlord games site. There is this page: http://www.warlordgames.com/category/assembly-diagrams/ but its very limited. As I find/purchase/locate the guides I will upload them here for everyone. You can also access the downloads link from the site menu.

If anyone has some or wants to scan some and send them to me they can do so at rex@this_sites_domain_name.net (PDF preferred but Ill take anything)

In the meantime if anyone has a guide to putting together the Kubelwagen please let me know. (sad face)

The downloads:

https://www.valhallagames.net/index.php/downloads/category/2-assembly-guides

 

Friday photo (yes i'm late)

 So after a few hectic weeks where i was a lone worker in my work due to organised leave and then another team member having pneumonia (!) this week was finally back to 'normal' and I found some hobby time. Which is good..because this wednesday it will be 4 weeks til i fly to Australia to visit Rex and Family and then he and I and my nephew Daniel are going to MOAB in Sydney for the 2 day bolt action event! ( anyone wanting to know more should listen to the 2nd episode of our podcast, see link in older posts).

So: following our guide to preparation, hows Mine going??!!?Well..there are rumbles in the mediterranean..but that could be traced back to the Italians rations of Garlic eclairs.....

I have been working hard and now i have a truck, 88mm gun, SDKFZ 7 and recce Kubelwagon to weather and detail, and the Kubelwagon crew. I feel like i have now just got out of the red zone for time vs tasks !

Ideally i would like to do a display board, but i dont know how i would get that to Australia, so I may have to live without it this time!

  Where are the photos of them you ask?!? ...thats delayed for another task i given myself; getting a themed table worth of terrain together to take over for a themed game Rex and I will have, which will also be the subject of a podcast......once i have some more of the terrain finished i will take photos with it.

In the meantime, practice games continue....Had a 'blue on blue' game vs Germans last week, ( photo above) but this coming Thursday a game is set up to play Gordons Brits , i believe his army list is RM armour..? should be an interesting learning experience..

  Heres pics of Gordons army facing off against Nathans Italians next to us at last Thursdays meeting;

heres some more pics of the game between Dave and I . This one was key positions, 4 objectives. It probably could have been called 'key dice rolls' as there were so many fluffed rolls it was laughable! in the end it was probably who rolled less bad dice and i just finished off the better by a nose! another great game thanks Dave.

So, some future projects and some 'only got 4 weeks to go!' projects have /will arrive this week in mail drop. first up was this bargain buy; 

I got this zug on Trade me for only 75 NZD courier post included! Buy- rinse- repeat.

The next thing i have had to wait for from the UK....no hints will be given becasue youll have to wait and see!

....awww...OK Just one hint: 

28mm Panzer IV's ready for base coat, I love my airbrush!

 Time to get back into D&D? (note because I don't want to break the internet due to posting too much this, and not all posts won't (shouldn't) get emailed out)

 Bolt action Campaign: The Western Desert first look in this flip though video. Spoiler alert there is lots of sand and everything is yellow, start repainting those tanks now!

  Click on the image below to see it at full size, it's quite large and might take a while to load...

...once the image has loaded in a new window or tab you should be able to zoom or pinch to zoom to see the detail. I'm experimenting to see what can be achieved depth of field wise. Depth of field is what is in focus in the photo, not always the entire image front to back will be in focus, and with miniatures sometimes not very much at all!

It's not bad!, I'm pretty happy (for a test shot) its the best table shot I have ever taken, below are some samples at 100% taken from the photo in the link above (not a zoomed in separate photo). As you can see its "soft" at both ends but it's better than most photos I have seen of boards in terms of full-depth-focus. I can also do better just need to move things around a bit in the wargaming room. Also bear in mind that this photo is *longways* on the table so what you are seeing is a full 6' table "mostly" in focus front to back.

Bolt action artillery observer rules flowchart coming soon (as soon as I work out how it actually works…!!!!)