Finish it February 2023

 After a couple of years off I am returning to Finish it February.  I started this idea in 2019 and managed 2 years but the last couple of been a bust for reason already explained.  Part of getting my gaming hobby back on track is to revitalize this tradition.  In the past I had lots of unfinished projects to choose from but this year I am keeping things modest.  Below are three projects I would like to complete this month and, frankly, finishing just one would be a win.

This first one is kind of cheating.  Finish it February is about finishing long neglected project but this is a project I started last month, so, technically its just a WIP.  This is my Army of the Dead for LOTR and I painting these as part of the slow grow league.  This will not be my first priority this month.

This next project is much more in the spirit of Finish it February.  These additions to my Flames of War DAK army have been in a box for a few years.  Now's the time to get them finished.

The final project on the list is not too old but has been sitting on my workbench for a few months.  These are my Jordanian M47 model my friend Tom printed for me last year.  These will be M48 proxies for my Fate of a Nation Jordanians.  These are pretty close to being done.

We'll see how I do this year.  It would be pretty sweet to get these all done.

Finish it February

After a very productive January, in both building and painting models, I found myself slipping into a painting slump.  I was unable to find a project that inspired me so I decided I needed to change my approach for February.  "Finish it February" is my new mantra (at least for this month).  The idea is to dig out old, neglected projects and finish them.  No motivation excuses just grab something that is already in progress and get it done.  Now I have  a lot of these kinds of things sitting around so I will have no trouble finding things to work on.  Below are just some items on my paint desk.  I have many more options out in the dead lead pile so this is not all that might get done.  I do not expect to finish all this stuff this month but if I can get a few done then this little experiment will be a success.  The real key to this is no new projects will be started this month and only items where I have already started work will be eligible.  Just because I own it is not a good enough reason to work on it.

This is the 2nd battalion of the 2nd Swiss regiment for my Napoleonic French project.  These are Warlord models and I started these last year and managed to get them primed and started on the base colors.  This is what I am currently working on.

Age of Sigmar objective set that was released last year when the Soul Wars set was released.  I bought these at the same time as the Soul Wars set and started working on the,  Ii managed to assemble them and start on the paint.  I have finished one so far this month and I have these five left.

More Ork items for mu 40K ork army.  The Deffkoptas where started early last year with assembly, conversion and paint as you see them now.  The Weirdboy conversion was started amy years ago my my friend Luke and about 2 years ago I finished the assembly.  Now I just need to finish the paint.

This is the Sigmar priest from the Warhammer Quest Silver Tower set.  I started this guy last month.

May Work in Progress #1

I have been putting many hours of work on my corridor set for Necromunda.  This is from Death Ray Designs and is made to match the wall siloettes on the game boards. I also got the matching door set.  I really thought this would be a quick project but with more than 20 hours assembly and about 6 hours into painting I still have a long way to go

March Work in Progress #1

I am working on my first unit of Napoleonic Swiss.  I am using the Warlord plastic set.  This time I not only white primed but I am painting before assembly.  I really hoped this would speed up the process.  I have actually found it to be less motivational or inspirational.  Next batch I think I will just leave the back packs off.

February Work in Progress #1

After my last game of 40K over the weekend I have concluded I need more Killa Kans.  They really worked well.  Fortunately I had three more waiting to be built.

January Work in Progress #1

So far this year I have been working frantically on painting Perry plastic Confederates.  I have one regiment nearly complete and another regiment mounted on tongue depressors ready for base coating.

North West European Farm Complex Unboxing

Today I took delivery of my next 4Ground project.  I have only built on 4Ground kit to date but I was very impressed with it and knew I would be adding more to the collection.  This time I went with one of the bigger multi-building kits - 15mm North West European Farm Complex.

This kit is actually 6 separate kits on one box.  There are 5 buildings and one wall set in the kit.  Each kit has its own bag and its own instruction sheet.  I have yet to start work on these but I will very soon.  I am sure I will document a few of these as I build them.

Frostgrave Wizard and Apprentice Assembled

I am pretty interested in the Frostgrave game.  I was not interested enough to do any of the pre-order stuff but I will pick-up the rules from Amazon when they come out in a couple weeks.  The game is centered around a wizard and his apprentice and a small war band.  I have no idea yet what I want to play but I am thinking of a summoner.  Kind of a religious zealot summoning demons and such.

These are made from the Games Workshop Warhammer Empire Wizards plastic kits.  I am not sure if these are still available but pretty useful.

The Wizard and his apprentice.

Wizard

Apprentice

 Not much to say about this right now.  Much more to come once I see the rules and get a better feel from what I am doing.

P'Lugah Tan'kim Progress

My Israeli army for Flames of War is slowly taking shape.  I have assembled the first 8 tanks, 4 M50 and 4 M51, shermans.  I have several Jeeps to assemble next and I am still awaiting my Sho't from Battlefront.  I really like the M51 Isherman models.  These are some amazing models.  It would have been nice to see some stowage variation or even some extra bits to break up the uniformity a little.  The M50 model is not quite a cool.  Part of it is it is a really ugly tank.  But the hull of this model is a little odd.  The front is clearly from the M4A1 Sherman but the rear looks like it is from the A3.  It does not have the fully rounded hull they is typical of the A1 and the model is a different hull from the M51 kit.

I have already decided that I will be expanding this force.  I am thinking of using my US Easy 8 Shermans as Israeli M1.  Most of the M1 tanks were based on the M4A1 cast hull but there are lots of pictures of M4A3 based tanks as well.  This will work nicely I think as they would not require any conversion work.  Battlefront recommends using the M4A1 WW2 kit and using the HVSS tracks to model the M1.  To me this poses too many problems.  First the M4A1 lit lacks the fenders for the wider HVSS tracks.  Then there is the problem of the muzzle break - the M4A1 kits does not have it and the E8 does.  These are key features for me and just cannot be left off.

Mitchell's Marauders Assembled

I finally completed the assembly of my Mitchell's Marauders set from Battlefront.  This phase of the project took a little longer than expected for a couple of reasons.  One is the fact that the British 18lb guns in this set a are very delicate and fiddly.  It took WAY too long for me to get these assembled as I had to do one part at a time and allow the glue to cure fully before moving to the next part.

Another reason this took so long is my father passed away at the end of May.  This was a shock to the whole family and has impacted my ability to focus on 'fun' stuff.  Things are better now but tragedy has a way of bringing things into perspective.

As for this project, it is likely headed to the shelf for a while.  I have a few other items that I need to get done so this is the end of the WWI stuff for now.

Perry French Hussars

For the last couple of weeks I have been building an prepping lots of models.  One set that I have been wanting to build for a long time is the Perry French Hussar set.  I have known for a long time that these are really great models but it wasn't until I built some that I truly appreciated just how great these are.  I have built and painted lots of Perry plastic miniatures as well as from some other manufacturers.  Plastic has lots of advantages and a few disadvantages.  One of the big disadvantages of plastic is the inability to do undercuts and the loss of detail towards the sides of pieces.  These minor disadvantages can be overcome by good model design.  In the case of these Hussar models the design is just about perfect.  Outside of an actual model kit built by one of the large model company, I don't think I have seen a better design or execution of a plastic kit.

The kit has some really nice features that allow you to build a huge variety of uniform styles.  There are four different styles of head gear with enough heads to do the entire box in a single style.  You also get two sets of legs, one in dress style and the other with the coveralls for campaign dress.  I am not a Napoleonic uniform specialist, but to my relatively untrained eye you should be able to do just about any unit from 1798 to 1815.  There might even be uses other than French for these as well.

You also get an amazing set of painting guides that cover more than a dozen different Hussars units and shows uniform differences in different campaigns or periods.  This set is so well done that I feel like, as a complete Napoleonic novice, that I can built great units and have a very close uniform accuracy.

This first set has been built as the 4th Hussars sometime around 1812.  This is one of two units with banners included in the box.  Unfortunately, since I am not really focusing on Napoleonics this year I am not sure when I will paint these figures but they are so nice I just had to share. 

Tank Restoration Project

A few weeks ago a local gamer was selling off some extra German tanks.  Always on the lookout for a good deal this on caught my eye.  There were about 20 tanks, mostly Panzer IV variants.  I made an offer sight unseen.

I thought I was kind of low-balling but it turns out I might have over paid.  I have never been afraid of an army restoration project and have done lots of 40K stuff that was severely used.  This was going to be a massive project.

Here are three of seven PzIV F1, F2 and G that were in the lot.  Most had very heavy paint with the looks of 2-3 repaints.  Many had damage that needed repairing.  All were very poorly assembled.  The tank in the middle is featured in the pictures below.

This Panzer IV G was the worst of the lot.  This picture shows the hull after 6-8 hours of soaking in Simple Green.  The top layer of tan came off very easy but the other 5 layers of paint took a bit longer. EDIT: The more I look at this picture the more it looks like it was pulled from a Russian bog after 60 years.

A few more hours of soaking and a hour of scraping with dental picks give you something like this. 

Not all the tanks were in bad shape and some cleaned up rather easy.  Here is a good one with less than an hour of work compared the worst after about the same amount of time.

Here are 6 of the 7 tanks after all the paint stripped off.  The worst one is in the upper left of the picture.

This is the worst of the lot after paint stripping and reassembly.  All the tanks got a fresh coat of Panzer Grey. 

In the end I managed to salvage 7 Panzer IV.  These took about 10 hours of work, not including the soak time.  These are ready for the next step to getting back to the table.  There are still about 13 mort tanks to restore in this lot so stay tuned for more.

Workbench Update

So far this year has been pretty sad for me and getting regular updates on the blog.  This is mainly due to not painting as much stuff as normal.  Or maybe I should say that I am not completing as much as I have in the past.

This has actually been a pretty good year, so far, for playing games.  I have gotten in quite a few Flames of War games as well as Bolt Action games.  I have even managed to get in a Black Powder game.

I have been working on a few projects and I should have lots more updates soon - good ones, not just lame excuses.  Coming soon are some more FoW Fallschirmjagers.  I am nearing completion on  some extra command stands as well as some snipers.  We are trying to gather forces for a Market Garden campaign later this summer and my FJ should get lots of table time for this.  I also have pioneers, heavy mortars and heavy artillery to add to this army.

I acquired a collection of used German tanks for Flames of War from a local gamer.  At first it seemed like it might be a pretty fair deal but having spent some time with the tanks it is looking lots like a charity deal.  Oh well, I really like salvage projects and this one is definitely salvage.  I plan to use most of these tanks for a late 42 - early 43 11th Panzer Division project.  This will be focused on the Chir River battles.  It should be pretty fun as this will be my first winter force.  I am planning several posts for the restoration of these tanks and building of the army.

My Kampfgruppe Hummel project will be continuing as well.  This army should see time in the Market Garden games so I need to get this done.  I need a few more Tigers and then a couple of Pz IV and Pz III to finish it up.

For Bolt Action I finally decided to build the Perry British 8th Army and have started the assembly and collection of forces.  I have nearly finished assembling the first box of troops and I have a British Mk VIc tank that I got for Warlord during their big tanks sale.  I need to add more support and troops.  This should see some progress as the summer progresses.

I need to get my Napoleonic French project back on track as well.  I did manage to assemble all the Victrix models I have collected and started painting but then it got back-burnered.  We are still hoping to get a BP game in for the 1813 campaign this Fall so time is a wasting.  I still need to acquire some more models for this.

There are lots of cool plastic releases in the pipeline that have me really excited.  Plastic Soldier Company has KV-1 and late PZ III sets coming soon and there new IS-2 box is really cool.   This is just the type of stuff that will get me inspired.

Maybe I should finish painting my Captain America and Bucky figures...

Enough chitchat...time to get back to painting.

French Napoleonic Project

A couple of years ago I started on a French Napoleonic project.  I manage only a single battalion completed at that time.  This project got a little side tracked in favor of the ACW project for Black Powder.  Now that we have a few BP games in it is time to get the Napoleonic project back on track.

My usual game group have settled on the 1813 campaign as our focus.  I am working on French for the time being.  Once these are painted up I am planning on adding some Warlord and Perry plastics to the collection.

If everything goes as planned I hope to get a big game together for late next summer,  Stay tuned for painting progress.

Random Update

I just realized that it has been a few weeks since my last post and September is close to being over.  I can't let a whole month go without posting something!  So here is something...

Actually, I have been doing a fair amount of stuff over the last few weeks.  I have just been a bum about documenting it and posting.  Last week our game group got together for a big ACW Black Powder game.  Tim posted lots of cool pictures of the game.  You should go check it out. 

We have also been playing lots of Bolt Action.  Our local Warlord folks setup a small escalation league and Tim and I jumped in.  We got in several games against lots of great opponents.  A good time was had by all.

As for painting, I have been working on my Flames of War French tank company.  I am making good progress and am just putting on decals for 19 vehicles.  I really hate working with these little 15mm decals.  To make things worse you need 5 or 6 for each tank.  Anyway, I am nearly done with the tanks and that will give me about 1200 points of French.

Plastic Soldier Company Panther

For my Kursk German army I am going with the Panther Company.  Since I am cheap...no, no, no...sensible, I am going with the Plastic Soldier Company Panthers.  I really love the PSC models and I recommend them highly.  This set allows you to build any of the three versions of this tank - ausf D, A or G.

Like all of these kits the Panther kit is really well designed.  It is amazing to me how you can get such a nice model from so few parts.  As nice as this kit is it is not perfect.

The trouble is with the instructions.  This kit suffers from the common confusion with the Panther version numbers.  Unlike other German tanks the Panther did not start with the A model.  The A was actually the second model and the D was the first.  This means that the instructions start with the A but it is actually the D and the D is the A.  To make things worse, the version that should be the A is really the early A that was built for about a month.  To build the most common version of the A you will need to do some converting.  The G version in the instructions is the later version that was available in 1945 so to build the more common G you need to do some converting.

The key to making this kit work is to do some research and take the instruction with a grain of salt. 

I have 10 of these built so now I need to order some decals and get to painting.  Stay tuned for more.