Sherman VC Firefly

For Christmas my mother in law bought me this Sherman Firefly for bolt action and Konflikt 47. I've wanted one of these for ages (especially after watching Fury ). I've always felt my Brits needed a serious anti tank threat and I'm not a massive fan of static artillery pieces but I am a massive fam of tanks 😃.
The kit was fairly easy to assemble I only struggled with the tiny bits like tow hooks and head lamps (I'm going to have to accept my terrible eyes and get tweezers I think ).
I think it looks a really good model and can't wait to get it painted up.

I added the hedge cutter as I like spikey bits on my tank making them look more menacing 😃. I chose the tank commander showing out of the tank hatch as my other Sherman (Just a normal one) has both hatches closed. Looking at this picture I need to get in the habit of sanding off the lines from where I've clicked the boys of the sprues. Can you use an emery board for this?
Also noticed after it was pointed out to me that I've added the 50. Cal machine gun to the top qhen British tanks didn't have them. ...oops!! Ah well still looks cool  ☺
Looking forward to painting this!

Christmas Haul

Happy New year guys hope you all had a good Christmas. Thought I would share a quick blog about stuff I got for christmas  (Hobby related pretty sure you don't want to know about my socks and shower gel ). Not a huge haul this year as I'm stuck for models I want. I've mentioned before I am waiting for the rift tech equipped British soldiers and the new British mach called the Merlin. Well in the Facebook groups photos were released of both units and an early next year release date announced!

Merlin Mech

I asked my wife for the D&D players handbook.  Hopefully I can play more D&D this year and the handbook gives me more detail when making characters. 

Christmas day I got the handbook and also a Sherman Firefly which I've always wanted.  Also starship troopers 5 and a retro gaming hand held thing.

Also aquired another T-64 for Tanks Modern Age. I don't really want a Russian force but I need some enemies to shoot at! Hopefully I can pick uo some British forces in the new year 

My friend (He has an awesome blog . Check out  Alex's blog ) gave my family this book.  War game rules for little kids.  I have 2 boys under 5 who love to watch me and Alex play our war games  (They are mostly in it for the Pringles they get to be fair) and I would love for them to get into the hobby at some point ask this will help. Can't wait to have a good read through. 
I have a couple of Amazon vouchers which will possibly be used quite sensibly to buy a carry case as my shelves are getting quite full now of British web infantry.  I may have some more coming so they will bolster my British Tanks Modern Age force to face off against the Russians .
I also got a GW book. Not had one of those in ages!

While I don't play the games any more I still love the fluff and was intrigued when they said Gullimann was coming back so I wanted to find out about it as I love the ultramarine books.
Well that's it so far. Have yourselves a great holiday period!

Added this section as I forgot this Amera Plastics bridge my dad for me. This will extend my river sections a bit more now. Slightly smaller for 28mm but I decried to take it as just a small bridge ☺

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas guys thank you for reading about my adventures in casual wargaming.  Hope Santa brings you plenty of hobby stuff!  Have a good one guys !

Escape!! (Games Night)

Tonight's Battlefield

Lt Jenkins and his remaining troops  were desperatly trying to get back to the allied lines but with resources being stretched thin only a small rescue force was dispatched out into the dark  to meet them. With the professor being a prisoner this ment the mission was top secret so no units on the line were informed of the details just the need to be aware of extra enemy activity in the area. The troops on the front line could not move and could only attempt to target enemies that got close to the front line and the British won if the professor was took off the board.  Germans win if they rescue the professoror kill him.

The Allied front line held by British units. The rescue force waiting for the go

Lt Jenkins and his men rush through the woods away from the chasing Germans

Lt Jenkins has Professor Lange with him and his 2 men  but each turn Lange will have a chance to escape in a roll of a 6 (pins on Lt Jenkins  add 1 to each roll for Lange )
The German forces start off the board but are in hot pursuit.

With a horrifying screech the Nachtjager appear

An inhuman howl rips across the battlefield as the Shreckwulfen bounded through the trees

The Nachtjager spy the running British soldiers

The Nachtjager swoop down on the paratroopers but Sgt Harwood keeps the unit calm in the face of the horrors and they gun them down at point blank range

The German forces started to appear on mass but as it was night time the British could only hear the rumble of engines and clanking of tracks.

Colin and Jimmy the snipers try and pick out vehicles in the pitch black

"Crikey!! Jimmy the Germans are here"

A German Puma tries to pick out the British Paras in the dark but to bo avail

The night fighting rules really hampered shooting this game!

The rescue force sallys forth from the Allied lines. Lt Jenkins moves towards them. Lange sees no opportunity to escape yet

The Tiger X obliterates a single paratrooper with its rail gun (Dread to think what that looked like! !!)

German troops spill out of a truck and add more fire to the exposed paratroopers

The SAS jeep moves to cover the Bren Carrier while it stops to pick up the Lt, his men and Lange

"Let's get bloody out of here!"

The rules for getting in transports really slowed down my plans (They make perfect sense just not helpful when you've got a Tiger after you! )

The Tiger hits the half track with a railgun round. Miraculously the halftrack survives!!!

The half track suffered a rail gun hit which rolled quite high on penetration so got 2 rolls on damage chart. However lucky for the half track a crew stunned and a set in fire were rolled.  The crew passed their panic test and put the fire out.

Sgt Harwood gets his men into the cover of some ruins

The snipers hide in the crater as the Tiger rumbles by

German forces spill out of their vehicles into the darkness

At this point things were looking ok for the British.  I had the Professor near a vehicle ready to speed back to lines.

A withering hail of bullets from the Germans destroyed the SAS jeep

The schreckwulfen out to revenge their fallen brother (see my earlier Escape blog post) fall upon the snipers who are ripped to shreds RIP Colin and Jimmy

Lt Jenkins with prisoner get into a Bren Carrier and head off

With the professor bundled into the carrier he had still failed to escape the British clutches and cursed the damn Tommies.

Disaster! ! The Tigers railgun slices through the Bren Carrier like a hot knife through butter

Lt Jenkins, his men and Professor Lange all survived the explosion but thrown to the ground.
The other Bren Carrier had moved up to pick up the surviving paratroopers.

2 panzerfausts strike the remaining Bren Carrier setting it on fire. The crew abandoned the vehicle leaving the paras stranded

The Puma sprays Lt Jenkins and his men with bullets from its MMG but didn't cause any casualties

The Germans close in on the British

The Cromwell crew thought they heard vehicles in the gloom but could not pick anything out to shoot at

The troops manning the trenches saw movement and let loose a volley of rifle fire. Talking down a schreckwulfen

The front line troops were starting to get a sniff of the Germans now so they were having to be careful how close they got now.

Professor Lange appeared to have recovered faster from the vehicle explosion than the British soldiers and he made his escape with the very last roll of the last normal turn.

Professor Lange sprints towards the German soldiers

We rolled to see if there would be an extra turn at the end of the game which there was!

The Puma covers the professor's retreat with its MMG but causing no damage

Professor Lange cackiling madly boards a German truck and waves good bye to the accursed Tommies

The Germans started to turn their forces round and head away from the British lines fearing a reprisal and not knowing the line troops hadn't much of a clue what was going on.

The German force pulls back

The Schreckwulfen ignore any orders of withdrawal and leap into Lt Jenkins and his men and rip them to shreds

Before Lt Jenkins can get to the half track or the half track can provide cover fire the Schreckwulfen tear the soldiers to pieces.

The halftracks HMG exacts revenge on the Schreckwulfen

The HMG gunfire died down and as it finished an eery quiet set across the battle field. Sgt Harwood gathered his remaining paras and climbed aboard the half track. The half track limped back to Allied lines. An officer walked up to the sergeant as he jumped out of the Half track and said in a posh public school accent.
"Sgt Harwood. I'm Major Whitaker   Damn shame about what happened out there." Sgt Harwood spat with disdain.
"Its a damn something sir.  Where the hell was the rest of the support? Seems everyone here is sat on their arses "
"Sergeant I told the general that pitiful rescue force was an awful idea. Good men died today for no reason" Major Whitaker said. He looked at the survivors, scratched his head. "You boys want revenge on that fool Lange? "
The paras all nodded,
"Excellent! You chaps work for me now. Theres my transport so get yourselves aboard." Major Whitaker nodded his head in the direction of a lorry parked to one side.
"And what do you do sir?" Sgt Harwood asked cynically.
Major Whitaker tapped his nose,
"All very hush hush my good man. " he walked towards the lorry. 
"Come on then lads. There's a war to win".

So the British lost the scenario failing to get the prisoner back to friendly lines. Professor Lange is again free to do whatever evil things he wants. We could not believe how cinematic the ending of the game was!  The last escape roll and the professor makes off back to the German lines. This keeps our games storyline going better than we thought.  Amazing how the games are taking on a cinematic thred of their own and we look forward to seeing what happens next!

Terrain

I got painting the river sections I had bought from the model shop in Wales  (post is here ) and the crater I won from Amera Plastics in there 12 days of Christmas competition. 
The river sections were painted a basic green and flock added. Blue was used for the water, I avoided the epoxy stuff as I just wanted a nice basic look. I remembered the trouble I had last time with paint peeling (tale of woe is here ) so I have them all a good scrub in hot soapy water and  added PVA glue to the base paint and so far it's not peeling.

River Curve

RIver Fork

Next up was the crater I won. After being scrubbed in warm soapy water and dried. I started layering different shades of brown on to it for the earth broken up by a crater

I then added lighter times of brown and very light highlights to the edges of the crater. I also picked out some rocks in the piece and painted them grey to make them stand out. Then I added flock and called it done

The rocks help it pop out I think

Finished piece

I think it looks really good and shows how good Amera Plastic stuff is. 

Escape!!

Lt Jenkins sprinted through the woods, sweat soaking his uniform and stinging his eyes. He wiped his fore head and stopped to check his surroundings. The mission he thought to himself had gone to pot, most of his force wiped out of captured but Sgt Harwood had grabbed Professor Lange and his squad destroyed the horror factory which would keep command happy at least. The 2 men with him stopped, bundled a body to the floor. They started to scan the area with their weapons, eyes straining into the dark and breathing heavily.  Hurried Foot falls approached behind the 3 British soldiers, Lt Jenkins readied his Sten gun and he whispered "Utrinque"
The foot steps stopped and hard breathing could be heard.
"Utrinque!!" Jenkins said again in ernest.
"Paratus!" Came the reply in a gruff Geordie accent. Jenkins lowered his weapon and breathed out the tension. 9 paratroopers walked into view all sweating from the hard run they had just done. Sgt Harwood came over and stood by Jenkins.
"Sir,  Colin and Jimmy are just behind keeping a watch on the rear. We any nearer to the meeting point?  It's awful lonely out here" Sgt Harwood asked coolly but clearly unnerved, suddenly a wolf like cry howled through the night sky.
"Careful what you wish for sergeant " Jenkins clapped the well built Geordie on the shoulder trying to appear carm. He pulled out his map and shone a red torch over it.
"Looks like we are not to far from our lines but let's still say sharp ok, no time to be already drinking the hot tea I'm sure is waiting for us. "
Harwood nodded and walked back over to the soldiers whispering words of encouragement and advice. Jenkins folded up the map, he turned to his 2 men and whispered "Get the good Professor up. We'll be off soon"
The wolf like cry sounded again but a gun shot cut it short. Jenkins head snapped in the direction of the shot,  2 heavily camofluaged men walked into view and quickly spoke to Sgt Harwood. He strode over,
"Sir, Jimmy apologizes for the shot but a German wolf man got too damn close for comfort. Colin reports that he can hear engine noises and
Troops in the distance.  I think they want their Professor back." Harwood took his beret off and scratched his head. Jenkins remembering a piece of intel absently said "I think a certain SS officer wants the Professor back. For what end, I don't know andnim not sure I want to"
An inhuman howl echoed in the sky. Jenkins flinched, "Nachtjager.......let's get the hell out of here sergeant! "
Harwood nodded and signalled to the two snipers who melted into the bushes as a rear guard.  The remaining troops looked to Jenkins, he pointed in the direction of the extraction point and signalled the advance.
The small band of soldiers moved out into the night gloom.

Gaslands WIP

Also I have been working on some more gaslands vehicles.  I have my slime Pick-up truck I mentioned in my update blog (link here ) and I have finished converting it. I located some model railway figures  that scale nicely with hot wheels and managed to find one in a matching pose for someone using an HMG (Well hopefully! ).

I thunk it all goes together really well.

The HMG is from a Tanks Modern Age sprue and looks really good with the figure I think.  I added the flag as Slime seem like a crazy bunch and would want the world to see who they were. 

Next up was my Myzachi team.  These I envisioned to be a bit like the Fast and Furious cars but I wanted some suoercar action as well. First up was my Lamborghini, which I forgot to take a picture of before I started work on it. I wanted to add a weapon to it but I thought as it's a performance car the idea would be that it will be ahead a lot of the time. So having a front facing weapon would be a bit redundant. So a rear facing weapon was needed!!!! After a discussion on Facebook inliked very much one person's suggestion of a rear mounted flame thrower (Rule of carnage always!!!!) !
Scouring my bits box I located a space marine flamer and some bits for tanks.  It looks a tad over the top but hey thats the way I want Gaslands! 😂

Can't wait to try this out

I've managed to undecoat and make a start on these 2 vehicles.

Works in progress

The pick up truck is orange as I chose  this as my Slime team colours and yellow for the Lamborghini which will be my Myzaki team colour.
Just arrived in the post before I left for Wales is the second car in my Myzaki team, the fearsome Dodge Viper!

I love this beast!!

This will be modded this week with I think a mini gun but not sure yet so we'll have to wait and see. Have a good one!