German Field Guns.....

A jump back to World War 2 tonight as I finally decided it was time to get a few decent photos of my recently finished Waffen SS field guns.

75mm Pak 40, Anti Tank Gun

These 3 gun teams took me about a year to get round to for a couple of reason. Firstly, I wanted to get the bulk of the infantry done first and secondly, Warlord's field guns have a reputation for being a pig to build. I'll be honest, they weren't fun but a few pins and some liberal application of super glue means they shouldn't be coming apart any time soon.

10.5cm LeFH 18/40 Medium Howitzer

The crew are in a mix of field grey and SS camo (which I'll be glad to see the back of!) while the guns themselves were used as a test for a dunkelgelb coloured spray from Flames of War (I think it may have been changed since I picked the can up). It's made by Army Painter (who's sprays I tend to avoid) but it worked a treat. A quick wash/drybrush combo with some sponge chipping for weathering and that was that.

Nebelwerfer Multiple Rocket Launcher

One thing of note is the bases. I was originally going to use some of the large oval bases by Renedra but found they were a bit too big for what I wanted. I remembered I had a bunch of ovals by Games Workshop and eyeballed the fit, between a couple of sizes for the different gun sizes I was onto a winner. They were used as templates to carve flat bases out of 3mm plasticard.

I've got an officer on my plate next for Bolt Action and the dunkelgelb spray I mentioned earlier may have been used to get something tank shaped prepared for the table......

Finished Germans and untouched Astartes..........

The posts keep coming, much to my shock I can tell you, particularly given how infrequent they used to be!

I've finished up the Germans I was working on finally, glad to see the back of them to be honest, they've been sat on the desk for a while half finished and now they are done I can move onto something else.

German Infantry Squad for Bolt Action by Warlord Games. Click the pic for a better look!

Next up another 5 Mk3 Astartes for my Heresy era Death Guard army to add to a Tactical Squad. For those not familiar with Forge World's excellent Betrayal book, Tactical Squads can be up to 20 Astartes strong - with the Death Guard's preference for infantry assaults a 20 strong squad was to me the best place to start the army. This will be 11-15 of the squad, with the command element to add last.

Mk3 Legion Astartes pre-paint

When I get a bit more time I'll be looking to do a tutorial for how I paint the Death Guard, anyone interested?

Germans and Questions.........

Been a quiet few days around here, the only real noise being made being the screaming as I get to grips with Windows 8, but more on that later.

Operation: Clean Desk is moving slowly forward, with the German Squad now having it's basecoats.....

.......and wash applied.

A few quick and dirt highlights and basing and these fellas will be done. Next up for work will be another 5 Astartes for my Heresy Era Death Guard army and possibly a start on my Blood Bowl team, but that's for another post.

Painting Black

A lot of the 40k rumours over the last few days have been pointing to a Black Legion supplement for the Chaos Marine Codex, something I'm very much looking forward to as a Black Legionnaire for many years.

I've painted black many different ways over the years and I think it my be time for a change for my new Black Legion force - what are your favourite methods for painting black? Feel free to throw a link up to pictures of your own examples or stuff you've found online.

Photo Editing

I had a sad feeling this would come. I recently updated my main PC and it came with Windows 8 as the standard operating system. I'm going to be fair to it and stick with it for a month or two before making the decision to keep it or replace it with Vista. My one problem is the way pictures are dealt with - my usual process is to do a basic white balance/crop job using Gimp but I feel it's lacking of late. What do you like to use for editing photos? Have you found anything useful online to help out?

I'll throw up a post later in the week hopefully with the finished German unit and a collection of the links you might throw up.

Until next time, may your end stay wet and pointy.......

Cleaning off the desk.......

Wow, 3 posts in a week? Don't get too excited, it probably won't get any better. Might even get worse.


The wonderful British weather has well and truly buggered me the last few days. I'm very sensitive to heat, and being a grumpy sort to begin with my fuse gets a bit shorter the hotter it is. It also means that trying to paint anything is an absolute nightmare as the paint decides to dry up before you get it on a brush, let alone on a figure.

I did however manage to finish off a unit of Forge World Tartaros Terminators to add to my growing Minotaurs Space Marine army (i'll show that off in another post). They were an impulse buy at the 2012 Forge World Open Day and hadn't been touched since. I had a look at the parts and made an immediate call to Forge World as the castings were disgusting to be frank. The replacements weren't that much better but workable.

I'll be the first to admit it's not my best paint job, I just wanted to get them finished and off my desk. I did however have a bit of a brainwave - none of the figures come with any kind of purity seals or scroll work sculpted on, something I didn't spot until they were practically finished. Enter the Grey Knight Terminator kit and a handful of long flappy purity seals later the unit was complete.

Minotaurs Chapter Tartaros Terminator squad

On the subject of cleaning off my desk, my next project presented itself - a 10 man Heer Infantry squad for my Bolt Action German army. Bit of a departure for the blog as normally I'm a 40k guy, but I was really captured by the mechanics of Bolt Action. Also lets me dip my toe into historical gaming.

Instead of the 'you go, I go' system that 40k uses, Bolt Action uses a container that holds a selection of counters for each player. A counter is drawn, and the player who's counter was drawn completes an action with one unit - whether it be move/shoot, run, overwatch, ambush or similar. Once that action is completed, another counter is drawn and the process followed again until there are no more counters in the container. At that point the turn is over and the counter is re-filled. Doesn't sound that exciting now I've gone back and re-read that but it's great in practise and well worth checking out if you fancy a break from 40k or other GW games.

German Heer Infantry Squad by Warlord Games

I've had the above squad sat on my desk in that state for at least 3 weeks now, think it might be time to get them finished. My Germans tend to get a pretty basic paint job as it's more a gaming army than anything else, though i'll  make sure the vehicles get a decent job with some weathering and other effects.

How my Germans look in the basic uniform. Very basic paint job but they look good on the table.

With any luck the next update should be some more work on the Germans, really does depend on the weather. Thinking the evenings will be the best bet.