Chain of Command at Gothcon XXXIX

I went to Gothcon during the Easter holiday with my gaming buddies Thomas, Laffe and Koen, playing participation-games of Big Chain of Command (Big CoC, written by Rich Clarke of Too Fat Lardies) and a fun time we had.

The following is a short description of what we did and some pictures. I let them tell the most of the stories.

One of the jump-off points

...and another

We started with coffee at my place on Thursday after lunch and off we went in heavily dented rental car. We arrived rather late in the evening, checked in at the hotel and went to sleep.

A real-life sunset over the North African walled compound

Friday saw us browsing the vendors and gaming halls and setting up the table for our first participation game, starting at 1400 hours and continued into the evening. Four players, each commanding a platoon.

Saturday saw two more Big CoC games and an evening/night game of ordinary CoC with two players commanding a platoon each.

German platoons have a much higher firepower but the British ones have the 2” mortar that showed its power time and time again in the following battles. A shootout between two squads will probably give a German win but the smoke-grenades from the 2” mortar gave crucial cover.

We changed the available cover a bit between games to try to encourage movement and manoeuvres as the games tended to become static with both sides trying to hug the few pieces of cover there were.

Victory seemed to go the side that actually tried to manoeuvre into favourable positions and in the final fight we threw in more AFV:s and anti-tank assets as we really wanted to see Thomas’ on-fire marker in action.

Burn baby, burn!

We were very satisfied when something finally caught fire.

Gott im Himmel. Engländer!

A great ending of the final game.

Sunday saw some frantic last-minute shopping (I bought the board-game Tsuro – great game!) and then a long trip back to Stockholm.

Afri-Cola – the perfect beverage for a game set in North Africa.

In summary: We were satisfied after an exhaustive weekend playing with Rich’s Big CoC…

Welcome new followers:

James Cotgrave - no blog that I could find

Wardy-la who’s got a bunch of blogs, for example Gjallarhorn - Viking/Saxon/Dark Age campaign, A Project too Far – WWII and Chain of Command and “By the orders of the Great White Queen” – colonial and darkest Africa wargaming. Well worth a look.

Pedro Lopez with blogs Pedro Lopes – his comics and drawings, and Warriors from the Danish Wasteland – wargaming in the Dark Ages, Old West and in an post-apocalyptic world – newly started and shows a lot of promise. Niiiiice!
Fellow Swede Hobbyworker with Hobbyworker blog – all about painting and modelling historical miniatures. Great blog!

Hangar in 1/72 scale

I got this kit last winter, started building it and put it away as I needed to spray-paint the components and that is best done outside when the weather is decent. So, off course, I forgot it.

During my big drive to tidy up and organise my gaming stuff, the hangar surfaced. As one of my goals this year is to finish all my half-made stuff, this got a bit of priority.

It’s a laser-cut cardboard kit and produced by GPM, a Polish company. It is cleverly done with corrugated cardboard for all the walls and the roof.

Construction of the kit is a bit fiddly, and especially the beams are prone to bend when you put them together and when you place the beams onto the walls. I used a good trick I learned from Battle Systems; I coated the fragile ends with super glue, turning them rock-hard.

A good advice is to dry-fit everything before gluing (I used superglue gel) as the instruction sheet isn’t very clear. I assembled the individual walls first and then put them together as an open box. Attached the girders for the roof after that, and when dry attached the corrugated roof. I then glued the hangar onto the ground-sheet and finally attached the doors.

I attached the windows in a different way that the instructions said, as I thought that looked better. So, do try everything out beforehand.

The end result is an enormous hangar. Really good-looking and a very useful addition to our Italian desert airfield. Soon to be raided by LRDG.

Recommended!

LRDG-crew

At long last I have finished the crew to my Chevy, and also two improvised LRDG-soldiers on foot.

The driver is original as base and has had his right arm switched to one that could hold the steering wheel. The arm I used had short sleeve, so I had to build a new sleeve and also shoulder with green-stuff.

The Boys ATR is metal and from SHQ. The crew-member manning it is also based on the original, but I switched the right arm and the head to suitable pieces from the box of little toy soldiers and shoulder and scarf from green-stuff.

The standing crew-member comes from Revell Scottish Infantry, 8^th Army, and I removed his Thompson machine gun and pinned him to a suitable thin base, and got a figure that had perfect height to man the Vickers.

The wounded man on foot comes from Caesar WWII Underground Resisters. I removed his Sten gun and remodelled his left arm slightly to remove the armband. Also a helmet from the bits-box.

The last man comes from Caesar WWII Partisan in Europe and is straight from the box.

All figures painted with an assortment of sand-colours and browns. Washed with Citadel Devlan Mud.

50K hits! Yep, reached it in record time, so a give-away is coming. I just have to have a bit more time to prepare. 

LRDG Chevy in 1/76 from Revell - WIP

Been working on this for a while, and it starts to look fit for fight. I still have to finish the crew-members, add a Boys ATR for the man riding shotgun and a magazine for the Vickers. Also some pigments here and there. But you get the feeling for how it will look.

A big welcome to follower Paul Smith. I couldn’t see if you have a blog of your own. If you have, then write a note below and I’ll put in a link to it.

I’ve passed 40K hits on the blog, and when I reach 50K and/or 100 followers there will be a blog give-away. Lots of stuff waiting for new owners.

Oil-cistern and… Cinzano…

The LRDG-project is sloooooowly going forward. 

After a month without miniatures I made a quick terrain project.

Every nice airport being raided by LRDG needs something to go up in flames. We thought about a fuel-dump with lots of oil-barrels, but that takes a long time to make, so I made a cistern from an empty can. When I was at it, I made two.

I guess desert airfields usually didn’t have these cisterns, but it will look nice on the table.

Cans hot-glued to used palette-CDs

DAS modelling clay – excellent for your terrain projects

Clay on CD to get the cisterns embedded

I spray painted the cisterns with Army Painter Color Primer Desert Yellow, drybrushed with Vallejo 865 Oily Steel and made stains with Citadel Devlan Mud and Vallejo Gamecolor 68 Smokey Ink.

Ground painted with a mix of cheap paint and fine sand, and the grass tufts are Army Painter Battlefields Wasteland Tuft 6mm.

I found documents and photos on the net about the Italian oil-company AGIP, and the signs were made from these.

Being an Italian airfield I thought they needed something really worth protecting. A cistern of Cinzano, of course. A bit whimsical, but who says we have to be dead serious all the time.

Wonder if it is good or bad to blow that up? Morale will certainly take a hit, but on the other hand the troops will probably be more combat worthy.

The Cinzano-sign from “Italian signs from Chris Woffenden” which you can download here. Lots of great, free, WWII-signs there, well worth a visit.

The map, “Imperio Etiopico”, is a road-map made by AGIP which a found a photo of. Great for character, but I wonder why nobody has removed it from the cistern. Nostalgia, I guess.

A fast and simple project, with nice results. Just as they should be.

Welcome follower James Brewerton with blogs Akrotiri Nomads Wargames, where we see what happens in his wargames room, Exiles Wargames Painter, great blog on painting, and finally The wonderful world of Mackie and Toddy, about Mackie and Toddy…

Also Paradox0n, with Paradox0ns Wargaming Blog, on terrain, minitures, tutorials, reviews and more – good blog, should have more followers (actually just got one more, me)

Sea of Sand - movie about the LRDG

I found this movie, Sea of Sand, about the LRDG (Long Range Desert Group) from 1958.

Lots of very nice details of the trucks and equipment of the LRDG. The tactics used, German vehicles, how the vehicles were camouflaged etc had some room for improvement, to say the least.

Anyway, could be worth an hour and a half of your time if you’re into LRDG.

Camouflage netting for aircraft

One of the things I started during our LRDG-terrain weekend, a camouflage/sunscreen for one of the parked planes to be used as targets in our LRDG-scenario.

The frame was built with plastic I-beams and tubes, painted Citadel Chainmail and coated with Army Painter Strong Tone Ink. The netting is gauze dipped in a mix of paint, white glue and water, let dry a bit and draped over the frame. When it dried it was stiff and kept its shape.

Hey, it works, too. The plane is nearly invisible, it only the LRDG came from the air…

CV-33 in 20mm by Frontline and a give-away at Wargaming Girl

A break in my French adventures - I’ve really had it with camo for a while. This time a suitable target for LRDG, an Italian CV-33 tankette.

I tried to weather it to look like a really run down piece of scrap metal.

The model is a resin 3-piece thing from Frontline Wargaming. Descent detailing, but a couple of bubbles here and there, so it needed some green-stuff.

Paints used

Overall Vallejo 916 Sand Yellow

Rubber rims on the wheels Vallejo Panzer Aces 306 Dark Rubber

Washed with Army Painter Quickshade Soft Tone ink and drybrushed Citadel Chainmail

Tracks Citadel Chainmail with a wash of AK enamel Track Wash (a new product I tried for the first time – I’m satisfied with the result, and will continue experimenting with it)

Applied some Vallejo Pigment 73108 Brown Iron Oxide and a generous dusting with AK Pigments AK-041 North Africa Dust.

Such a tiny little thing, here in front of a Panzer II

Soon some fantasy figures.

Wargaming Girl is a really nice site by one of the relatively few active females in the hobby. A very active painter, with mainly Ancients, ACW, 30YW and SF in 15 to 28mm.

Anyway, she has just reached 100 000 hits, and is celebrating big time with a give-away every day for five days.

Day one was a box of Warlord 28mm WWII British infantry

Day two saw two gift vouchers, one from Baccus the other from Ground Zero Games.

Day three: More Warlord plastics, this time a box of Pike & Shotte Royalist Infantry.

Day four – eight 28mm fantasy figures from Reapers’ Bones series.

Day five – today – we see another box from Warlord – Spartans this time.

I’m interested in the Reaper figures, and maybe the Spartans, hopefully I’m lucky. I really need a bigger plastics mountain…

So, go over to Wargaming Girl and check out the giveaway! There is still time to participate in all five competitions. And while you’re there, check out the rest of the site also. Well worth the time!

Willys Jeep - a 20 mm comparison

I’ve built two different Jeeps, one Revell/Matchbox in 1/76 scale and one from Skytrex sold as 20 mm.

The Revell one is specified as a CJ-2A on the box, meaning Civilian Jeep, and that one was produced from 1945 according to Wikipedia.

I assume that is a mistake, and classify it as a Willys MB.

Revell vs Skytrex - they do look different…

Let’s look at the dimensions (according to Wikipedia):

The real thing: length 3327mm (I assume that includes the bumper), width 1575 mm

The real thing in 1/76 scale: length 44 mm, width 21 mm

Revell: 41 x 19 (approximately scale 1/82)

Skytrex: 46 x 23 (approximately scale 1/70)

One far to small, and the other one approximately right for 1/72

As to the looks, the Skytrex one does have a strange hood.

Better details on the plastic Revell compared to the metal Skytrex

Finally, a big welcome to two new Followers:

Carl with the blog Hitting on a double 1. This and that on gaming and modelling. Nice!

Mauther with Papermau, a blog on paper models. Good!