What I did on my holidays...

 It's been a while. The end of last year definitely became all about real life and not a lot about hobbying. I'm also enjoying that realisation that comes with middle-age that my eyes don't work so well anymore and as a result, painting became deeply unfun for a while. 

 Mercifully, the summer rolling around and there being cricket on made for hobby time without glasses on a much more pleasing proposition. 

 So I've been doing a bunch of stuff with my summer break and herein is a catalogue of those things! Some of this will also be a bit of a steer as to what's on the gaming calendar for 2026! 

Flames of War

A throwaway conversation with a clubmate at the end of last year about no one playing Flames of War Pacific reminded me that I had a whole army of Australians that could definitely come out to play. So I made up a list and realised that I was, annoyingly, missing a Bofors AA gun and more annoyingly, the platoon of 2pdr AT guns I thought I had painted actually doesn't exist and I have wholly imagined it. 

But I made up a couple of Owen SMG bases and a flamethrower base to turn one of my infantry platoons into a Commando section: 

 

I also re-marked up my vehicles for the army with new decals from BF: 

 

McBeth hooked me up with a 4th Bofors gun and I'll get some 2pdrs at some stage. I've got some RAAF decals inbound to decorate the air support that's slotted in in the absence of the 2pdrs. 

I've also test painted a single Early War tank, just to see how it comes out with the grey and brown and I'm really looking forward to cracking on with this army in anticipation of the release of EW in February:  

It still needs markings and I'm considering throwing some foliage on them just as a colour pop. Historically correct? Probably not. But I kind of want to do it anyway.  

ADLG Renaissance

 Finally done. Am I happy with them? No, not especially but I didn't enjoy painting that army at all. The paint job is tabletop at best but honestly, I just needed to get them done. Basing and flags have helped with the finished product. 

 

 

The completed Early Low Countries Spanish army for ADLG-R: 

And while I'm not thrilled with the paint job on any given bit of the whole army, the collective does look pretty cool. That many flags makes everything better. I'm getting it out for a run next weekend and so we'll see how it goes. 

Warhammer 40K 

Having played almost nothing but Knights last year, I've been focusing on getting some improvements into my Guard army to get this army on the park again this year. 

A new Leman Russ was one of the first adds and, given the armament, I decided he should be a Commissar tank:  

I've also added some new support solos - two new techpriests (one of whom is nice and big for reasons that will become apparent...):  

And from there (also for reasons that will become apparent...) a converted Lord Solar. I did the kitbash for two reasons. First, while I like the Lord Solar model, it's SO out of place in my Guard collection and second, I had an excellent head with a Windsor Davies style mustache and it's perfect for this.  

 

Workbench

I've added a second trio of Bullgryns to bulk them out to a full unit. I'd like to give them a blat in a Grizzled Veterans company with a Commissar to make them more hitty: 

 

I've done a bit of a kitbash on the new Attillan Rough Riders to provide an escort for Lord Solar. They're all built, this is the first painted one: 

 

Finally, the apparent reason: 

 After much back and forth in my own head about whether to magnetise the model, I decided that the point of the whole thing was the meme so I, realistically, am only ever going to use the Baneblade:  

 

She's not quite done - some 3D printed sponsons are inbound (so I can have the double sponson list build with only one pair of actual sponsons) and I am still pondering the specific crewing arrangements but there will be some classic 'DRIVE ME CLOSER I WANT TO HIT IT WITH MY SWORD' energy though.  It's been a great little project that I've really enjoyed. I genuinely can't wait to get it painted and running. 

Next Time

I'll take photos and report back on the performance of the most hateful painting project ever. I have high hopes for the performance of the Tercio but we shall see...  

My Generation Was Killed - Part 14 - Cranes…

‘Sup Killers? Hope you’ve been well? Spring has sprung and recently its been wetter than an otter’s pocket… 😂

SO, Cranes you say..? Another amusing anecdote about something in Iraq I hear you muse..? Well, KIND of…

I do have an Iraq War Avian-related story, but more on that shortly…

You’ll remember I posted in an earlier episode about the USMC heavy recovery vehicles that were part of the MEF, and that one of them was an AARV, the Engineer version of the AAVP-7A1. Well I wanted one as part of the list, but there is nothing like it in the TY rules. So I thought what better place to put one than on an Objective?!

An Objective in the game if you were not tracking is an oblong shape that you place, typically in your opponents side and that you have to ‘capture and hold’ to win a game.

Now, BF don’t make these, of course they don’t… So I turned to my friendly neighbourhood Printing Man, T-Boss. He found a file, made some changes and printed me out a bunch of them!

There she blows! The crane is a seperate part and I think I will magnetise it so that it moves. It’ll be a tw0-part objective, the other half being an M88, that’s currently on the 3D-printing drawing board ☺️

I will then be able to recreate the real-life Tug-O-War that I saw those two vehicles doing back in 03!

What else has been happening..? Well I got on with another TWO PLs of Hummers! Yup, TWO! Although one is a bit of a cheat as it’s the TOW PL. For that PL I am using the already made and partly painted ones from Mr Bailey. I just needed to add stowage and will need to paint the European Camo scheme. I am keeping these in the green to make them stand out a bit and as they are not really a part of the GK ORBAT.

There are four of those, I just added the Wading Kit, recognition panel and stowage.

I also finished another Hummer PL, this one will be painted as per the regular ones, i.e., desert sand with speckled camo.

Some more scratch building and converting to make these more like the GK trucks with plenty of stowage etc. Went with one open top truck as the PL leaders vehicle for flavour. 🤩

And the last thing that was printed out this week was…. an E100… Yup, you read that right, an E100…

Here it is next to an M60 and a Hummer 😂

Last pic shows all three turrets that it might have ended up with, E100 128mm mounted on the chassis, MAUS 150mm and MAUS 128mm, both with a Co-Ax PAK40 😂 STOP IT!!! Jeez, no wonder this never got beyond a rolling(ish) chassis…!

WHY? I hear you ask..? Well we have an annual Flames of War game in December, aptly named, ‘Remember December’. It’s so called because it remembers the life of one of our dear departed gaming brothers, Mr Nick Garden, a true gaming superstar and a real friend. 

This year there had been talk of allowing a ‘Late War Leviathan’ into the lists, so I thought E100!! Then someone changed their mind so its now on the pile of opportunity 😝

And to round up, the Iraqi Avian story…

You’ll recall my main job here was to be the CBRN liaison between my REGT and the USMC. So one day I get told I need to go to the Marine camp and meet a SSGT, name escapes me. So I jump in the Rover and roll around for a while until I pin the dude down. Nice bloke, with a lot going on…

So he takes me outside and shows me to a pile of small wooden cages, each one with a pigeon inside. All sat there, cooing away happily in the sun.

Now calm down you Blackadder Goes Forth fans, this was no ‘Speckled Jim’ scenario, these weren’t career pigeons for messages, oh no, they had a far more sinister role…

I was issued and signed for eight (8) pigeons and given instructions on where to place them with specific grids. I kind of looked round for Jeremy Beedle, but not seeing the small-handed man of mirth, I duly signed for the airborne rats and set off to deploy them.

But Bob, WHAT were they for I hear some of you say, others will have possibly already guessed…

It was like WWI all over again, but instead of canaries, I had pigeons. Yup, you guessed it, in modern, high-tech warfare with ‘Smart’ bombs and drones, I was deploying pigeons to act as CBRN early-warning devices…!

Just like in WWI and in an old-school coal mine, the pigeons were there to detect gas and nerve agent. If they piled in, we would mask up, FAST…! Fortunately we never needed them, but this tale wasn’t without its funny ending…

About a week after I had been issued my pigeons, the USMC SSGT came rolling into my FOB, with a panicked look on his Swede. “Bob, man, you gotta help me, I am in the Sh1t” “What’s up my bro” I asked..?

Long story short, one of his pigeons had gone AWOL…😝 No, seriously, the flying rat was missing, and as it was a living being and part of the USMC inventory, it was now AWOL…! I drove around with him for a few hours trying to find it, to no avail…

He told me later that he ended up writing reams of paperwork, filling in offical forms etc. all for the ‘AWOL’ pigeon… Ahh, rules, policy, ‘The Vols’ ‘The Regs’, call them what you like, each military has them, and even in times of all-out war, they WILL be followed… 😜

And sorry, no pics of that event either… 😉

As always, thank you for your support, for your comments, and your kind words.

Till next time, ‘Stay Frosty 🫡

A little progress...

So, one squad of goons for the back of the Imperial Truck are done. They're a print of the squad in the last couple of episodes of S2 of Andor but they look so good in their black uniforms with Stormtrooper breastplates and pauldrons rather than the plain black of the Ghorman Goon Squad. 

 In an attempt to get back on deck doing weekly posts to keep myself on task with painting efforts, I figured I'd get the deck crew done. I might go back and do one more tidy up on the white once I dig out a couple of storm troopers and test the similarity. 

  Next Time

I'm going back to some 40K for a bit and I'll be working on the pilot for the Imperial Truck so I can start painting the whole thing in tan for the Scarif Beach Party.  

Remember Ghorman

 Friend Canny has been getting his print on for me to further the Scarif Beach Party and our collective trip into the new version of Star Wars: Legion, now that we've got all the new unit cards. 

 With that, I give you my proxy for the TX-225 GAVw Occupier: 

 

The Imperial Troop transport seen on Mina Rau and Ghorman in Season 2 of the amazing Star Wars series, Andor. 

 The joy of this is that Canny managed to print me a chunk of the Imperial Riot Squad / ISB Assault Squad from Andor as well to fill up the rear compartment with troops and rustle up a cab turret to give the thing the kind of armament that the GAVw actually has: 

 

Arguably the best bit about the troop compartment full of dudes is that the game has added a card called Door Gunners that allows for some side-mounted blaster shots, so the tray full of dudes actually makes sense! 

 Finally, Canny left a little treat on the bottom of the base:

 There's a couple of little details I need to sort out - I need to get some mesh into the windows and I'd love to get a driver into the cab. I think I can do it with some of the other models I've got, but it might also be a bit of an exercise in learning to sculpt the fall of a set of WW2 German-style jodhpurs. 

I've talked to him about the proposition of a TIE/Sk to proxy in for a LAAT as well, just to really take the Scarif Beach Party to it's most logical extent....

 Next Time

I've got fair bit of sanding to do to get all the surfaces ready for paint so some early paint next week with luck. 

Highlights!

 I've had a couple of weeks off but back on deck and doing stuff and things! 

PC Teams '25

Bloggers Pel, Scotty, McBeth, Pooch and I played in the Properly Cocked Teams event a couple of weeks ago. How did we go? Last. Did we have an absolute ball? Yes. Have three of the team started new armies for next year already? Also yes. 

So just a few highlight pics from my games:

Deepstriking nonsense fights deepstriking nonsense

My favourite fight of the weekend, Errant vs Stompa

Rottigus gets Lanced

I'm glad that this was the last run with the Imperial Knights list from the Index. It was pretty brutal. For someone who's not played a huge amount of 40K, it was almost push button and all I had to do was make my 4+ Invulnerable saves and basically smash a lot of things. 

 

So me? What am I doing for PC Teams '26?  

 

 It is. 

 

Workbench

I've also finally got my Waffentrager finished! I dug out the same toothpick-based method for putting ambush camo on the gunshield and then covered these obviously ambush weapons in foilage!  

They're derpy as all get out and are definitely one of the less nice models I've done from BF in a while - the moulding wasn't super crisp and the design of the gunshield and mounting is easy to get real wonky. Their plastics really do outshine their resin/metals these days by some order of magnitude. 

That is, I think, the end of all my unpainted Late War Germans. I've got a few whitewashed things to bring back to summer colours and I probably need paint a second platoon of infantry, but at this point, the next 15mm project I get into will be repainting my Early War! 

Next Time

Playing some KoW with Tank and getting to work on a new Star Wars Legion project...  

My Generation Was Killed - Part 13 - 9/11

 

‘Sup Killers? Apologies for the late post. This time of year kind of creeps up on me…

24 years ago this week. 24 years ago was the day my life would change inexorably, and I didn’t even know it.

Without that day I wouldn’t even be writing this blog. There would be no GWOT, no invasion of Iraq, Matty would not have been killed, and Generation Kill wouldn’t have been made…

But there was, he was, and they did, so here we are…

This week was going to be a tribute to my dear friend Damien Reid, AKA ‘The Drybrush King’ 🤴 

So I will try and get back there…

Dry brushing? Remember that? The age-old art of turning flat, single-colour minis, into glorious three-dimensional highlighted works of art! Well, that’s at least what we tell ourselves… 😂

Since literally forever I have been using this brush in the middle. The other two are newer, but of the same style:

I bought that middle brush around 1983-4, and it cost me 20 pence, about 50c in today’s money 😂

It came from an art shop, and I know it cost me 20p as until recently, it still had the price tag affixed. Somehow hanging on after years of being handled!

It, like its two smaller, newer siblings, is of the traditional’Flat Top’ style that I thought was the standard for dry brushing. Recently I have been watching some YouTube videos and have seen the new wave of ‘Wonder’ dry brushes that are now available…

So I thought I would give some a try and picked a pack up from Mini Kiwiland. Great shop, loads, and I do mean LOADS of stuck, slightly odd retailer / owner…😉

Got a pack of three as below: 

Now, unlike the trad brushes, these are a round head and way softer, certainly not what I was expecting. According to the online vids, you also use less paint… SO I gave them a try on the next batch of Hummers, and well, verdict is still out…

On the plus side, you can get more control than with the flat-top brushes. On the down side, I found I was only able to detail a small area at a time as I quickly ran out of paint and had to re-load the brush. So, verdict is still out on these. 

I’d be keen to hear any of your experiences with these or something similar 🤩

So, what’s been on the bench this week..? I have completed C/S V-02 commanded by SGT Antonio ‘Poke’ Espera. Poke’s crew are; Driver CPL Jason Likely, Rear Seat CPL Nathan Christopher, Rear Seat CPL Hector Leon, and .50 HMG Gunner CPL ‘Gabe’ Garza.

Had some real fun making these trucks, and they are all converted from the 3D printed Hummers from T-Boss. All have had the roofs cut off, and various types of roll-bars and / or rear cargo decks fitted. Poke’s truck gets the most detail work, just like Brad’s did for V-01. 

His truck differs in the rear cargo decks with side bars etc. Lots of fun with plasti-card and what not!

In this pic I have airbrushed NATO green into the inside and undersides of the trucks. This would have been the OG colour before they had the desert cam treatment.

Using some tissue paper I stuffed it into the gaps and ensured seats etc were covered. I then sprayed them with the ‘ol desert colour 🤩

Then I peeled out the tissue paper and et voila! 

Close up showing the fabrication work required.

Shot from the other side.

Then it was on to adding cam, painting in the details including the air recognition panel, and making the bases. Then I glued them to the bases and went to varnish.

Poke and his driver are converted from BF WWII seated GI and JEEP driver figures. Added heads from BF Marines, added goggles and CBRN Mask bags from Grey Stuff.

The other three crew are converted BF Marines with added googles and CBRN bags from Grey Stuff.

Shot from the rear showing added stowage and the spare wheel.

Poke getting the range on a target as the rest of the crew aim on using the tracer rounds from the ‘Fifty.

TOW truck 1

GMG Truck

TOW Truck 2

This week it’s all models, no real life. I think we can all understand 9/11. I will never forget exactly what I was doing when I heard it on the radio.

I had been cleaning our married quarter as I was being posted from ATR Pirbright to 16 Air Assault Regiment in Colchester. I was in the kitchen, on my hands and knees cleaning the grout in the tiles with a tooth-brush…

I had Radio One playing, and it was the afternoon show with ‘Mark and Lard’. I cannot recall what song was on, but suddenly one of them announced, “we are pausing this song as we have just had an unconfirmed report that a plane has flown into one of the towers of the World Trade Centre, please stand by.” Then the song continued.

Before the song had finished, they paused it again, “We have had a report that a second plane has flown into the other tower. We are suspending all normal broadcasting whilst we receive more reports.” All I could think of was, ‘Great, now I have to finish cleaning the house with no tunes…’

Sarah and the boys were staying at her Mums and I was in barracks waiting to move. That night I was in my mates room as he had a TV. I can remember us both being sat on the end of his bed watching the Ten O’Clock news on ITV. 

This was the first time I had seen what was going on. We both sat in stunned silence as we watched events unfolding. They played the plane impacts time and again from different angles, all the while trying to understand what was happening.

One of us turned to the other, I don’t recall which it was and said, “That’s it, we’re going to war”. 3 Months later I was on my way to Afghanistan… That was easy compared to what happened next in Iraq…

As always, thanks for reading, thanks for your support, till next time, ‘Stay Frosty. 🫡

It's the Five-O!

So I've had this rhino half painted sitting around for a while and having seen a VERY stupid army list on the internet this week, I thought I should finish it as a trasnport for my Arbites Exaction squad. 

Painting this much black wasn't exactly a hardship - I've done it a lot over the years. :) There's one last job, which is to cut the join in the top door through the transfer which I thought I'd do after it was stuck on since the gap in the top doors of a rhino isn't square. Hopefully it'll work. I've also got an STL floating around to replace the kit storm bolter with a sweet remote-control-looking storm bolter and hunter-killer mount so at some stage I'll get that printed and swap out that turret. 

Next Time

Waffentrager and hopefully the first stage of my random project...  

My Generation Was Killed - Part 12 - One Bullet Away…

 

‘Sup Killers..? Well, I did it, I actually painted something…! I can see you are all so proud of me…!

Had a lot going on this week, a lot of things came together. As you can see from the headline pic, I managed to acquire a copy of LT Nate Fick’s autobiography, ‘One Bullet Away’. Picked this up and it was delivered yesterday along with a copy of ‘War on Saddam’ from the same supplier. A bargain at just over $35 the pair postage. More on these later… 😉

But first up, MODELS! So I finished off the HQ element for the list, a pretty easy two Hummer section.

Obviously in the real world, this is just A Hummer, so for game purposes, I added a truck. Unlike most other vehicles in the show, LT Fick’s is still in its European MERDC camo, about as suited to the desert as the DPM on my Landrover…He did manage however to get hold of a tan ‘Wendy House’, so at least some of his vehicle is desert-ish coloured…!

Had a lot of fun with this one as I decided to make the Wendy House removable so that you can see the inside. This one was made from one of the ‘scrap’ 3D ones and looks pretty good, well to me at least! 🤩

These look a lot better ‘at scale’ (!) but I don’t mind the EXTREME close ups! 😬 

So next up is the other HQ truck, I used another 3D tuck for this one, adding the usual wading kit, exhaust and some stowage. This one gets a .50 cal, and the Fick-Mobile also has one ‘in-game’.

Just had to knock up two bases for these and I was DONE! Bases made as previously taught, noting the HUMRAT packets added for that extra bit of colour 😉

Right, well that’s the modelling aspect for this week done and dusted, and you’re welcome ☺️ 

So, these books… I haven’t read them yet, have in fact barely flipped though the pics. I know Fick’s book is going to be an inspirational read, no doubt about it. Nate Fick wasn’t ‘just’ a USMC PL COMD, he was so muh more, and I am looking forward to getting to know him a bit better. It was published in 2005, a mere 24 months after his experiences with Bravo PL.

The other book is from the Daily Telegraph, a UK paper and is undated, I’d assess its from around the same period of 05-07 or so. This one is a bit more personal for me. I have only flicked through it once, and it has already brought me to tears. I am crying as I write this, right now.

So, I am sure these books will be both informative and cathartic for me.

As an example, I will showcase two pics, one from each book that kind of bring things back for me, and not necessarily in a good way.

This pic is from Fick’s book and show the Iceman attending to a wounded Iraqi girl, caught in the drama. The caption reads, “…Aiding civilians, though often at odds with our assigned mission, became crucial to the platoon’s psychological health.” Yeah, I get that 100% 🙏

This one is from War on Saddam and show again, US and this time British pers attending to the human collateral damage that occurs in all wars. This was the page that made me immediately put this book down. That picture of the Iraqi child on the bed, who has been burned in a coalition airstrike on Baghdad, took me right back…

We had pushed out of Umm Qasar and forward into Basra, and had stopped for some kind of reason at a RAP, Regimental Aid Post in some part of the AO. I only remember two things about that stop: 

1) I managed to catch a sleep in the back of an empty Landrover Ambulance. I remember it because inside the Ambulance were two pillows, each with the ‘Crows Foot’ marking in ink and dated 1944… Yup, you read that right, I was getting my head down in an ambulance in a war zone in 2003, on a pillow made for WWII… I  obviously ‘borrowed’ one of the pillows… 😉 But I lost it somewhere between there and coming home, so unfortunately can’t show it to you…

2) I saw a sight I’ll never forget. An Iraqi girl had come out of one of the medical tents, probably an operating theatre of some kind. I will never forget her small stature, pink and white dress, long black hair, and the fact that she had both of her forearms missing. 

They had been blown off as she picked up a scatterable cluster munition. 

I just stared at her and wondered what life our ‘liberation’ of Iraq had now given her. I often wonder if she is still alive, and if so, what she may be doing now. 

So yeah, these are the things my mind sees when I look at things like this. And it might not be a picture of an Iraqi child that sets me to thinking, I can look at my own mokopuna and think on the same lines.

Thank The Lord that I have such a supportive whanau and group of friends to get me through those dark times.

Until next time, Stay Frosty…🫡