PSC Panthers

It's all Ashley and Scott's fault. Here's me minding my own business, randomly painting stuff and never really getting any of my projects finished and then along come these two crazy fools (Mr T impersonation obligatory) and get me interested in little toy tanks again.

Seriously though it would seem that my painting mojo has decided to refocus itself on WW2 models and I have been happily painting 15mm armour from my plastic stockpile acquired before our move down to NZ. The FLGS in my old neighborhood used to have a very nice stock of PSC kits therefore over time I stocked up on various German and US tanks.

So I recently managed to squeeze a game in with Ashley and he cheerfully informed me to use everything I have as he really wanted to field his Jumbo's, so this tempted me to paint up a box of PSC Panthers. As always there's the usual building up faffing about however Will is constantly improving on his kits and this is one of the better ones. This kit allows you to build up either the Ausf A or G, I've gone with the G and painted them up as fresh from the motor pool with red oxide base coat on the tracks and not much battle damage or weathering.


This is my first attempt at painting German camo and I'm quite happy with the result so I'll probably be redoing my PzIV's and Stug G's at some point although I do have a few more PSC kits to do so will wait til I've done them.

The desert village of Doo Ahh Diddy

"Sir where the devil is Jerry? HQ swore they'd be somewhere round here"
"Never mind that Perkins, where the heck is the 4th Indian brigade, they were supposed to meet us here".
"I heard that they were still waiting on their battle dress sir, some kind of foul up with supplies sir"
"Well the war won't wait Perkins, we'll just have show those PBI what the cavalry are made of!"
"Errr sir, shouldn't we wait for Tukers mob sir?"
"Nonsense Perkins, there's nothing those colonials can show us that we don't already know, come on Perkins let's give Jerry a bloody nose"

Yes that's right I finished my little scratch building project. I managed to build a little mosque type building with some light over bits of mdf, half a rubber ball I found on a walk and some die cut shapes that were left overs from the Sarissa builds. I also built some stairs for the main dwelling building out of some spare foam board, I then slathered everything with decorators filler and then mixed up some likely colours from my old artists acrylics.

The scale might be a little off but I think they'll do in a pinch, I may have to dress them up a little with some signage, rugs and other suitably regional accessories (scratch built of course!)


Now onto my Indian infantry I guess!

Something out of nothing!

My last post was about the Sarissa Precision MDF buildings I recently built up and I made the throw away comment that I'm no good at scratch building.
So on the basis that you don't achieve anything unless you push yourself I decided to try and scratch build something for Flames of War. You see Scott is holding a little FoW gaming day soon at Chez Bowman and I foolishly suggested North Africa as a theme. It then struck me that I haven't quite finished my British 8th army (a few Mathildas so far!) and I have no africa themed terrain. So I gathered together all the scrap MDF and card from my Sarissa buildings and set to cobbling something together.

The only templates I used were in my head and I measured up the dimensions against my US Paras. I hunted the net for a few templates of North African buildings in 15mm, you would have thought there'd be some out there but I couldn't find any.
In my next post I'll show you the finished articles, although I may just have to paint some of my 4th Indians or my Bren Carriers first as the gaming day is coming up soon!

Easter weekend project - Buildings!

The long Easter weekend has kicked in down here in NZ and what better way to while away the good Friday than to play Lego with the boys. Then once they're firmly engrossed in the magic of brick cars and aeroplanes I sneakily cram in putting together the four Sarissa houses I picked up early last year (while Mrs Me happily crochet's beanie hats!)

These were always planned as part of my Little Minching village board that I had intended for VSF gaming however I did get a little sidetracked on this project with moving my family to the other side of the planet (these first world problems are sooooo demanding!).

Anyway these buildings are part of Sarrissa's MDF laser cut Gaslamp Alley range, I know many people aren't fans of MDF but I quite like the easy way they go together and provide a neat look. I often find that my scratch builds are a little scruffy so these things give me that comfort of accuracy whist being customisable!

When ripping open the packaging you get some pretty clear instructions, several sheets of MDF and that burnt wood smell that has become synonymous with gaming terrain in the last few years. I found the instructions easy to follow, they're printed on both sides of the cover sheet and include pretty clear exploded diagrams. You also get some laser cut window and door surrounds, this gives the buildings a bit more of a 3d look.

The interesting thing about Sarissa's kits over other manufacturers is that the buildings are modular, I think primarily to allow you to game the interiors however I like the fact I can potentially mix and match them to get some variety. Also it means I can store them in box files, all neat and tidy!

Another nice detail was the etching on the side interlocks, I know it won't hide the join but it's a step forwards from other buildings I've built in the past, although I'll probably end up green stuffing the ends to make them look neater.

The only tiny complaints I have were that firstly they provided the wrong card window surround for one of the modules, this means that the brick work is showing on the inside of the surround. I should have filed the window opening however I'd already glued the window frame insert in place so it would have done more harm than good.

Secondly on one if the kits roofs the pitched roof ends were duplicates which means that on one side you have the chimney, nicely planned out and with many components.

Then on the other side a flat wall with two cutaways for the chimney components that aren't there.

I may just greenstuff that bit!

I didn't quite get through the planned four buildings (there was a problem with a police quad bike and robbers truck, something to do with jewels and lego 100 dollar bills!) But I did get two of them done.

Here you can see the modular nature of the buildings and a completed two story house.

Oh and obviously a quick scale shot with a LoTR Orc, he's roughly 28mm but a bit hunched over.
Anyway they should work fine with my VSF. At last I've now got a couple of buildings for my two companies to be based from (the larger one just has to be for Sherlock and Co!). Now I've just got to get the others built and painted.

First thing I've painted since the end of the challenge - Battlefleet Gothic

Yup, you read right, I've painted up some chaos cruisers to oppose my imperial fleet. I haven't played BFG for probably about 7 years but kept my fleet and the rule books in storage. I always enjoyed the game, particularly the spectacle of it and planned on returning to it again at some point.

Anyway one of the things that came out of the challenge for me was a desire to paint something nostalgic, so a quick rummage in the bits box resulted in finding 6 plastic chaos cruisers in various states of disrepair. So I set to with a sharp knife, some odds and sods of plastic leftovers and some greenstuff and hey presto!


The choice of allegiance for each ship was pretty much based on how they turned out when I was kit bashing them together, hence the reason there are 2 Tzeentch, 2 Khorne and only one Slaanesh and one Nurgle.

The only ship I actually planned was the Nurgle one as I wanted to try out some greenstuff mutations and I'm quite happy with how it turned out. I was trying to make it look rotten but also alive, hence the small section of spine showing to the rear. You can't quite make them out but I added some bulbous pustule type bulges underneath too.


The two Tzeentch ships were simple kit bashes, the towers were left over Tyranid guns and the fire was from the plastic balrog base. I'm not too enamored of the paint job but it'll do as the scale is so reduced you can't really see much detail when gaming.


The two khorne ships look better in real life, the pictures don't really show up the color very well. Also I did paint and glaze the eyes on the metal skulls as possessed looking which turned out better than I hoped but you can't really tell.


And finally the Slaanesh ship is supposed to look like a sexy beast but has ended up looking a tad Graham Norton rather than George Clooney. I wanted to paint it pink until I realized I don't have pink so went with purple instead. I added the metal "wings"as an after thought but they kind of give it a dark eldar look which doesn't really work.


Anyway that should do as an opposing force should I want to play BFG with anyone local. I've got electronic copies of the rules should I find someone who is actually interested in the game, however since GW canned all the "good" games in favor of the high return, minimum effort games I don't expect there will be any new blood picking this up.