WeaponsInMassProduction

Vallejo paintbottle rack

2012-02-09T07:30:00.000+01:00

While my airbrush is away, I thought I should change something about my paint storage.
In two years of modelling, I have collected quite a lot of different kinds of paints:

We have Vallejo Model Air, Panzer Aces and Model color, some GW washes, Revell Acrylics, some Revell and Humbrol enamels, one single Tamiya paint, and some tubes of oil paint along with five containers of selfmade pigments.

Looks pretty tidy in this drawer, doesn't it? Well it has two major drawbacks. First:

I can't pull it out far enough to access all that stuff without spreading it all accross the floor.
Second:

Have you ever searched a Vallejo paint in such a drawer?It's madness. If your lucky, the 5th pulled out pot is what you were looking for. And you're not going to use only one single color ever. This sucks. Time for a change. Time for some...

...scrollsaw-action!!!

Ta-daaaa!!

Now I can see the name of every color on each and every bottle. That's pretty fancy.

On the side I'm going to add some more stand space for the thinner, the airbrush cleaner and the varnishes.

The backing is made from cardboard. I didn't like to stress the scrollsaw, my wood stockpile and my nerves anymore.

As soon as the temperatures return to a normal level, I'll give it a light grey finish from the spray can.

Hope you like this one :)
Next up will probably be some review of recent purchases. Again.

//mojo

Airbrush on vacation

2012-02-04T21:58:00.001+01:00

Since my airbrush is on vacation at the moment (it's getting a general overhaul), I'm a bit stuck with the Panzer IV project.

I managed to spray them Sandgelb before I had to send the Airbrush away.
All the skirts are fixed with plasticine, so don't mind the bobbles ;-)

You have seen this one in detail before...

Now thats #2 in detail

Stowage will be filled a bit more

And that's been my little secret on this tank: Franz the loader, getting rid of fired shells...

Hope you like it!

Welcome sebastosfig! If you have a blog or website, leave me a note ;-)

//mojo

Panzers in the snow

2012-01-31T07:30:00.000+01:00

After presenting the one-man-army yesterday, it's time for some armour!
Enjoy my primed Panzers:

Somehow I'm getting to like how you foreigners misspell the plural of Panzer :)
What do you think, when you hear the word "Panzer"? What do you associate with it?
Tanks in general? German tanks? Some specific kind? I'm curious about that! Go ahead and tell me!

Hi Steve(http://soundofficerscall.blogspot.com/) and Melvin(no blog!?!)! Welcome on board!

//mojo

Splittertarn 31 1/72

2012-01-29T14:29:00.001+01:00

While the third PSC Panzer IV is on it's way, I'll show you a test-paint figure.
As I said wrote before, I bought some Ceasar German Infantry with Camo-Cape (which is actually a "Zeltbahn", dear Ceasar-Folks ;) ).
I was evaluating wether its possible for me to recreate a Splittertarn Zeltbahn.

Well it is. But it's a hell lot of work:

This figure is not washed yet. But I'm not entirely sure if that's needed at all.

I used the special Vallejo colors for Splittertarn (Panzer Aces Series).

How do you like it? C&C welcome!

Welcome Steve (http://soundofficerscall.blogspot.com/) and José Manuel Chasco (http://miniaturas.sin-dominio.com/en/)!

DIY: 1/72 Scale Tank Ammunition

2012-01-26T00:03:00.000+01:00

Hey girls,
sorry for keeping you waiting. I needed a little timeout desperately yesterday. So here's how it works.

What you DO NOT need:

A lathe. I am pretty sure you have all (or at least most) of what you need around...
First, some information about what you are going to recreate. I found mine here:
http://www.network54.com/Forum/47207/message/1276298562/Ammo.
Sure, it's about the Stu. K. 40, but it will do for me.

Here come the tools and stuff:

Some kind of multitool. I use a Dremel
A caliper
Some small and fine files
Some very fine sanding sheet
2mm round steel rod
a saw
and a sketch with scaled measurements, made from your information source...

Lets start off! Saw some 3cm from your rod.

Insert it into the chuck of your multitool and choose a file with a sharp edge.

We start with the skew near the front end of the empty shell.

Turn the multitool on and press the file on the turning rod about 2mm away from the end.

You should have something like this after a very short time:

Now we will slim down the front part to 1mm (roughly 75mm in 1/72).

Hold your file flat and pay attention not to "harm" the skew side!

When you got it down to 1mm, measure how long the frontal section may be.

In my case, its about 0.7mm. Use a sharp edged file to "cut" it off:

You can really make clean cuts with this method.

This is what it looks like, shortly before it's cut:

Maybe you have use of shapes like that in some other project.

Next: Measure the overall length of the shell. In my case thats about 7mm.

Mark it on the rod.

Make a shallow cut right at the 7mm spot.

Now use your flat file again and try to position it like shown below. A very thin rim should remain!

Begin to turn the shell thinner until you reach 1,5mm.

While doing that move the file back and forth to obtain a level thickness.

Do not press too hard when you come closer to 1,5mm!

When you have hit the mark, take the sanding sheet and polish your shell.

If you're really keen, you try to drill the shell with a 0.9mm drill.

Let the multitool do the work while you just press the drill against the shell, using a drill handle.

Looks like that:

When you're done, you can cut the shell off the rod and continue on the next level:

Do a shell with a grenade :)

It took a bit longer to do the two new shells (left and middle), but it was quite worth the effort.

I did not cut the rod off completely because I need a base for making a mould.

And here's a little Mock-Up to show the size in comparizon with a 20mm figure:

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

Warm welcomes go out to:

Nick Grant (http://20mmgamer.blogspot.com/)

Marcin Nowogródzki(http://mnowogro.blogspot.com/ )

Winttrix(http://ulltramodernwar.blogspot.com/)

You guys filled the 75 followers :) Thanks!
Another round value: This is my 80th post :)

And a "thank you!" goes out to the blogspot-folks at google who finally replaced the "New Post" link in the blogspot headline with a "Dashboard" link! That doesn't really save much time, but still makes life a bit easier here :)

Good night!

//mojo

Panzer IV Ammo

2012-01-23T20:05:00.001+01:00

You may call me sick or whatever, but look what I just made:

I need these for my third PSC Panzer IV and already considered buying a 15€ resin Ammo set. d'oh!
This was done in 5 minutes and is almost scale :-D

I'll show you how I made it some other day!

Have fun,
Mojo

Preparing plastic bods

2012-01-20T18:29:00.000+01:00

Good evening,
today I'll start to show you, how I prepare my 1/72 (20mm) Plastic figurines for painting. The figures, which are used here, are Ceasars "WWII German Army with Camouflage Cape".
First, I sort out, which figures I'm about to use from this set, depending on what I need for my wargaming units. At this time, my focus lies on K98 troops but since they are kind of rare in this set, I need to use some MP 40 and StGw 44 sickos if I don't want to waste half of the set. I generally do not use more than 2 figures with the same pose, if possible, better only one...

Next step, I glue them to 2 European Cent-Coins, using PVA. Takes quite a time to set and does not work with all kinds of plastic. Especially Italeris "German elite troops" won't stick with it very good. They're either cowards or Blitzkrieger ;-)

Step thee: Unflashing! In the picture above, you can see quite a big piece of flash at the left lower edge of the cape. This is pretty unusual for Ceasar figures, as far as I can say after buying my second box. Nevertheless, I'll put quite some effort in these figures, so I won't let this step out, even if it's quite time-consuming and air polluting. Here's how it works:

I pierce a long needle through a cork from a wine bottle to have a handle. Next, heat the needle up, using a candle. When it's hot enough, wait about a second and scrape along the flash line on the figure. Be sure to keep the needle as clean as possible! What you see below is much too "dirty" and will stick with the figure in the next iteration of unflashing.

The figures always have some mould-release-agent on the body on which your colour will not attach very well. Since these poor bastards are frozen like Han Solo, they won't go and have a cleanup by themselves like my grandpa's pal does on the pic below :)

So you'll use some warm water with detergent and a toothbrush (hello DotT :) ) and scrub them. They are dirty bastards, late war, have marched some thousand miles, almost to Moscow and back. They are lousy and filthy. Give it to them!

When they're spick and span it's time to correct all those bent weapons. Here's an extreme example of a Landser who cuddled his Panzerfaust a bit too much:

The figure's pose itself is way too cool to not to be used (was this a correct sentence? =) )
The trick is: Hot water. Use your microwave oven, a stove top, fire some rounds with your vickers machine gun or use anything else to heat up a small bowl of water. I think this step works from 75°C onwards... Don't make it too hot or you'll brew your clumsy fingers and poor plastic soldier! If you're doing brits, you have the chance to earn the title "Tommy-Cooker" ;-)

Dip that poor lad into the water and wait for a few seconds. After you saved his life by pulling him out, use your fingers -or better- some flat tweezers to bend the Panzerfaust, his third leg or what ever to what it should look like:

Done.

In the follow-up post which is to come in a few days (maybe earlier), I'll show you how to boost combat the moral of your troops before painting them :)

Stay tuned!

Oh, but also tune in on my brand new followers!
Welcome Anne O'Leary (http://fortwitter.blogspot.com/), Zed (http://lonewolvesclub.blogspot.com/) who made me hit the SEVENTY FOLLOWERS MARK (Thanks for that!) and Anibal Invictus (http://mylardiesgames.blogspot.com/)

!!!

Cheers,
Mojo

Customizing a PSC Panzer IV

2012-01-18T07:30:00.000+01:00

Hey guys,
it's time to show that I'm not only buying loads of stuff. With the arrival of the goods a real painting- and modelmaking-mayhem started. Today I'll show you my second Plastic Soldier Company Panzer Kampfwagen IV:

Though these models are not historically correct, it's a pleasure to build them. Few parts, and well thought construction enable you to complete them in no time. Without having a instruction!

Due to the simplicity and the low price of these models (compared to "usual" plastic injection models), they are perfect for putting up masses, in a short time, but also enable you to create highly "personlized" tanks without fearing to turn valuable money into crap.

And thats what I've been doing here. I looked up a lot of pictures and figured out how crews tried to improve their frontal armour, tried to recreate the common loss of "Schürzen", ...

... and scratched a range-extender ;)

On this model I made extensive use of the etched sawblades. They're really perfect for jobs like this :)
And as always: I seem to need makro pictures to detect fails on my models. I need to fix the depression on the idler-wheels and add the machine gun made from wire...

That's it for now, hope you like it!

Greetings to my new followers:
Kris Marquardt (No blog (yet)?)
and
El Repartidor (http://mightylittlemen.blogspot.com/)
Glad to have you here guys! :)

Cheers,
mojo

CMK Conversion Kit: Sd. Kfz. 251/16 Flame Thrower

2012-01-17T07:30:00.000+01:00

These are the pieces which are contained in the Conversion kit:

The Shields for the two main flamethrowers

The Fuel Tanks:

Some pipes

Whatever...

The 2-way splitter

The flame-tubes

The compressor-engine

(again from the other side)

Additionally, there is one photoetched fret which is made by Eduard and adds some further detail to the modell.

Unfortunately I forgot to buy the original model and none of my local dealers stocks Hasegawa kits -.-
Hope to obtain one, soon!
Cheers,
Mojo

CA cement tool

2012-01-16T07:30:00.000+01:00

This is another part of my latest purchase and again it's a Tamiya product. No, they're not sponsoring me (yet) (hello Tamiya!! :-P )

It contains a CA catridge (upper right), a cap with needle for it (the yellow thingy) two very fine tips and a stock with buttons on each side. Guess what: If you press them, the glue comes out. Right.

It's a simple concept and it works great. Another cool addition to every toolbox :)

Byte byte...
//mojo

Photo etched sawblades

2012-01-15T09:30:00.000+01:00

This is part of my last purchase. These are "Tamiya Craft Tools Fine Craft Saws II (For scribing)" . As you can see, these PE-Sawblades are very, very fine (0,1mm). They bend pretty easy if you're not careful. Nothing for Iggy Pops Raw Power Hands ;)

I have to admit: I really love these. They come in a set of 6 blades for 8€. Since I have them, I barely use my scalpel! They're definitely worth the bucks when it comes to conversions or resin parts.

Have a nice day!
//mojo

If the gal knew...

2012-01-14T01:10:00.001+01:00

...what I spent so much money on again...

But I don't mind :-)
It makes me happy :-)

Cheers,
Mojo

Your very own rust pigments

2012-01-11T07:30:00.000+01:00

Hey boys! During the last point I introduced the way I produce pigments from pastell chalks.

Fran asked, if he should try it. Mojo says: Go ahead, dust them models! It'll take the factory-look from your tanks and stuff!

Today I'll show you how I produce rust pigments. You can spend lots of money on pigments if you want to use them. But seriously, I don't think they're really worth it. You can have it much cheaper with the same result:

First, go get some ako/Brillo Pads. You know these. It's steel wool combined with soap used to make crusted pots shiny again. I got mine at woolworth for about 2 bucks per 12 pads. I should have. But I didn't notice that someone had opened the box and took 2 out. Some people really seem to be desperate for them...

Now go ahead and scrub the soap out of a pad. Maybe you'd polish the sink while doing so. Your wife is gonna think you're ill, but your not. You're doing hobby stuff. Always.

Afterwards, put it into a jar or on a plastic cap and make it damp (not wet). After the first night, you will notice the first oxidation. If the pad is dry, tear it appart and try to separate the rust from the steel. The earlier you get it off the rest, the better and brighter your pigment will be. Keep this bright rust dry in an extra container and soak the rest of the steel again. If you wait too long before separating, you'll get something like this:

Well its still some kind of pigment, but not what I aimed for. Anyways, I worked on with it to show you what to do.

If you got enough of the bright rust, put it into the mortar and crush it. Make it as fine as possible:

You might notice that there are some steel threads remaining. You can get them out in two ways: Sift it!

Surely lots of the threads will fall through again, but still, sifting has another benefit as it makes the pigments even finer. It breaks up the clumps that evolved while crushing it inside the mortar.

The second way is to use a magnet. Put a weak magnet into a face tissue and hover above the rust. As rust is much less magnetic than the steel, most of it will remain where it is, while the steel will stick to your magnet. Anyhow, the steel threads take lots of pigments up with them, so I suggest to gently knock 'em off inside your mortar.

You can then put the steel threads into water again, but I don't recommend that. You'll better use a second/third/forth pad instead, because the outcome on wetting the remains is very small and very brown.
This is what I got out of one pad. 50/50 pretty bright rust and pretty rotten steel. Not too bad.

Apply these as usual with either pigment fixer or matte varnish.

Try it out! I hope your wife/girl won't hate me for the mess you'd possibly produce, but on the other hand...
If you polished the sink, she might even like me :)

There are another three new followers! Check them out:
Another Thomas :)
http://mollwitz.blogspot.com/ and http://schmockblog.blogspot.com/
Monty whom I know from the german "Behind Omaha" Tabletop Forum recently started his own blog!
http://montys-caravan.blogspot.com/
and last but not least: Schrumpfkopf with another two blogs:
http://schnitzel-miniatures.blogspot.com/ and http://blog.retromite.com/

//mojo

Pigments production

2012-01-09T10:20:00.002+01:00

Hey all,
I wish you a pleasant, happy and healthy new year with lots of time for your hobbies :)

I'd like to start the year with some thing I bought recently. For conveniance reasons I'm not happy with scraping small amounts of pigments from my pastell-chalks with an old cutter knife. This takes like forever to get a usable amount of pigment.

What I bought is a mortar with a pestle:

I got this for 2 European Credit Units at Woolworth, which you might have somewhere around you, too.

I put a 1/3rd of the pastell chalk in it and crush it. Don't go for more at a time if you fancy very fine pigments.

This thing is a real timesaver. If I only had bought this before...

One more thing: I'd like to welcome my new followers:

CPBelt
http://ordinarygaming.blogspot.com/
Michael Scott
(aww snap, no blog?! :) )
Thomas
http://thomasmegas.blogspot.com/
Bragondorn
http://bragondorn.blogspot.com/
http://asquirrelstail.blogspot.com/

Good to have you on board ;-)

//mojo

Christmas already?

2011-12-17T10:26:00.002+01:00

Well at least it feels like :)
Yesterday my brand new (to be honest, it's used) Disposable Heroes & Coffin for seven Brothers rulebook and the four Armybooks "Angriff!", "Go forward together!", "Blood and Guts!" and "Urrahh!" have arrived!
(lots of "!" in one sentence... )

As far as I got, I can say they're a good read and very likely much fun to play! I especially like the russian optional rules "Liquid Courage" and "Women, Children and old Men" (even if this particular one is marked as political incorrect)

Now I have to go and get some D10 ;-)

Last but not least, a warm welcome to my blog:

1939 (http://1939-1939.blogspot.com/) and (http://codenamewargaming.blogspot.com/)
Peter (http://peterscave.blogspot.com/ )
and Jay (http://jaysminiatureenterprises.blogspot.com/)

Have a nice Weekend all!

//mojo

Sd. Kfz. 222

2011-12-15T07:30:00.000+01:00

To say it with Fran's words: The painting-bug has bitten again :)
This time, his theeth hit cold steel - one of my favorite WWII vehicles, the Sd. Kfz. 222:

Friedrich has had a long ride. Time to sit back.

Being ever-vigilant Friedrich has his Schmeisser MP and a potato-masher at the ready...

The Sd. Kfz. 222 Kit was made by ICM. Overall it was a nice and easy build, with amost no flash and good fitting. It features a small photo-etched fret for the the rear top (under the turret) and the anti-grenade mesh on the turret. This mesh is the only real downside I found on this kit, because its a wee bit to wide (this is why I pushed it down that far).

The vehicle accesoires were crafted by SHQ. I especially like the bucket. I could not help but fix it right to the front of the car...

The two Jerry-Cans were from Herpa-Minitanks, the former Rocco Minitanks. They're 1/87, but they fit pretty good.

Friedrich's last name is "Preiser". He is a part of Preisers "Aufgesessene Panzergrenadiere". Dispite the fact of wearing the wrong tunic for a tank-man, I like him pretty muh on that vehicle. Sitting around and wait for something to happen seems to be a proper job for a scout ;)

I hope you like this one!

One last question:
Was the last post with pictures from the original Siegfried-Line really that uninteresting?

Cheers,
Mojo

Local History around the Siegfried Line (1)

2011-12-13T07:30:00.000+01:00

This weekend, I was around my hometown, Landau, again. In one of this years posts, I told you of the old Vauban fortifications, that were built to fortify a french bridgehead.
Not only then, Landau and the surrounding planes were of strategic importance. It's not for nothing that Landau was called the gate to france/germany (depending on which side of the border you were standing)...

Lately I aquired a book named "Damit es nicht vergessen wird..." ("Lest we forget...") which describes the southern Rhineland during the times of the Nazi-Reign. I will try to blog about what I read in this book now and then. In addition, I will try to visit some places that are quite interesting to history-aware people.

Near Landau was one of the most fortified Westwall (aka. Siegfried Line) sections (The Oberotterbach-Abschnitt). When I was younger, we often played near the remains of these fortifications in a village next to Frankweiler (see below) which was in the third defense-line. The defense-lines are being represented by the short lines on the map below. Btw: "Reichsgrenze" means "Border of the Reich". Below is France ;)

This weekend, I visited Mörzheim, a small village directly at the second defense line. Mörzheim features a quite long section of still intact Höckerlinie (aka. Dragon's teeth) tank traps. Local winegrowers united and preserved this relict. They have put up the following plate:

It reads:
As a reaction to the french Maginot defensive line, which was built between 1929 and 1932, from 1934 on the "Westwall" was being planned.
It was erected in the years between 1938 and 1940, whereby Mörzheim was in the second defensive line.
On plain ground, so called Höckerlinien were built in front of the bunker-fortifacations to prevent armoured vehicles from passing by.
Around Mörzheim there were 15 Bunkers and a Höckerlinie with a total length of 840m. From 1962 on, the facility was partly blown up. The construction management was situated with the Organisation Todt (=OT), which employed around 500.000 people at max.

These are some pictures that I took around this site:

As you can see, the teeth were interconnected by concrete lines.

Looking from the "Feindseite" (enemies side).

The biggest Teeth are approx. 150 cm high

A good view on how the teeth "grow"

Monolithic, Baby!

Bildunterschrift hinzufügen

Most of the pyramids still have these steelrings which were used to attach a thick barbed-wire-entanglement.

Dusk at the Siegfried Line..

Of course, not the whole 840m of Dragon teeths line are maintained.

In many places, nature takes back what once belonged to her.

The nice thing is, the government recently stopped to blow up all this historical stuff.

The Höckerlinien now serve as green biotope-belts.

Isn't that a nice twist?

Oh, and last but not least, I'd like to welcome my new followers
who joined my blog despite the long inactivity concerning modelling and history!
It's nice to have you around!

Cheers, Mojo

Memoir '44 Online

2011-11-14T18:26:00.001+01:00

Hey folks...
I'm not dead yet :D Currently I don't have the nerves to get back to painting and glueing when I come home from work, so there's virtually no progress on the modelmaking front...

Instead I waste my time with the virtual kind of wargames, namely BF3, World of Tanks and Memoir '44 Online, which is what I'm blogging about today.

I came across this game after freshly installing my new computer and waiting for BF3. I downed Steam and looked around for some free games or demos to beat up time... I've seen Mem44 in some stores as a "real" game, so I thought why not give the online-Version a try :)

You can choose from lots of scenarios, after some fights you might unlock some more like this one:

You can choose to play against others in the web, or play on your own against an ai, which adapts to your skills (rolls dice better? Plays badass cards, tends to become more and more aggressive).

Basically there are three types of units: Infantry, Tanks and Artillery/Guns. Sometimes, you may get some special units, e.g. US Rangers, which have some special abilities (you might never have guessed this).

On each turn, you have to play one of the cards.

Most cards just say how many units you may use in a sector (left/middle/right). Others are more special like the DIG IN! or MOVE OUT! card, which adds some tactical finesse.

The phases are
"select units",

"move" and

"battle" (if you didn't move to far and have an enemy in range).

Depending on your selected unit, how far you moved and the distance to the enemy, the computer will roll a number of dice for you. (Here, he's the attacking one):

If the result matches your unit-type or a grenade, the rolled amount is being reduced from the attacked unit:

To make it a little harder, there are different kinds of terrain. For Example, my tanks are on top of some hills on the picture above which means -1 dice for the attacker or -1 movement if you want to move up or cross it. There are also things like beaches, woods, towns, bridges, barbed wire defences, sandbag emplacements, bunkers etc. etc. each with their own special options.

I'll stop talking here and will show you how the grey comrades of my grandpa Fritz (yep that's been his name) beat my ass up:

As Hermann gained 6 victory points (upper right corner), the game was over for me. I only managed to exterminate 3 of his units and got my three victory points.
If you like what you see, go check it out. It's free, its fun to play, it'll run on almost every computer.
Now folks, go get some and enjoy your hard times with Hermann or his Allied counterpart (or some 5-Star-General from across the globe).

Cheers, Mojo

EA, this sucks.

2011-10-27T23:27:00.003+02:00

Look, it's just like that. All day, you are really looking forward to finish your work, get home and start playing this game you spent a fair amount of money on.
So got home, the internet-connection is down. No problem, the neighbor helps out of the misery. All is going well so far. Now start this origin-thingy you installed yesterday. Hmm, takes quite some time to load on this new Nasa-Computer which I bought for this game.
Ah here it is! Click play... Wait again. C'mon, are you kidding me? What's taking so long?
Oh, new dialogue.
"There is a problem with activating your game on this origin account. You are logged in as "
Awww. That sucks! What's that shit all about? Why do I need the 102349th client to register a f*cking Video game?

Honestly. I thought the start of my Battlefield 3 carreer would look a bit different.
EA & Origin, I'm really pissed. You screwed it. Suckers.
Mojo

Edit:
LOL. It keeps getting better :D :D :D look at that:

I'm clickin that Help-Button.

It leads me to the EA-Help center. This "Learn more" sounds promising. Lets click it! :D
Make sure, you're seated...

It says:

DEAD END

Unsure how you ended up here, this place doesn't even exist!

Tutorial: Tarps for Sd. Kfz. 251

2011-10-20T18:00:00.000+02:00

Hey guys! Sorry, it's been a while and I wish I had time to put this up a few days earlier... But you know... Yeah you do, so let's get started ;)

As promised, this is about how to make tarps for Armourfasts Sd. Kfz. 251. Of course you can use this method for anything else, maybe some wild-west-cart or whatever you can imagine :)

First, I decided to make a base for my works, because I didn't want to handle the freshly painted hanomag all the time.

I measured the outer edges of the open cabine and made polystyrene sheet with exactly those measurements, so it can just be put on top. It's roughly 35mm x 20mm, but please measure for yourself.

Next step: Drilling holes for the bails. I tried to find some images of hanomags with tarps, but they are rather hard to find. In the end, I drilled by sense of proportion ;)

You need to drill as close to the outer edge as possible. Also, you should drill a little skewed, so that the bent bails fit perfectly. I won't go into depth here, just look at the picture above, where I tried to mark the skewness with blue arrows.

Please keep in mind that the bail at the back is tilted a bit forward!

For the position of the holes, I used (measured from the back) 0,7mm; 13mm; 25mm. This might be inaccurate because the foremost bail sits far further in reality. You can do this as you wish, but it proved perfect if you want to place a figure at the front of the open top or want to leave the machinegun uncovered.

I used a 0,8mm drill because I had copperwire in the same strength.

Now cut some copper wires to 24/25mm long pieces and bend them to a shallow slope. They should just slip into the drilled holes. Fix them with CA. As always when you work with CA, you should wear gloves.

Right now, you should place the whole thing on top of your hanomag and decide what you want to do with the front part of the tarp. As I mounted my machine gun with the butt hanging down, I had to carve some part of the base, so that the tarp can hang down into the compartment and the Machinegun as whole can stay visible.

If you plan to place a figure, you have to carve out a lot more. In fact I left about 3mm after the foremost bail.

You can put the gloves on again , as we will continue working with CA (as you can see, I forgot it and instantly sticked to my project :-D ). Take a piece of tissue, roughly 35mm wide and 45mm long. Put a drop of CA on the very top of each bail-wire and press the tissue on it.

As soon as its dry, you can start to put CA on the left half of the bails (from top to bottom). Do all three bails at once. If you are fast enough, you can also put CA on the edge of the left side of the base.

Now pull the tissue against the CA. Be careful not to tear it appart!

If you are done with it, do the same on the right side.

If you are done, you should have a nice tunnel of tissue :)

Now fix the tissue to the back edge and to the (carved) front edge.

Just to be sure, I went around the edge and added another layer of CA.

When its dry, use a sharp knife and cut off the overhanging tissue. It should look like this:

Pretty nice, eh? Don't crow to soon. It'll look ugly in a minute.

To add some stability, we need to cover it all up with some heavily thinned white-glue. Apply 3-4 coats of it with a soft brush, letting every coat dry for about half an hour at least. My tissue began to slobber when it got wet and in the end it looked like sh-t. I almost threw it away and filed it as another trial-and-error-error. But that would have been wrong. The solution is simple:

Take another part of tissue (again 35mm x 45mm), wrap it tightly around the tarp and start soaking it with thinned white-glue. While it dries, apply a fair tension to the tissue. This time it will not slobber. Again, 3-4 coates of White-Glue strengthen the whole thing, when you're done, cut off the remains.

Now you can paint it as you wish. Hopefully the result looks roughly like this:

After applying a coat of gloss varnish, add some ink/wash to emphasize the folds (yet to be done on my hanomags).

I hope this helps and inspires you guys :)

If you do something similar, blog it please :) I'd like to see your results!

Cheers, Mojo

Hanomags with tarps, PSC Panzer IV and other stuff

2011-10-08T17:58:00.000+02:00

Hey Guys,
after I was on an involuntary trip to the hospital this week, I'm back and feeling fine again.
Before I went away, I got some stuff done. The vehicles from last post are now ready for
decals and weathering:

The ICM Sd. Kfz. 222

The Hasegawa Sd. Kfz. 7/1 with brass gun barrels

The PSC Pz. Kw. IV

Same

I thought "Dude, these Panzers are sooo cheap, you really need to do experiments on those Schürzen!"
That's the first result of trying to "personalize" these cute little buggers. I think I can really recommend these models to all wargamers with a good conscience. They are pretty easy to build, they look really neat, and they come cheap and in masses ;)

Ok, you remember those? Armourfast Sd. Kfz. 251/1. Maybe this kit is the best that armourfast ever released, still I am not very pleased with it. I worked a lot on those, beginning with milling out all the plastic between the roadwheels, throwing away those fucked up (excuse me...) benches and so on. Especially the interior is so bloody undetailed, I still could instantly throw up. How can one sell an open-top vehicle without any mentionable details??
There were 2 options: Make the details by yourself (Hahaha! Never ever.) or cover this empty mess up.
Said. Done.
Number one:

Yay, a convertible ;)

Same

Number 2:

Commander on parade

Same

Some time ago, I bought this neat little "Preiser Motorisierte Infanterie"-Kit (See here) but due to the lacking interior-detail I refrained to waste all those guys on these Hanomags. On the other hand, I could not wait to see, how these figures turn out, because they look soooo good on the sprue, so I managed to fit the tarp in a way that the commander can provide some overview.

All the models are still pretty bright, but that will drastically change during weathering. I hope you like the tarps! If anybody is interested in how I did those, leave a comment and I'll put up a tutorial these days.

Have a nice weekend!

On the desk...

2011-09-26T07:30:00.000+02:00

Since Blutvogt, Mork and Wiking already posted lots of pictures from the Inspiration Modellbau, I decided not to post anymore... Hope that's ok ;)

Instead I'd like to show, what's currently on my desk:

Let's start off with the least finished:

Armourfast German Machine Gun Team #1. The guy on the right needs an ammo-belt prior to painting.

Armourfast German Machine Gun Team #2. One soldier brings new ammo, the other feeds the gun.

I had to slightly adjust his right arm, so that his pose makes any sense at all ;)

Ok, next:

Two Armourfast Sd.Kfz.251/1. Unfortunately, these are the early war variants. I'm waiting for PSCs Ausf. D :)

Zvezda Flak 38. A real beauty. I dislike the plastic a bit, but the details are just great!

Hasegawa "8 ton Half Track Quadruple 20mm AA. Also known as Sd. Kfz. 7/1

This kit has quite some flash. I would rate somewhere between average and pain in the ass...

Since the original Hasegawa gun barrels with 1mm thickness were a real no-go, I bought some ABER barrels in Mainz at the IM. They look far better :)

Were getting closer to the end:

This is the ICM Sd.Kfz. 222

I really like this one, it was a pleasure to build. Good that the added the option of the late-style wheels :)

The only downside: The etched bass on the turret-top is a little too wide.

Ok, now the last project. Most recently added and most advanced:

Plastic Soldier Company Panzer IV. Great Model for wargamers. I opened the muzzle-break, and will add the Schürzen of course. Since these neat little bastards come quite cheap, I'm going to experiment with broken and misplaced Schürzen :)

Hope you like them...
Cheers,
Mojo

Inspiration Modellbau in Mainz: Behind Omaha #1

2011-09-20T18:39:00.005+02:00

These days, I will show you some pictures from the Exhibition Inspiration Modellbau (Inspiration Modelmaking) in Mainz, Germany. We have set up my Demotable to advertise our non-commercial (and german only :-/) ruleset "Behind Omaha".

I won't be able to post a full scale AAR on many of the games, because we were repeatedly "interrupted" by people showing interest and I don't remember all the battles of these two days... Also, when I was not playing, I was shopping or making models most of the time, so I only managed to get a glance of what happened ;)

Lets start off with some pictures from the first Battle: Me(Germans) against Edi(Soviets)

The pic above shows the initial table setup with the soviets on the far side and the germans right in the front.

As you might be able to see, there's a german halftrack burning, having a complete 10 man platoon in its belly. Also the Pz. Kw. IV on the left has taken a hit. In return, I damaged a (hidden) T34 on the left, killed a Jeep in the tablecenter and also killed a T34 standing on the left behind the burning jeep.
My other halftrack is blocking the way through the bocages on the right, reducing the possibilities to break through for the soviets.
Afterwards a harsh butching took place where my tanks got killed by T34s and a soviet AT-Gun, and some T34 went up after a fearless infantry attack with "Haftladungen".

In the end, both armies were kind of immobilized, so we decided this to be a draw.
It was a really good battle which began really bad for the germans, but I managed to turn the table ;)
Above its Edi on the left and me on the right :)

These are the models of Daniel, aka. Kraehensang

A battle between Germans&Romanians vs. US&British troops

"Fredericus Rex" with "Plasticwarrior"

Plasticwarriors Armies for sale :(

Wiking Paintworks (visit his Blog here!) with his girl (she's painting too!) :) As always, he's doing some really fine stuff :)
They were presenting his Irish Guards-Army and their skills...

Me and Jan-Martin before our small Demo-Battle: 1 Panther against 2 T34, both sides had an equal infantry platoon.

Battlefield decoration...

The new setup. We were just using the 2 farmost modules to enable parallel games.

I managed to immobilize one of his T34s and damage the other, before my Panther was immobilized too and my infantry got fried... ;)
Good job, Jan!

The next battle was as harsh as the one before. It was me against Blutvogt (visit his Blog here!) I had a setup which I found kind of unfair afterwards: Flamethrower Tank Pz. Kw. III, two Paks, an infantry AT-Team and a Jagdpanzer IV.

Against 2 Shermans, a Greyhound, a GMC-Truck, a White scout car and a Half-Truck with an infantry squad on each one of them.

The Greyhound passed the bridge and was instantly killed by the Jagdpanzer IV which was able to open fire in it's first round, due to superiour range.

The convoi with its soft-targets advances down the road, right into hell, while the Sherman hides behind the wall, watching the debacle begin.

The Sherman sets across the trench, showing its flank to the Jagdpanzer IV and a Pak-Team, which means certain death...
The other Pak dealt with the White Scout car, which was badly damaged. The Squad managed to get out, and rallied beneath the Bocage.

Next round:

The Pak finishes the White scout car, while the Flame Tank moves out of the bocage and fries the whole squad which managed to emerge from the White scout car.
The Panzerjäger-Infanterie-Squad followed the Flame-Tank and got a glance of the GMC-Truck which obviously tried to get away ("Augen zu und durch" - Shut your eyes and run like hell). But with two Panzerschrecks in his back, he did't get far. The Squad inside was burnt alive... :-/
What's remaining? The Half-Track and a Sherman. I really don't remember what happened to the Half-Track, but the Sherman hid in a bocage-corner and was afraid to get out. I think at this point Blutvogt withdrew from Battle.

As I said before, the setup was pretty unfair, but we just wanted to do a short presentation game for the visitors and it worked. It was pretty short ^^
I hope Blutvogt is not depressed and I guess next time, he will put some more value for his points on the table ;)

That's it for the first post, there are some more to come!

Cheers, Mojo

Game-Table Progress #3

2011-09-14T18:00:00.001+02:00

On monday night I was finally putting the grass on my modules.
Some hours and grass-bags later most of the work was done:

Game-Table Progress #2

2011-09-12T18:30:00.002+02:00

The exhibition in Mainz is coming nearer. Just 5 days to go!
Since my last post (nearly 4 weeks ago) I managed to move to an other flat and proceeded working on the gametable-sections:

I just need to get some grass on it :)

Cheers, Mojo

Air-Raid-Shelter markings on german buildings during WWII

2011-08-10T17:30:00.002+02:00

A few days ago I made some shots from the area around the place where I live.
Karlsruhe was heavily bombed during WWII, although not that bad like Köln or Dresden.

Until the present day, you can see the markings of the Air-Raid-Shelters (LSR or Luftschutzraum in german) which were painted next to or above the basements windows.

The arrows clearly mark the position of such an LSR in case the house on top collapses and rubble blocks the way out.

I don't know much about what the letters mean. They might classify the size of the LSR.

Some of the windows still feature the blast-doors, which were mounted in front in some cases:

Some of these markings look like they were painted yesterday. It seems, some of the house-owners are quite history-aware. I appreciate that ;-)
In Karlsruhe you can see pretty clearly where the shit had hit the fan. In a row of intact hundred years old brick and sand-stone buildings, you often find some ugly 50ies fast-built house.

I hope this might help some people who try to recreate dioramas or tabletop terrain of german cities of these days, like Olivier does. Visit his blog, if you do not already know it. It's amazing, what he's putting on the table :)

Cheers,
Mojo

Game-Table Progress

2011-08-09T06:40:00.002+02:00

Currently I am working on a gaming table for a modelling exhibition in Mainz, Germany in mid September.
The table will be about 1,20 * 1,80m in Dimension and shall feature the behind omaha game.
Here's what I got so far:
Cast Roads are glued on, roadside ditches are dug out, and cart tracks are carved into the boards. Next up will be the sanding and painting, afterwards the grass willbe applied.
Cheers, Mojo

These goddamn bocages...

2011-07-28T07:30:00.000+02:00

...are done! :)

One of the large sections

Enjoy the following test shots... Click to enlarge your P...icture of choice.

Well, it looks like my last post brought me some followers!
Please welcome and visit...
roussel68, dont't throw a 1
Dan, Gunners Wargaming
Matt, Blood, Fire and Death
Rhinexing, Rhinexing's 15mm Pillbox
choms1337, car - not only fast :) (If you got a wargaming-related blog, tell me, pal :) )

Cheers,
Mojo

On a budget?

2011-07-19T08:03:00.000+02:00

If you are on a budget but feel some urgent need for neat wargaming terrain, this might be something for you.

As you might have seen in my last post, I was going to make some bocages. The "soldering" method is nice, but it's looking quite rough, unlovely and unfinished. I was in need of some coverage. Everybody uses this immensely expensive clump foliage... 15€ for a bag with one litre wich will be used up completely on one single bocage? No. Thanks not for me. I'll try something different!

In a forum where I use to roam, somebody posted a link to a model railroad website with some useful hints.
I assume that some of you are looking on sites like this to because railroad modellers are far ahead of us wargamers when it comes to terrain. Well, some of you will surely not have peeked at them yet. So let me share this with you!

What do you need?
An old kitchen mixer (Mine was inherited by my granpa ;-) )
Some green wall-colour (emulsion-paint), maybe some white and some black to shade it.
A bit of foam material (the smaller the pores, the better)

To clearify things: I don't mean stuff like polystyrene-foam, more the foam thats under your bum, when you're sitting on your couch ;) Even better: Foam from an old car-seat! This stuff is pretty fine :)

Ok, lets go!
Cut the foam in pieces of about a cubic inch (2,5x2,5cm).

You won't need very much of it for one mixing run. Compare it with the 1/72 figure ;-)
Now put some of it in the mixer. Not all of it. Split this second step up in 2 or 3 smaller steps.

Now push the button! You'll notice, that the foam will be ripped apart. The longer you go, the smaller the foam goes. As said before, split the above amount up, rip a part up, evacuate it, and do the same with the next bit.

Next step: Colour!
Now put all the mixed foam in the mixer. Add some colour! You won't need much of it! This mixer filled with a 3/4 litre of foam did not need as much as a shooter glass of paint! It's very economic ;)

Let it go round and round again. The foam gets even smaller and is almost instantly green...
Now pour it out on some baking sheet and leave it to dry for one day. Clean the mixer, if you like to do this again ;)

What you see here is about a quater of an hours work(foam only, of course :-P):

And here's one finished bocage for you:

Yeah, the colours are somewhat odd... I know. I'll do better next time ;)

I hope you liked it!
Cheers, Mojo

Ahh, stop!
@Thomas: Thank you for the hints! I'll try that next time!
@Bard: Welcome to my blog :)
@All: Visit these guys' blogs if you haven't already done so ;-)

Bocages: Trial and Error

2011-07-06T23:05:00.000+02:00

Hey Folks! This time I'll report on my attempt of making bocages.

As Bases i use some wood from the back of a wardrobe. The Bocage-Body is made from styrodur, cut in the right dimension with a scroll saw which works as fine as the hot wire :)

As you could see above, I linked the pieces up with magnets to make setup easier.

Now it was time for the soldering iron to take action. I melt some texture in the foam. If you do this, protect yourself from the fume. I suggest an open window next to you and a fan on the other side. you should wear some kind of respiratory protection too.

I have put some stones around the bases, using the hot glue gun. Also, I added some very fine foliage, which was an absolute fail. It takes all the texture out, so I stopped it. The Bocages are now waiting for some selfmade clump foliage. More on that next time.

The horror of every allied tank commander...

Bases for two more Hedges are already cut out...

So far...

Cheers, Mojo

Haystacks added

2011-06-30T07:30:00.000+02:00

Now that I'm back from Holidays I did just a little thingi: Haystacks:

Nevermind the figures... They were the first I ever painted with 13 years, and thats quite long ago ;)

Ok, so here's how it works:
Take some air-drying modelling clay (in this case EFAPlast)

Pick a fair amount of it:

Bring it roughly in the form you want and stick it onto something:

Now dip it into water and use a hard, wet brush to poke it from underneath:

When done it looks like this. Let it dry for a day.

Painting: I used Vallejo Model Air (applied with a brush. Yes, such a waste...)
First Colour: Hemp.
Second: Hard Drybrushing with Ocre
Third: Inking with GW Ogryn Flesh ink
Fourth: Drybrushing with a Ocre, mixed with White (5/1).
Finally: Matte Medium.
Done!
Hope you like em!

Ah, one more thing. I heard it turned out that the blogspot-hit-counter was running wild. That seems to be why I experienced that massive growth of hits. Nevertheless you guys are still great! I'm feel glad to have this community of high-class modellers around! (Hmm female high class models would be even better...)

Cheers,
Mojo

One more thing before I leave...

2011-06-10T16:30:00.003+02:00

...for Holidays:
It took me TWO COMPLETE YEARS to hit this 5.000 clicks line.
Now you guys clicked this blog more than 1225 times in TWO WEEKS!

I am overwhelmed. You bring me some very valuable motivation.
Thank you!

/off and southbound. mojo.

Behind Omaha Game

2011-06-09T07:30:00.002+02:00

Just a quick, last post before my 2 weeks Holidays in Croatia :)
We had a game last week, fictional setup: British and Russian forces against Germans...

I am sorry for the crappy quality of the pictures. Our room is much to dark :(

Here's my Setup:

Eds Russian Setup

British Setup

The whole table:

Forming behind the farm

Placing the Paks and advancing with my Grunts

A Chaffee goes way too far...

The SU at the left end of the table held me up almost all the game.

British advance on the right flank

Late Game: The Chaffee and a Jeep were lit up some time ago.

Finally I was able to knock that KV-1 beast out. Revenge for my pittyful Panther (who never ever scored in a single game! arrrrr....)

Fighting off the British Tanks and Troop carriers

Late-game overview

Some random pics...

At 3 A.M. I gave up, after my infantry had been utterly crushed by russian mortars and machine guns.

It was a very hard fight, lacking a bit dynamics for my taste ;-)

Enjoy yourselves while I'm away. I hope I don't miss too much of your great Stuff!

Ah, welcome m0e, a Behind Omaha beginner!

His Blog is yet in german, but hey, give him a chance and stop by :)

Farm-Raid

2011-06-07T07:30:00.001+02:00

On the sixth of June, in the early hours of the evening, german troops raid a farm in normandy. This Kampfgruppe belongs to the Panzerlehr-Division which is advancing westwards to patch the holes in the costal front.
On the way they try to clear the upstate from scattered Airborne troops.

To be honest: I'd only like to show of my new selfmade pieces of terrain:

A field growing vegetables

An already mowed crop field

Hans is getting ready to throw the stick for the farms dog

The Master for the Building was made out of foam board

The windows were scratched from polystyrene

The Windowlatches and doors were made of balsa wood

The roof is made of corrugated cardboard

Now, this building was completely cast from ceramic

Next to the already known barn, I added a NWC, non-water-closett :-)

I hope you like it!

Finally, welcome to fpotd, he runs a blog featuring a funny pic each and every day! Go check it out! :)

And also welcome Trull, I am really impressed of his house-building skills!

Cheers, Mojo

Boardgames Horror

2011-06-01T07:07:00.001+02:00

Here's something for you that should help to bridge the posting-gap until my farmhouse is readily painted :)

Last weekend two of my pals came over to play some boardgames. One of 'em brought a game called "Zombies!!!" and the boardgame pendant to the well-known Computer game "Doom".

First we played Zombies!!!. SWMBO joined in and proved to be a real Zombie-Killer :)
All of the players start at the same crossroad, equipped with some kind of gun, four lifes, three packs of extra-ammo, and three action-cards.
The terrain expands over time and features different kinds of streets, or special buildings where you can pick up lives, ammo or some kind of extra-weapon or equipment (chainsaw, shotgun, skateboard), if you manage to grab hold of the right action-card. But as always: Zombies are inside.
Here's a pic of the game setup:

Aim of the game is to
a) Kill at least 25 zombies before anyone else manages to,
or
b) Get to the Helicopter before anyone else manages to.
The Helicopter is the last piece of terrain to be attached ;)

The game is really funny, mainly because of the action cards which sometimes let you move your mates, when dealing a brain cramp, or spawning 10 zombies at a time :)

Btw: SWMBO almost won the game by killing 24 Zombies before I threw the "alternate food source" card, which makes the Zombies sated, so that they won't attack you and cannot be attacked anymore:

Finally Dom made it to the helicopter( due to alternate food source he could walk right through), while Ed had a brain cramp and walked in the false direction.

The second game we played was Doom, without SWMBO who prefered to go to bed.

You need one player dealing the Monsters, and 1-3 Marines. Every Marine gets three special-ability-cards, two levels of armour, nine hitpoints and a Handgun.
Me and Ed made up a good Marine-Squad, as I was "Officer"(adding +1 Damage and +1 Range to me and any marine nearby), "Medic"(can heal under special circumstances) and "Quasher"(prevent a Monster-Player action for 3 times), and Ed was "Tank"(+1 Armour), "Tactician"(Can give commands) and something I don't remember.

To be honest, about 90% of the time, the Monster Player didn't have a chance, because we were able to smash up every spawning monster. While doing so, you are roaming through rooms which are shut by security doors. Every time you open a door, the terrain becomes expanded. Behind every door, death can await you... Just like in the real game :)

Finally, after hacking and slashing about 3 hours through the monsters, we arrived at the final room of the scenario which featured an overwhelming mass of monsters. I was instantly killed, while Ed managed to do a sprint across the room, slipping through all the monsters and reaching the final security door.

The Monsters were partly blocking themselves in movement and did not manage to strip all his hitpoints, because he had added another armour level (now having 4!) recently.

Not knowing what it means to be a marine, he left the scenario (winning for both of us), but left me behind. Tz tz tz.

Alltogether both games have a lovely set of equipment and are fun to play. Don't hesitate to get them if you are interested :)

Cheers, Mojo

Successful weekend

2011-05-30T07:30:00.001+02:00

Hey guys! I'd like to share some more pictures of a very successful modelling weekend.
As mentioned before, I was busy doing moulds and casts.
First of all, I'd like to present the first cast from my roof-mould. It's about 3mm thick and made of Stewalin, some ceramic-like plaster:

It came out perfectly. I could not find a single bubble, and it's rather stable. Somebody said it's going to break while unmoulding because of lacking thickness. It didn't, har, har, har!

Next thing I did was fitting the windows and doors inside my Normandy-Farmhouse masters and applying the windowshutters in order to make the mould. This is how the moulds turned out:

You might notice that its already "dirty" from a first cast... Again the cast turned out pretty well, with a minimum amout of bubbles. Seems like I learn how it works :) But I won't show the farmhouse until its done.

Won't take long anymore ;)

Have a nice week!

Cheers,

Mojo

Mould, cast, mould, cast

2011-05-28T13:13:00.001+02:00

Right now, I'm making the first mould for my normandy farm house. While it's curing, I'm casting some windows and doors again.
Busy weekend ;-)
Cheers,
Mojo

5000 hits + 30 followers + some progress after all!

2011-05-25T07:13:00.001+02:00

Today WIMP has a double-anniversary!
You guys scored 5000 hits! Its not much, compared to YOUR blogs, but it makes me happy!
AND: There are 30 guys of you following my blog!
Thanks for both!! Cheers!

I can finally show some progress on my gametable-equipment project:
I am a bit behind the schedule (I wanted to finish it last week), but it's getting closer to the end:

One night I was unable to access my equipment because SWMBO already slept (Bedroom is my hobbyroom ;) ), so I did a quick and dirty built from some waste-pieces of foam:

Unfortunately the PVA didn't cover the surface pretty good as I wanted to add texture, so I dismantled it and will try something else. As you can see, the roof is still missing. No problem, here comes the solution:

This is the mould of my very own roof! As you can see, It's approx. 20x12 cm so I can get rooftops for a complete house out of one single cast! I managed to do the mould-cast WITHOUT ANY BUBBLES!!!

Yeeehaw!

Now I want to welcome two new followers (that completed my set of 30)!

MiniMike

and

BigMike

Hehe, I guess thats one funny coincidence :-D

Check out there blogs, there's much to see in both cases, hehe... Trust me ;-)

Finally the comments on the last post:

@Blutvogt: Try it, if you have the spare ca$h, it's really not that hard

@BigMike: I think I will have to do lots of castings from the Mould. There are quite some empty doors and windows to fill ;)

Now it's time to go to work! Have a nice day!
//mojo

Cast done

2011-05-18T07:30:00.003+02:00

Last night, I have had my first contact ever with resin in liquid state ;)
I finally did the casts of the peripherals for the Houses.
I am amazed about the level of detail. Almost every little bit of the balsa wood pattern is visible!
Even one of the failed doors (right) looks pretty well! I am impressed.
And it's so much easier to work with, compared to plaster... I guess, I like resin.

Here's a quick shot...

Cheers, Mojo

Mould made

2011-05-17T07:18:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I made the Mould for the small parts of the Houses. Though most of the results look crispy and clean, the mould has eaten most of my balsa masters. I should be able to use them as some kind of rubble.
Two of three doors were an absolute fail, but its not that bad. I dont need as manyof them ;-)

Last but not least I wish to welcome Alan to my Blog :)
You can find his own blog here! He has produced some beautiful timberframed houses on his own recently! Go check it out! :)

Cheers,
Mojo

Restaurant "Au Boef"

2011-05-16T07:30:00.000+02:00

A few weeks ago I headed to Haguenau, Alsace, France with my girlfriend. On the way we passed some history-charged villages like Hatten and Rittershofen (Operation Nordwind, Jan. 1945), but we didn't stop there.
Also, a bigger village called Soufflenheim crossed our way. Soufflenheim is well-known for its traditional pottery-arts. More than a decade ago, my parents took me there, looking for some pottery-bread-pot, and we had a lunch at the local restaurant "Au Boef". This is where I tasted frog legs for the first (and last) time. It hasn't been the bad cook, no. It's just not my thing :)

However, when we were driving through Soufflenheim, I instantly recognized this restaurant. Last friday, while taking a sunbath in the local park, I was planning my gamingtable. I decided to put some outskirts of a small village on it. So a café/bar/restaurant may not be missing. This is where "Au Boef" comes in :)

I started to reconstruct it from the photo that I have taken on our tour:

I will not build the whole thing, just the first half of the house. So here is the first shot of my planning and construction:

Its a bunch of work, but I am sure it will pay off. I started to mark where the windows should be placed, and where the timberframes are. Then I cut balsa-wood into matching pieces and glued them on top.

This is how far I got until now:

I really hope you like it :) The space between the frames will be covered with PVA and very fine sand, to create a rendered surface.

Now a few words to my foregoing post, which I published on a most unfortunate time, between Bloggers two downtimes. I asked for some help with motivation, and The Angry Lurker as well as Paul were kindly trying to motivate me. These comments have vanished in the depth of googles Blogger-Databases, but are unforgotten :) Thank you, both! I didn't start off making moulds yet, but will do this week! :)

I hope you guys (and gals) have a good start into your new week!

Cheers, Mojo

The Farmhouse parts

2011-05-12T20:56:00.000+02:00

After a few weeks of "every-now-and-then-modelling" I finally have finished all the parts for the main building of my own Normandy Farm.

This features doors and window-shutters made of balsa wood, windows scratch-build from Evergreen polystyrene strips and some polystyrene board, stone-walls made from foam, edge-stones made from pizza-cardboard, a tiled roof made of corrugated board (to the right) and some woodframes made of balsa.

The next step is to make some silicone moulds of it to reproduce all the parts needed for finishing. But to be honest: I'm totally lacking motivation for this step.

Motivate me!!

Cheers,
Mojo

Arier-Check?!

2011-05-05T18:00:00.002+02:00

I know of my grandfather, that he had to pass an "arier"-Test about 70 years ago.

I never thought we were in the same situation some day :-/

Greetings,
Mojo

Museum Part 3: Other WWII originals

2011-05-03T15:00:00.001+02:00

Hello Guys! Today I'd like to show you some more classy WWII originals I photographed at the WTS in Koblenz.
Go through it all, you'll see pleasing stuff like a French FT-17 light tank from the inside, german WWII infrared nightvision devices, the Kettenkrad, the HUGE Schwerer Zugkraftwagen 18 to. (Sd. Kfz. 9) and a load of other beautyful stuff!

leichter Ladungsträger Goliath (Sd.Kfz. 302)

leichter Ladungsträger Goliath (Sd.Kfz. 302) - sprocket wheel

As far as I remember I saw the following Vehicle in every german museum that features WWII vehicles. The Kettenkrad seems to be a must-have. I should have one too...

Kleines Kettenkraftrad Typ HK 101 (a.k.a. Kettenkrad) (Sd.Kfz. 2)

Kettenkrad (Sd.Kfz. 2) drivers seat

Kettenkrad (Sd.Kfz. 2) with trailer

But if I cannot have a Kettenkrad, I would also be satisfied with one of the next two. Unfortunately you pay up to 70.000 € for a BMW R75 in good condition...

"Schweres Wehrmachtsgespann" BMW R 75

"Schweres Wehrmachtsgespann" Zündapp-KS-750

Schwerer 8-Rad-Panzerspähwagen Typ GS (Sd.Kfz.231)

Same, obviously disabled by 2 20-37mm shots in its back

leichter Zugkraftwagen 1t (Sd.Kfz. 10) - incomplete

What comes next, completely blew me off my feet. Compared to todays trucks, it might be not THAT big, but honestly, I was really impressed of the size of this Sd.Kfz. 9!

schwerer Zugkraftwagen 18t (Sd.Kfz. 9) - Front

schwerer Zugkraftwagen 18t (Sd.Kfz. 9) - side

schwerer Zugkraftwagen 18t (Sd.Kfz. 9) - Engine Block

schwerer Zugkraftwagen 18t (Sd.Kfz. 9) - Drivers seatrow

This is pretty cool: Lacking an opto-electrical indicator, they added a "winker", an arm that shows the direction, the driver is going to turn to.

schwerer Zugkraftwagen 18t (Sd.Kfz. 9) - Indicator (a.k.a. Winker)

schwerer Zugkraftwagen 18t (Sd.Kfz. 9) - rear seatrow

Its so huuuuuge!

Leichter geländegängiger Einheits-Lkw 2,5t

Willys Jeep along with some postwar Kübels

VW Typ 82 Kübelwagen

VW Typ 166 Schwimmwagen

VW Typ 166 Schwimmwagen - Back

VW Typ 166 Schwimmwagen interiour

One thing that really pleased me, was that most of the exhibits are standing free. You can touch that cold steel and sometimes get a sneak peek inside. Thats what I did with this beautyful FT-17...

French FT-17

French FT-17 drive detail

Here you can see the tail-attachment witch is useful for passing bigger trenches. The crew can tilt it up to access the inertia-starter.

French FT-17

A look through the open turret-hatch in direction of the drivers compartment.
The only thing that seems missing down there is the seat-cushion, as the user-elements were pretty basic (see interior details Wikipedia)

French FT-17 Drivers compartment

French FT-17 Ammo

German WWII Air-to-air Missile R4M "Orkan"

Nachtsicht Fahrgerät

Wehrmacht Infrared Vision FG 1250

Have you ever seen, where the Tiger's roar comes from? Watch this:

Maybach HL 230 P 45 as used on Tiger I

Tiger I Crankshaft with Pistons

Tiger I driving and steering transmission

And some parts from his little brother:

Panther driving and steering transmission

Since I was short in time, I could not take more shots of this pretty interesting chapter: Uniforms and personal equipment...

German Camo Uniforms

German Uniform

German "Sumpftarn" Camo Uniform

Now, some more small Dakka-Dakka ;-)

Granatwerfer 36

Some MPs

Various StGw 44

FG 42 in all three versions

Machine guns

Another curiosity: This model of the Infantry Assaultbridge on Pz. Kw IV was (most probable) used to demonstrate Hitler the design and functionality of a concept for a bridge-laying tank:

(Original) Model of the Infantry-Assaultbride on Pz. Kw. IV

One man Splinter-Shelter

Rolling Bomb (used to blow up reservoir dams)

British Airmine HC 4000 lb

These were the last pictures of WWII equipment and vehicles that I shot at the WTS in Koblenz. Unfortunately the Panther-tank and the StuG III were off to Trier for some refurbishment. That made me a bit sad...
So what, I'll have to go there again :-D

Next time, I will show you some Post-War developments shown there. Some of which seem pretty peculiar...

Have a nice time!

//mojo

Museum Part 2: AT and AA - Artillery

2011-04-28T07:30:00.001+02:00

Some days ago, I posted some pics of artillery shown at the Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung in Koblenz.
Today, I'd like to share some pictures of Antitankguns and Antiaircraft Artillery (and some stuff that belongs to it).

3,7cm Pak 35

5cm Pak 38

7,5cm Pak 40

8,8cm Pak 43/97

12,8cm Flak 40

12,8cm Flak 40 Breach

The legendary 88 and on the left, the russian equivalent

2cm Flak 38 Vierling

1,5cm Flak Drilling as seen on Sd. Kfz. 251/21

Some AAA I cannot identify

3,7 cm Flak 43

35mm Gatling (for german federal army AA-Tank prototype)

3,7cm Flak Zwilling 43 with 2/3 of the armor missing

same again

US M16 12,7mm Quad-AA on Halftrack

same again

2cm Flak 38 Vierling on Mittlerer Zugkraftwagen 8 to

same

Same. Note the passage to the drivers Cabin

Same. Ammo-Rack

Same. Vehicle-front

Same. Look inside the drivers cabine

A so called "Horchgerät" which was used to detect incoming bombers

Flak-Kommandorechner of 1940. This is a mechanical computer :)

same

Rangefinder

Various rangefinders

Cut-up Tank-Rangefinder

200cm Flakscheinwerfer with Generator. Note the V2(A4) Engine in the front!!!


This 2m wide "lamp" used 45000 Watts and reached 13-15 km far.

I have some more Pics left to show you ;-)
See you next time!
Cheers, Mojo

Museum for german military technology

2011-04-18T23:10:00.000+02:00

Good evening everyone! This weekend I visited the "Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung der Bundeswehr" in Koblenz. What's that? It's a museum where the german federal army tracks the development of military technologies. It's open for public, but of course, it doesn't feature the newest inventions ;)

But that's allright, because these new inventions don't bother me that much. I do care more for the older stuff :)
So tonight I'd like to share some pics about WWII big artillery beasts with you. Hey! Ho!Let's go!

Mörser Karl 60 cm ammunition. Weight: 2200 kg

15 cm Nebelwerfer 42

15 cm Nebelwerfer 41

24 cm Feldkanone K-3-Vz

15 cm Panzerwerfer 42 (Originally mounted on a Maultier)

Some kind of WWI mortar

12 cm Granatwerfer 42

12 cm Granatwerfer 42 ammunition

21 cm Kanone 38

Breach of the 21 cm Kanone 38

British 25 pdr.

10,5cm leichte Feldhaubitze 18/40 (le FH 18 mounted on a reinforced Pak 40 carriage)

le FH 18

Shock absorbers

15 cm Schweres Infanteriegeschütz 33

Stielgranate for the sIG33

Explanation for the Stielgranate

7,5cm Leichtes Infanteriegeschütz 18

leIG 18

the breach of the leIG 18

The range-table of the leIG 18

10 cm Kanone 17

Thats it for the artillery. I'm going to put up some Flak and Pak pictures next :)

Stay tuned!

Greetings, Mojo

Faszination Modellbau Karlsruhe 2011 - An Expo

2011-03-29T19:00:00.001+02:00

I'll share some impressions from the Faszination Modellbau exposition in Karlsruhe, Germany from the last Weekend (26. March 2011)...

I'll start of with a shop from the Netherlands that was new to me and presented some of their own 20mm figures: MBM Models >LINK<
I am sorry for the bad pic...

Rather fascinating to see, what Lego seems to sell outside of Germany:

Ok, now a go for some models and landscapes:

A big-size "Tante Ju":

An also pretty big "Dornier Pfeil":

Some nice Dios in 1/35:

An aircraft carrier in 1/72! Never seen something like that before in this scale!

Some really nice docks and some more ships... I am not really into ships, but I liked the harbor scene:

Now something that really blew my mind: The perfect "gaming table" for a battle for the "Ruhrpott" game, shown by Märklin:

Very nice to see: Selfmade timberframe buildings:

Finally an elder Modeller, that makes photorealistic rock formations from burnt wood... Impressive:

There was a lot more to see, but I was a little lazy with shooting pictures.

I hope you like it!

Greetings,

Mojo

20mm Barn

2011-03-25T07:30:00.002+01:00

Tonight, I finally finished the first part for the all-mine-gaming-table: A Hay stack:

I'show you what I've done:
Fist: A plan. As always :) Two fronts with a gate on each one are not really useful. I corrected that later ;)
As you can see, I recalculated the models measurements in real measurements (using scale 1:72).

I got me some coffee-mix-sticks at the local 0€ shop ;). These were used as planks. I carved the edges to create a rugged look:

Afterwards, they were glued to the cut-out shape:

Using my all-time-favorite tool, the proxxon scrollsaw, i cut off the excess wood:

Here's the finished sidewall:

This also happend to the other sidewall, the front and the back.

Now I went for the wood-shingled roof. I sanded some really thin polystyrene sheet (0.25mm) and cut it to ~7mm strips, which themselves were gashed with scissors:

I needed quite a lot of these... They are glued overlapping onto the cardboard. Of course you must start from below... This is really a lot of annoying work, if you add some fissures to the ends of the shingles and make them of odd length...

Next up: The gate and the top-window. Again, we need some strips of the sanded polystyrene. This time some more narrow ones (1-2mm):

They are being glued to the thicker, supporting polystyrene back, which already has the final shape of the gate:

Small hint: use only two narrow stripes of glue, right angled to the planks. This will (hopefully) prevent the glue from coming out between the planks. You can see that little desaster above. With the described technique, all went well :)

Again, cut off the excess "wood", but don't be to accurate:

If you are kind of a perfectionist, as I sometimes (only!) turn out to be, you might carve the ends of the plank with your scalpell. Use two different angles to get a nice finish:

Then it looks like this:

Finally, glue some supports to the gate. I had the nice idea of using them as door hinges.

Therefore I bent the strip around the outer side of the door and fixed it.

As this was the work of several days, I decided to make some molds of it. One can always use hay stacks ;)

These are the (goddamn expensive) silicone molds and the first casts:

I hope you like it!

Cheers, Mojo

Streetwarriors

2011-02-18T19:38:00.000+01:00

Welcome back!

Tonight, I'd like to show you the first few bases on which I used the Juweela Bricks I mentioned before.

The Troops below belong to my Streetwarrior-Based soldiers for Urban fighting Scenes.

Again, I used some Polystyrene cut to strips as woodplanks...

And some round profiles for tubes.

This is one of my favorite Bases featuring a selfmade polystyrene chair

An officer with steel-girder in the background and german wehrmacht Helmet in the front

Mortars... Essential equipment in Behind Omaha

And finally some NCO with kind of a small wall. Honestly: I'm to lazy to make it higher...

I hope you like them guys :)

Greetings Mojo

Just visiting...

2011-02-12T14:41:00.000+01:00

...my hometown! Landau in Rhineland Palatinate (Rheinland Pfalz) is a town with an anxious history
During the 17th century (after the thirty-years-war) it was given to france as part of the "Westfälischer Frieden"-peace contract. Since Landau was France's most eastern outpost, the fortification specialist Vauban was ordered to turned Landau into a Fort in 1688.
During theWar of the spanish succession (1702-1713) the fort was besieged four times and always changed its owners. In 1710, the fortifications were strengthened again, by 1740 minetunnels and escape-gates were built.
In 1815 it was given to the german federation.
Today most of the remainings are thick and high walls, some gates and tunnels.

Since I have not visited this Fort for some very long time, I took the chance today and made a walk with my mother.
Unfortunately I thought, I had forgotten my Cam at home... But I didn't. I found it while we were just leaving, but I took a picture:


Click to enlarge...

I do not know a page in english about it :( Maybe I should translate the Wikipedia article...
However, this is the Wiki-Page and the page www.festungswelt.de features some more nice pictures of this Fort.

If somebody is interested in such stuff, write a comment! I cojuld try to find out more about all of this in summer :)

Greetings, Mojo

Brick is red...

2011-02-02T10:00:00.001+01:00

These days my Bricks from Juweela arrived. Now I'd like to share some Pictures with you:

Bag with 500 Pieces in Format of the "Reichsziegel"


Some Bricks on the Base of a Italeri Machinegunner

To be honest, I thought 500 Bricks would be a bit more than this. As you can see, most bricks have a good part of excess on them. I don't really know, if I am satisfied with this buy.
Should I once grab hold of some CNC Milling Machine, I will make a positive for such a Mold. Seems to be easy money...

Greetings, Mojo

Medic Update

2011-01-28T22:35:00.000+01:00

This post is dedicated to Morks and GRegs suggestion regarding the Medic of my second Squad:

The Medic should carry a bag
The Medic should have a completely white helmet instead of a badge

In my bits-box I found some bags, made by Herpa Minitanks (former Rocco Minitanks). I used my new Tamiya Drill to drill holes into the hands of the medics and the Bags. Afterwards, I formed a handle from wire:

This had just to be glued in position...

The Medic with his painted bag and the white helmet:

Finally I'd like to show you the progress of my Infantry-Project:

All figures and bases are painted. Most of the figures still need a coat of matte varnish...
Afterwards, I can add the grass!
The streetwarrior bases are waiting for Juweela bricks(the red mix) I bought on ebay... I'm so curious about them!
I hope the will arrive soon!

Oh, I almost forgot to welcome my two new followers!
I hope you all like this little update!

//mojo

The whole family

2011-01-20T22:24:00.000+01:00

Mork requested some group pictures of the whole front-pig-family...
Here you are:

As you can see, the two figures from the Airfix German Infantry Set are definitively smaller than the rest.
The Airfix Afrika Korps machine gunner fits better ;)
The Italeri figures are the most bulky, while Pegasus and Revell seems to match.

//mojo

Schützengruppe #2 finished

2011-01-20T07:49:00.000+01:00

I'd like to show you my second squad for Behind Omaha.
While I took the shots, I realized that I forgot to put the matte varnish on :-/
I think I'll have to do this yet.
Nevermind, have a look:

Italeri German Elite Troops Set

Airfix Afrika Korps Set

Pegasus German Mortar Teams Set

Italeri German Elite Troops Set

Airfix German Infantry Set

Italeri German Elite Troops Set

Airfix German Infantry Set

Pegasus German Mortar Teams Set

Revell Deutsches Afrika Korps Set (Water-Carrier Conversion)

Same figure as above

The Bases are not as sophisticated as the "Streetwarrior" ones, but nevertheless I hope you like them ... :)

Greetings,
Mojo

Caesar WWII German Panzergrenadiers 2

2011-01-17T23:51:00.001+01:00

Another Post today, no Post tomorrow :)
First, I want to welcome my new readers! I take notice of every new follower and feel happy, seeing the growing number! Thank you :)

In the past two games, I noticed, that I own far too few common infantrists and maybe also machine gunners.
As a result of this perception I went out to get get some more supplies. Unfortunately my local store did not have any pretty sets of common Infantry in stock, I looked out for something else and made a find!

My upcoming troops will feature two squads of Panzergrenadiers, which currently consits of some soldiers of the German Elite Troops Set by Italeri. This set contains a mixture of men wearing Greatcoats, common uniforms and camo-smocks, which I want to use for my mobile infantry. Due to the mixture, the haul of smocked Men is pretty thin. So, at my supplier I stumbled upon the Caesar WWII German Panzergenadiers 2 Set. Having in mind, that Caesar produces some high-class miniatures, I did not get around buying these:

The box shows a soldier using a machine gun, but this fellow is not included in the set :-/
Also the box says 35+ Figures, meaning exactly 36, as also mentioned at PlasticSoldierReview.
Although this set is featuring extremely detailed featured, there is something that makes me a little sad:
Caesar obviously was a bit sloppy while packing my set: The very last guy on the pictures of PSR was not included in my Set, leaving only 10 out of 11 Poses. As you will see, the figures come with almost NO flash. The only thing left to criticize is the really really soft plastic (I'm terrified of painting these) and the rather thin heads of these guys.

Anyways, here are some pictures of these beautifully sculpted figures in the remaining 10 poses:

Last but not least, this is my favourite figure in this set. A masterpiece. Although I am not quite sure, what kind of beast this guy is attacking :D Next to my Panther (same Scale) he is holding the "Hafthohlladung" high above the chassis, obviously trying to attach it with the (in germany commonly known) "Siemens Lufthaken".

I'm not really sure if everybody understands this joke, nevermind ;-)

As always, thanks for watching!!

See you soon...

//mojo

Another small game

2011-01-17T07:45:00.001+01:00

Yesterday we met at the club house and had another game with almost the same setup as last time... Only a few Mortars and machine guns , as well as an armoured Transport and an armoured Anti-Tank-Halftrack more, as Edi bought some new stuff on Saturday ;)

This time its not gonna be a complete game report, only a few pics...

We have set up a house-roule:
If vehicles fire upon each other, you do not only have to roll for armour penetration, you also have to roll for a hit before. With a perfect line of sight, you need 4+ to hit, if the vehicle is in light cover and you are able to see about the half of it, you've got to roll 5+ to hit. If you can only go for the Turret, you're gonna need a 6!

This rule brought us near to frustration... During the whole game, my Panther did not score one single hit. There were also some zero-hit-rounds on both sides... tzzzz.

Again, Edi had the better hand in killing the vehicles, while I managed to reduce his amount of infantry drastically, which kept him from capturing Points and left them to me.

This was unfortunately the last pic taken. This was pretty much mid game.

I think I need to reread the rules, to see if vehicles can manage such almost "barrel on armour" shots as you can see between the Panther and the SU or the Halftracks with either the Panzer IV or the T34.

In our Forum I was asked about the value of the Sd. Kfz. 251/22 in Battle. I guess normally, this thing will be killed rather fast, maybe after firing one or two shots on its own. But with our house rule (about hitting), these vehicles enable some really good tactical options, because they move faster than tanks and are not as easy to kill.

Thats all for today! Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

//mojo

LOL, Picasa!!1!!1!

2011-01-14T18:58:00.001+01:00

Today I connected my Google-Account with the Picasa-Webalbum that is used by this Blog.
I started to post the pictures of the minis of the last post to the Behind Omaha-Forum, when I noticed that Airfix seems to have done a real good job on the running DAK-Machinegunner! See for yourself:

(Click to enlarge)

That's cool, Picasa! I'm slightly amused ;-)

//mojo

Schützengruppe #1 finished

2011-01-14T07:03:00.002+01:00

This is 1/7th of another last-year-project!
Now this is the first infantry platoon I finished for Behind Omaha. These Figures feature the "Streetfighter Bases I mentioned in my last Post... The next platoon I'll finish will have "Wood and Meadow Bases". I hope the Bases will improve by time ;)

The Officer

The Signaller

Common Soldier

Another common soldier

One of my favorite figures (note the glowing wood ;-) )

This figure has such a superb pose!

Anti Tank

Flamethrower!

Hidden machinegunner

The same again


Indirect fire support

Medic Option 1 (again with smouldering wood...)

Medic option 2

And now I need your opinion:

Which Medic-Option do you like best?

Thanks for watching!

//mojo

Panzer IV finished #1

2011-01-13T07:21:00.001+01:00

This morning, I won't make many words, I need leave the house ASAP ;)
But before, I'd like to show you my first finished Panzer IV:

I hope you like him :)
Currently I'm in a mini-painting and basing frenzy:

Half of the squads will have "Streetwarrior-Bases", the others will get "Woods-and-Meadow-Bases"

Cheers,
Mojo

Harsh Battle

2011-01-11T22:26:00.001+01:00

Yesterday evening, my mate Edi came over and brought some terrain from our club house.
We played a battle of "Behind Omaha". Since his army is not as evolved as mine yet, we decided to make equal teams:
Every Team had three infantry squads with 10 men each. One had a heavy mortar, one had a machine gun.
As the Soviet list is not out yet, we set the tank types equal:
Panther = KV I
Pz IV = T34
Jagd Pz VI = SU 122

The Battle was fought on a 120 x 60 cm table, with several totally ruined and some intact buildings, including a set of Walls. Unfortunately I did not get to paint these nice plaster-cast Streets yet, so they are still white.

This was the Soviet Army:

This was the German Army:

Edi had the first move. He brought his Assault Guns in defensive positions and moved his Tanks and the infantry forward:

I did almost the same, but because of Edis perfect defensive positions, my tanks were endangered from the first minute on...

While Edi was moving his tanks forward he was forgetting the movement phase of his Infantry. Therefore, he didn't get his Marker (between the Church and his men) in this round. I moved my Tanks in a position, where they were rather safe from the AGs, but unable to get tactically involved. :(

As Ed secured his marker (I did in the round before), I tried a breakthrough with my tanks, lightening the ranks of his Infantry. The Panzer IV got his first hit and then I did something really silly. I asked, if my Jagdpanzer may drive through the ruins. He said, perform a terrain-test (but he was not serious, he would have simply let me pass...)! I thought "Haha, I'll never roll a 1!" But I did. So the tracks of my AG were busted and it was immobilized for the rest of the game... :(

Ed provided two hits on my Panther with the AGs, one on the Panzer IV with the KV-I and started to advance with his infantry, the thirst for the second marker glaring in his eyes...

But he ran into my mortar-fire... Also, the Stormtroops left their defensive positions and took up the fight, heavily increasing Eds infantry losses, while the Panther scored a hit on the T34 and the other Jagdpanzer found his way around the building (you might see him on the lower right corner...).

After knocking out the T34 with a well aimed shot from the Jagdpanzer and a luckshot from the heavy mortar, I tried pushing forward with my Infantry, to secure the second marker. In two rounds, I lost about 10 of my 12 remaining soldiers to the enemy KV-1...

After two hours of dice rolling, we signed a cease fire, both unable to secure a second marker due to lacking infantry...

It was a hard battle again! If you would count hit- or killpoints, Ed would be the winner with 3 remaining operational tanks on the battlefield... I think, now he is finally infected with BO ;-)

Have a good time, see you soon!

//mojo

Wiking Paintworks Trophy - My entry (and the finished Panther)

2011-01-10T19:00:00.001+01:00

As you might have read on Burns' or Morks Blog, Wiking is hosting a Figure-Painting-Trophy for 20mm Figures that suit to Behind Omaha.
Now I'd like to show you my entry:
Willy, the Richtschütze of the feared Panther:

Willy proudly wears the Panzerkampfabzeichen in silver, as well as the Eiserne Kreuz II. Klasse.
He wears the black Panzer-Uniform which shows the shoulderflaps and the collarpatches in the Panzer-Color "Pink".

Willy is -as his comrades- originally a Crew-Member of the Italeri (ex-Esci) Panzer IV. To be honest, Willy was not really painted for the Trophy. I made him in early December, but as I was lacking time to paint some more sophisticated Mini, well, he was chosen for the Trophy...

Yesterday, after almost a week of no progress at the office - as well as on my hobby-desk (due to some nasty cold), I was able to finally finish the vehicle, Willy is sitting on: The Panther Ausf. A by Revell:

I will post some more detailed shots these days...

Until then,

have a nice time!

Good luck to all other participants of the WTP :)

...and thanks for reading!

//mojo