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29Jan/190

Oldhammer – The Imperial Guard

After the short introduction to Oldhammer earlier this month, we want to stick with the 2nd Edition of Warhammer 40,000 and highlight one particular army - the Imperial Guard.

Warhammer 40,000 - Codex Imperial Guard

If you think of Warhammer, especially 40k, you think of Space Marines. But the Imperium and its forces is not only made of Adeptus Astartes, but simple men defending their homeworlds and holy Terra as well. The Imperial Guard existed in Rogue Trader as well and is not something new, that came along with the second edition. But the diversity was surely brought to that army with the new miniature range introduced in 1994.

26Jan/190

Adeptus Titanicus – Reaver Battle Titan with Melta Cannon and Chainfist

Games Workshop starts into the new year with a new supplement for Adeptus Titanicus, Titandeath. Along the release of the book, you now have the chance to buy the weapon sprue from the Warlord Titan with Plasma Annihilator and Power Claw, and a Reaver Titan with Melta Cannon and Chainfist, that we're going to unbox today.

You'll find the reviews on the earlier released Reaver Titan with Gatling/Laser Blaster and Power Fist, Warhound Scout Titans and both Warlord Titans on my blog as well.

Adeptus Titanicus Reaver Battle Titan with Melta Cannon and Chainfist Adeptus Titanicus Reaver Battle Titan with Melta Cannon and Chainfist Adeptus Titanicus Reaver Battle Titan with Melta Cannon and Chainfist

23Jan/190

Dead Man’s Hand: Banditos – Part 3

My third finished gang member for the Banditos is the planned leader of the gang. The dynamic pose and the aggressiveness the miniature expressed clearly called for that.

The outfit was obviously inspired by Mariachibands and so I let myself be inspired by originals as well. Unfortunately, when I was looking for pictures, I quickly realized that the clothes weren’t far as colourful as I remembered them. Nevertheless, I decided to stay true to the look and tried to give the clean black of the suit a more worn out look, as if it had been worn for a continuously long time. I followed Citadel's app suggestion for "dirty black" again and was quite satisfied with the result.

Dead Mans Hand - Banditos Domingo Ortega

22Jan/190

Preparing the limited & collection section

I have a soft spot for show and con miniatures, exclusives and to some degree limited models. Over the years, I collected quite a few of these of the shows and events I visited. In some cases, like at Salute for example, you can buy remaining stock of older event miniatures at the show, and I often use these chances to complete my collection.

Limited & Collectors Miniatures

17Jan/190

Bolt Action Opel Blitz & Maultier

In late 2017 Warlord Games covered the Opel Blitz / Maultier combi plastic kit for Bolt Action.

Bolt Action - Opel Blitz / Maultier Bolt Action - Opel Blitz / Maultier

The truck is one of the workhorses of the German army, transporting troops, supplies and ammunition were they were needed. The Opel Blitz is the most known of these trucks, other companies like Ford or Daimler supplied their own trucks, in some cases like the DB 701 by Daimler, it was simply the Opel Blitz without the markings built under license.

Where the Opel Blitz was build between 1937 and 1944 and made it to around 70,000 units, the half track variant of the Opel Maultier was released later in 1942/43 and around 20,000 units were built. As these trucks were the standard solution for logistics of all kind, there were multiple variants of them, converted and built for use as ambulance, communication, weapon carriage and even uparmoured ones.

16Jan/190

Dead Man’s Hand: Banditos – Part 2

The turn of the year and the usual duties as a father have led to a small break in our Dead Man's Hand article series. Fortunately, since I did not tackle the project on my own, we will again have a Wild Wednesday occasionally. Finn's introduced his first gang member, Hector Villa,  some time ago. Now it's time to introduce Tuco. And with this Finn will take over from here on...

With Tuco I went back to the experience I gained with painting Hector’s jeans and painted the poncho in yellow. At first I wanted to apply a light base color layer and tone it down it with a wash, but by mixing in white, it looked nicely faded, so that I used a lighter one than the intended wash. Of course, the pants should look similar raggedy and so I decided to keep them beige. I wanted Tuco to give the impression of a poor helper.

Dead Mans Hand - Banditos Tuco

14Jan/190

Rubicon Models SdKfz 301a Opel Maultier with Box Body

Based upon the already available Opel Blitz Kit (RM280026), Rubicon published the Maultier variant that replaces the rear wheels with tracks. As with some of their other kits, like the SdKfz 25x, they cover further accessories. For the Blitz and Maultier there is the option to upgrade the cargo bed with the box body "Einheitskoffer".

Rubicon Models - SdKFz 3a Maultier with Einheitskoffer

After the first winter in 1941 on the Eastern Front, the German army high command realised that the trucks weren't capable of handling the weather and terrain conditions. The vehicles often got stuck in the mud and snow. A unit of the Waffen-SS build the tracks of a Bren Carrier under a truck to confront those conditions. After realising the benefits of this modification in 1942, Opel, Ford and Daimler added these variants to their truck production. Depending on by whom the LKW Gleiskette 2t was build, it was called SdKfz 3a (in case it was built by Opel), 3b (Ford V3000 S) or 3c (Daimler L4500). The variant was called Maultier (mule) and further variants were build upon the halftrack vehicles, like the Panzerwerfer or with a 2-cm Flak 38.

11Jan/190

Enemy at the table, friend in life

In his annual review of 2018, Dennis mentioned that he wished that the tabletop community in Germany would move closer together again. I liked this section, because I think it's one of the biggest strengths of this hobby, which often goes unnoticed. Enough reason for me to take a glimpse into the past and shed some light onto a story, which only our hobby can tell.

In 2011 I was still quite active in the tabletop forum Tabletopwelt.de, as I finished my career as an active American Football player in the same year and became an analyst for my former team. Of course, all of a sudden I had some more free time and filled it with the hobby, while I worked on my undead team, the Golden Vultures. The following year, I noticed that one of the forum participants was commenting on my Blood Bowl posts quite actively, and during the conversation it turned out that he was active in Football as well. Not only that, he was actually playing for a team in Nuremberg that my own team would encounter this season.

Since I traveled all over Germany for my Blood Bowl project to play a total of ten games and to write some match reports, this seemed like a great opportunity to kill two birds with one stone - play some Blood Bowl and coach at the game in Nuremberg the next day.

In the evening I competed against the NAFL Legacy Team...

Blood Bowl - NAFL Legacy Team

...and in the morning against the most sympathic Defensive Line player of Nuremberg

Daniel & Swarley

10Jan/190

Oldhammer – An introduction

Nostalgy is something that many folks come across. Weither it is collecting old video game consoles from your youth, or the cars you grew up with (like your dad's/uncle's car or the super cars from the magazines). And this nostalgy is possible with wargaming as well. Of course, not only with the Warhammers and their sister games, but in this case Oldhammer is an actual thing.

And similar to oldtimers or other vintage (collecting) hobbies, the span is quite broad. Some goals are easier to reach than others. For example my brother-in-law gathering classic Nintendo entertainment systems along with the original games (and not going for emulators) is a bit easier, compared to actually buying the Ferrari F-40 or Lamborghini Countach that hanged as a poster on the wall of your children's room. But as I don't have the time or space to take on a project like my late uncle's E30 325i or the 100k EUR for an Schwimmwagen, I stick with the wargames from my youth. I did already talk about oldhammer in 2016, as part of the Sweetwater / Tactica contest.

BMW E30 325i Schwimmwagen Games Workshop Warhammer Store Darmstadt

7Jan/190

Das Boot – inspiring wargaming

I watched the tv mini-series version of the original movie Das Boot from 1981 on amazon prime last year or the year before. It had enhanced audio and video quality, with 6 episodes covering 52 minutes each. In November and December 2018 a tv series sequel of the same name, was released as an 8-part. It plays 9 month after the original movie, and due to the nearly 40 years between both movies, of course with different actors. I had the chance to see the location and mock-up of the submarine in Munich, in the Bavaria Filmstudio. It was quite impressive to see and transported the claustrophobic atmosphere of the submarine quite well.