US Motorpool – Part I
As mentioned in my reducing the stock and moving posts, I cut down on open projects. This affected among other projects Bolt Action. I merged some off the themed armies and sold the surplus, especially the vehicles.
I made a mindmap for the projects that will stay. And the Bolt Action armies, which will be set up in a way to be able to put to use in other systems as well, for example like Battlegroup, are:
Late War - Winter of 1944/45
- Germans (Ardennenoffensive / Wacht am Rhein, Unternehmen Greif)
- Combined Allied battle group of Americans (Battle of the Bulge, later Operation Lumberjack) and British (rougly Operation Queen, but British troops fighting their way from Belgium/Netherlands towards middle rhine)
Mid War - Desert and Jungle
- Deutsches Afrikakorps
- 8th Army
- Chindits
Twelve months, 20,- Euro – Part 8
It's happened to me again, it's September and I'm writing my recap for August - yes, the summer void has continued and aside from a few more rocks for my terrain collection, I haven't gotten far.
But I am all the more satisfied with the result. I had already finished the lower three rocks and expanded them with the four rock formations above. I never thought I'd ever have to write so many words about rocks in the tabletop field, but they are amazingly versatile as game terrain.
August 2021 review
Parental leave is over and since March 2020, I went back from remote to physically being in the office in August. That certainly is a different situation, among others "loosing" an hour a day on commute.
It feels a bit weird to say, that with having reached September, it is only 4 more months until 2022. Times moving insanely fast. With that said, one of the gaps in my limited miniature collection could be closed, with an 10 year old miniature, the 2011 Salute event miniature sculpted by the Perrys. Quite happy about getting my hands on this one.
Wednesday is my new streaming day. A new Marvel What If episode, along with updates on Warhammer+. I did a recap on the animated series on here, but todays update, that "only" covered a new episode of Angels of Death didn't really have that much of an impact. Only 17 minutes long - incl. intro, but revealing the foe of the narrative. It didn't really develope the story and the sound composing issues are still there, along with some weird clipping of the shoulder pads on the Blood Angels themself. Looking forward to a new episode of Hammer & Bolter and hopefully some throwbacks in the vault.
Bolt Action – Jagdtiger
After covering multiple King Tigers on here, in resin and plastic, it is time to go for the heaviest beasts of the Tiger-Class tanks, the German tank destroyer Sd.Kfz. 186 Jagdpanzer VI - also known as Jagdtiger.
This beast is available in 28mm by multiple companies as a resin kit, but now comes for the first time in plastic, by the joint production of Warlord Games and Italeri. The kit I got, was a pre-release provided by the Dutch wargaming shop Tabletopper.nl. As such it didn't come in a cardboard box, it was simply the sprues in a plastic bag. The final product of course comes with instructions, decals and so on.
The Jagdpanzer VI was another tank destroyer, based upon the chassis of a regular tank. The Germans did this multiple times, as we've seen with the Jagdpanther, the Sturmgeschütz III, Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer or Marder III (both based upon the Panzer 38(t)). But in this case, building upon the already pretty heavy Tiger II tank, the Jagdtiger became with around 70t the heaviest tank produced in series in history.
Reinforcement straight from the foundry
I usually pick up Wargames Foundry at shows likes Crisis or Salute, but with the lack of shows "lately" I went for some direct ordering. As I have friends in the UK, I'm able to order without the hassle of customs and fees. These were ordered in April, Foundry did a great job having them delivered only a few days later within the UK, and I only recently came around to arrange the hand over. So that's only a solution for some non-time critical items, never the less - let's take a look at what I got myself.
Twelve months, 20,- Euros – Part 7
As you can see, I'm writing my review for July with some delay this time. Yesterday, as I was thinking about how this actually happened, it occurred to me that I seem to always have a bit of a hobby slump at the same time of year: July and August. On a rational level, this is due to a combination of repetitive reasons, all of which can be summed up as a "temporarily growing amount of obligations."
Nevertheless, there is at least a small update. For some time now I've been chasing the Animated Statue from the Halodyne range of the game Godslayer. No matter where you order online, it usually costs around 30,- Euro. Even with the 4.17 left over from the previous month, this would not have been possible.
But as fate would have it, Daniel, also known as blackmail82 in German-speaking forums, actually had this model at hand and left it to me for 15,- Euro including shipping.
Black Hussar Miniatures – French in Canada
While looking for beautiful figures for the French and Indian War, I came across the manufacturer Black Hussar Miniatures some time ago. We don't have a particularly large number of manufacturers in Germany for historical figures in the 28mm scale, so we want to take a closer look at this manufacture today. The models had been here for a while and I am also very sorry for the long delay, but the pandemic conditions made it very difficult for us to photograph the models appropriately. The pictures therefore do not necessarily show the quality that is otherwise known from the chaos bunker. It was just not possible for me to have a photo session with Dennis. I would like to apologize to the manufacturer for the long waiting time.
The manufacturer
Black Hussar Miniatures was founded in 2015 by its current owner Sascha and his buddy Florian. The two Berliners needed miniatures for their own project and since they couldn't find anything suitable, they asked an friend to model corresponding figures for them. A few test figures became very extensive series for the Kingdom of Prussia and the Kingdom of France in the Seven Years' War. The French were also expanded to include a few models for the Canadian theater of war. The miniatures were so well received that the two decided to sell them in their own shop.Black Hussar Miniatures is now well established on the market, but that does not mean that you can make a living from historical small series. Sascha, who now runs the company alone, invests all profits back into new miniatures. In the meantime, another series has been added for the Napoleonic period. This - originally brought into being by Westfalia Miniatures - is the mainstay today, as this era is in much greater demand, especially internationally. Three freelance modelers are currently working on the series on a regular basis, so that they are continuously expanded.
June review
Managed to get some things going in June. Some new and final arrivals to my collection.
I am a huge fan of the work of Paul Hicks, and one of rarer miniatures (besides the event miniatures he sculpted) is this set of British Napoleonic soldiers, strongly influenced by Sean Bean in Sharpe. After looking for a trader in Europe and trying to get these second hand - but with no results for over almost a year, I decided to order directly with Brigade Games. Shipping wasn't cheap at 28 USD (for a total of ~50 USD worth of miniatures), but went incredibly fast, as these arrived within 10 days - incl. going through customs.
This isn't going to be some mass combat, but really a small skirmish setup around Sharpe's Rifles. So after looking at Osprey Games' Chosen Men, but putting that aside for it being far too large, as it is more like Saga at 40+ miniatures and not what I had in mind for the small battles, I went with Song of Drums & Shakos by Ganesha Games. Tabletop Stories has a review on the rule set. And if you're already there, give their Mecha-Spin off of What a tanker a go.
May review
Another busy month, only a few new articles published, two reviews - the Warmaster Titan and the Tiger II by Rubicon models.
Twelve months, 20,- Euros – Part 5
May is over and as expected I haven't had that much free time due to my new job. But as the saying goes, sometimes class counts more than mass. Following this motto, I managed relatively early in the month to paint my leader for the troop of Greek mercenaries and Corinthians.
Since he got a completely new miniature, I also gave him a new name: Diamachos. The name is derived from the greek word for quarrel (diamachi) and is supposed to represent that this fearless mercenary captain lives from the conflict of others.
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