Modern Combat – Humvees, Tanks and Marines
The chassis are ready, a convoy of 3 to 4 almost identical looking vehicles would be okay, but as these will be put to use in smaller games and skirmishes, I didn't want to use clones, so I bought some Black Dog resin upgrades a while back.
Casting quality is pretty wild, some parts are just broken or not fully casted. Black Dog threw some of them in there multiple times, probably to make up for that lack of quaulity. The instructions are only available for the IDF kit and even there a bit vague.
Modern Combat – Assembling the HUMVEE Convoy
Some things take up less space once they are assembled, so while sorting out items I came across the Humvee kits by Tamiya in 1/48th scale, and those would be a lot smaller when built. And it was a welcome diversion from sorting, taking pictures and dropping off parcels at the post office.
Tamiya doesn't call them HUMVEE but a more generic name, simply an 4x4 utility vehicle. I have a total of four boxes of these, three of the regular US Modern 4x4 Utility Vehicle and a fourth one as the Cargo Variant.
Mortal Gods: Zombie Reinforcements
Hard to believe, but the reinforcements for my Army of Hades are ready. The army shown here is the standard game size of 300 points and in given time we will also talk a bit about the composition of the army, since I will, of course, eventually bring the army to 500 points.
For now, however, 300 points are enough, since I also want to paint my mortal army. When I add mythical troops to it, both factions will grow to the size intended for Mythic.
Miniature swap – travelling wargame box
In 2021 I participated in two travelling wargames trade boxes, and the first one, the "Kramkiste" (stuff box), arrived. A bit lighter than I expected and with the modest trades of the participants before me, I didn't really knew what to expect.
After the Brexit, right into chaos
Brexit is here, and that seems to be a bit of surprise for some. Who would have guessed, that it would actually happen and even have an impact?
It is february and after some hick-ups and problems between Calais and Dover, for the essential things like food and medical supplies, it has arrived our lovely little hobby. Some of the parcels that were sent last year didn't make it within the pre-brexit time windows and thus were lacking the document for a proper export. And many of the traders couldn't be bothered to supply these post-brexit either, resulting in all kinds of fees, additional costs and delays for the customers.
That caused some discussion, where people exchanged their experience and suggestions on how to avoid these, as you can read the experience of several wargamers on Lead Adventure or Sweetwater. For example paying 30 EUR of fees ontop of a 50-60 EUR package of miniatures. Making it more than just unappealing to order from the UK. Please keep in mind, that the majority of miniatures is produced or at least distributed from the UK. So this is going to hurt the demand of miniatures, or at least consolidate towards those who can supply. I was aware that this could happen, and so I ordered in November Empress Miniatures through a german wholetrader. A couple of emails in the old year, and guess what still hasn't arrived? I won't pay the uppricing and will probably step back from my order - if / when somebody gets in touch with me. But those are the smaller traders and shops. Some even have so ingenious suggestions like "split your orders to below 50 GBP and customs won't bother you" - yeah, that's playing russian roulette with fees and highly unprofessional. Especially from a commercial trader.
As for supply. Some traders didn't receive new stock / novelties this year, even from the larger companies. And if you remember how some of the store shelves looked in spring last year, this might be something that might happen with wargaming as well.
Necromunda – Wanted / Sale
Looking for these miniatures
- House Orlock - 1 kid, that pose
- Ratskins - 1 kid, one of those poses, and one ganger, that pose
- House Van Saar - 1 heavy with plasma, 2 gangers random poses
- House Goliath - 1 kid (that pose), 4 gangers, preferred these two poses and two randoms
- House Cawdor - 2 gangers from the shown poses, 1 heavy with grenade launcher
- House Delaque - 3 gangers from the shown poses
- House Escher - 1 gangers from the shown poses
- Redemptionists - 1 ganger, that pose
- Scavvies - 1 Ganger, that pose, 2 - 4 Plague Zombies
- Hired Guns - that Beastmaster
- Pit Slaves - 2 Gangers, those poses, 1 Tech, that pose, 1 Boss, that pose
- GorkaMorka Mutie - Snaga and Unk body, one pair of legs
- GorkaMorka DiggaNobs - 2 Gangers, those poses
Bitbox-Stand In, miniature swap with Gregor / SirLeon
We hoped that we would be able to meet in some kind of way to exchange some stock within our hobby group, but due to being spread across Germany that wasn't possible. As I had some bad experience last year with DHL, I hesitated to use postal services to exchange the miniatures (especially, even if they would reimburse us for lost stuff - which they don't - with some of the OOP items that wouldn't be much help anyway).
Anyhow, as it doesn't really seem that we will have a time slot coming up, that would make a personal meeting happening and the boxes (yes, plural, in the beginning it was one box labelled with Malkränzchen, but over the months it became individual boxes for each one, to keep track who receives what) grew in size. So we had some video chats, talking about what we're looking for, what would end up in the boxes and prepared them for shipping. It is post christmas, it's national tracked packages, so the risk should be a minimum.
Gregor already wrote about some of the items that I sent him over at the German board Tabletop Welt in his project log "Jenseits des Steinbachs". But what did I receive? Some 90s goodies from Middlehammer 🙂
January 2021 review
Wow, already a month done into 2021! We had the kick-off for the new year, and I could put a lot of energy into the weekends, continuing to sort out the stock. At some point you get to the things, that aren't bulk or quickly free up space, so after going for the overstock of Necromunda Bulkheads, I moved on to the organisers, to see what I'd keep and what would be sold.
Twelve months, 20,- Euros – Part 1
There is hardly a hobbyist who doesn't have a certain stock of leftover minis at home. In my case, this used to be for a growing bitzbox, but since then, a whole series of unfinished projects have also come along. Since my "Pile of Shame" is already quite large, I thought of a strategy at the beginning of the year to reduce it and at the same time prevent it from growing again. The idea was simple:
Every month I have a budget of 20,- € for my hobby.
With this limit I' d like to achieve that I dedicate myself to my old projects, and at best increase them instead of starting any new ones. Long story short - fight the unpainted minis! In my annual review I already mentioned that the first thing I want to do is to finish my Mortal Gods Hades army. For this I need two squads of zombies that I've already startedn and one base with skeletons.
Star Wars – A long time ago on a gaming table far, far away
I wrote a couple of times about how well Mandalorian was produced and how much I enjoyed it. It picked up the satisfaction I had with Rogue One, and brushed away the lower excitement I had with the final trilogy. The skirmish battles, the rag-tag crew of individuals, with bounty hunters, scum and rebels, all set in the western and eastern inspired space opera. So I looked into Star Wars on the tabletop.
So far I only had Imperial Assault and X-Wing on my plate, and for that the IP works quite well. A dungeon crawler with two clear sides, good and bad, have your heroes fight squads of Imperial goons and hired guns. And for X-Wing, picking up the Wings of War engine and used it for the sci-fi setting and breaks with one of the major disadvantages of the Star Wars IP for a tabletop wargame, the limited amount of factions.
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