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.
Bolt Action Opel Blitz & Maultier
In late 2017 Warlord Games covered the Opel Blitz / Maultier combi plastic kit for Bolt Action.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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...
...and in the morning against the most sympathic Defensive Line player of Nuremberg
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.
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.
Outlook 2019 – The hobbywhip for the boss
While Dennis summarized 2018 in his annual review quite smoothly, I‘ll take a look into the glass orb for 2019 and do what a true hobbyist can do best: make plans and try to do everythin possible that they turn out differently! Accordingly my main point on the list of good intentions for the new year is to stick to my plan!
First of all, there is a warband for Age of Sigmar: Skirmish, of which I have already finished two models and where the progress on the rest is nearing completion.
Afterwards I‘ll take on Dreadball for a while, as Mantic Games was so kind to provide us wit the second edition starter box, as well as two more new PVC teams. Hobbywise there will be more stuff in this department as well, because of course I want to have at least the teams of the starter box painted - and that from both editions, the first and the second.
New Year’s Eve Dinner 2018
Welcome to 2019 and we start the year off with some cooking! Originally I wanted to cover my brined roasted chicken that I made for Christmas, but I wasn't that satisfied with the result and may give it another try, before I share it.
As for New Year's Eve we had friends over, who have a toddler themselves. So the food for the evening was something among the idea of tapas, or dishes that could be eaten all over the evening, without getting mushy or overdone and so on. The night before New Year's Eve, I began with the Guacamole.
Annual review of 2018, preview of 2019
Yet another year on the chaosbunker and with 2019, we're heading towards the 10th year of this blog and my 23rd year in the hobby. Chaosbunker continued with the bilingual content, offering the articles in both English and German. And similar to last year, this year was quite busy, again, both in wargaming and private life.
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