The Return of the Idiot

It seems like an age, since I posted anything, of any relevance, on here......
Life has an unfortunate way, of placing various obstacles into your path, and before you know it, months have flown by, dust and cobwebs have settled into place, so with some trepidation, I brush them away, and settle down to try and breath a bit of life back into my poor old neglected blog.

So, what wonders have passed across the Desk of Doom? Well, to be perfectly honest, not a lot, as usual with me, I have drifted from one thing, to another, with odd figures, have been finished, and bits of plastic tortured into various shapes, and welded together with liquid poly.
In need of some inspiration, I decide to head off to Partizan.
Now it would not be me, if there was not some dumb arse drama issue involved, and after arranging to pick up a couple of mates, a spanner gets thrown into the works, now being the dad of a special needs child, I have a certain level of responsibility, we are currently in the middle of the school summer holidays, and trying to fill up a day, for an autistic 17 year old, who does not like other children, crowds, loud noises and dogs, is really hard work, and my poor wife manages this, on her own for most of the week, so when I am not working, at the weekends, I take up the slack, and give my poor wife a break. So, to take the best part of a day out of the weekend, is a big deal for me, and after agreeing that it would be ok to go, my wife decides to change her mind!!
Some intense 11th hour negotiations take place, and we finally reach a compromise, and I get a leave pass to head North to Newark

Partizan has moved house, and its shiny new venue, is the George Stevenson Hall, located on the Newark Showground, for those of you who can recall the gloom of Kelham Hall, the blinding lightness of this great new venue, may have come as a bit of a shock.

The intrepid threesome, roll up, and pay their dues, for the princely sum of £4, we are granted entrance, and are handed a nice little figure as well ( some sort of Crimean war nurse it seems).

The new venue is lovely, light and airy, loads of room to stroll about, the stalls go around the outside, and the games take up the centre space.

The games themselves are split into two zones, Demonstration, and Participation, so at one end you can join in and chuck a few dice, and at the other, you can marvel at the set ups from the Demo game crowd.

Loads of choice on the trader front, with the usual culprits, from the Kelham days, and a few new faces, so money will more than likely be spent, with one of our gang spending more than the other two added together.

I spent most of my day, generally chatting, with assorted mates, it did me a massive power of good, to go to the show, sometimes you get stuck in a bit of a rut, and I needed a kick up the arse, to get moving again, and to start enjoying this hobby again.

Now I would like to tell you about all the games, but to be honest, I did not have a camera, and I really did not spend  alot of time looking at them. There were some lovely looking games on show, and they all semed to uphold the usual high standard you expect to see at Partizan.

My spending was minimal, just a few packs of figures

From UnderFire Miniatures, I picked up his latest Bundeswehr releases, and a few additions to my DDR NVA collection, I will do a review of these at some stage, as they are my current favourites, in my period of choice (at this moment in time)

A token pack of Spanish Civil War Republican infantry from Empress Miniatures, my enthusiasm for this period has somewhat waned, and I really don't know why.

So, not a huge amount of cash blown by me.

Overall, well what can I say, another great Partizan show, to add to the list of all the other great Partizan shows I had attended, the new venue is great, and its on our side of Newark, so a lot easier to get to.

Congratulation to the organisers, done it again gents.

Now, keep your eyes peeled, because, this blog is going to turn into a VLOG!!!!

Yes, I am going live action, so instead of reading the drivel, I type on here, you can see moving images, and listen to my dulcet tones, as I cover a number of different topics, from  miniatures reviews, to "How to's", so if you ever wondered just how I can waste the best part of an hour, painting a face on a figure, you can bore yourself stupid watching me do it.

Oh the horror of it all

Been A while

Since I last typed any sort of nonsense on here.
I am still around, just not done much worth sharing TBH, at the moment I am working on a charity build, having taken on the Tank Girl Tank for The Frothers Charity Figure thing from a couple of years back. Hope to have the finished model squared away for Partizan on 21st August.
Apart from that.........errrrrrrrrrrr..........yeah.
Boring old git these days.

Bundeswehr and National Volksarmee - Another Review

Because then, at least I am typing something on here.

You may, or may not recall, as I cycle through wargaming periods quicker ,than  a drugged up Lance Armstrong in the Tour De France!! I purchased some very nice East German NVA figures in 28mm, from a company called UnderFire Miniatures, and did a little review.

http://nigelh-viewfromtheduckpond.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/like-thin-shelled-chocolate-easter-egg.html

Now as you all know, I am easily distracted from a project, and this time I can blame the TV, I did go through a "War and Peace"crisis, as the BBC aired their latest Sunday evening drama, but a few hours wrestling with them horrible Perry figures, and it passed, then along comes More 4, with its Walter Presents nonsense, and he declares that "Deutschland 83" was worth showing, and I decided to give it a look, the rest as they say, is history........

I dug around in my boxes of shame, and rediscovered the NVA packs, then I went online, and made the mistake of having a quick glance at the UnderFire Miniatures website.
Well now, they have added to the range, in the shape of two more NVA packs, and the start of some Bundeswehr opponents for them. So I had to order them, as it seemed impolite not to.

A little parcel duly  arrived, and here is a Villageidiot style review of the contents.

Bundeswehr 1 pack

The pack contains, as its obviously clear from the picture, four rifle armed infantry, now these lads are firmly rooted in the 1980s, as clearly depicted by the uniforms, and equipment, so no Flecktarn to paint (Hurrah).

Sculpted by Tony Boustead, the same person responsible for the previously released NVA models.

The models are well cast, with a little mould line clean up required, but nothing too taxing. Once again, these lads are on the tall side, and measure up at around 34mm to the top of their heads, the figures are slim build, none of your chunky lads here.

This is no problem, as they match perfectly with the previously released NVA models, and as the only company producing figures for this period now, you don't have to match them with other figures.

Scale wise, yes as you already know, I am a scale nazi, they probably scale out at about 1/50th

I popped one onto my scale mat, and he works out at about 5ft 7" in 1/48th.

Onto the equipment, and the models appear to have all the correct bits n pieces, the webbing looks right, the G3 magazine pouches are spot on, and they have the kidney pouch respirators, on the rear there is the entrenching tool, small pouch,and a water bottle.

The G3 assault rifle is beautifully detailed, and is not overly large, often an issue with figures.

The uniform would be the old Moleskin issue, greenish grey, with the American style helmet, the helmets are bare, and I did expect them to have the camo covers on them, but thats a minor gripe, and easily sorted with a paintjob, or by adding loads of foliage..

Its good to see these figures appear, and I hope that we get a few more packs,always difficult when beginning a new range, and its a bit of a niche area, so congratulations to UnderFire for commissioning this range

 It has inspired me to drag out all my old model plans, and after a bit of jiggery pokery, I came up with this

Yeah ,Marder 1A2, its what every Bundeswehr Panzer Grenadier wants to drive about it, expect a  1/50th scale, hacked up plasticard mess to roll off my bench...........eventually :-)

There are a few more packs to come in this range, and I hope we will get some light support weapons, including the MG3

So West Germany done, lets hop over the Iron Curtain, and have a look at the East.

National Volksarmee 2 packs

To round out the East German side, we have two new packs of NVA figures, and once again, nice clean castings, that require a minimum clean up.

The first pack contains a platoon command group, comprising an officer/NCO, radio operator, RPG gunner, and a sniper 

The second pack contains three infantrymen armed with the German equivalent of the AK47, and a kneeling figure aiming his RPG7.

The figures have a mix of helmets, some are plain, others have the net or camo cover, they all have the right selection of equipment, and the detail on the kit, and weapons is just fantastic.

These two new packs will enable you to make up a good mix of vehicle squads for either BMP mounted sections or the BTR60 ones

So lets put this one to bed, if you are interested in gaming a 1980s Cold War what if, and you choose to  take the 28mm route, then you will not be disappointed with these models.

Price wise, they are £8.00 for four figures, this includes postage, and is about par for the course these days, you do get a quality selection of figures for your pennies, so the cost is pretty damn reasonable.

Get you backsides over to 

http://www.underfireminiatures.com/index.htm

and order a few packs :-)

Now, do I contact Mr Boustead, and see if he is able to sculpt some B.A.O.R and Soviets?

I have this urge you see :-)

Until next time fellow figure fondlers.

2016 - Back To Blogging, with a review

My God, Last Post September 2015!!!
Where the hell did all those months go :-(

Yes its been a while, but to be brutally honest, I've not felt much like blogging, in fact I've not felt much about the hobby at all. It must be a winter thing, as I always get on a massive downer at this time of year ,struggling to do very much, and flitting from one unfinished piece of work, to another, seems to be the order of the day.
         I have managed to finish a few bits, mostly models that I made for Fenris Games, I went on a massive Frostgrave bender, before realising that playing with myself was the only option there!!!
So, back into the box went the war band, I still have some work to do for Fenris, but the inspiration for figures has gone by the by. Next up, Fury Road, I got lots of cars, fiddled with some bits n bobs, and then realised that playing with myself was the only option there...............I think you can guess what happens next?

So, lets get this blog thing rolling, with a review of the latest bit of  wargaming frippery to fall through my letter box.

Painting War Magazine-Spanish Civil War

Not much of a surprise, me ordering this, as most of you can see the attraction, but whats it like inside?
Well now, its a shiny A4 soft back magazine, full colour printing throughout, and very cleverly laid out.  The models themselves are incredibly well painted, and you would expect nothing less from the talented Ruben Torregrosa, at first glance, most modest painters would think, no way can I paint to that standard, but what this clever little guide does, is to lead you through the methods used by Ruben, to paint his models to the high standards seen in the images.
The first 45 pages of the magazine act as an introduction to how Ruben paints his figures, covering  such topics as how to paint faces, and clothing. There are sections dedicated to painting various pieces of equipment, how to paint horses and even how to base your models.
From page 48 onwards, we are treated to a series of images relating to no less than 40 individual models, all 28mm, and mostly from the Empress range


Each page covers an individual model, listing the Vallejo paints used, and packed with useful painting hints, its not only a great painting guide, but  also choc full of very useable uniform information, it provides the budding SCW gamer with a wealth of excellent information.
You don't have to be an SCW fan to buy this, as its a great stand alone guide to painting figures.
I ordered mine direct from Spain, its actually cheaper to do so, I always like to give money direct to the producing company, rather than through a third party, I'm a weirdo like that.

So if you are serious about putting together a Spanish Civil War collection, add this magazine to your list of "must buys" you won't regret it.

My biggest gripe, well why did no bugger do this when I had the models in my Anglian Miniatures range?
Its a fantastic advert for the Empress range, and I had hoped that we would see some new models added to their range, but so far nothing doing :-(

If I could find a sculptor as good as Paul Hicks, I would get back into the period, and start anothr range............I wonder if there are any Spanish figure sculptors who fancy having a go?