Water mill finished

Last night I finished the water mill and it came out OK I think. The bridge is probably what I am the most happy with as it came to life with the washes and a bit of over growth. 
Hauptsturmführer Ernst Braun, my trusty company commander, gladly did some posing in his Panzer III.

Water mill progress

The water mill is now ready to get some vegetation added.

I painted up the water, first attempt ever for me on water so it came out so-so but good enough to be put on the table without me being ashamed of it.

Headache

One thing I forgot to have a look at after moving my hobby area downstairs was the ventilation. In the old spot I had a window next to my airbrush station and I never experienced any ill effects from airbrushing.

So when I started up the compressor and went to town with the tanks in the weekend I totally forgot about the fumes and the side effects this might have. Later in the night I had the worst headache, slept bad and my eyes were paining. I even woke up in the middle of the night and had to clear my throat and clean my eyes.

After this I went straight for the hardware store and got myself a protective mask and goggles, hopefully this will keep the fumes away from my lunges and brain.

Be careful out there, it's a dangerous place ;)

US Armored Company

My Shermans and HT transports got some decals, dirt and varnish and can now be added to the archive. I also found a Famo and a few Kubelwagens that needed some dirt and a varnish.

Next up is the dreaded water mill which now has a deadline on the 9th of November, when we are going to play a Market Garden style game.

NW41 Nebelwerfer Battery finished

My new hobby table is in place now so I have finished up my NW41 battery for Flames of War.
It will be a nice addition to my German panzer forces, giving them some means to smoke evil observers and maybe been some infantry. 
The kit is quite nice except for one part, the front stand on the launchers that prevent them from tipping over. This little bugger has a tendency to fall off all the time and I just gave up and put them in some silly putty before the final assembly.
I decided to base them in a rubble setting, which will be theme for my German Totenkopf forces.

The old switcheroo

With some recent changes in the family, me and the wifey decided that my old "man cave" has to move. Since we seldom (never) use the cinema room downstairs and she has started a PhD it seems like a good idea to turn my creative spot in the house to a more formal office. At the moment the office part is kind of drowning in hobby stuff.

Summer is over

My US forces got their armored support ready for battle and I have even gotten two games in with them. The support consist of a M7 Priest battery, Armored Recon and an AA section. There are also five HT transports so I can use my rifle company as a armored rifle platoon.

Playable west front table

My terrain for playing Flames of war on the west front is, in my opinion, up in a playable state now. The 4Ground houses are built, my large modular hill is ready, I have some trees, roads and fields. Pretty much what can be expected. To really "finish" it up I would like some cobble roads, boccage, forests and a river. That would probably take another two years at the current pace.

My modular hill, flocking in progress.

 Houses from 4Ground, awesome kits and I will probably get some more.

 Some terrain on the table, lighting in my gaming room could use some improvement.

An old test piece for boccage, it came out ok. It could use some details and some places had to be covered up.

A little bit of everything

Summertime is here in Sweden, so another reason to not get much done with the little plastic and lead guys.
But some stuff has been happening!

First, of all, to increase my motivation and get some grips on how my hobby projects are progressing, I put them up in a Kanban flow at kanbanflow.com It is a free and easy to use online Kanban board. I don't really use all of the features at the moment, lead times can be scary sometimes.
This is what it looks like for me at the moment:

In the terrain department, I have made the stone etching on the bridge for the water mill and put some black color on it. The mill itself got some windows and a second floor, no stairs or anything and it will probably not be any. Time will tell.

I also ordered a small village (seven houses) from 4ground. Really nice little kits and really easy to build when you get the hang of it. Thumbs up for these guys! Three houses done, four to go.

My US tank company is ready for the table top (for me that is basecolors, a first highlight, gloss varnish and blacklining) and this will let me focus a bit more on the terrain. A shot on the support which was the last part of them, no full army shot yet but that will come up sometime. Maybe when they are all weathered and totally ready.

Finally, I built a new paint stand from some left over wood I had lying around since last summer. I knew they would be useful. Ehm.

A lot better now with a good overview compared to having all the paints in a big box. It has also left me with some more space on the desk, which can't be bad (=more WIP).

Water mill #1

I have been making some sketches for some terrain, one of them has been a water mill to add an interesting river feature. The inside of the house will have two floors with a stair leading up, not sure if I will make any interior features apart from that. 

The bridge got a bit steep but it will have to do I guess, cutting with a knife is quite difficult and this might make me wanna build that foam cutter earlier then what I had planned for.

10000 views and some progress

I hit 10 000 views a little while back, not bad for a limping blog like this.
Thanks, who ever you are. Kind of makes it worth it to know that someone likes to have a look every now and then.

So what have I been up to?  A little bit of everything.
I have worked a little bit on my expanded hill, a few minutes here, a few minutes there. It became a small experiment for a waterfall, just had to try that tube of silicone. The result was not that good, but still fun.

I bought that support that I needed for my American Tank Company, they have been primed and highlighted. Excuse the bad photo, the highlights are not that strong in real light. And those Gebirgsjägers? I just couldn't help myself and got a company with some leIg18s and PAK38s. I wonder what year they will get out of their boxes?

Then I stumpled upon a thread on the Flames of War forum about trees (link to the post), and I just had to try it myself. Very easy, just some sisal thread, steel wire, flock, paint and glue. Voila, nice trees. But a note, use a glove if you are going to hold them and use spray glue. My left thumb is now also flocked, a feature maybe.

A side thing that has happened is that a "fellow" war gamer passed away, Mike Norman. I enjoyed his blog and posts in the BF forum. Sucks to see someone go earlier then they should. RIP Mike.

Rural road sections

My workbench was getting overloaded with all my ongoing projects and I needed to make space for some new things. The quickest to finish is a bunch of road sections that has been laying around for months and months now. It's four straights sections, some bends and some intersections. 
They are made from hard board and acryllic sealant as the base. To create the wheel marks I just ran a stick through the sealant.

Today's effort has been to add sand and paint a first layer of brown, they will need atleast one more layer of paint before i highlight them and add flock. To finalise them I will just seal them with varnish through the air brush.

Some German Hardware

These little beauties have been sitting around way too long and I would like to have them finishes soon. They need some washes, scratching and decals before they can hit the dance floor.
Nebelwerfers are some of the cooler artillery pieces from WW2 in my opinion, I really like the look with the tubes and the stories about the scary sounds when they fired. More Minnies for the people!

2013 and plans for 2014

2013 was a slow year for my miniatures, mostly because of an expanded family and too much video games in my spare time. 
A short recap of things:
I got my act together and built a gaming table with some basic terrain. 
For my Flesh Tearers I painted up a couple of characters and an assault squad but haven't played with them since.
Having skipped the games, I made some progress on my German forces at the end of the year which in turn got me more inspired to work more on all my other little guys. 

So what would I like to do in 2014?
In no particular order, as I like to jump a little between different things to not get bored.

• Americans
  My rifle company is pretty much done, of course it can be expanded but I am quite happy with the way it is, having the mandatory units with a couple of options. I started expanding them to be able to field a Tank Company as well and that is almost done with 10 M4A3 Late Shermans (five 75 mm and five 76 mm) plus five M3 half tracks to have some mech support for them. What is needed for them to be a proper, playable force is a battery of priests, some recon and some AA.
• Germans
  Kind of the opposite of the americans, my tanks are pretty much done and I want to expand them with some leg troops. Most likely I will get two platoons of grenadiers and some AT guns. WIth the battery of Nebelwerfers almost done and using my tanks and recon it will be a playable force.
• Flesh Tearers
  Seeing the guys playing Apocalypse at the club made me want to paint these guys up. A Storm Raven, another assault squad and two-three Baal Predators would be nice to have done. This will probably not happen as I only got two games of 40k in during 2013 and others games appeal more to me.
• Terrain
  Finish up the things I have started which is 4-5 buildings, roads, hill expansion and some trees.
• War and Empire
  I joined the kickstarter for this 15mm ancients game, I have been wanting a Persian army for quite some time and this was a great opportunity to get that. Hopefully the rules will be good and great fun.
• Bushido
  Got me two starter sets for Bushido, played a game but then I haven't spent much more time on it. My Ito clan is primed and my goal is to have them painted before summer.

Other things that could be nice to get into are SAGA and Chain of Command. I have also been looking at the Finnish and Gebirgsjägers for a force that can be played in all time periods, but it seems highly unlikely that it will happen during 2014.

We are also planning a Total War in Flames of War to take place in a couple of months, this time on the west front during the late war period. This will probably put my Americans on the upper part of my list as that is what I will be playing.

Winterschlacht-13

This was our first Total War battle for Flames of War at the club and it was a an exciting game.

We started planning the game back in October, to inspire everyone to get ready and paint up their forces.

Due to some illness, the game had to be moved so it actually took place in 2014 instead of 2013 but who cares?

The Forces

We were running 5000 points per side, with the players on each deciding if the wanted to push points from one company to the other.