This is what I have complete for my Flames of War mid war American force. This has been a labor of love for me and I'm quite proud of how much I've managed to get done. I still have more to do, such as a battery of six M7 Priests, another armored infantry platoon, and some more M3 Lees.
I used a variety of paints for the olive drab throughout this project. Most of it was done using Tamiya Olive Drab (XF-62) and then highlighted with a mix of XF-62 and XF-60 Dark Yellow. I also used Mr Paint Olive Drab FS34087 (MRP-234) for the Lees and Vallejo Model Color Brown Violet (70.887) for the Shermans. I like the mix of colors since it gives a little variation to the army.
I've been rather busy lately, both on and off the painting table. In addition to my nearly complete British 7th Armoured Division army, I've been working on a mid war American army since the new Fighting First sourcebook was released in October. Since I have no self control, I also have a nearly complete British late war army waiting to be assembled and painted. This army will also be based on the 7th Armoured Division and their exploits in Europe along the Western Front, with a smattering of Churchill tanks of the 31st Tank Brigade.
In the meantime, here's an image dump of all of the American goodies I've been working on the past month or two for Flames of War:
On Monday, November 27th, my beloved tuxedo cat Gimli was put to sleep at the age of 11. Gimli, or Gimmers as he was called by our family, was litter-mates with our cat Chet, whom we lost in January of 2015. Gimli was diagnosed with thyroid issues a year or so ago and had been on medicine since then, but within the last few months, the medicine seemed to have stopped working and he began to essentially deteriorate before our eyes. I decided, with the support of my wife, that there wasn't much we could do to extend his life comfortably and that the best decision would be to end his suffering. It was hard decision to make, more so than when we decided to have our other cats Chet and Pippin put to sleep (both of them were irreversibly ill and on the verge of death). Gimli, despite his diarrhea and unrelenting hunger, was still very much himself, though he was starting to fade. I made the call to veterinarian on Friday, November 24th and set the appointment for the following Monday.
Gimli and Chet on their first day home
As I wrote in my post following the loss of Chet, both he and Gimli were brought into our home in 2006 shortly after my now-wife and I started dating. While we initially were only looking for one grey kitten, the lady that we bought them from gave us priority over another interested person if we took the grey kitten and his tuxedo cat brother. We decided that Chet would be "hers" and Gimli would be "mine." While I very much loved Chet and he loved me, Gimli was always just a little bit more special since he was "mine." He was the runt of the litter, and as a full grown male cat, he was half the size of his brother and the size of a female cat!
Gimli as a kitten
Truth be told, it's actually rather difficult for me to put into words how much this cat meant to me. He was the first animal that was truly mine; he wasn't just the "family pet." He was easily the sweetest cat I've ever known. He never scratched or bit anyone and always was friendly to strangers to his house. When my friend would come over to play X-Wing Miniatures or any other games, Gimli would make it a point to sit on top of his game bag! He would also snuggle with any visitor to our house if they sat on the couch, either in their lap or up against them. Of course, he generally slept on my bed with me at night and especially during the day when I was on night shift, either between my legs or stretched out along my side. He also loved to wake me up on the weekends when he was hungry! He would extend his front claws and gently touch my nose or cheek, just enough to wake me up and hopefully convince me to go downstairs and fill his food bowl.
Sleeping in my lap
Losing him hurt. A lot. I cried after I made the appointment and then every day before we took him to the vet. Our young girls both made the decision to be with him for his journey over the Rainbow Bridge and while very sad, they both handled it well. I think the knew less of what to make of me than what to make of what was happening with Gimli. I make no effort to hide emotion from my children, but I don't often cry. Needless to say, I broke down in a bad way and neither of them has ever seen me like that, but I'm okay that they did. My wife and I have expressed to them that there is nothing wrong with displays of emotion from anyone because it's a natural part of life.
Later that evening while watching our favorite show, Jeopardy!, my six-year old daughter leaned over to me and said, "Dad, I wish Gimli never got sick and I really wish he hadn't died. I miss him." I replied, "Sweetie, me too. I miss him so much that I can't even really explain it, but he's in Kitty Heaven and I'm sure he knows how much we miss him."
Scale modeling has a problem and that problem is Nazis. No, not these doofs, but the ones our grandfathers (or in some cases, great-grandfathers) fought in deserts of North Africa, the mountains of Italy, and on the shores of France. Now, I am by no means the first person to have taken note of this and I'm sure I won't be the last, but it's really been wearing on me lately and to be honest, it all came to head last week with this:
Pardon my language, but what in the actual fuck? I was bothered on a few different levels about this. For one, the piece is titled "Ein Führer" and the engraved brass plaque is adorned with swastikas. Second, the piece was heaped with praise and "heart" reacts with not a single comment challenging the reason behind the subject matter (in fact, one person open professed "love" for Hitler). Similar subjects like this are common on forums and Facebook groups; not a day goes by without someone posting an heroic-looking large scale figure or bust of an SS commander, Fallschirmjäger, or grenadier of some sort, not to mention the endless supply of Tiger, Panther, and other tanks along with a healthy does of Luftwaffe fighters. To me, the figures and busts move beyond the normal rationalizations that modelers have for building Nazi German stuff, like "it looks cool" (immature and up to personal taste) and "they had the best stuff of the war" (just not true), and into idolization. Any attempt to call people out on this shit is usually countered by some variation of the "clean Wehrmacht" myth that the Wehraboos love to spew across the internet (also popular: the Rommel myth). Does this mean that anyone who paints a bust or large scale figure is a Wehraboo? No, probably not, unless a disproportionate amount of their work is dedicated to the subject (or you know, they paint... Adolf Hitler). Even still, I feel that tanks and airplanes can be viewed in a largely sanitized way considering they're inanimate objects. Figures and busts veer into an uncomfortable area to me; they're much too personal, often because they tend to portray their subject in an heroic light. I'm sorry, but there is nothing heroic about an SS officer.
Where does this leave us? Well, let me plainly state that I have no real problem with modeling Nazi German equipment. I've personally done a 1/100 scale Tiger I and I thoroughly enjoyed it and it's currently in my display cabinet (I would also like to point out that it is not based on a known tank from a real life unit). I think the occasional armor or plane model is perfectly fine, but I also think it's important to remember what these machines are: instruments of war, often built by slave labor, and used in service of a perverted government that waged a war of extermination against its enemies, both real and imagined.
Bandai 1/72 scale T-65 X-wing in Antoc Merrick's Blue Leader livery. Completed with Mr. Paint and Alclad lacquers; Tamiya and Vallejo acrylics; Abteilung 502 oils, Mig Productions enamels and pigments.
It recently came to my attention that my blog celebrated its five year anniversary in early May. I'm not really sure why I even started this blog other than I had seen other miniature wargaming-focused blogs and thought it would be best to emulate them. Plus, I really enjoy writing. In my younger years, I wrote a lot. I focused on English and literature in high school and loved creative writing. I wrote short stories and one-act plays and even kept a journal for a while. Combining my old hobby with my new hobby seemed like a no brainer. In reality, I probably had no business starting something like this back then; my painting was nowhere near the level of quality that warranted having a blog dedicated to it. Yet, for some reason I trudged on, occasionally writing or posting a picture for the remainder of 2012.
I lost interest towards the end of that year in both this blog and the hobby in general. It mainly had to do with the amount of stress from my job, which I quit in May 2013 to start the job I currently have. I slowly started painting again and by early 2014, I was writing again. 2014 was also the year I decided to start taking commissionsand when I broke into legit scale modeling after learning about the Fine Molds Star Wars kits. For most of 2014 and 2015, I was pretty focused on the hobby and the blog. I wrote 99 posts in those two years, which was the most I've put out in that span of time. I slowed down a little in 2016 (seriously, what a shitty year that was) but I have picked up the pace again this year and have almost matched my writing output of the previous year by July.
Now where does this lead? That's a good question and one that I think is worth asking. Make no mistake about it: even with my 600+ followers on Facebook, I'm a nobody in the scale modeling community. I pretty okay with that, especially given the vitriol that can stem from something as silly as this hobby. The amount of trolling and outright asshole behavior that goes on in some of these Facebook groups and forums is ridiculous considering this hobby is essentially playing with plastic toys. I don't think I have a particularly unique viewpoint, but I'd like to start writing about more than just what I'm doing and how. There are some subjects that I feel are worth talking a bit more about and there are a whole host of modeling-related topics that should be talked about more than they are. (Seriously, what is up with the obsession over Nazi German stuff?)
Regardless, I'm looking forward to what the next five years has in story for the hobby and my blog. I hope that both my writing and my modeling grows and matures in the years to come like it has over that last half decade. As always, thanks for your time and support!
As anyone who follows my work knows, I'm quite keen on Great War subjects, having already built a Medium Mark A Whippet and a Krupp 21cm Mörser 10. With those under my belt, I felt that it was time to move on to the family of vehicles that spawned the modern tank: the British Mark I.
In the autumn of 1915, at behest of the Landships Committee, Little Willie, the first prototype of what would become known as "tanks" was built. There are varying stories as to why these lumbering beasts were called "tanks," but it most likely appears to stem from a code name used to deceive the Germans and it ended up sticking. Soon after, in December of 1915, the prototype of the Mark I, Mother, was completed and the first order for 75 "male" tanks armed 6 pounder guns and 75 "female" tanks armed with .303 Vickers machine gun were placed in late-February, early-April of 1916. The distinctive rhomboid shape was designed to help the vehicle cross the ubiquitous trenches that characterized the fight on the Western Front. The armor was relatively thin, ranging from 6 to 12mm, but it was enough to keep out rifle and machine gun fire. The Mark I made its combat debut at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette in September 1916 (as part of the larger Somme Offensive).
Though the kit parts can build up a pretty decent representation of a Vickers machine gun, I thought the addition of some aftermarket brass parts would be nice touch. After a quick search, I found that Aber makes a nice set that has the four Vickers and one Hotchkiss machine guns. I'm not entirely sure the extra effort is worth it, especially for the cooling jacket armor, but the fine details on the muzzle are a huge upgrade compared to the rather chunky kit muzzles.
The main hull, made up of various plates, goes together quite nice using the inside of the track frame as a jig to ensure proper alignment of the parts. Probably the biggest fault with the kit lies in this area: the cab is grossly inaccurate. Mark I cabs should extended the full width of the hull to the track frames; the shortened cab was used on the later Mark IV and Mark V tanks to accommodate the use of wider 26" tracks instead of the 20" tracks of the earlier models. The saving grace is that there aren't that many people overly familiar with these vehicles means that it's something that will unnoticed for the most part. The track frames are mirror images of each other and go together well enough, but the number of rollers can make it a little difficult to assemble. As far as the rollers go, I did no clean up on them because once sandwiched between the outer and inner pieces and the tracks added, they're impossible to see. To be honest, it's probably perfectly fine to leave them out altogether so long as their axles are added (these stick out of little holes along the bottom of the vehicle).
With the hull and track frames completed, I started on the characteristic steering tail. These were a feature found only on the Mark I tanks and were used as a kind of a rudder to help steer the tank in large radius turns. It was quickly found that these were completely unnecessary and were removed from later vehicles. It goes together without much fuss and the large wheels have poly caps so they can be removed for painting.
With a majority of the vehicle completed, the only things left to build are the weapon sponsons and the anti-grenade screen for the top of the tank. I probably won't use the screen because this tank will be painted as D11 "Die Hard," which was damaged just outside of Flers on September 16, 1916. The first Mark I tanks were part of D Company and C Company of the Machine Gun Corps and only tanks of C Company were outfitted with screens.
My friend and I started playing the Tanks! skirmish game not too long ago. It's a fun, loose, and fast game involving tank-on-tank combat that plays very similar to the X-Wing Miniatures game by Fantasy Flight Games. We've been enjoying playing the game and painting the miniatures, but we were both longing for something with a little more strategic depth, so we made the decision to jump into Flames of War.
For the uninitiated, Flames of War is a World War II miniature wargame in 15mm scale produced by Battlefront Miniatures of New Zealand. The game is broken down into three periods of the Second World War: Early War (1939-1941), Mid War (1942-1943), and Late War (1944-1945) the first edition of the game was released 2002 with the most recent version, the 4th Edition, was released in March of this year. With that new edition came a renewed focus on the North African Campaign and the first two army books released feature the British 7th Armoured Division (Desert Rats) and the Deutsches Afrikakorps (DAK). I picked up the British book and my friend picked up the German book and we quickly set to collecting the models needed.
In support of my Desert Rats, I have some artillery and anti-tank guns. I have four QF 25-pounders and two QF 17/25-pounders (the long barreled ones). These are painted in a Tamiya approximation of BS 61 Light Stone, a color used in the North African Campaign from 1940 until 1943. These models need a wash and weathering before being mounted to their bases. I have more guns to add, notably the 6-pounder anti-tank guns that will be fielded with my motor platoon.
The British made extensive use of American-made M3 Lee/Grant tanks in North Africa. Despite their ungainly appearance, the 75 mm Gun M2 mounted in an archaic hull sponson was a welcomed upgrade in firepower for Commonwealth forces, supplying them with both potent anti-tank fire and much-need high explosive shells to better engage infantry and soft targets, and one that the Germans were not prepared for. The Grant-pattern turret also housed a 37 mm Gun M5 as a secondary weapon. These models are painted in a simple disruptive camouflage scheme using olive green and an Tamiya approximation of desert pink.
Giving my Desert Rats much-appreciated recce is number of neat little Universal Carriers. Often called Bren Gun Carriers, these small tracked vehicles served in a number of roles in Commonwealth forces throughout the war (hence the name). These are painted with an overall coat of desert pink and will given a wash in some weathering.
Rounding out my forces is a troop of Crusader tanks. These tanks served as the backbone of the Commonwealth armored forces in the North African Campaign. Powered by a Nuffield Liberty engine, these lightly armed and armored tanks were remarkably fast for their time, something their German rivals envied. This troop is a mix of the Crusader IIIs armed with 6-pounder guns and Crusader IIs armed with 2-pounder guns. I have bunch of these left to paint as well since they will serve as the basis of my Desert Rats force.
Protectorate Starfighter in Philadelphia Eagles livery for the X-Wing Miniatures game. Completed in Mr Paint lacquers; Tamiya & Vallejo acrylics; and Mig Productions enamels.
Bossk and BT-1 from the tabletop game Imperial Assault by Fantasy Flight Games. Painted with Tamiya and Vallejo acrylics; Alclad lacquers, and Mig Productions enamels.
Battlefront Miniatures Tiger I Ausf.E in 15mm scale for Flames of War and Tanks! skirmish game. Painted with Tamiya and Vallejo acrylics, Mig enamels, and Mig pigments.
I recently started playing the TANKS skirmish game by Gale Force 9 and Battlefront, the same companies that put out Flames of War, a 15mm scale World War II tabletop game. TANKS is a face-paced and light skirmish game played on a 3'x3' table with a couple pieces of terrain. The starter kit comes with two M4 Shermans and one Panther plus extra cards for the other factions, so you can use models you might already have. There are three factions to choose from: American, British, Soviet, and German. I started off with the Soviets and built a small force using a mix of the GF9 models and some 1/100 scale Zvezda models. I have an IS-2, three T-34/85s, an M10 tank destroyer, an SU-100, tank destroyer, and an ISU-152 assault gun. These were all painted with Tamiya acrylics and weathered with Mig enamels and pigments.
