My plans for 2015

Happy new year my fellow hobbyists. It's that time of the year again to look back shortly at last years progress and more importantly look forward and plan on what to this year. It's gonna be good.
Last year I went ball's deep into Bolt Action, I painted up a 1500 point British force and a 1500 point German force and on top of that I made my own gaming table set as a French countryside village. (if you want to have a look at my 2014 exploits just visit my previous posts)
For this year I plan on doing 2 armies again. I got about 1500 points of USMC's and 2000 points Japanese. You can see most of it here in the picture. Usually I hit the hobby table hard and finish a 1500 points army but then burn out and don't do any painting for a couple of months before I repeat the process. Let's see if I can avoid painters burn out this year.
I'm currently struggling to get started because I really want to start on the USMC but have to paint up 30 Wehrmacht infantry first for a gaming convention in February. Well I always work best when I'm under pressure so hopefully I can get the new projects started in the first week of February...
What are your 2015 hobby resolutions?

Cheers,
Seb

Bolt Action 3 vs 3 game

Overview of the table

Here are some pictures of yesterdays club game. We played a special 3v3 scenario on a normal size table which meant every player could only put 500 points on the table. We divided the table up in three sections from which every player could move on the board but from then units could roam the board freely. In the middle of each section a disbanded vehicle was placed as an objective marker. Each objective was worth 3 points to whoever held on to it uncontested by the end of the game and every destroyed unit would be worth 1 point each.. We had a great game which lasted no less then 5 hours!! It was interesting to see different armies working together. Our side had my Brit's linked up with Wilfred's British para's and Richard's Polish. The other side had (Vichy) French, SS and Finnish troops. My Brit's were up against the French and those veteran Moroccan and legionnaires can really knock you out in close combat. In the end our opponents won the game even though we held 1 objective and the other two objectives were both contested. The body count was very much against us and we lost 11-6.
We plan on doing a big Bolt Action day in January with about 16 players but we have to think about how to organise it. With 6 players on 1 table we were waiting for a turn for far too long and a game of 1500 points per side took just over 5 hours to play. far to long. Another big disadvantage was that we had to trim down our armies to fit them in 500 points per player. That left me feeling I didn't have all the tools I needed to take the enemy apart. Have you played big battles then please let me know how you organised them.

Had a fun game so thank you all for playing. Have a great holiday and see you all in 2015 which will undoubtedly be a hobby rich year.

Wargaming Periscope

I spotted this small periscope (or as I call it: "line of sight checker")last week in a local shop and thought it would be great to use in the hobby. I've seen David Bruggeman make his own but this was much easier.. just paid €5,- for it and painted it up in German Camo colours. 
You can turn both ends 360 degrees (always hany if you want to see if your fly is open) and you can also extend it to full length (15"). That means you can get into tight spots and weird corners to check line of sight. I have never really needed one but hey, it might come in handy one day. If you want/need one to, they sell them on amazon for 9 pounds. just google "looky periscope"

Cheers,

Seb

Spring clean

Spring clean! Not a lot of hobying done this weekend but I did manage to clear out and clean up my attic. I have my own little hobby corner in there and I really like to keep a clean desk but with multiple projects at the time that is hard. I took everything out, cleaned it and put it back. I have so much stuff I forgot I had... this is just my paint corner, you should see the amount of full boxes of unpainted models and scenery I have .... 

Making a gaming table

I'm currently making my own Bolt Action Table. You might have seen the woods, hedges, ploughed fields and the 4ground buildings I have put together recently but of course I also need a table to put all this stuff on.

This is the first installment of my work in progress. 
-I have 3 pieces of hardboard of 125x62cm and have secured them on a wooden frame.
-Then I have managed to secure a GW battlemat after searching everywhere. This battlemat is just too small to fit over the three panels.
-To overcome this I have cut in some roads (1 main road of cobblestone and some dirt roads). this way I could stretch the battlemat over all three panels.
-I came up with a design for the roads so that I can make a lot of different lay-outs. all three pieces fit together regardless of how I lay them out. I can flip ,turn and lay them down(as long as the green side is up) in any order and all the roads still connect. I tried this out with my design in scale on three pieces of paper.
-I then glued the battlemat down on the panels with some PVA glue.
-The roads were still bare but I filled them up with some acrylic paste in which I have made tire tracks. Because it's acrylic I can paint them and it stays a bit "rubbery"and flexible so it won't damage easily.

next is making the main road out of "cobblestone" wallpaper and paint it up. I'm also going to make some different colour grass patches here and there to break the monotony.

Have a look at the pictures and I'll try to explain what I did.

1;First is the design stage. I already had a general lay-out in my head how I'd like the table to look and fit together. I cut three pieces of paper in scale of the table panels and drew the road plan on it. I made sure all three panels would line up no matter how you turned the panels individually or in what order you would lay down the panels. The red lines indicate where to cut the Games Workshop battle mat as it would not fit the panels.

2; Screw down the panel on a wooden frame, this will keep them from warping and keeps them nice and sturdy.

3;I have 3 pieces of hardboard of 125x62cm and have secured them on a wooden frame. The screwholes are covered with wood paste. 

 4;The Games Workshop battle mat doesn't quite fit but after the roads are cut it will be fine. I glued the battle mat down with watered down PVA glue.

5:The roads are cut, the mat fits! result!

6;The dirt roads were filled with acrylic paste and some sand in which I made tire tracks. The acrylic paste can be painted once dry.

Cheers,

Seb

New Airbrush

I'm very excited! Just ordered a new Harder & Steenbeck Evolution Silverline two in one Airbrush. Untill now I have always worked with Chinese copies and a black bull (which I think is another Chinese copy). My joy for airbrushing always faded when had trouble trying to get these airbrushes to do what I wanted them to do and the cleaning was just a pain in the neck.
With the Evo I get a 2mm and 4mm needle and a small and bigger paintcup so it should be able to do most tasks I want. 
I have been reading up about the H&S and other manufacturers airbrushes and think this is the best choice for the budget I have available ($200,- / €160,-)

Cheers,
Seb

Bolt Action sd.kfz.222

Just want to show off the sd.kfz.222 armored car I did with my new airbrush. Really was a breeze using the H&S Evolution silverline. This piece was a test for the famous German dunkelgelb camo. I have some tanks primed and ready so I wanted to test it out. Tell me what you think..

Cheers,

Seb