Tuesday, 8 November 2016

Painfully predicable prodigious plastic 'plane purchase

Or - another car park, another dodgy arms deal.

So there I was at Partizan a few weeks ago. I mentioned in my earlier post on the show that there had been a certain incident. Here then, is the sorry tale.
By lunchtime I had spent a whole £3 on a book and was thinking of setting off home. But fatefully I decided to have one more walk round just to make sure I wasn't missing anything.
On one stand I spotted about 30 1/72 aircraft and asked the stallholder about them. He explained that they were owned by a friend who had just dropped them off for him to sell. As he began to reel off the prices of individual models I interrupted and asked what he'd take for the lot. He replied that he'd have to consult the owner. The latter - whose name I will not reveal - was duly summoned and in reply to my repeated question uttered the immortal words "I expect you'll want to see the rest of them..."
We thus repaired to the car park and soon were unloading more boxes from his car. The models, he explained, were the work of his grandfather but after a recent house move it had been agreed to move them on.
Following a quick count-up we agreed a deal which made the models mine for, well let's just say rather less than the price of kits. Quite a lot less in fact.
Almost half are WW2 aircraft, a few are WW1 and the remainder cover the Cold War era.
All are a good few years old and many date from several decades ago.  Though built to a generally high standard most have the usual old model issues of flaky decals, broken extremities and years of attic dust.
Over the coming weeks and months I'll post photos of the models as I recommission them.
And how many are there?  105....
Some dust.  And aeroplanes.

Tuesday, 1 November 2016

Shoot to kill, Jim

On Wednesday John treated us to a sci-fi game using some Star Trek figures he bought and painted only this year.
The brave lads (and lasses) of The Federation were to investigate an object which was upsetting the equilibrium of an M-class planet.  I started at something of a disadvantage as I thought that an M-class was a Mercedes SUV...

Anyway, back to the plot.  Boldly going where no same man had gone before were the crew of the USS Illustrious, starring
Martin as Jim the Captain.
Tim as the serious bloke with the pointy ears.
Tom as 'third man on planet'.  Sorry Tom.
Plus some non-Equity members who were mostly there to catch alien bullets and diseases.
Our other objective was to secure a TV series...

We had been told that the planet may have been occupied by some nasty space goblins so clearly a wary approach was required.  Sadly Federation directives prevented us from just nuking the planet so Captain Jim decided to land a party of six crew members to investigate.
After beaming down we didn't have long to wait before the baddies appeared.
 These were horrible mis-shapen alien beings.  And Jerry and Graham's figures were pretty ugly too.

Back on the bridge calm reigned - I expect they were smoking some of those dilithium crystals again.
On the planet Captain Jim's plan was rapidly unravelling.  Turns out that conducting what was effectively a heliborne assault onto a 'hot' LZ wasn't such a great idea.
The green horrors were present in some profusion!  But we had a plan.  The crew beamed down a grenade from the Transporter Room...
...ah well, we got one of them.
Captain Jim then ordered another party to beam down.  Another fine mess ensued.
"we're under fire Jim, we canna tak much more..."
Shorn of the three man security detachment (the guys in red never last long), Spock, Jim and Nurse Chapel fled into the woods.  Jim got it in the back en route.  So I left him.
By now the ghastly green goblins had done for most of the rescue party.  Only Doctor Bones survived.  "it's worse than that, he's overacting Jim."
The goblins had a rather a tight grip on the objective...
..so I lobbed the last two grenades at it then flew off as the credits rolled.

So a not entirely successful pilot episode and no series contract.
But stay tuned for "Spock and the Space Goblins".  I think it's the future of TV.



Sunday, 16 October 2016

Siege of Lachish - 701 BC

Our most recent Command & Colours outing afforded another opportunity to field my Hittite city walls.  As it was a siege I had to supplement them from my box of wooden blocks.  Still the ensemble looked pretty impressive.
 The black pipe cleaners marked the edges of the Assyrian ramp - built in order to negate the stout walls.
 Graham and Tom led the Assyrians.  Most of the figures are actual Assyrians but the siege engines are represented by Roman artillery
 As the Assyrians blundered forward the Caananites - led by John - managed to set alight both siege engines - the rotters!
 The Caananite figures were actually mostly Egyptians.  Close enough?
 After losing the siege engines the Assyrians made several more assaults...
 ...but the Caananites saw them all off.
Eventually the Assyrians conceded - a walkover for the Caananites this time but I'd like to try this scenario again.

Wednesday, 5 October 2016

Leopard 2 - the truth at last


Thank you to all those who commented on my previous post.

When I was casting around to see what kits were available in 1/48 scale for my Little Cold Wars forces I did see a Leopard 2 but sadly is was the relatively recent version with the pointy turret armour.  As the LCW doesn't progress much past 1979 I wanted the early slab-sided version.  But hang on - didn't I see a kit of a tank I always think of as a Leopard 2 clone?

Why yes indeed.  The Type 90 may be deficient in roadwheel numbers and has several other detail differences but as my earlier photos show, when spayed green and wearing black crosses it certainly looks the part!

Oh, and they were only about £6 each...

And that sound you can hear is the wailing and gnashing teeth of  'proper' wargamers.  Bless 'em.