I recently caught up with my gaming buddy Kieran (6mm Wargaming), and he brought round his completed 1/72 scale Italeri European Building kitsets he has done for his 1944 Normandy terrain. Kieran’s been taking a break from Crossfire and playing a lot of Kampfgruppe Normandy and has been steadily working on his terrain and new 20mm (German & U.S.) armies for that theatre. The Italeri buildings are the Country House, House With Porch, and the Stone House; and Kieran has gone to reasonable efforts to detail them with window shutters, walls & gates (some scratch built, some commercial), and other features – I think you’ll agree they’ve come out looking very good! I’ll be looking to achieve similar with my kits when I get around to them, and may have to talk Kieran into doing them for me since he’s done such a good job of his own! Continue reading “Normandy Buildings”
Category: World War 2
Combat Tanks Collection NZ Update
The full running order for the de Argostini Combat Tanks Collection in New Zealand (see Combat Tanks Collection 1-7) has now been available for sometime (i.e. since mid-2012) – I thought it might be useful to quickly post it up here along with updated links to the forum (which moved during 2012). The series is expected to conclude in April (or possibly May) 2014 with 110 issues. The full listing of the running order for the issues is below (note it still appears that the model for issue 110, the final issue, has not been confirmed):
Continue reading “Combat Tanks Collection NZ Update”Some Great New WWII Dragon Armor
Dragon Armor has announced in the last few weeks the release of several of their new models planned for the 2011-2012 period, as many will know the Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go and Type 97 Chi-Ha have both been released (there are now 2 colour schemes available for the former and 3 for the latter) along with the U.S. LVT-A(1) with 37mm gun turret, and various German light vehicles such as the SdKfz 222 Light Reconnaissance Car and SdKfz 251/22 Half-Track with PaK40 on board. Most recently has been the release of the Neubaufahrzeug from Panzerabteilung z.b.V.40 in Norway 1940. Now due in early 2012 are the German SdKfz 231 Heavy Reconnaissance Car in early war Panzer Grey (a much missed model from all ranges), and a British Infantry Tank Mk.IV Churchill Mk.III (the 6pdr version that served from Dieppe in 1942 until the end of the war in Italy and to a lesser extent in NWE.
Off To Sink The Bismark? But With Which Rules?
While I had the camera out the other day I thought I’d snap a few quick shots of my 1/2400th World War II naval models. I picked these up several months ago off a wargamer in the USA as I had sold off my existing fleets of 1/4800th models (mostly C-in-C) and was planning on replacing them with 1/2400th GHQ models, but took this opportunity to acquire a reasonable German fleet with a couple of British Battleships (Hood & Prince of Wales) and an unpainted Japanese fleet (which is exactly what I was looking for to complement my Crossfire WW2 Pacific land forces). The vessels are all GHQ except for a few of the Japanese which are some very nice resin models (manufacturer unknown). The pictures here are the classic 1941 North Sea vessels (Battle of the Denmark Strait) – but the issue now is what set of rules to use with them…
Continue reading “Off To Sink The Bismark? But With Which Rules?”The Vaagso Raid: A Crossfire Game
Operation Archery, the Raid on Vaagso Island in Norway on 27 December 1941, involved over 500 British Commandos, Sappers, and Norwegians with the intent to take pressure off the Russians and to protect Allied convoys heading to Murmansk – and it’s an excellent action for modelling in Crossfire – check out the excellent recent game played at the Nunawading Wargames Association in Melbourne, Australia, on the Small Sagas blog (which includes the entire town made from “Paper Terrain” buildings).
Continue reading “The Vaagso Raid: A Crossfire Game”Najewitz Modellbau Buildings Arrive
Over the past 18 months I’ve regularly looked at the models buildings and wagons (and the Berlin Tram) by Najewitz Modellbau in Germany – they look fantastic in the photos and I’ve always been keen to take the plunge – however the description of the material has always had me a bit wary – the wagons & tram and some of the smaller scale buildings being laser cut Finnpappe which they describe as “…no word for it in English dictionary is a product made of ground wood pulp. To say it is cardboard is the wrong title for it. It´s more similar to MDF, quasi ‘MDF-light’.” However the larger 1/72nd and 28mm buildings are kitsets of a resin material, the type isn’t clearly specified on the website – but I took the plunge recently and ended up ordering a selection of the 1/72nd scale buildings…
Continue reading “Najewitz Modellbau Buildings Arrive”More 20mm Eastern Front Buildings
Following on from my order from Lancer Miniatures I previously posted about, as mentioned I had ordered buildings from several other manufacturers as well, and my order from Area 9 arrived a couple of days after the Lancer one. Area 9 is a comparatively new manufacturer that’s started up in 2010 – in fact I only stumbled over them a couple of months ago thanks to a post on the Crisis In Alcovia blog earlier this year! They have some very nice looking stuff, and in the 20mm range I couldn’t resist ordering one each of their three buildings, and an assortment of wooden paling fences…
Continue reading “More 20mm Eastern Front Buildings”Some 20mm Eastern Front Buildings Arrive…
Right now my 20mm WW2 & Modern era buildings are rather bare on the ground – I have a couple of very nice larger 15mm TimeCast buildings (a Belgian Townhouse and a Petrol Station), and a 20mm bombed out German HQ Building from ESLO. Otherwise I have some plastic kits awaiting completion (Airfix Jungle Outpost & the 2 Italeri Farmhouse & Manor kits) and a 20mm resin Jungle Building from Frontline. So my existing Western Europe and new Eastern Europe theatre troops desperately need buildings for their games – not to mention long-term Mediterranean/North African and more Pacific/Burma stuff! Consequently I have been purchasing several new Western & Eastern European buildings from about 5 different manufacturers (i.e. Lancer, Area 9, Hovels, TST, Sentry) – and where possible have chosen to purchase them pre-painted to save time, and get some terrain (especially Eastern Front) usable as promptly as possible. The first of these to arrive are from Lancer Miniatures in the UK, which arrived promptly in NZ just 1 week after ordering.
Continue reading “Some 20mm Eastern Front Buildings Arrive…”
Samokhodnaya Ustanovka Arrive!
Yes, they are here, masses of Soviet Samokhodnaya Ustanovka (SU) Assault Guns and Tank Destroyers – part of (a larger than planned) arsenal I’ve been accumulating for my 20mm scale World War II Russian forces for Crossfire! The real bonus is being able to obtain off EBay 4 Forces of Valor model 85041 SU-122 models (representing a vehicle of an unidentified unit on the Eastern Front, Winter of 1942/1943) – and at a reasonable price – they are rather rare (as they were only ever manufactured in limited numbers by all accounts) and usually quite expensive (due to their collectability) – most recently someone was trying to sell a single model on EBay for as much as US$90 (although about US$40-$60 is more usual)!
Crossfire Training Day!
My friend Wayne has been expressing interest in Crossfire for gaming WW2 and Vietnam – it’s all part of his WW2 Wargaming revival (see “A Bit Of WW2 Wargaming & Some Nostalgia“) – and as he had reason to be here in Auckland the last couple of days we got together for a bit of a Crossfire introduction and training session… We played a couple of simple generic scenarios with about a company a side and the following is a brief summary and some photos of the games…
A Bit Of WW2 Wargaming & Some Nostalgia
A friend of mine recently sent me some pics of some of his WW2 Wargaming terrain – we used to wargame together in the 1980’s and early 1990’s and his stuff has been mainly in storage for the last 15 years – but he’s been cracking it out recently as well as starting to work on some new pieces.
Large Scale Crossfire at Salute 2011
John Lander’s group once again put on an impressive 1/35th scale Crossfire game in the UK – The Oosterbeek Cauldron (1st British Airborne Division in Market Garden, September 1944) – and you can see more photos at the Wargames Society Forum (scroll down to images 314 to 317). John’s Crossfire demo games & his models are fairly well known in the UK, and have previously been featured in Wargames Illustrated Magazine (issues 221 & 222 from March & April 2006) with Operation Goodwood.