Trumpeter Salute 2012

Hey All!

A few pictures from an AWESOME weekend in Burnaby (Vancouver) at the Salute 2012!  This is British Columbia's premier wargaming con and it was very well attended. There were a variety of periods gamed as well as fantasy (they keep the grey-haired historical wargamers in a separate room from the fantasy whipper snappers crowd).

A shot of my map setup for 15mm WWII using 'Schwere Kompanie' rules. The Germans attacked, (from the top of map) Soviets defended a small village early in the war on the East front.

An overhead shot of the German forces. A Kompanies worth of Infantry with a section of sMG34s and a mortar attached. A PzIV, a PzIII and a SPW 251 round out the force.

The grognards take on some unsuspecting newbs...game 1. Germans recieved a fairly sound thrashing. Hopefully converted some from the fantasy crowd! Pictured clockwise from left bottom are: Ken, Randy, William, Ben and Tom.

A few more Generals below...

Thomas, looking the part in his fieldgrey..."I know nossing!"

Tim and his VERY patient Wife. 

Mark - perhaps too much wodka Comrade?!

Ted and Martin. I enjoyed Teds game on Friday night - thanks Ted!

"My game is numba one!"

Martin and Tony. Tony almost played...hopefully we can get him into a game next year!

Martin was able to join late on our second game. He decided to attend a childs bithday first...

"Hey Martin, kids will have other birthdays, but theres only one Salute 2012...yeeesh!"

"That guy is picking on me!" ...Is that a bald spot Ritter?!

Kens jaw drops as the Die Jungen begin the attack.  Looks like John wants to play..."Man I'd be like blitzin' up that flank 'n goosesteppin' all over these sunflowers!" 

A couple of shots from the two games...

 A German platoon setup in the forest...

A birds-eye view of an excellent mortar position dominating the approach to the village...


Cautious German advance behind a smoke screen...


 German grenadiers attempt to silence a PTRD ATR that immoblized the SPW 251 just out of the pic. Though suppressed, the ATR escaped into the wheatfield...

 A T26S burns after emerging from the haystack on the right...When you think you have a rule for everything, wargamers will come up with something new..."so I wanna setup my tank in the haystack...huh...why the hell not?"!

The bulk of the Germans skirt the hill...


"Panzers Marsch!"


A welcome change from the hotdogs...Greek food! Oh ya!

Game hosts at the Con get a couple vouchers for canteen treats - Nice!

The Salute does have a great location near Metrotown. There are lots of good eats in the foodcourt.

My second game won the Best of Show and was awarded a $50.00 gift card to Imperial Hobbies in Richmond which is WELL worth the trip! IMO the BEST game shop in Vancouver!

So good, I had to go twice in the week!

Wargame groupies...



Cheers!

Troy

Hay!

Hey All!

Pretty much ready for the Salute 2012 - Finished painting and basing all the necessary teams and even had some time to paint a few extra terrain and marker pieces. Pictured above are a Soviet GHQ, a couple 1st Line and Reserve Squads, twine haystacks and an abandoned Maxim MMG based on a penny.

One FiB fellow (with DP-LMG) with a BF head (helmet thing) included on the left team. While more realistic in stature than BF, they need to work on weapons, helmets and faces. Colors are my regular choices but changed up a few things to add interest. Painted the Nagant rifles a lighter wood color that I have seen in pictures.

DP-LMG Gunner on right base has had a head replacement and turn to add interest to the team. The firing figures are BF late-war Soviets that have been moddified to early war (collars and shoulder boards cut down). Sticking with the minimalistic basing for this early war batch of Soviets, I may do a later war company with grassy bases but not until I paint up a late war German and Canadian one.

Above and below are a few LMG teams posed with scratchbuilt twine haystacks. The gunner on the left is a Forged in Battle figure and a BF loader. I added a scratchbuilt bipod as the one molded is just too thick. Not really happy with the FiB figures but they do look ok when painted and do add interest and a few missing figures to your BF Soviet teams.

The left gunner is a BF converted ATR figure with a scratchbuilt DP-LMG.

 
 Above are markers for abandoned MGs. I based these on pennies. I think these will be nicer than counters and such - if I had more time, I was going to paint up some markers with dead soldiers that you could use for eliminated squads or teams that have suffered a casualty.

Cheers!

Troy

Venus and Jupiter

Hey All.

Took a quick break from painting tonight to go look for the damn dog and looked up to the sky to see unbelievably bright stars - grabbed the wifes iPad and lo and behold - they are Venus (big one) and Jupiter (smaller one).

So I grabbed the camer and tripod and took some extreme closeups! This is Venus...

...and Jupiter.

Amazing!

...ok back to the painting table...and still can't find the damn dog!

Troy

Soviet GHQ and New Book.

Hey All!

Finished up the Soviet GHQ stand today and also got a great book in the mail - recommended by a excellent website 'Model Dads' at:

http://www.modeldads.co.uk/Life-at-the-Front/wordpress/

Its called: The Soviet Soldier By Histoire & Collections ISBN 978-2-35250-100-8...more on that later...

I wanted to add a little humor to the stand so as the radio operator is one homely Svetlana, I modified a few officer figures to be knocking back a few...I think the effect worked - I'm guessing they need the drinks! 

 The banner is a paper printout that I painted and shaded. I soaked it in PVA glue to get the folds. The Vodka bottle is heat-formed from a model airplane canopy sprue. Maps are print reduced from original WWII maps. I varied the color of the uniforms to add some interest and also added a PPSH from a spare figure. Once again, I really with BF would release a Infantry weapons blister!

 I built a top for the table out of plastic stock to add more detail. I will probably add cable to the field telephone when I add the terrain to the base.

 Although a bit hard to see, I tried my hand at painting red stars on the pilotka (side-caps) and raspberry piping. I also painted in rank badges on the officers.

Overall, I was a little disappointed in most of the casting on the faces. I spent a fair bit of time trying to make them look human but finally moved on. I still have some Infantry and roads to complete for the Con at the end of the month!

The book 'The Soviet Soldier ' is a great resource. I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone interested in WWII Soviet infantry. It has many re-enactors portrayed in it with original wartime items. A few points...

-My vallejo color of choice for WWII Soviet soldiers is Yellow Green 70881 but there are so many variations of this shown in the book that there really is no single color.  A few other colors that work...70887 Brown Violet, 70924 Russian Unif. WWII (duh!),  70882 Middlestone, 70988 Khaki and even a bright green that looks close to70922 USA Uniform with some yellow green thrown in. There are even examples of a faded looking tunic that is damn close to Field Grey! That must have been problematic to say the least!  

- The important thing is to KEEP IT LIGHT! Too dark of a base coat will undoubtedly give you boring minis. Add yellow, white and tan to lighten these colors as a good starting point for your base coat.

- Color on the wartime items should be examined and used as a starting point but not used as a true reference as these have been weathering for 70+ years! Many items are new looking and may be reproductions. 

-Many color plates show soldiers with old and new items together. This is suspect. I'm thinking that at least for front-line Soviet soldiers, they would be issued a uniform all at once and it would weather as such - so there may not be too much in the way of new and weathered kit. Once rotated, there uniform would probably be tossed for new.

Cheers!

Troy

Terrain So Far...

Hey All!

Work continues on the terrain for the con...

A couple of Russian farmhouses by Kerr & King. These are excellent buildings very much superior to the average and have lots of detail. I based  them on 3/8" MDF and covered this in a sand/PVA glue mixture. After a few washes and drybrushes, I added some flock. I tried to keep the areas surrounding the buildings free of any raised terrain to ease in miniature placement.

I painted these with cheap craft paints and flatcoated with Vallejo Matt sealer which, although expensive, is a great alternative to Testors Dulcote and may be less harmfull.

 These MDF bases will represent forested terrain. Having the loose trees will make mini placement a snap over glued ones. While not as pretty, it will be far better to game on.

The hill is blue SM styrofoam insulation glued down onto MDF and sanded/flocked. Again, elevated terrain is kept to a minumum for miniature placement.

Cheers!