More Plastics At FlamesCon!

At FlamesCon this year Battlefront had a little teaser of the some of the plastics that you can expect to see soon, including some serious teasers for next year!

A new frame with both StuG G and StuG G (late) options

Pre-production rapid prototypes of the Cromwell and Comet tanks due out next year

A British infantry frame. Two frames for a full strength platoon with some figures left over for your HQ

Best of all, after a long break I dusted off my EW French and took them out for three games today, winning two games (both 5-2) and loosing one (2-5) I even managed to take out 3rd place on the back of some pretty strong sports votes and a number of the other generals timing out in the last round and bringing home low scoring draws!

The 2nd day of the Late War GT is on tomorrow and with three games to go the top spots are still hotly contested. Meanwhile I'll be bringing out my SSU to join the Dust players in a 1 day tournament.

SSU 179th Steel Guards Battalion

I managed to get the first 100 points of my Steel Guard army finished prior to my big game with Victor for the Dust website. Really happy with how they turned out! Now to finish my captured Ludwig and a few other bits and pieces and I'll be at 150 points before I know it.

The 100 points for our battle

HQ section and Snipers

Matrioshka

Assault Squads

Fakyeli

A close up of my basing

The whole army with some special effects....

Dust Battlefield: Victor (Axis) vs. Chris (SSU)

Victor and I are getting ready for a big face-off...

We have been painting up our 100 point Dust armies over the past few months and now it is time for us to throw down... I am expecting that his Wotan will be declared "man of the match" as it racks up the kills! I have one week left to finish painting my 100 points (Victor is already done) so we can get the Battle Report played next week, and up on the Dust website the following week.

Stay tuned for more developments!

Pushing ahead with my Dust SSU

It has been a very busy month on the hobby front with lots of things pulling me in multiple directions and as usual not getting much finished. Last week though I managed to get the base coats airbrushed on my Steel Guard HQ squad and Matrioshka.

I gave the models a quick clean up to get rid of the worst of the mould lines, then airbrushed them Tamiya Red Brown, with a directional spray of a 50/50 Red Brown and Dark Yellow mix. In some respects the results are a little subtle but I think they look quite good. If nothing else they help to make the real life lighting effects come out a little more.

I love the different backpacks for the HQ squad. Tossing around ideas on how to make it obvious which model is which. Currently thinking that the Officer (middle) will have a dark grey backpack, Mechanic (left) will have light grey, and the Medic a white backpack with a red cross.

The photos make the modulation appear quite subtle but I think in person they make quite a difference, especially on the armour panels on the side of the ams.

Next job will be to a little bit of detail work, then varnish and pin wash the models. However I have a few other tasks that need to take priority including getting my Jagdtigers ready for Panzerschreck as well as a little painting for a work project so I am not sure how long they will sit in this state....

SSU Red Tornado and Silent Death Finished

I've finally completed my first squads of Steel Guard, with two Red Tornado sections and two Silent Death sniper teams. This gives me a little over 60 points of painted troops, just need to get my HQ section done and a walker and I'll be close to having a fully painted Dust army!

I've decided to number the Steel Guard using some of the Flames Of War Vietnam PAVN decals. The big yellow numbers stand out nicely, and there are just enough numbers for what I need.
#00 - ?
#1-3 - HQ Squad
#4-6 - 1st Red Tornado section
#7-9 - 2nd Red Tornado section
#10-12 - ?
#13-15 - ?
#16-17 - 1st Silent Death team
#18-19 - 2nd Silent Death team
 
I am hoping that we will see a Steel Guard Hero (to take the 00 slot) at some point, along with some heavier weapon options (please be quad RPG launchers without limited ammunition!) so I can run a full 100 platoon without needing tanks or walkers.

Steel Guard ready for the tabletop

Red Tornado section

Silent Death team

Slow Progress on the Eastern Front

It has been a while since I posted anything about my SSU Army for Dust. Victor and I have been playing a lot of Dust Battlefield games over the past couple of months and really getting into it. Unfortunately on the modelling and painting front I have been splitting my efforts and making very little progress across a variety of armies, rather than any real progress on one!

However I did have a good “Thursday night painting session” and got most of my Steel Guard to the “almost finished” stage – just decals and 3 crewman left to paint on my first 10 figures. Once they are done I will get the HQ squad done, then move on to the vehicles.

That's big badda-boom!

Almost finished

What I am really enjoying is the fast and furious nature of the game. Things do stuff, things die, things come back, and a 100 point game (which seems to be the average "throw-down" size) can be played quite quickly, letting you get through a couple of games in an evening or afternoon.

Victor has also been making some progress on his Germans so hopefully we can get 100 points finished and put together a short battle report.

DUST Christmas Comes A Little Late

With the FFG sale earlier this month, the guys in the Studio banded together to purchase a few things... today they arrived with me... hohoho. I had a quick look through all their nice toys and then left them on their desks so that they could have a nice surprise when they come back to work in 2014!

Now with a small pile of "back catalogue" items I think we will see some armies coming together! I figure I need to go and do a little research on the 179th Steel Guards Battalion (supported by the 26th Zverograd Tractor Factory Armoured Company) and their exploits - thats the fun part about alternate history games, you get to write your own!

SSU Steel Guard Ready for the Production Line!

The guys in the BF Studio have been getting quite excited about DUST ever since the announcement that we would be working with Paulo, Olivier, and the rest of the DUST team. The agreement to take over distribution of the DUST range started with the Wave 8 releases, leaving product a little thin on the ground if we wanted to get in and start building armies immediately (although the recent FFG sale has resulted that excitement building as the guys ordered some stuff to get armies started!). Luckily for me I was really interested in the release of the new Steel Guard figures (they reminded me a little of Battletech Clan "Toads") and was able to grab a couple of boxes to start building a small force.

I'd decided I wanted to paint the army, but I also wanted to make sure that I was not going crazy and spending too much time on a per figure basis so I decided to go with a primer red, straight out of the Zverograd factory look. I airbrushed the figures with Tamiya Hull Red, and then did a little highlighting from the top with a Hull Red / Dark Yellow mix. As you can see from the results I ended up with a some nice highlighting of the top surfaces that (I thought) looked really cool. I then varnished the models (and was a little disappointed at this point as the varnish really flattened out the highlighting!) and pin washed them with a MiG Productions Dark Wash. The guns was painted Vallejo Black Grey with a highlight of Oily Steel, the springs in the legs were also painted Oily Steel. The uniform and bed roll were painted English Uniform, given a quick wash with some black paint, then re-highlighted with English Uniform, and the whole model a quick (light) drybrush of Buff.

For the bases I glued on GF9 basing grit, undercoated it black, and then drybrushed on Green Grey, Stone Grey and a little Sky Grey (letting the drybush of this go over the feet and lower legs of the figure a little. Then glued on some "bricks" from the guys at Secret Weapon Miniatures just to help reinforce that Zverograd feeling.

I am pretty happy with the finished model and although there are a couple of things I am not entirely happy with, I was able to complete it quite quickly meaning I can get a small army on the table and play some games over the Christmas break! The rest of my force is undercoated and ready for the pin washing and detail work, with the HQ section currently on a plane somewhere between our factory / distribution hub in KL, and New Zealand. Once these figures are done I am definitely looking forward to painting a couple of the massive SSU tanks as well!