2 Atak Kampanü, I Bertoldu Armored Battalion, 1st Independent Ebhardu Cavalry Brigade

This time a post with a picture. I made 1/32 versions of the same vehicle before, but now I completed an armored company with the G-93 Kontot Kombatot for my 1/72 collection.

There are four tanks in a Jazygian interwar armored company, but they are supplied with variants on a sort of ad-hoc basis. 2/I/1 Atak Kampanü has the following, from left to right:

G-93ac Ozmot "Rinokerüs" - An open top variant, with the HMG at the back of the vehicle, a 3pdr anti-tank gun on the right side of the chassis, and field modifications to break down hedges. The figures are HäT Prussians with modified caps.

G-93c Astaba with open turret and radio antenna - commander's version. Its frontal armor was strengthened by adding sandbags. The commander is a Zvezda Russian female soldier and she can be taken out of the vehicle.

G-93 reserve/engineering/close support vehicle - standard armament, but with a medium mortar bolted to the undercarriage, sort of a makeshift SPG. This one's got some Green Stuff World shrubbery glued to the front, and the figures are cheap Chinese knights with green stuff modifications.

G-93c Astaba, standard version, closed turret.

Soon the company will roll out on a policing action along the Ahbanian border, we shall see what comes out of that...

Painting Tally March 2025

From January on I started summarizing what I paint, the first two months being the test period for the method. I keep the total tally in a separate diary, but thought it would be a good idea to post it here.

Further on I limit my scope of activities to up to five projects per month, which helps me focus better on the current tasks instead of meandering and starting minor side-projects, never finishing one.

Worry not if you aren't the Duke of Porpoises...

 

... you can still be the Prince of Wales! (pun intended)

Here's a rare WIP shot of a 1/2000 scale scratchbuilt HMS Prince of Wales. I usually post completed products on the blog, but this one looked kind of nice the way it is, and it highlights some of the methods I use for tiny ships.

My main components for this build were: balsa wood, bamboo skewers, Magic Sculpt, 0.5mm plasticard, push pins and broom bristles. First I shaped the hull, and did the rest in five main sub-assemblies (that is the three turrets and two main parts of the superstructure).

Balsa wood has very large grain and soaks up paint/glue like a sponge, so I learned to harden its outer surface with either mopping on liquid superglue or acrylic medium, and then after many passes with sandpaper some PVA. For the quad turrets I also added some magic sculpt for detail.

I made an attempt to sculpt each of the quad barrels, but in the end I just went with my usual solution of using a single slab of bamboo and painting the detail on.

The occasion for this build is that I want to refight the Battle of the Denmark Strait in the near future, so after painting this one, next up is the Mighty Hood.

During the build I came to appreciate the no-nonsense approach of the King George V class design. Everything has its place and works, and that's about all a fighting ship needs. However, I anticipate building Hood for her excellent looks for a change.

Orks and Ork Accessories

I bought some used Ork Boyz a while ago, then stripped and painted them. A few of them were posted here before, but not the entire band. The rest are still available from the same place, so I might just buy more.

They also found a sort of VTOL ground attack craft and made it more orky.

The Mighty ZS Lakardo (Not Quite Charles Martel)

As part of my ongoing 1/1000 scale Trashy Fleets exploits, I'm finally done with the almost Charles Martel, she is joining the Zinqaguri Navy, a peripheral minor power in my world of imagi-nations. Being quite fancy AND a battleship, she is going to bear the fleet admiral's flag.

Steaming alongside the Charles Martel, or as she will be known in Zinqagur, the ZS Lakardo, is the small torpedo boat destroyer TB-1 Marsal, modelled after the real world Claymore-class French ship, so they are kind of matching.

The only ahistorical element of the battleship is the fact that I left a tier of the main deck out, so the fore and aft main turrets are on the same level, while in fact the rear one should be placed a bit lower.

Battle of Pavia - 500th Anniversary Refight

Last afternoon (technically one day before the anniversary of the battle) we refought the Battle of Pavia, to commemorate its five hundreth anniversary, using my homemade unit blocks, makeshift terrain and a modified version of One Hour Wargames. My wife commanded the French and I the Imperialists.

You can view the locations and initial dispositions on the map above, we are at the early morning hours when the Imperial arquebusiers are already occupying Mirabello castle and the pike blocks had deployed on the near side of the walls of the Visconti park.

The Second Batch of Steel Fist Knights

Finished four more Renaissance lance-armed knights produced by Steel Fist Miniatures. They are excellent sculpts and painted up well.

Trashy Fleets WIP #2

Inspired by, among other things, Archduke Piccolo's recent posting about his scratchbuilt pre-dreadnought battleships, I dug out my own work-in-progress hulls and proceeded a good deal with building them.

The Swedish coastal defence ship Äran got a full paintjob, all she needs now is a layer of gloss acrylic medium and finish on her base (and gluing the hull to said base).

The not-quite Charles Martel (forgot an extra layer of superstructure) also starts to look like herself, finished all twele turrets (the French designers just got a little bit overboard with that aspect) and installed the cabin windows, stacks and upper platform. As you can see I also did a little bit of pre-painting on hard to reach areas. Her main hull will be finished in dark grey, upper structure yellow ochre and the deck a linoleum color.

There are also a few hulls of Tordenskjold-class monitors in the background, more on them at a later time.

Hakkaa päälle!

These are three Warlord plastic cavalrymen, with minor conversion work. For my Pikeman's Lament (or other skirmish) games I wanted some sort of cavalry other than your usual harquebusier/cuirassier, badly equipped, untrained but motivated, all in all, something like the Finnish horse serving under Gustavus. 

Of course there must be a way then to discern these from their more respectable colleagues, so one of the figures received a Bloody Miniatures head swap with a fur hat, and the other two got copies of the same fur hat instead of a helmet or soft hat. The back of the figures' heads did have the end of a lobster tail sticking out (which the soft hat would have covered), so I put some extra green stuff there to cover it.

I think they look fierce enough, and will do their duties well until I can get some Cossacks or Croats. They have no pistols, and wear a basic brown buff coat.