Found at a second hand clothes store...

My wife and I scour second hand clothes stores (a local brand) regularly. About 90% of my clothes are from there, good value for the money.

We recently went to one of the stores and in the miscellaneous bin I found this Airfix kit. The price was weight based so I thought why not? With a pair of Disney toys I thought I could use for terrain the entire ordeal cost me about 8 euros.

As you can see the box was banged up, but I peeked inside one split corner and saw a nylon wrapper, so I had hope...

Et voilá! Everything is here and - which is the funniest part of all - in the original wrapper, undamaged. A 2010 issue Spitfire Mark Ia gift set. It even has the decals, paints and glue.

I don't do much aircraft modelling, but this very same Spitfire was one of the first models I built when I was little, so I might just complete it for nostalgia's sake. 

Rata Rumble

Two pairs of I-16 fighters for the Eastern front, made of plasticard and balsa. They are about 1/144 scale to suit to the other planes we have. I built them using plans found online, probably not perfect but they're only there to be shot down by the aces of the Luftwaffe. The bases will be finished at some point, right now they can hold a d6 to indicate altitude in Bag the Hun and that's it.

In the Navy Ground Project Vehicles

 

The 1/72 vehicle loot is completed, along with the HMG from the German infantry box, that is not shown here.

Revell 1/72 Focke-Wulf Ta152H

My favorite pane of WW2 and probably in the entire history of aviation is the F-W Ta152. This Revell kit is a refurbishment of a very old one but building it was easier than expected.

Project 'In the Navy': 1/1200 Aircraft

This is the Revell 1/1200 USS Enterprise kit. It has 21 fighter planes to put on the two decks. Hint: you won't find any on this shot... well, maybe one.

Instead of fixing the planes on the carrier I put some GS on coins, painted them blue and glued the aircraft via their little pegs which would otherwise fit in the small holes in the Enterprise's deck.

Zvezda 1/144 Me Bf-109F and LaGG-3

These two came along with the latest batch, part of the Art of Tactic range. I would not want to discuss how the scales of these match the aircraft scale for FoW and Zvezda's intentions about it, the thing is, they are darn cheap, easy to assemble and very handsome little models.

Scratchbuilding frenzy - the Jazygian Campaign

The house was empty for a week so I planned a massive gaming event, the table was set 24/7 and battles raged to save or capture the mountain land of Jazygia. I could not document the gaming sessions though because the 'good' camera was taken by the family to their trip.

Few words of mighty Jazygia: a sort of Balkanian state, her leader is Ebhard Magnutörk, Great Prince. The country is just after a war with Ahbania to the west and the main armed forces are divided. The aggressor Visigothians plan a combined attack through a bridgehead and a shallow river crossing with boats and whatnot. The bad guys were the Strelets KuK infantry featured earlier. They were stopped at the capital but had some great losses before.

Obviously for an early WW2/1930s setting I could not use the armor and other equipment I had around - time to improvise. I had glue and paper and scratch. So what I put together is:

2 monoplanes
3 armored cars
2 tanks
1 APC
2 cannons
4 MG pill boxes

The whole lot with figures for comparison

Revell 1/144 Focke-Wulf Fw-190 A-8

The Fw190 has been a favorite of mine for a while but did not know someone makes it in 1/144 (had an A and a D version n 1/72 with terrible enamel painting back from the early days), now that my WW2 collection is expanding there was a chance to buy one. Turns out Revell does a 'Micro Wings' range that has a lot of WW2 aircraft including the Fw190.

Let's just not talk about assembly because I usually find aircraft nerve-wrecking to assemble but this one wins the gold prize of all. However I had fun with the painting (not sure of the cabin though) and it looks good in the end and that is what matters. Had also been more careful with the decals and undercoated the necessary parts with varnish which helped a lot and made the decals appropriately smooth.

Transparent plastic base which is about half the height of the Zvezda Art of Tactic planes', I'll switch one probably as I would need some landed planes too for objetive markers or simple terrain props and this would provide the chance for a spare 'flying' base.

Next up is two Sd.Kfz. 251s from Zvezda.

Zvezda 1/144 aircraft

IL-2 on the left, Ju-87 on the right. These are from the Zvezda 'Art of Tactic' fast build boxes. And they are truly fast to build, plus relatively cheap; no trouble with painting either. I painted the transparent plastic parts too on these with a good result. 

The dreaded Stuka. The boxes are supplied with these black base sort of things, very useful. The base forms three sides of an Art of Tactic hex.

Oldies

Since nothing else is to paint, I'll show the painted pieces of my WW2 aircraft collection done some 6- 8 years ago. These are all 1/72s and no idea which belongs to which manufacturer (they're mostly Revell I think).

Welcome to Andy Walker from The Lair of the Breviks, thanks for joining!

Swedish P-51D, loved painting it.