Buildings for Achse & Avalanche

Over on the Achse and Avalanche blog I have added pictures of the three locations based up so far.

Here is Vietri

Specially for Bill

Since Bill in the USA asked, here is the new Zvezda Russian Artillery of Peter the Great.


My first impression was wow, what a great set, up to usual Zvezda standards, but on further contemplation it's not as good as it could be (but these are opportunities for improvements not moans)

1) The idea of separate arms is great and adds to the animation of the figures, but the figure with the rammer doesn't fit properly (unlike the rest)

2) Too many 3pdr galloper guns

3) The howitzer seems too small

4) If you add the elevating wedge on the 6pdr then the gun points downward

5) The wheels are very tight on the axles, so a quick clean wirh a 1.5mm drill helps the fit

6) I'm not sure, but I suspect that all the wheels are on the small side.

Overall 9 out of 10, compared to any other set, except their own Napoleonic artillery this is excellent.

Whatever your gun/gunner ratio there are plenty of spare figures so different nationality crews should not be a problem. I will certainly use the figures with my Strelets/Orion and Call to Arms guns.

Finally, if you follow this link, something like this will be my next set of WSS units

Italian Buildings

Here are the buildings I've just finished for the Achse & Avalanche SOTCW game. As most of my buildings they are built as modules each mostly 12cm x 6cm with a few 6cm square.

Construction is foamcore with Wills pantile tiles for the roofs. I started with the very basic rectangular buildings but I really prefer the second wave where I split the building 1:2 as they look far less monolithic

The next step is to try and create some scenic village bases to place these on.

More expenditure

While catching up on my email yesterday I found the latest releases from Netmerchants with the Zvezda Russian Artillery of Peter the Great, so I was hooked and caught up on all those purchases that I might have made at Phalanx. This morning the box of goodies arrived so I'm now committed to painting quite an assortment.

• 1 x Caesar WWII Underground Resisters/Partisans - having bought the recent set I decided that they could do with more variety
• 1 x HAT French Napoleonic Light Ambulance - having been using medics and an ambulance over the weekend I bought this to add to my baggage train, but I'm not sure I need all three
• 1 x HAT French Napoleonic Pontoon Wagon - I'll probably make up one in position and another in transit, but given the soft plastic I decided to start with just one, especially as you need a limber team for it. as well.
• 1 x HAT Macedonian Hypaspists - the last unit for my Macedonian army, just a shame its in the new softer plastic rather than the same as the rest of the figures.
• 1 x HAT Colonial Wars Highlanders - couldn't resist, they'll be off to fight the Zulus and give my other units a rest.
• 1 x HAT Colonial Wars Indian Infantry
• 2 x MINIART Housits XV Century - I'm planning to use the wagons for my Renaissance Poles.
• 1 x STRELETS Medieval Levy 2 - these will provide me with sufficient medieval spearmen
• 3 x ZVEZDA Russian Artillery of Peter the Great - enough said these are awesome and will replace my existing artillery in my Austrian/Imperial army.

Back from the big game

I've had a great weekend with the Society of Gentlemen Wargamers refighting the German invasion of Crete in 1941. The bulk of my photos cover the Rethymnon sector where I was involved. Everyone's pictures are being assembled on the SOGG site.



Hopefully this slide show will work for everyone.

Overall it was a marginal British victory but the Germans had firm control of Maleme. I had a fairly successful couple of days as a Commonwealth/Greek commander and by the end of the second day we were mopping up the last remaining Germans on our table.

WSS Bavarian Infantry

As I said in a previous post I was feeling deprived of colourful figures to paint so these just flew of the workbench.

From front to back the three regiments are Maffei (or Massei) Mercy and Lieb.

The figures are all the Zvezda Infantry of Peter the Great and the flags are from Warflag.

Although these are painted for the WSS I will also use them for 1683 and CS Grants From Pike to Shot gives similar uniformed units for 1685-1700.

Something for the big game?

A couple of inhabitants of Rethymnon.

A Strelets Orthodox priest and a Caesar Partisan!

DAK motorbikes

perhaps its me, but whenever I upload images I find flaws in my painting. These are the recent Italeri German motorcycle combos. They are nice models but quite fiddly to paint and the colours still look too distinct. I was quite happy with the Vallejo Russian Uniform until I saw the picture close up.


Aaahh well , on to the weekend when I'm off to the big game.

Medic, medic

One extra I need for the big game was medics for my Australian battalions. I've never used these before so I had to create these from scratch. Interesting that when you look for medics you find how few are available. in metal or plastic.

Although it should be a single figure I though a small vignette of a wounded man being treated would look far better and there was just such a combination in the old Airfix Australians

Outland games SYW figures

Chris at Outland Games in the US sent me some sample 20mm figures for review so despite generally being a plastic figure user here they are:

There was no description of the exact SYW figures represented but positioned on my 5mm graph paper they look to be a close 20mm base of foot to eyes. Careful inspection will show quite a bit more detail (click the images for a bigger view). Without painting it they do seem to have thin legs, but the waistcoat and jacket would have tended to bulk out the upper half of the body.

For comparison here are some plastics, the Airfix AWI figures are not a bad match but the Revell SYW are far larger, which is a pity as this is where I am now looking for figures to fit in with my existing collection.

On the Workbench - June 09

Where is the year going? seems to have only been a matter of weeks since Christmas. May just vanished, but partly that was due to going on holidays for a couple of weeks. It's now only two weeks to go to the SOGG big game and all my figures are finished, I just need to sort everything out and maybe create some "pretty bits" such as Greek flags and perhaps a dead German para hanging from a tree. Otherwise I have to continue with the work for the SOTCW Gauntlet game and continue work on the Achse/Avalanche terrain - buildings/olive trees/vineyards.

I'm also suffering from a lack of bright colours so I'm going to start on some WSS Bavarians using the Zvezda figures and hopefully I'll manage to buy some of the new GNW artillery that's just been released.

Otherwise the following are still idling in odd corners.

• German DAK motorcycles
• Something might be done with the BefehlsPanzer III conversion
• The M8 HMC is virtually finished and I've started on painting it
• Tartars for my Ottomans (just need a final push to finish)

Greek Gendarmerie

After much pondering, searching the web, etc I have finally assembled some Greek Gendarmes. All the research can be found on this thread on the SOGG forum

I took heart from comments that they used some army uniforms, so I used the Esci and Waterloo 1815 Italians as a basis and added kepis from some remaining Airfix Foreign Legion to about 50% of them

Australian artillery

I had painted the gunners earlier, but I had forgot about the gun. It's an Italian Deport 75mm as developed by the French Colonel Deport just before WW1 and then used through into WW2, with numbers used then being captured in North Africa.

It had a novel recoil system and was also the first gun with a split trail. More details on the Landships site. My model came from Rolf Hedges, but HaT have also shown roughs of their proposed model on their forum.

Something completely different

Over on The Guild there is a speed build with the theme "female". I thought I would probably sit this one out, but then I found these nuns when sorting out some bits and pieces.

They come from the Caesar Partisans in Europe, where for some reason they decided the set needed three identical nuns but only one of more useful figures such as the bren gunner.

Obviously they have far wider uses than WW2 so they will probably appear in several skirmish games.