Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 6th through to the 12th of August.
BLOG STUFF
On a roll from the week before, last week’s post was taking a look the US Army range from Empress. This is a range that I’ve been building up as part of a platoon project, ready for larger games and complete with various support elements. It’s not 100% finished so you might be seeing a few more US Army guys being painted up.
NEWS
We have a new arrival this week in the news. Black Site Studio produce pre-painted MDF building kits and this week pre-orders have gone up for a small bank. This grabbed my attention, mainly due to the various materials used and the detail available. The layout should be familiar for those used to hearing about a broken down POS drill and I think this kit could be great for those whose modern gaming is more “small town USA” rather than the middle east.
The day is finally here! Tiny Terrain has released the figures from the first Chechnyan War kickstarter. Seven packs of Chechens and five packs of Russians gives you a selection of figures to pickup (although I have heard they can be a little RPG heavy) and all are in Igor’s great sculpting style. You can pick them up from the site at https://tinyterrainmodels.wordpress.com/ .
Spectre had another lapse in the OPSEC and have shown off a new preview of an upcoming range. Having already been glimpsed in the background of some previous preview images, they can now finally reveal that the upcoming figures are some updated Spetsnaz. These guys are based off more modern photos of the Russian SF in action abroard and are armed with various versions of the AK12 along with PKP MMGs. If you look closely you can see some really nice detail on the clothing and webbing kit. However, my favourite feature has to be the backpack ammo feed on one of the MMG users. I don’t know why but its just so dangerously sci-fi. Seeing as these guys are full sculpted (and in a reasonable number for a release) they will be coming pretty soon.
In unrelated news, guess who is rushing to finish the pile of Spectre Russians sat on his desk. Expect a range impressions in the next few weeks.
But that wasn’t all! This week also saw Spectre tease and then release a new Luxury SUV for their civilian vehicle range. This is a nice counterpart to the other SUVs that Spectre have sold, giving a different style that will make telling the good guys in SUVs apart from the bad guys in SUVs. I’m looking forward to picking one up the next time I order from them.
If you’re wanting your own, you can find it on the Spectre site.
Yep, it’s that time of year! The Great Wargaming Survey is back for 2018, letting WSS know just what the wargaming public want to play and be in the hobby doing. As always, you get a 15% discount from Karwansary once you finish the survey and you can also enter to possibly win some prizes. As you might expect, Ultramoderns is normally quite far down the chart so lets see if we can change that this year.
You can find the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8SBKF8L
PURCHASES
Nothing wargames related – much more focused on getting my way through the lead pile!
HOBBY
The big thing this week was finishing off the US Army figures. As you can see from the collection above, I have two full squads, a command element and a few support teams (such as the EOD guys or the spare fireteam. I’m tempted to pick up another pack so I can have the total of three squads (while pulling the squad leader out of the EOD team).
The next step for making this almost platoon size will be picking up another set of Strkyers to carry the rest of the platoon.
If you’ve been following the blog you know I’ve been busy with work reccently. However, I took Thursday night off – this was both to have some relaxation during a busy time but also to remind the local wargames club I’m still alive and still like rolling the old dice. This time, I managed to jump into a game of Frostgrave. We played it in 15mm (ish) and I had a whale of a time. There were wizards controlling bears, there were henchmen being flung through portals and there was some classic multiplayer shenanigans. Overall it seemed like a great little game – so maybe I need to grab some more magicians for the dungeon delving project.
So what’s now on the workbench? Well the Russians have moved up the list but I’m also wanting to clear some table space. I have a pile of things I haven’t got round to basing and undercoating yet so I did some utility tasks. I even broke out some greenstuff to tweak the Empress US Sniper in Crye gear.
I’m still deciding on the post for Friday but it might be time for another part in the Building A Force series.
That’s it for this update, expect more updates next week!