This is Minuteman: Two-Three

 Since my wargaming hobby has taken a back(far back) seat to my simming hobby, I've gone from reading books about the Napoleonic wars etc. To listening to audio books on aerial warfare. I've digested many many books the last two and a half years, lots of WW2 fighter books, some WW1, some modern, some Vietnam, some extremely impressive flying, and bravery. But by far in just pure skill and technique no books have impressed me more than the audio books I've listened to about Vietnam Huey pilots, the insane control and dramatic stuff they've done. It's just pure extreme skill flying. 

So in the end I couldn't resist anymore and needed the Rubicon Huey. really far above my skill level to make. Took a long time, had to take a break to wait for more black to prime them. And I broke part of the rotor as I took it off the spur, I also lost one of the windows. And with the clear glass, painting the inside. Yeah far far more complex, than the tanks I'm also not very good at doing. 

I'm not that happy with the build, but I am quite happy with the paint job, had to buy a new high end airbrush as my cheap one broke after just 2 tank paintings. 

So here it is. 

Going in for landing

Since my infantry is 101st, so my Huey had to be too.

Laying on my belly, in the garden, blending wargaming terrain with the weeds.

And a video of the Huey, still no Vietnam in DCS, we have several more or less correct aircraft for it, and more will come the F4 is around the corner, with A1 Skyraider coming, so is the A7 and F8, and F100

So I made a cold war gone hot scenario, with a large Huey formation putting infantry in the ground for a large assault. 

Not Completely dead

So, I've been mostly gone, I haven't done any real painting for 11 months now, havn't done anything sine I did those 30YW figures.

My flight sim hobby and stress makes it hard to have the energy to sit down and do some proper work.

But I did get tempted by the Rubicon Vietnam range. I got a box of US Army and a Huey. 

Slowly working on the Huey and I've done a whole 4 US army figures, I used to be able to churn out 20-40 figures a week...


Anyway here are the figures. Hiding in terrain from warpaintfigures, my Army platoon with be 101st Airborne.

I tried to do a little squibble on their shoulder that kinda looks like the screaming eagle patch. but it's on the wrong side of the figures from the photo. 

Anyway I hope to have something more from the project soonish.

Selling my GNW project

 Selling all I have of my GNW,  as a single package. 

Some 550 painted 28mm. If you follow my blog you know what's it about. Just check my GNW tag and you'll see all of it.

It's a big force. 

I'm asking £3500 plus shipping. 

It's my honour to present to you, an actual proper unit.

 Well, it's been almost a year, (two weeks away actually) since last I did a proper full size 28mm unit, that was my British SYW grenadiers. Since then I've done some odds and ends, and these small scale skirmish things for Vietnam and WW2, and the Epic scale stuff, but they are so small they don't count.

But here I can now finally present you with a proper-sized 28mm unit. 

Drumroll, please...

A full-sized Spanish pike and shot formation, 39 figures, 15 pikemen and command, 24 arquebusiers, and musketeers. All 39 figures are unique, not a single duplicate. I started these like 18 months ago I think, did the pike center, and 1 base of arquebusiers, but then the arquebusiers fell on the floor and 4 figures fell off, weapons bent, and paint flaked off. I lost complete interest in continuing on them. But I decided to take them out and finish them, those that fell to the ground needed literally 15 minutes of work to fix. Yet it had held me back from finishing them. I then did the remaining 18 shot figures. 
The 1898 figures are lovely, my only complaint is the swords, they are kinda hard to make look good, as they are attached to some stuff from the molding process. and they don't sit very well on the belts when glued on. But the figures themself are excellent, good character without them becoming some grotesque parody of mid-17th-century soldiers. 

I still have enough pikes and command do to another pike base, but no more shot, I'll go take a look at how many avanpost musketeers I have, I might be able to use those, even tho I break half of them before they are finished painting. 

I kept to mostly brown vests/jacks, with mostly white shirts, some times I had a little colour, some of them look like they could be in cloth jacket, so I painted them with more colour, some arms are clearly jackets with cut arms, so there I again added colour with white shirt seen in the slashes. Trousers are anything from brown and beige to more colorful stuff. buff coats on the pikemen and some buff vests on the shot.

I still haven't found any clear concise info on just how a Spanish Tercio looked in the 1630s-1650s Most likely they were not these huge 2500-3000 man behemoths. But just how they deployed I do not know, if they still tried to use 4 sleaves on a pike block or if they more or less looked like the dutch system at this point. Just because it's called a tercio doesn't mean it actually looks like the original ones.
They were still called Tercios when they were 5 deep lines of just musketeers during the Spanish succession.

Anyway, I don't know what will show up on the blog next, maybe some more TYW, maybe some WW2. I really wanna get back to my SYW, but I don't know if I'll find the inspiration for it.

Well its been a long time.

 But I've finally finished something, 1 full 12-man US rifle Squad.

I'll probably field squads of 9, to simulate casualties, the 1ID had been in Normandy almost 2 months by the time of Cobra, which is the thing I'm aiming at. 


Oh and I also finished a Sherman, my first 1:56 scale tank done with Airbrush.

I'm just gonna photo dump the pictures. next up will be my attempt at Panzer lehr using the Wargames Atlantic panzer lehr, it's questionable if they all used their fancy unique uniforms. But since all other german 28mm miniatures are grotesque bear-men unless I do fallschermjegers or SS. I went with these as they match Perry in style. If I ever do find regular Heer infantry that looks somewhat human I'll add them. 

Still painting still flying.

 So I got an airbrush for my birthday, so that meant lots and lots money spent on paints, and effects, tanks, etc. So back to WW2 painting I come.

I've also taken part in a beta test for VR for a flight sim, I think it will be epic once it's finshed. 


I know most of you who see the blog don't care about flight sims, but while I'm waiting for my WW2 stuff.

Here is some flying.

I jump between IL2 and DCS, and the game with the beta, sadly can't show anything from the beta yet.


But here are som IL2 and DCS vidoes.

Here's a video I'm quite happy with, a P47 giving close air support to American armor outside of Carentan.

Here I'm flying a Spitfire IX in Normandy, with my 3D printed Spitfire spade grip, throttle quadrant, and trim wheels, it's amazing flying a spitfire in VR, and holding on to the spade grip, firing off the cannons and machine guns, or using the bomb release button on the throttle.

IL2 Flying Circus has gotten WW1 bombers. 
So I did a small fight trying to shoot down some Gotha bombers.

And last but not least, less than a week ago the AH-64 Apache Longbow was released in early access. 
Still missing some features, but very well made. 

Here's a mission I flew today, my second mission in the Apache, and it went surprisingly well given I had less than an hour in the Apache before beginning the mission. 

All my videos now have commentary, so should be a bit more interesting to watch. 

AAAAANNNNNNDDDDD it's done.

 The 13th legere fought many a hard battle, 5 battles honours, it fought under Davout from 1805 through 1812, and just to show their awesomeness, they took La Haye Sainte at the closing parts of the battle of waterloo. My favorite French regiment and I'm happy to see it on this scale. 

The numbers are 240 close order infantry in 3 battalions

24 skrimishers.

Total 264 for a single regiment. 

Up close and at eye level, you really do feel you get a good massed feeling.

The 3rd battalion was a bit of a slog, and not my best work, I just wanted it done.

264 down, 172 left.

General d'Armee will be my go-to rules, so this brigade gets 1 extra skirmish base as half or more of the brigade is light infantry. So the next regiment the 17th line will just be 2 battalions and 12 skirmishers.
Sadly Warlord being an evil capitalist corporation has decided not to give the British spurs any skirmish figures, meaning you can't do a proper Napoleonic battle, They, for some reason decided instead of giving you skirmishers, you get close-order rifle battalions. Quite useless and I can only imagine they did this for getting as much money out of the buyer as possible. 
We'll see if we will ever get line infantry skirmishers. Or I'll have to buy some small 15mm or big 12mm to use for that. 

So on to the 17th line, I was getting real tired of the legere uniform, so some white trousers and red cuffs will be nice. The line will probably be harder to get good, as you got the white part in the center of the jacket, meaning it will be harder to get clean neat white cross belts.