Resurrecting the French

After finishing the Bagration campaign a few weeks ago, my thoughts immediately turned to starting another Flames of War campaign on Hobby Nights. We really enjoyed ourselves (despite the Soviet defeat!), and thought it would be fun to run another campaign that's limited to the actual combatants involved. So, "Case Yellow" will be our next one starting on the first Friday of September, allowing only French, British, and German early war armies (preferably from Blitzkrieg).

Loyal AM devotees will recall a series of French posts I made a while back, which unfortunately petered out as interest waned. Truth be told, in retrospect I wasn't too keen on the bases I made for the army, and I didn't care for the basecoat + wash concept I painted the army with.

So, starting tonight I've gone back to square one and come up with something better. It's a nice compromise between speed and appearance methinks. Tomorrow I'll post up some pictures and record my progress as I work towards September's campaign. See you then, with pics!

French Mortars Progress

Not a lot of progress I'll grant you, but it's better than nothing. With a little luck, I'll finish the other three stands (2 mortar teams and the command team), and this will be another platoon in the bank.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I'm crossing my fingers before I go to bed tonight and hope that my fantasy football team kicks some serious ass tonight...

Cheers

HRR 6, Day 10

Days Remaining: 22

Models Remaining: 63



I didn't spend a whole lot of time hobbying tonight. All I managed tonight was to basecoat a couple of bases and assemble my Deep Recon Platoon (3 Panhard AMD-35 armored cars)



I better get off my ass if I'm going to finish this Hobby Rush on time. In the meanwhile, to console myself, I listened to the following song a few times and felt much better. Now, I just need something to slay...

HRR 5, Day 9

Quick post will do it for tonight, folks. I finished the first platoon's VB team and another Rifle/MG team. The heavier texture on the VB team (the one in the back) is from a little hobby experiment I tried. I took a whack at basing the stand with Vallejo White Pumice instead of putty, sand, and GF9 rocks. I like the pumice, but not at this scale. I think the ground looks too churned up/rough, so this is the only stand that will get that treatment. However, the white pumice would look fantastic on a 28mm scale fig, so this is definitely something I'm going to use on an army in the future. If you're curious and would like to know more about the pumice, check it out here at Vallejo's site. It's cool, and they've got a lot more textury goodness there as well.

I'm way behind, so I really need a strong hobby week next week if I'm going to pull this Hobby Rush off. Ugh.

HRR 4, Day 4

Days Remaining: 28

Models Remaining: 65



Now, I didn't get what I should have done tonight- no doubt. I only painted one Rifle/MG Team for my 1st Platoon. HOWEVER, considering I had to take some work home and hammer away at that for a while tonight, I'm stoked that I got this much done. Besides, tomorrow's Hobby Night could see four or five stands done if I really nail it. We shall see. Here's the team in all its glory:



I leave you with a mind-bending video, that I hope will give you some 80's mind poison... DIG IT



Oh yeah.

HRR 3, Day 3

Days Remaining: 29

Models Remaining: 66



Didn't get nearly what I expected done tonight- curses! I had some grievous airbrush difficulties this evening that kept me angered and tinkering for an equal amount of time (almost two hours). After fixing the problem, I was pretty much out of gas and only painted one stand: the Command Rifle Team from the 1st Fusiliers-Voltigeurs Platoon. Sorry no pic, but I'll see about posting that up tomorrow with the rest of tomorrow's progress.

Take it easy. I'm already behind the ball by 4 stands, so I need to get my ass in gear!!

P.S. Not posting a pic is freakin' lame. Here's the stand...

HRR 2, Day 2

Days Remaining: 30

Models Remaining: 67



I ended up doing a fair amount of running around and home duties today, so I didn't get a whole lot done with my French. Textured some bases and primed five stands black. Tomorrow I'm quite hopeful that I'll get a few more stands completely finished.

Check in with me tomorrow and I'll tell you all about it...

HRR 1, Day 1

Days Remaining: 31

Models Remaining: 67



Here we go again!

Here's the first Hobby Rush Report (HRR) I'm making for my Flames of War 1750 point French Infantry Company. I've given myself between now and midnight September 30th to finish this army. I'm two for two in previous hobby rushes, so I'm going to do my damnedest to keep my record unblemished! ;)

White boxes represent models/stands that haven't been built yet. Yellow is built, blue is painting progress, and green shows a completely finished stand/model. So, as you can see from the chart above, I've only finished one model thus far.

I didn't get a whole lot done tonight- just some gap filling putty work. Tomorrow I plan on getting some more painting done, so we'll see how that goes.

Anyone else starting some new hobby projects? Tell me all about it! Let's get some models DONE...

Back From Malacca

I'm baaa-ack!

I had a fantastic time over the last two days. My wife and I really got into the whole tourist thing and did a lot over the course of two days. We took a river sightseeing cruise that involved monitor lizards and almost getting run down by another tour boat operator who wanted to pass. Good times.

I had chicken rice balls on Jonker Street, checked out the ruins of A Fomosa (above), took a dip, walked around, and generally relaxed and lived it up with my gorgeous wife Lena. Fantastic.

As soon as we got back, within minutes I was assembling French Infantry (much to Lena's amusement). Here's what I finished tonight:

All six stands of 81mm mortars, along with the 60mm mortar attached to the Company HQ.

All four 75mm MLE 1897 guns from the Horse Drawn Artillery Battery. I also put together one of the cool ammo tenders. These bases are going to look SWEET when they're done. They really did a great job sculpting these guns!

Now that I type it I guess it's not a whole lot, but hey, I just got back. Tomorrow I'll post up my first official Hobby Rush Report, including the full diagram of what needs to be painted for success. Thanks for checking in, and I hope your weekend was as cool as mine...

Off to Malacca

Well, we're off for Malacca now. No hobby for the next couple of days- just eats and relaxing with the Light of My Life (tm), otherwise known as Lena. ;) Last night I did manage to assemble the Divisional Anti Tank section, the rest of 1st Platoon, and the first two stands of my Mortar Section. I also watched a lot of Fringe Season 1. Good times.

Have a great weekend folks. If I can, I'll make a blog post or two over the weekend with my Malacca discoveries. Until then....

Early War Starts Now

I think this definitely works for me. The uniform/greatcoat basecoat was airbrushed (VMC 879 Green Brown) on, and the rest was brushed on. After applying all the base colors, I simply applied a watered down VMC Brown Shade over the whole model, watered down Black Shade over the helmets, and then VMC Matte Varnish over the helmets once again (they were a bit shiny). NO highlights were painted on. The only thing I still want to do to this stand is glue on a couple of lighter green colored Silflor tufts. They're on the way from Europe, and as soon as they get here I'll add them and take a "final pic". In the meantime, I'm going to start motoring through this army.

Could the paintjob be better? Sure, definitely, and without a doubt. HOWEVER, this paint job will be more than sufficient for a nice table quality army, and it's dead easy to do. I'm really going to try and bust this army out pronto. In case you're wondering, this weekend "Blitzkrieg" hits the shelves of your local Flames of War stockist. This is a much anticipated hardcover book that will finally allow you to play the very beginning of WW II on the tabletop. Invasion of Poland? No problem. Conquest of France? Yep, the book's got that covered as well.

The models I'm painting don't actually hit the shelves until October, so I'm definitely getting an early start here. I really want to do this army, and you have to admit they bear a striking resemblance to my beloved Krieg miniatures. It's all good folks!

Who else is catching the Early War bug? The German Light Panzer company and British Armored Regiment come out this weekend as well, so you can just right into Early War. Join me, folks. It's gonna be sweet!