Where have I been and what have I been doing?

 I am shocked to realize that I have not posted since the beginning of May, but I have a fairly decent excuse. Work. That terrible thing we must do to finance our hobby... in April my boss and my peer manager both left my company and I picked up both of their jobs.  Keeping the "grist mill" running., hiring new staff, and doing all that has kept me busy. 

I have gotten a few things done over the last few months hobby-wise, here is a montage.

Darkest Africa with Smooth and Rifled

Just a short game, worked pretty well but I think I am doing it wrong.  I think it might work well for Darkest Africa, reminds me of the Mark Copplestone rules from Wargames Illustrated in the 90's (I have a copy on my shelf) with leaders running around motivating troops.

Or I need to just accept it and use Sharp Practice 2.  Too bust to follow up right now, but will come back to this. 

Making a Hex Sheet

I made a hex play mat for my long planned WW2 Eastern Front Double Blind game I want to run at a convention. (See labels to right.)  I created and 3d printed a template I could use to mark out a 100mm / ~4 inch hex grid. 

You can find it HERE

Played some Pulp Alley

A couple of weeks ago, I got some Pulp Alley in with my wife's nephew.  Lots of fun, I ran Dr. Nefario, he had his cult.  We played Hidalgo fire and I lost two of my minions to snake bite trying to riffle through Lady Elaine's tent.  He won.  I need to play more though as rules were slipping my mind.

Printed Tanks and Played What A Tanker!

There will be more of this, I have printed up some 1/150 scale tanks (more on the painting table) to play What A Tanker!.  Played a game with the wife, it was a hit, you will see more of this...

Painted 10mm Korean War

More pictures coming, here is a preview.  I have a nice force of US Army and NKPA / CVF troops, time to start playing.  I am leaning towards Crossfire, I have not played in years.

Went on a cruise

Despite the global pandemic, we worked in our first cruise in over a year.  Mostly visited private cruise ship islands or stayed on the ship and took the steam in the spa. Did see this neat thing on the beach at St., Augustine, evidence of sea turtles...

Ok, I am going to try to get on at least a monthly update schedule.  I hope everyone in our community is doing well, stay healthy and roll dice!

Preparing to play What A Tanker! and an outing

As many of us, I have been very busy in the last couple of weeks and adjusting to the current situation.  We are fortunate in that we live in a fairly rural area, have plenty of supplies, and a nice large yard.  My wife and I have been doing a lot of yard projects, taking walks, and soaking in the hot tub.  I know folks in dense urban areas do not have it as easy and if you are, hang in there!  My work has been pretty busy too and I have been logging a lot of hours as we respond to the shifting circumstances.

Of course, I hope all of my gaming friends around the world are persevering and staying safe.  I suspect that the wargaming community will do fairly well, as most of us are introverts to some degree or another and have built-in craft projects to work on.

I have been able to get some gaming related stuff in and we did have an outing today.  Now on with the show!

Preparing to play What A Tanker!

I am finally getting close to getting this on the table, especially since I have gotten less picky and want to give it a play, even if my tanks are not painted!  I did get the rest of my M-26 Pershing Platoon painted up and added decals. (Click pictures to enlarge)

Since I am doing the Korean War for WAT!, I need T-34/85's, M4A3E8 with 76mm gun and M-24 Chaffe light tanks.  Here are some I have printed up on my 3d Printer at 1/150 scale.  Behind them are my 3d Printed Trees I am fiddling with.  I will post pictures once I have them painted, but I think they are the solution to my problem of robust trees that do not shed but look decent.

And here is the table set up I shall be using soon, I need to do some dry runs before I hijack my wife to play.

An outing.... Lake Lure Flower Bridge

We have only left the house maybe twice in the last two weeks, and while it has been fun, we decided to get out today and stretch our legs.  It was a beautiful 80 degree Fahrenheit day and we drove up to Lake Lure, NC and visited the Flower Bridge.  There were a few people there, but it is not crowded even in normal times.

Here are some pictures fo you to enjoy...

 It is an old highway bridge that was replaced and abandoned and a group of local gardeners turned it into a very beautiful and creative flower garden.

I think I will build some fo these for the back yard.

 The area looks like this in all directions.

And we looked for plant and decorating ideas for our garden.  I am NOT a gardener of any stripe, but as everyone seems to be saying now "Don't let a good crisis go to waste!" and we are doing a lot of clean up and planning for our yard.

Painted 3d Printed M-26 Pershing for Korean War

I am at home sick today and managed to finish painting one of my 3D Printed Pershings.  A few details first...

• These are upscaled to 1:150 from 1:200 from this excellent collection.
• They are printed on my Creality Ender 3 Pro using the Fat Dragon Cura profile for miniatures, with a raft added
• They took just under 4 hours each to print
• I have painted it up and added decals, but I have yet to hit it with any matte sealer.  I am going to wait a day so I can be 100% sure about the decals and then do a VERY light hit.
• In the pictures, you can see some of the printing lines, but they are not visible at gaming distances of about 2 feet.  Looking at it now, I could have done a little more clean up before painting, but it is not a deal-breaker for me.

Here is a 10mm Pendraken figure on a 3mm thick base next to the tank, also on a 3mm base.  It might be a little small, but it is close enough for me!

My plan is to finish up the rest fo the platoon, then knock out some T-34/85's I printed up and try some What A Tanker! in Korea.

Ok, headed back to my sick bed...

Korean War Project First Pics

I have finally gotten enough painted for my Korean War project that I can play a game!  I did a quick little battle with Hammer of Democracy, which is still in beta, and it worked well. I will be fiddling with it some more.

Also on the docket to try out are: NUTS! Bug Battles, Hail of Fire, and when published Battalion:HQ.  I am looking for a game that will let me run a company - battalion per side.  Probably on the UN side a company + support and a company to Battalion for the NKPA / CVF side.  My only hard and fast is 1 stand = 1 squad, every game seems to scale company and battalion support weapons differently, so I going to paint them up at 1:1 for now.

All of my models for this project are from the fine gentlemen at Pico Armor.  Doing this in 3mm / 1:600 let me get the project on the table quickly and cheaply but also lets me use my Kallistra hills to better recreate terrain of Korea, which is critical for a game at this level.  And I can play on a modestly sized table with elbow room for the troops and the weapons ranges look good.

Here are some pictures, the normal disclaimers apply.  My photography is awful, so do not judge the figures based on my pictures or painting.

US Army

Here is a TOE US Army Rifle Company.  It is almost at 1:1 figure-man scale!

As you can see, by 1950 the Rifle Company TOE had changed somewhat.  Here is the platoon in detail.

The differences from the WW2 rifle company are primarily that each platoon now has more organic firepower with a .30 air-cooled machine gun and a 3.5 inch bazooka team.  The company weapons platoon now has the 60mm mortars as WW2 but also three 57mm Recoiless rifles.

The US Army Infantry Regiment and Division were lavishly equipped with support even for WW2 standards. Anti-Tank guns and the Cannon Company of the regiment had disappeared but been replaced by a 4.7" mortar company and a 22 tank strong Regimental Tank Company, usually consisting of M4A3E8 Sherman Tanks with 76mm guns:

At the Division Level, besides the plethora of artillery support (although there were some shell supply problems throughout the war) there was a divisional Tank Battalion, usually equipped with M-46 Patton Tanks armed with a 90mm gun:

Just to put it in perspective, a US Army Infantry Division in 1950 had as many or more tanks as a German Panzer Division around 1944, roughly.  Additionally, with UN air superiority, the division's Anti-Aircraft battalion would be used in direct support of the Infantry Regiments.  The Quad .50 machine guns of the M-16 were extremely effective in this role:

North Korean People's Army / Chinese Volunteer Forces

Sources for the organization of these forces is hard to come by and also the July 1950 NKPA was a different beast from the July 1951 NKPA.  The same goes for the CVF, which started their intervention bereft of heavy weapons and in fact being primarily armed with Japanese arms and US weapons captured from the Nationalists during the Civil War.  By the time the war reached its static phase, the CVF was better equipped, but their logistics were always plagued by air attack, although this did not impact their operation as much as the USAF at the time would believe.

To get started gaming I have painted up a generic rifle company. I used Pico Armor WW2 Japanese for the infantry, as the CVF had multiple divisions armed with Japnese weapons:

During 1950, Soviet-supplied T-34 Tanks were a significant factor in the success of the NKPA, particularly in the initial push back and defense of the Pusan Perimeter.

And off topic, here are my two improved built-up areas for 3mm, more to come:

 

I will be offline for a couple of weeks while we go to Florida for some medical appointments.  Until then, good gaming!