The real Dad’s Army : Operation Sealion

Bit behind on blogs due to half term, work and progress on other activity. So loyal followers may notice a flurry of posts unless I get sidetracked.

Anyway first up I picked this nice little book up in a charity shop yesterday. There are lots of ‘Home Guard’ books out there but what is nice about this one is Rodney Foster lived and wrote his diary in Hythe which loyal readers will know is the current scene of operation for my Sealion campaign. This is timely as I picked up some more Home guard at York .

The book as a day by diary has some interest but there are a smattering of nice photos specific to the location and it was worth the £1:49 just for these.here are a couple 😀

Cavalry at Shorncliffe Camp

8th Battalion Home guard drilling outside pub on the road to Dover

More drilling on the Folkestone Cricket ground

German Cavalry : Operation Sealion/Eastern Front

I had wanted a unit of these for ages ! Giving the Germans even more mobility as they ride across Kent or the Eastern front.

They are Crusader Miniatures and I stuck with helmets rather than forage caps which they also do....what next I wonder 😀

Next stage of Preparation.........😀

Next off the preparation conveyor belt are some more rustic buildings. Which had been waiting for ages. For the show these will form a Lithuanian farm, but obviously they can be used in many locations.

 Secondly a collapsed, bombed or demolished building. This one has been painted to broadly fit with the other Russian buildings but I have kept it plain so it can be used in a range of battlefield set ups.

Albanich 2018 the preparation begins

We are putting on another game this year at Albanich 2018. A small and friendly show held in Dumfries on Saturday 10th March. Joining up with Steve we are putting on a Barbarossa game with plenty of iconic Russian and German forces on the battlefield. I have pretty much worked up the scenario and now have a list of things I need to finish off for the game. What that means is I have a bit of motivation to get some stuff done.

First up then.....the second part of my German transport.

Two Opel Blitz

As usual I have kept them simple for gaming and storage, they are Rubicon models easy to put together when I realised I wasn’t using enough glue ! And very easy to paint.

Vapnartak 2018

Back home from our annual pilgrimage to Vapnartak. This remains one of the biggest shows in the true North of England, a fantastic venue (despite the fire alarms this year!). For us it is very much a shopping trip picking stuff up with show discounts or grabbing something you didn’t expect from the bring and buy. There are some great games on show but it is actually hard to get around everything. It felt as busy as usual and shows have become increasingly pleasant as I meet people who I know or who recognise me from games I have put on 😀

Despite admiring the games on show I didn’t take many photos (sorry) these were the pick for me.

And then of course I did loads of shopping..........

Nearly everything was in some way cheap or reduced, and nearly everything was on the list I had taken. There are even a few more bits which were available but which traders offered free postage etc....

I’m not even gogin to list this ridiculous pile of stuff.....the bargain for me was the brown desert terrain cloth sat underneath. I actually bought two for £3 for those interested I am happy as always to answer questions 😀 the rest of the stuff you will see with me as it gets built, painted and onto the table 😀

A fun day.......

Mercenary Hoplites march to battle

Sat on my to do list was the completion of these three units of mercenary hoplites. One of my mates was looking to shift some stuff so we did a deal ages ago, he is now painting a Roman army and I have these 😀 it has taken a bit of time to do some tidying up of the bases and I have done some work to make the shields more colourful and give greater variety. They will play as mercenaries for any number of despot pic city states. They are a rea mix of Warlord, Victrix and a few Gorgon minatures I think but that adds to their variety.

Hopefully we will see them on the battlefield soon 😀

Vapnartak Show and Hanomags 😀

A couple of evenings to tidy up from the weekend game but I managed to squeeze in a bit of time to finish of a Christmas present. The Germans clearly need more transport in their ongoing Sealion and Barbarossa campaigns. So with money from my mother in law I bought these at Christmas.

Sd.Kfz 251 Hanomags

Pretty ubiquitous german half tracks, those eagle eyed followers will recognise these as 251c’s , I have not been able to source a or b versions so this was a compromise. The main difference being the configuration of the front so I have ‘cleverly or not’ fixed spare wheels to the fronts of both vehicles in a vain attempt to foxy people. I believe the c came out in 1942 ?. I have simplified the models slightly which are Rubicon, reducing the obvious bits which would break off in storage and simplifying the machine gun mount so I could magnetise it allowing me to slot the canopy on and off as required 😀 just need some crew now...........

And on that note we are off to Vapnartak (York) Wargames Show on Sunday (as punters), if any followers or readers fancy catching up saying hi or want me to buy them a coffee 😀 let me know. Very happy to discuss gaming of any type.