II World War French Vehicles Kickstarter

A good catch by our fellow Nordic blogger Joakim aka The Miniatures Man: a very interesting new Kickstarter of French Vehciles of the Second World War. The project incude several rarities but personally the most interesting part is the inclusion of the vehicles modified by the German engineer Alfred Becker and put to good use by the (reconstitued) 21st Panzer Division in Normandy as part of the strecht goals.

One has been already unlocked (the Reihenwerfer)

And having broken the GBP5,000 goal, the 7.5cm pak 40 Somua must also be available by now.

Next in the list is the Geschutzwagen 39H (f) but will only be released when reachin the GBP7,500 level, unlikely considering that the campaign has already collected GBP5,500 with only a few days to run.

The Kickstarter covers both the 28mm and 20mm scale and will close in 5 days from now. I'm not a big fan of crowfunding campaigns (so far I have only participated in one), but this one deserves at least a seriousconsideration on my part.

Je suis Bruxelles

My sympathies and solidarity with all Bruxelliens and Belgian citizens in general after the horrid terrorist massacre today. Unfortunately, we in Madrid know very well how you feel, we have trodden that path many-many times in the not so long past.

Fallschirmjager Rooms at Overloon Museum

After finishing my German paratroopers painting project, I think it would be nice sharing with you one of my main sources of inspiration and also where the idea was initially conceived: the Fallschirmjager rooms at the Overloon Museum in The Netherlands.

This privately-run museum owns one of the most outstanding IIWW armour collections in Europe but also the best collection of German paratroopers uniform and material that I have ever seen. I will now post a selected number of photos taken there and you will understand why after exiting the rooms I became obsessed about this project.

 

Last of the Fallschirmjager

The title of the post does not make reference to Fenimore Copper's famous Mohicans book in a IIWW environment,  but to what I have been up to recently in my wargaming activity.

Some of you may remember that I joined for the first time Curt Campbell's Painting Challenge, an annual friendly contest among international bloggers lasting three months. Coinciding with the end of the winter, today the Challenge finished. And despite not achieving my targets (500 points), I do have achieved something quite unusual in the annals of our hobby: to complete a full a painting project!!

Believe or not, I have painted ALL the models (minis and vehcicles) of my Fallschirmjager platoon for Chain of Command; not a single blister, figure or vehicle has been remains in my lead pile... not even the remains of the flash!!!  The last model (a FJ private in winter gear) was completed only a few hours ago.

My gaming buddies however claim that I am the shame of our hobby and that I should not be proud of this, on the contrary it's a stain in my wargaming credentials  XD

Anyway. I have painted the full platoon with supports plus an extra section in winter gear that i expect to deploy in some Ardennes enviroment game later in the year (my gaming buddies stored a large number of supplies in the form of American and German in winter uniform of the last Warlord series).

Here is the full platoon displayed...

... and the winter section.

Father's Day Gifts

Today is Father's Day here in Spain. In order to avoid the ubiquitous tie, I have provided some proper guidance to my family with some more original ideas, which seems to have worked perfectly well...

I have played the Ancients game for some years now and although not being properly a historical simulation, I like the simplicity of the system based on a card deck that is not as easy to master as it may seem at first glance.  Perfect for a quick game day or afternoon in the club when there’s no quorum to play with the minis on a table

For some time I have pondered whether to get or not into the Napoleonic version and when one of our club members said he was looking to sell it to open some space in his wargames shelf, I jumped into the opportunity.

The other (unsolicited) gift was this

Very useful and absolutely mandatory if you plan to start a political career in the ranks of the Partido Popular (our version in Spain of the North American Republican or the British Conservatives) as anyone following Spanish politics will surely appreciate... XD