Fallshirmjager

I have added a few pics of the 50 Fallshirmjager to the Gallery. I painted them up quite swiftly for a the Arnhem campaign we are currently playing (we need a lot of them!), and will probably use them tomorrow night. They have the plain jump smocks as they are going to be used for my early war Seaford project at some point.

A Little Milestone

OK. So it's not a Golden Demon entry. But this cute Foundry Ork is precious to me. He is the first thing I've painted using my new detail spectacles and after having a little bit of treatment on my eyes. Two weeks back, I couldn't even see the end of my paint brush.

The optician said start off with simple bright contrasting colours to begin with, and then progress at whatever pace I am comfortable with. As we have 2 long weekends coming up (Easter and a royal wedding/May day), I think I'll be starting on all my WW2 stuff. By that I mean falsmegger Fulscumugger Falchemeegs Falshimeggger German Paratroops.

Macro photography

I got a new camera. Its an Olympus SLR E420. Not leading edge, but certainly beyond my photographic talents and a step up from point and click digital cameras. Having said that, I got bored reading the instruction manual, and decided to do some point and click close-ups.

What I've learned is:

• I still have a lot to learn about photography
• macro photography can give great detail - which can be quite unforgiving to basic paint jobs

Be warned, some of the pictures below are very close-up for 28mm.

Scenery

I took part in a fantastic WW2 game on Friday evening (thanks Shaun & Paul). Using the Crossfire rules we continued from a previous game with the Germans counter attacking american Airbourne troops in a French town.

The star of the game had to be the scenery in my opinion. Crossfire is a fantastic set of rules, but with the right scenery, it is even better. I shall let the pictures do the talking.....

Mechanized infantry and support moving up narrow French roads

Home Guard completed

The top picture shows the set with the "sea of potatoes" bases. The bottom picture shows the beach shingle look I should have done for the bases (from Seaford Beach). But who cares, these were such fun to paint!

I've found 2 more sets of foundry "England Invaded" models, which include Germans and a few civilians. I really should be painting up squads for my Brightorian Guard army, but I suspect I'll end up painting a few WW2 miniatures over the forthcoming bank holiday.

WW2 Sussex Home Guard

OK, its not an old WW2 photo. In fact its modern day Bishopstone station, being guarded by the 2 Home Guard models I painted the other day. Bishopstone station is an interesting building as it is Art Deco, with 2 hideous (but practical) brick pill boxes "grafted on". I think it was built about 1938. It is on the Lewes to Seaford branch line (now single track) between Seaford and Newhaven.

Newhaven harbour has a fort and Seaford has a Martello tower, and beyond both towns steep cliffs replace the beach. Therefore the beach at Bishopstone would definitely be an option for German raiding parties (or even part of an invasion). Probably a better option for taking Newhaven harbour and its strategic swing bridge, than a frontal assault past the fort and the cliff face pill boxes.

I think I detect the ingredients for a good WW2 skirmish scenario!

WW2 Home Guard

I could not resist painting these Home Guard instead of painting up more Imperial Guard. I've actually painted up 7 figures altogether, so I'll post the others after I've based them (with oversized beach shingle that looks like they're walking on potatoes!).

For reasons of copyright and trademark, I should point out these are from a range called England Invaded by Foundry Miniatures. Try not to confuse them with the soldiers in the clip below, although if you freeze the clip at 2:14, Pike and Wilson do resemble the above miniatures. Also at 6:58 Fraser makes remarks about Godfrey that would not get into a modern "PC" script today.