Pocket Panzers

  Continuing work on my forces for Sharp Practice during the French and Indian War, I finished off these plastic Native Americans from Warlord (made by Wargames Factory). I don't refer to them as Huron like the last group , because I actually have a suspicion these might end up seeing more use with my Anglo-American opponent as Mohawks or another of the Iroquois Confederation tribes. Either way, this batch makes a group of six skirmishers and a leader. I won't go on for too long, but I'm not a great fan of these figures. I find Wargames Factory's offerings awkward-looking at best, though actually I think these may be the best of their kits. Being multi-part plastic figures, they purport to offer more options for customization. Even their headdresses and hair are modular, to a degree. In my experience, the poses chosen are fairly fixed, with some of the arm connections severely limiting your options to build them in different ways, and the fact that they're bare-ches...

  The perceptive among you have probably guessed that my new wargaming project is going to be a force of French and Native American warriors for the French and Indian / Seven Year's War. This will be my first time doing any sort of black powder era wargaming - my first foray out of WWII wargaming, actually. I was drawn to model the French side because of their interesting uniforms and heavy reliance on Huron and other native allies. Plus, everyone loves an underdog, right? We'll be using Sharp Practice by Too Fat Lardies , but I suspect we might end up giving Studio Tomahawk's ruleset Muskets and Tomahawks a try eventually as well. This Christmas, I was gifted a box of Warlord's Woodland Indian War Party , which are actually metal sculpts by Conquest Miniatures. I've always loved these characterful and detailed figures, and painting them has been great. This is just the first batch of them, and I also quickly added to my collection some plastic natives , also from ...

  As some of you may have inferred, my next big project will be set in colonial America. I plan to keep the precise setting under wraps for a little while longer, until I have some figures done to show, but I have already gotten cracking on some terrain. This first batch covers, as you might have guessed, fences, ponds, and a bit of delicious scatter terrain. My Russian cabin is shown here, though some more period-correct buildings will come in time. To me, the split-rail 'snake' fences are a must-have for a project like this, so I set about making some, drawing inspiration from Mark at Tactical Painter and John Bond . Here, an anachronistic German soldier shows the scale of these fence sections. I did 8-inch lengths, largely because I typically have to transport my gaming kit to and from gaming stores and friends' places. It might be better to have one or two 12-inch lengths. If so, I can always make those later. These ponds are cut from the MDF or hardboard I use for bas...

  It's been a busy week here (and productive, I swear!) but I'm left with a pile of half-finished products and longer battle reports to write up. And here I am, out of time to get in a post this week. So I hope you'll accept some photos of a game from back in December, pitting Germans against Soviets (on this blog? are you shocked??). It was a bit embarrassing for me, fending off the German attacks and losing the game when I attempted a counter-charge that went totally awry. Full disclosure, this is an excuse to show off my friend's bizarre little tank - a French R35 hull mated with a Soviet T-26 turret seen in Axis service in one photo . It's a 3D-printed model here, and actually the paint has since been touched up a bit, so that the different colors covered over with German grey is more apparent. But, on with the photos: Soviets dug in near the T-junction Germans are bringing firepower to dig them out Germans deploy in force on one side, but a Soviet reaction make...