Pocket Panzers

I've wanted to add some unarmed civilians and other characters to add some flavor to our Sharp Practice games in the French and Indian War, and decided the best way to start would be with these Jesuit missionaries from Warlord Games. They'll also do nicely as a Holy Man support option for SP games, either for the Frenchmen or the so-called "praying indians" they've worked so hard to convert. I think these figures are fun and add a nice touch. They're not hard to paint up, although getting a good black with depth and shadows can be a little difficult. That being said, there's not a whole lot else to paint once you get that down. I added a little variation by changing the colors of their books. Hopefully this party of Huron will find their message - or at least their offer of a hot meal - convincing, otherwise these padres may end up as martyrs. I have a bigger batch of figures that's just about done, but I wasn't going to have time to finish them to...

  This week, my regular opponent Jesse and I were joined by two friends that we haven't gotten to game with in months, so we took a break from the French and Indian War campaign using Sharp Practice to return to Chain of Command, which is my favorite, at least, WWII ruleset. Some people in our group feel differently. We really enjoy games set during the Battle of France in 1940, but don't get to do them very often because only one person in our group has enough French built and painted to play. In this game, Jesse and I will be taking command of a mixed German tank force and a German Kradschützen motorcycle recon platoon, respectively, in a game of Big CoC. Our opponents will have a French tank platoon and a platoon of Chasseur light infantry. The scenario is Hasty Defense from the France 1940 book. The Germans are tasked with moving a unit off the enemy table edge while keeping two thirds of the table clear of enemy forces. The French must repel them and stop a breakthrough. T...

Well, June's gone along so fast that now it's the middle of July. After the big move in May, work has picked up and the summer heat has arrived, making it difficult to get the motivation the paint and ensuring that my paints dry out almost instantly, even on my wet palette. That, combined with the recent distraction of getting back into Vietnam War collecting and reenacting, has made progress very slow. Gaming, however, has continued, and before long I'll start posting the narrative battle reports from our FIW campaign here. We're still in the thick of it, so I can't say too much. With that said, this week's completed project is this batch of rangers from Brigade Games, gifted to me by my opponent in the campaign and painted for his use. I've always liked the look and lore around the rangers, even if their exploits are probably greatly exaggerated. I believe this is three figures from the command pack and then one whole pack of rangers . Like the colonists ...

After putting together two cabins and some fences for wargames set in colonial North America, it seemed only right to paint up some settlers, in this case colonists who have armed themselves to defend their livelihood from marauding French and natives. These models are Brigade Games' frontier family , and like the other Brigade models I have, they're quite nice. Definitely on the slimmer side, but detailed. My biggest gripe with Brigade figures is that the weapons are thin and bendy and the faces are all oddly similar. The set includes two figures who fit the bill for a father and mother. I personally think the man is clearly modelled off of Mel Gibson's character in the Patriot. Then two sons, both springing to action to defend the farm. If the dad is Gibson, I suppose that makes green trousers there Heath Ledger. Finally, there is a younger son and daughter carrying muskets and powder. I think the set has some nice variety, fitting a specific niche between unarmed settler...

  It's been a minute since my last update — April and early May have been very busy, and even when I've had time, I've struggled to focus on and finish a single project. But with our French and Indian War campaign using Sharp Practice 2 set to kick off in about a week, I felt the need to get my act together and finish some more terrain. That's where this second log house comes in. This scratch-build uses largely all the same techniques as I used in my first cabin , but has a few other features, most notably the stacked-log chimney instead of a stone chimney and the bark-sheet roofing instead of shingles. The log chimney was a lot of hassle, but I think it looks relatively convincing, and it has that distinctive early colonial flair. I'm not all that eager to do another one, however. I guess that's the cost of detailed scratch building. The use of bark sheets as roofing is drawn from the excellent YouTube channel Townsends, where their group of living history ent...