NZ 2nd Expeditionary Force FOW Army - JULY

The guy on a drawing pin has had a 1mm hole drilled in his bum and he's stuck on the pin! Ouch. Bit of blue tack holds him there for painting. He's actually the gunner for the 25pdr (no legs on any of them for some reason) but obviously this is how I paint drivers too...

Any tips. Dry fit the passengers before you paint anything - the vehicle or the passengers. Guarantee you'll have to do some filing!

Uh oh...it's almost mid July! So far I've got four pieces ready to varnish. That's

1 x Stuart Honey which completes my 3 x light tank unit.
1 x Infantry base. Yeah just one. The other one is almost done though!
2 x 6pdr guns and teams. But not the Portees yet. They'll be next.

That leaves me

4 x Infantry bases (most of them are those small 2-3 man bases though), 1 x 25pdr and 2 6pdr Portees to paint this month. I think I can make it but might not get anything extra done.

Yeah Infantry eh? I've got 6 unpainted full 5 man bases staring at me from the paint station and I'm beginning to wonder if I *really* need three full platoons - which is what I originally planned. I reckon I can face painting two platoons...but three is going to be a stretch!

I'm getting really tempted to drop the last platoon and replace it with something a little easier to paint ... maybe a small Infantry unit like a HMG team (Brits can do close support with their Vickers HMGs) or a Mortar team or even the dread 'invisible RAF' (aka 100 points of air support).

The worst thing is I've been terribly distracted this month...we recently signed up for ADSL so I've been wasting time playing bloody 'City of Heroes' (one of those fiendish MMORPGs) on their 2 week free trial (actually a series of 2 week free trials!) while I try out various things.

Plus after that recent game of Mordheim with Dustan I've been doing some more basic work on the canal system. I'll have the two simple canal sections (without the bridge) ready to be painted up tonight! And I've also considered that it might be nice to have some kind of nifty pumping station or waterwheel hanging over the edge of one of the canals...so I'm thinking about making more Mordheim terrain!

Plus I still want to sculpt some decent 15mm terrain. A lot has come up on TradeMe recently and I reckon with a bit of effort I could create duplicates of most of the pieces I've seen so far. My plan is to get together some basic sandbag pieces (going to have to re-sculpt the ones I already threw together) and then use them to detail some embankments or maybe a trench system.

Dammnit, why is there never enough time in the evenings???

Yeap I've got to knuckle down for the rest of this week and the next to get my lot finished. The small Infantry bases should be easy-peasy...but I've just go stuck on them.

A full Infantry platoon is 9 bases for the Brits as well. That's Command, light mortar and boyes (or PIAT) plus 3 x 2 large bases of Rifle/MG teams. It's the large bases that I really get stuck on painting ... Still I can't paint any more vehicles or gun teams until I buy another spray can of Tamiya Flat Dark Yellow!

Did you like the gun teams in the cupboard? I still worry that my bases are rather bare...but by god it keeps the basing nice and simple!

*Definitely* looking forward to another game of FOW that doesn't involve getting run over by German armor .

Right! Just spent $50NZ down at Vagabonds in town...my god! A model store that's open on Sunday! Amazing .

So I've covered my August purchases... that's:

1 Blister of 2 Quad gun tractors @ $13.95
1 Blister of 8th Army Artillery HQ figures @ $13.95
1 Blister of 2 x 25pdr Artillery guns $25.95

Minus the Vagabond's 10% discount of course.

That gives me enough figures and guns to complete my full strength 4 gun 25pdr artillery unit. I've already fielded an understrength unit against Aarons Americans in a 'training exercise' and they performed reasonably well. I think in August I might drop painting Infantry for a month and focus on some guns, gun teams and transports. It'd be lovely to have a fully painted artillery unit to knock on Germans armor with .

Regarding July's painting...I've finish the second Portee and that just leaves me a 25pdr gun team and base to detail and paint. I should easily be able to get that squared away in a week.

Right! Here's the round up for my July Flames of War painting! As always the details are on my blog in this post.

Here's the lot painted. Compare them with the post at the start of this thread!



In summary I painted everything I said I would and nothing more! I made some light progress on various terrain projects that don't relate to the competition though. Variety in the spice of life and all that.

This month I probably had the most fun painting the 6pdr Portee guns. These were a crazy British idea used mainly in the North African campaign. A 6pdr anti-tank gun that was carried around winched onto the back of a truck. Those funny panels on the side were light armor (only good against shrapnel and small arms) so the gun team could actually fire their 6pdr while it was winched onto the truck - and tearing through the desert presumably!



I'm also quite happy I've finished the Stuart 'Honey' light tank unit now I've painted all three of the tanks - the middle command tank was painted this month. This competition has been a great motivator so far. Here's hoping August is just as productive!