Rügen'46 Gangs Of Sassnitz (3) In Nomine Domini

For last years "Rügen'46" game, more on that in this post, I build for each player an additional squad of troopers. The other minis I built and painted and more from that game can be found in this and this post.

Sister Mary (this post) represented what was left of the Roman-Catholic Church. The Vatican saw in the Sassnitz incident the beginning of the endtime and gathered lots of poorly armed Christian fanatics who would give their life for god in the final battle between good and evil.

These cultist were built combining some Mantic zombie- and ghoulbodies with the robed cultist heads made by Tabletop Art. Their arnament came from my bitsbox. It made fun to build these strange minis, if I find the other 8 (?) cultist heads in my bitsboxes, I may build more of them.
This was the only squad with 8 figures, all other players had only 5 men squads.

The sixth and final Squad I built represents the new Germany, reborn when the war ended with the victory of the allied forces. Since there are not many industrial capacities left after the zombie outbreak, the army of the reborn German nation has to rely on Wehrmacht equipment.

These minis were taken from the German Infantry box from Warlord Games, the mini in the middle may came from Wargames Factory German Infantry box. They were built out of the box except for the heads, where I used heads from the SHS range from Westwind Productions.

This is the first batch of those minis, last Sunday I built 10 more, but I do not think I will paint them soon. But when I do, the mouldlines on the already painted minis will be removed. But I did not care for this when I painted them, I did not have time for that, because I had to hurry.

This Squad was led by an unknown female officer.

This mini was taken from the "Ilsa and the She-wolfes" set made by Pulp Figures. The mini got a new SHS gasmask head and a hairpiece from the bitsbox.

I can not remember in detail which colors I used on the Germans from this post, but the uniform color is Revell Aquacolor Olive Gray, what not only fits for most German uniforms (including the early monocolor Bundeswehr uniforms) as a substitude for Feldgrau, also it is a good first layer of drybrush color for most greens I use for my 15mm tank models.

I can not say if I will find some time for posting tomorrow, but Thursday is the 29th anniversary of the German reunification, and for that reason I will post about German post-war stuff for the rest of the week only.

Rügen'46 Gangs Of Sassnitz (2) Сибирские ветераны

For my last years first game of "Rügen'46" I had planned that we would first play a simple dungeon, using only two figures per player, to get warm with the rules. Followed by a simple round of racing, some lines about that game can be found in this post, the third and final part added some more units to the game for each player.

After I showed off two squads of German troops in powerarmour (this post), today I am going to show you the (Neo)Soviet forces which were used.

The commissar in the middle of the pictures obove was one of the squadleaders for the Neo-Soviet forces, just as Karl Heinz von Diskowitz was for his faction. The figure was taken from the Warlord Games "Siberian Veterans" box, on which I took a closer look at in this post, and painted in a similar scheme as all Soviet figurs that can be found on this blog.

Sorry to say, but I can not remember which was the second figure in that team, that is why he is accompanied by the squadleaders of another faction on these pictures.

The two female figures are the leaders of the Soviet factions forces, the figure on the left side is a miniature of Mariya Oktyabrskaya made by Stoessis Heroes, reviewed in this post, the figure right of the commissar was also made by Stoessi, it is a miniature of the Soviet sniper Lyudmilla Pavlychenko, which was (as Mariya Oktyabrskaya) a historical person.
I think, that I may repaint them when I will have the time for that.

Next we have one of the fireteams, taken just as the commissar from the "Siberian Veterans" box too. In the third part of the game, the two Soviet females got five of the veterans as an additional troop. These faction represented what was left of old Mother Russia.

Since I can not say which five figures I took, I made pictures of all of them. Please note, that there are some more figures included in the box.

But at least I think, this guy was not included in the game.

The next squad was another faction from the East. In Stalingrad a new government was made when the old world changed forever in Sassnitz in the year 1946.

Guided by comrade comissar, for the Neo-Soviet faction I choosed to use my modified Plastic Soldier Company Soviet Infantrists minis. I can not say which of them were used, but you can find some pictures of them in this post. Maybe I will get a single sprue of them in the future to give them a small review.

As usual, things not always are happening as supposed, and I did not find the time to finish the kits I wanted to this weekend, but today I managed to finish them, and they look great. The templates for the cards for them, they shall be used as custom units for "TANKS", will get finished tonight, that I can make a testprint tomorrow after work and them publish them via this blog.

Rubicon Models Kingtiger is coming

I just found this on their Facebook page and wanted to share it. Rubicon Models soon will release a 1:56 modelkit of the Panzerkampfwagen VI.

Normally I do not write about future releases like this, but, at least for me, this thing hits the nail. As they write in the post, this tank will come first with the Henschel turret, but later, more versions will be released. And there will come a version with full interior, what is pretty nice.

Just look for yourself:

Even the seriously underpowered engine will be included in full detail. Later versions of this kit will have Zimmerit and/or the Porsche turret.

Did I mention that this kit will include photoetched parts? Seems like I will have to take a closer look at this kit, when it is available.

Rügen'46 Gangs Of Sassnitz (1) Schwere Mechanisierte Infantrie

The first pictures of some 28mm miniatures I finished for lasts years first Rügen'46 game. I built for all players a combat squad consisting 5 - 7 figures, since most of them were done in the last moment, the paintjob is pretty sloppy.

But anyway, I was (still am) very satisfied with the results of these exhausing nights before the game.

For more informations about Rügen'46, I suggest to read this post.

These powerarmoured troopers were built from minis of the "Void" starterpack. There were two factions included, each squad was built from one of those.

The heads were taken from the SHS range of Westwind Productions, I took a closer look at them in this post. Their arnament and additional equipment was taken from the ww2 German infantry box from (now closed) Wargames Factory.

The shields were also included in the "Void" box.

A closeup of some of the figures with the flash of my camera activated, just to give a better look of the two different color schemes. I think the small Balkenkreuz decals came from Dragon Models 1:144 ww2 tanks range.

Without any paint, the blue/black painted troopers looked like that:

Of course, these troops needed a worthy leader, and that was was they got.

Take a look at "Karl Heinz von Diskowitz", this mini was built by combining some parts of the "Void" box and "Horace Jackson" of Reaper Miniatures Bones range. The look may be anachronistic, but I like this unusual mini.

For some last minute improvised minis, I am happy with them. For years I had no use for the "Void" minis, but now, used for these minis, I am happy that I did not gave them away.

The next batch of miniatures used in the "Rügen'46" game will be shown soon.

Originally this post should have contained a 3D print timelapse video, but due to some technical issues, the first try of making that video was a fail. But I will give it a second try sooner or later.

Rubicon Models 28mm T-34/85

In the previous post I showed my 3d printed/Rubicon hybrid T-34, in this post I show my first finished T-34 from Rubicon Models. It is the T-34/85 in 1:56 scale, a perfect addition to any 28mm Soviet Army.

Building this thing was pretty simple thanks to the well made instructions included and the general quality of this kits parts.

The paints I used were the same as I used for the first 28mm T-34, except for the wash I used on this kit, this time it was Dark Brown Modelwash from Vallejo, mixed up with some Armypainter black wash and a few drops of water. While it still was wet, I removed some of it with a wet brush.

The white stripe was painted with Revell Aquacolor matte white. I masked its shape with tape, and added it with a paintbrush. When it was dry I added some damage with the cuttermesser.

The decals on the tank came from its box, they and the stripe got a coat of thinned GW Gryphonne Sepia wash before the kit was sealed with glossy varnish.

As next step I had another try with Vallejo pigments. I used a mix of Green Earth, Light Slate Grey and water, which I applied generously with an old brush.

When the pigments were dried, I brushed all of them I did not want on the kit away with an old toothbrush. The remaining pigments were fixed with spiritus, then the model got its final coat of matte varnish, as usual I used Revell Aquacolor matte varnish mixed with water on a 1:1 ratio.

By the way, the base green I used on both tanks can be seen on the right of the picture below. Properly thinned it works well with the airbrush.

A comparison shot of both tanks does not show their small size differences on a first view. A closer inspection shows the difference, but I think it is tolerable.

A new entry for the box. As usual I have no idea what I will do with the finished models, but until I find a proper use they will be stashed away in a box like all finished kits, except for this one. Maybe it is time to get a display case for my finished stuff.

The last picture is pretty bad, even for me, but it shows the first 4 steps of the paint process: primer, basecoat, drybrushing, wash. The first hull shown is not from this tank.
You can see pretty well, that I added some metallic look with a pencil to the engine grills, I like the look and all parts which are overdone can be cleaned by the careful use of an eraser.

Part Rubicon Part 3D Selfprinted 28mm T-34/76

Finally I finished the paintjob on my T-34, built from a 3D printed hull, see this post, and the bits leftover from building two different T-34 made by Rubicon Models. Since there were so many bits leftover, I had do do another session of bitsrecyling.

The kit got primed with AK Interactive Russian primer, then I added a coat of a generic green as basecolor. That green was toned down with grey and used for a heavy drybrush, followed by a dark brown or black wash.

For the next step I mixed some Vallejo pigments with water and applied the thin paste very generous on most of the lower regions of the tank and some of its upper regions.

When the pigment/water mix was dried I removed as much of the pigments as I wanted to with a dry toothbrush. Then the remaining pigments were fixed with spiritus, a method I found at this forum, it worked pretty good.

The next step was to add some decals, I used the decals from the Rubicon kit. I used the method described in this post. The Rubicon decals came in pretty good quality but needed more time than other decals spent in the water.
The slogan above the red star came from Peddinghaus Decals, the decal was very thin, just as the "Flames Of War" decals from Battlefront Models, it alos needed a lot time in the water bowl. The horse on the right came from an AER (?) T-34 kit.
Finally the kit was sealed with Revell Aquacolor matte varnish.

I am very satisfied with the result. Especially the decals look pretty fine. As also the pigments. When I made my first experiences with pigments, most were blown or washed away by the airbrushpistol when the model was sealed.
But now, when I fixed them with some spiritus, after the final sealing the pigments are still visible as desired, which was not the case on this jeep.

One of the Mariya Oktyabrskaya miniatures from Stoessies Heroes, shown in this post, just as size comparison for the tank. The figure got a quick and dirty paintjob to use her at the Rügen'46 game last year. When I will find some time she will be repainted.

And another time the Montagsmaler went rogue on another Saturday. Olli helped me with the repainting of the windmills shown in the picture below which I got from this lot. Their paint was chipped, so I airbrushed them and he dried the paint with my hairdryer.
At least the finished bases can be seen on the T-34 pictures.

These things will be scenery for "TANKS The Modern Age", they will get their own terrain rules:

For tanks they are unpassable terrain but do not block the line of sight.

For helicopters they are unpassable terrain on both altitudes and do block the line of sight on high altitude.
Missiles will also be blocked by the windmills on both altitudes.

Just two weeks left for the Hamburg Tactica 2019 where I will pick up some helis and AA units, then it is time for the NATO to conquer the East.

Rubicon Models News for 2019

Rubicon Models showed on Facebook their planned releases for 2019 and as you see, there are a lot of nice kits coming this year, all in 28mm/1:56 scale. I personally want some Volkswagen Käfers, I always liked this car, and my next birthday is coming soon.

And I really want to know what the mystery kit, shown in the center of the second picture, may contain. At the Rubicon webshops (US / UK) you can find some small gems and a lot of exclusive stuff that can be found only there.

I own two different T-34s from them and they are nice without any failures, except for the fact that there is a heckload of bits leftover when both are built. And the antennas may be a little too thick.

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Today's third and last post. Tomorrow all new 15mm tanks will get primed that I can start their paintjobs on the weekend. I still have no idea which colors to use, but I found a good list of camouflage schemes at panzerbaer.de.

Update:
Did I already mention, that their Tiger II kit is on the way ?

Rügen'46: Beer and Pretzels

The weekend after my birthday we had a little sit-in and played a first game of "Rügen 46" with some of the minis I showed in previous posts. I set up the simplest rules possible and it was a big fun for all of us.

The game was divided in three parts.

First all players had to escape from a dungeon, followed by a little race, after that we had to search for an artefact in the heavily zombie-infested ruins of Sassnitz.

As usual I forgot to make pictures, the credits for all pictures go to my mate Olli.

It was pretty cool, that the rules were understood by all players which made the game a big fun. After crawling through the dungeon, for the race all players got a GAZ 67 jeep, which I 3D printed from this file.

The GAZ 67 jeeps that I printed for the game got a coat of green, then they got some wash and drybrushing. For the final look all jeeps got a red star decal from the sparebook.
Last but not least all cars got a flag with different motives plus matching counters to tell which car belongs to which player.

I made a first try using Vallejo pigments which I got some years ago. I was satisfied with the results, but after I sealed the models with a coat of Revell Aquacolor matte clear, it seems that some of the pigments rinsed away.

But I think that they still look well for some improvised game pieces.

Finally, all players arrived at the ruins of Sassnitz where each got his actual mission and a squad of troopers for reinforcement. The mission was to find a key under one of the red tokens which were scattered arround the gamefield. For each token collected the player had to draw a card which decided if there was the key or some other useful/useless stuff.

When the key was found the player had to reach a chest in one of the ruins which contained the artifact. But it got very late and we decided to end the game in a draw.

Even when we did not finish the game it was a great fun. Sitting with friends and playing a game is a great thing. The two days before the game I had to do some nightshifts to finish all figures and other stuff but remembering the evening and looking at the pictures, it was worth it

In one of the next posts I will try to recapitulate the rules we used, a pc crash deleted most of my gamefiles that I will have to improvise, but they were pretty simple so that will be no issue.
Followed by a post where I will show all figures that were used, be ready for Karl Heinz von Diskowitz and his comrades.

You do not know anything about this "Rügen46" thing. Just read this post, it may help.

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When you think it is getting bad it still may get badder(worse) and suddenly some months went by without posting. What does not mean that I stopped this blog. But some personal shit was more important than compiling my modelling experiences. This post was started in July but personal issues and struggles kept my from finishing it. Not to mention the promotion at work which means total different work schedules leading to less spare time.

But I will continue this blog, I can not say in which frequenzy, but there a some plans for the future.

First of all I will unbox the new "TANKS The modern age" starterbox and some units for the game from Battlefront miniatures. I am excited for this new version of TANKS which will include helicopters. It should arrive after Christmas, so be prepared for this weekends closer look at it with all its strengths and flaws.

And you will see how I will build up a German force for the game with 3D printed miniatures.

Remember this ? It will be continued, we learned from the first game and will start another 2v2 or maybe even 3v3 TANKS game in the near future.

And then we are still working on our inofficial TANKS extensions. The first will feature some new gamemodes while the second extension is featuring planes and bailed out tank crewmen. It will contain some custom unit-, equipment-, crew- and herocards, custom markers, and custom rules for using planes and AAunits in TANKS.
While the basic rules are done there is still some work to do.
Fun fact: I downloaded the rules for the new TANKS game from Beasts Of War and some of the heli rules resemble the rules my mate Olli and I wrote in the late summer.

Finally there is one last thing to say,

I wish all of you a merry fucking Christmas.

Reworking Some Old 28mm Amera Ruins

Some weeks ago I started to rework my Amera ruins, which I built some years ago. I was never really satisfied by the results of the paintjob I did that time.
The British manufacturer Amera Mouldings offers vacformed polystyrene ruins and other stuff in different scales for a fair price, but the building is tricky, once you got it built you would have to reinforce the parts because the whole construction offerered various weaknesses. And the parts lack of fine details, maybe that is the reason for the pricing.

This is (almost) how the ruin looked before I spent some work on it. First I painted the walls with a random green tone. I have no picture of the original color of the wall, but it was like it was on the other two ruins in this post.

I added some edges which got sanded I also added some pieces of cork. Then I glued sand on some of the ledges of the windows.

Spots where the walls got damaged got some grey just as the edges of the walls.

The next step was adding some colors. First I drybrushed the outer walls. Then I followed this tutorial and added smokestains with my airbrush to the give the building a burntout look. I did this for the inside too, and then the whole ruin was sealed with a heavy coat of matte varnish to save the paint from damages.

The next step was too add some color to the ground. I choosed brown to match the bases of my minis.

Now came the steps I did not do pictures of, but after the brown dried, I applied a selfmade black wash, and when that was dry I drybrushed all brown parts with beige, followed by another strong sealing coat of matte varnish.

The last step was to add some flock and gras. I mixed woodglue with matte varnish and it had no glossy finish when it dried. I do not know where I got this tip, but it works.

After that a last heavy layer of matte varnish was applied to give the flock stronger bond.

And now it looks like this...

 

The rope is made of wire to give the players access tho the upper levels of the ruins.

I am very satisfied with the results, it looks great. Just as the two ruins I already finished.
Here is like they looked before...

And after some work they looked like this...

 

Rebuilt just as the other ruin. The boards on the windows of the smaller ruin are popsicle sticks. I added some heavy texture with a ballpen to it. Everything else was done just like at the other ruined building except for that I used an other beige for drybrushing the ground, but the does not matter.

I am pretty happy that this turned out so well. The next three ruins are prepared to get painted, I would like to do that now, but I do not know how loud my compressor is for neighbours.

Maybe I will finish them tomorrow after work, that would mean I would have to visit my hobbystore before to get more supplies, but my airbrush and my trusty hairdryer will save a lot of time.