Snoopy in Spaaaace!

Inspired by Trevor Dow's model that appeared on Facebook recently, and in the same light hearted vein as my "frakkin' toaster' models from last year, here;s the great WW1 flying ace in space.

Oh the joys of Thingiverse and a 3D printer :)

A Night at the Movies

Some more Photon-generated new models from the last three weeks, this time inspired by a couple of my favourite war movies. I'll not say what they are, they should be obvious to most readers :)

Indefatigable and Anson for "Sails of Glory"

You could be forgiven from the paucity of posts here that I've been quiet during the "lockdown". Far from it! For a start I'm working full time, mostly at home, and my work days seem to be longer than when life was office based. But I'm also busy 3D printing and painting in the quiet hours, and I'm VERY behind schedule in posting pictures of my new bits and pieces here.

To start to make amends, here are a couple of 1/1000 prints for "Sails of Glory", The ships are razee 44 gun heavy frigates , Anson and the renowned Indefatigable, famous in ral life as one of the ships commanded by Sir Edward Pellew, and in fiction as being one of the ships on which a young Horatio Hornblower served. I've always been fascinated by the razees so when  saw that Simon Mann had posted a suitable model on Wargaming3d there was only one course of action (link to the model here)

I printed a couple, one for Indy, the other for Anson, and found some suitable ship cards and mats on the Sails of Glory Anchorage (you can find them here). I was wary as to how the sails would come out but I was pleased with the results. A couple of rather nice models I think, now awaiting the lowering of the quarantine flag before they can go forth into action.

SADF Completed At last!

Many years ago, QRF released a rather nice collection of modern South African armoured vehicles. I had always been rather fond of the Ratel series of wheeled MICVs and, being an AK47 player these seemed like a natural thing to get. I also got a few Casspir APCs, some and some Buffels. When I git them home from whatever show I went to I had a look and crikey those Casspirs looked like a nightmare to build!I put them in a box to think about later......

Now, many years later they are done. I a extremely pleased a how they have turned out and if the world wasn't closed right now I'd be quite keen to get a game of AK47 up and running so they could have a day out. The QRF models have been joined by a G6 Rhino SPG which I found on Thingiverse. Not in the photos are a trio of 3D printed Staghounds (I didn't realise they still used them into the late 1970s at least) and a trio of Peter Pig Centurions which are filling in as Oliphants.

Steve Ward, Rest in Peace

I heard today from Martin Goddard that Steve Ward passed away at the end of 2019. I got to know Steve through our mutual love of coastal forces modelling and wargaming. He published my first set of naval rules, "Schnellboot", which went on to become "Action Stations", and I ended up designing several of the masters for his 1/600 coastal range, and also a few for his 15mm WW2 range (both ranges now sadly lost to the mists of time) – Oh, and one of the series of starships that he created. 

Liz and I had several very happy visits to Steve's house in Wolverhampton, it was always a pleasure to spend time with Steve and Janice. Alas when he sold the SDD range we drifted and lost touch, it is so sad to hear of his passing :(

Another Day, Another Diversion

A chance comment at a meeting and a post on an internet forum and I'm off on another diversion. This time it is the resurrection of my Ancient and Renaissance fleet action rules. To be precise, its me getting diverted in generating a set of ship bases that I can print out and use with the rules (since I've been working on updated versions of the rules for a while now). The models are roughly 1/2400 scale and fit two or three ships on a base (although the Galleass for the Renaissance set will probably be an individual model).

 These are the first test prints I've completed. I tried texturing the bases but they looked pretty awful so I'm sticking with plain bases so I'm assuming the battle is fought in calm seas :)  I need to have a think about paint schemes as well. These look OK but I'd like to make the ensemble a but more striking. (any ideas?)

The parent model is a galley model made by Captain_Ahab_62 on Thingiverse. I've amended the model here to make a cataphract version, and additional versions with towers. 

The original model can be found here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3057533

I've also used the basic model to make a small set of Renaissance galleys. I'll be aiming to print off a test set tomorrow.

Conn....Sonar

Some time ago I joined the Conn...Sonar FB group and downloaded the rules. For those that don't know, CS is a fun set of submarine vs submarine wargame rules (there are later additions that bring in ships and aircraft, but at its heart it is sub vs sub). I have a load of 1/700 models - and I keep finding odd ones that I never finished; a 688 was unearthed in my spares box yesterday. However, 1/700 models look way too big on the table. They would be ideal for a demo or parti game at a show but unless the "ground" scale was stretched in a regular game the models would look quite cramped.

Fortunately, Thingiverse and the Photon have come to the rescue. After a few searches, some downloading and a series of mostly successful prints I have a small collection of 1/2400 models. Some more hunting got me a few more designs which I printed out yesterday, so now I just need to sort out sets of control cards for the boats and I should be ready to go :)