Accepting the Challenge

Although the assembly of hte Pegasus Bridge brought me some sleepless nights, it will be finished this week I presume. Of course it needs to be painted afterwards but probably not before March, because I'm in Curts annual painting challenge this year (more information here) !

For me it's the first time to join Curt's challenge and I'm a rather slow painter. So I have to plan my tasks very carefully. Of course I have nothing to loose but I want to take the challenge rather realistically. Anyway my main goal is to pass all seven bonus rounds:

22nd December 2013 "Non-Combatants"
→ AWI Camp Scene (28mm)

05th January 2014 "Villain"
→ Warhammer 40K Genestealer Broodlord

19th January 2014 "Vehicle"
→ 20mm Tank, probably Panzer III or Panzer IV

02nd February 2014 "Hero or Heroic Group"
→ 2nd Light Btl KGL at La Haye Sainte (28mm)

16th February 2014 "Casualties"
→ Death of Col. von Ompteda near La Haye Sainte (28mm)

02nd March 2014 "Favourite Character"
→ Field Marshall Montghomery (28mm)

16th March 2014 "Last Stand"
→ Old Guard at Plancenoit (28mm)

In summary I hope to reach between 450 and 500 pounts thereby. Of course there are some other project running simultaneously but I'm not sure how much they'll add to the calculation. Most important there is the unit of redcoats for "Bloggers for Charity" which must be painted until February.

However I'll take the next two weeks to prepare as much of my lead mountain as possible to be ready for the challenge. Maybe I'll succeed in making all the figures for the bonus rounds ready. I don't want to waste too much precious challenge time for deflashing or priming the figures...

Cafe Gondrée and pillbox assembled

Last weekend I didn't paint anything but I took the time to examine the contentes of the Pegasus Bridge set a bit more carefully. In other words I started to assemble the kits.

Since those were my first MDF kits I decided to start with the presumably easier buildings: The Café Gondrée and the pillbox.

The instructions proved to be short but absolutely adequate and I finished both buildings after about three hours. What really elated me was the excellent accuracy of fit which the laser cut parts have. In both kits there was only one part which needs some further treatment but anything else is absolutely fine.

But now for the two buildings in detail:

Cafée Gondrée

The Café Gondrée was and is near the western bank of the Caen Canal just near the approach of the Pegasus Bridge. Supposedly it was the firstly liberated, French house in June 1944 and temporarily it served as sick bay after the success of Operation Overlord. It's still operated by the Gondrée family and one of the major places to go for visitors who are interested in the events of June 1944.

The kit consists of three or four sheets of MDF parts and one sheet of laser cut cardboard for the window shutters. It is well detailed and represents all features of the building as it is conseerved today as well as it is pictured on coeval photographs. Although I haven't checked the dimensions yet the model seems to be rather good in scale. The assembly went well and without major problems. All parts fit very well together. Singly with the shutter of the lower right window you have to be careful since it's smaller than those of the other windows at the front. Actually the windows on the side have that narrow shutters as well. The only point where parts didn't fit perfectly is the side gablet on the right hand side of the front. Probably the roof framework got slightly out of place when I glued it together. Therfor a gap of about 1.5mm formed between the slanted part of the roof and the straight one. So be careful there. I'll have to fill this gap with greenstuff or Miliput.

The Pillbox

This fortified building stood near the eastern approach of the Pegasus Bridge. Actually it was the cellar or basement of a larger building which was pulled down earlier during the war and then converted into a fortified position. Likewiese the parts of this kit fit together perfectly and it was a pleasure to assemble it. Although it seems to be well in scale - as far as judgeble from the only photo I know (here) - the ceiling is too low to place standing models inside. I presume the real basement would dig deeper but the kit is obviously limited by the baseplate. Anyway I left the top unglued to enable access to the insight. Probably I'll install some sandbags on to of the building to create another position there inspired by the coeval photograph mentioned above. Unfortunately there's nothing left of the building today.

Well... Those were the first two buildings of the set and assembly was great fund. I hope to procede equally good when painting them. 

The bridge itself is much more complex. I started with the kit on saturday and finished several parts of it but nothing coherent yet. I'll present it as soon as possible. Anyhow it's the very next project to be finished on my workbench. I want to have that done before Curt's Painting Challenge starts. Luckily I got one of the last entries for it and I don't want to be sidetracks during that quarter of the year. But more on this later...

Pegasus Bridge unboxed

Lately I received my copy of Warlord Games' huge Pegasus Bridge set. It was a bit like Christmas when I got the large, heavy parcel and I was really curious what the boys from Nottingham boxed.

But first of all I weighted the box and with about 4.6 kg or more than 10 lbs you get a lot of bang for your buck:

After opening the box my expectations were completely fulfilled. There are four bundles of laser-cut MDF parts for the bridge itself, the Café Gondrée and the pillbox near the bridge approach. Additionally there are the appropriate construction manuals, some resin parts and a couple of figures:

More precisely there are enough sprues to build up twenty German soldiers, a 55mm gun, a MG-42 team and thirteen twelve British paras and the exclusive Major Howard miniatures which is only available with the Pegasus Bridge battle sets:

The figures are from Warlord Games' usual range and have the well known quality. Especially the metal miniatures are excellently detailed, slender and depict lively poses. The casting quality is appropriate. There is little flash and no major faults. In fine: I like those Red Devils a lot.

The Germans look very well too. The metal miniatures bear the same qualities as their British counterparts and are as good as these. The plastic reinforcements are multi-part miniatures. That make them very flexible on the one hand but requires some additional work for cleaning several parts and glueing them together. Although I'm about to turn away generally from platics for this reason, the late war Germans from Warlord Games look very well. A lot of interesting head and weapon options and the advantage of easy conversions.

Additionally there are some resin parts for entrenchments. A gunpit for the 55mm gun and two sandbag pieces for the MG-42 nest. All three in excellent quality but unfortunately the gunpit has a large sprue bush on the bottom side. It'll cost some work to remove this...

One thing I waited for excitedly was the special figure for Major John Howard. Besides Lieutenant Colonel (later Major General) Johnny Frost and Major General Roy Urquhart he was kind of hero of my younger days since I first watched "The Longest Day" where Richard Todd re-enacted him. All too well I remember the heroic assault on the bridge and his "Hold until relieved" order.

Anyway Warlord Games made a really nice figure of him. At first glance I was a bit disappointed because I irrevocably envisioned him with a beret but after a closer look on the painted model I like the dynamic pose more than I dislike the helmet:

All in all an excellent set which promised to become a real eye catcher when well assembled and painted. I have no idea how large the bridge will or how long it'll take to build and paint it. My goal is to have it finished for June 2014. I'll start with the pillbox rather soon because it seems to be the easiest of the three kits. Hoepfully a good chance to gain some experience with mdf kits since it's the first one for me.

Some 60th Rifles painted

These days I'm starting to work on a couple of 2nd Light Bataillon KGL figures for a Waterloo / La Haye Sainte project some THS fellows and me are preparing. Therefor I bought a bucket full of Alan and Michael Perry's excellent figures but I felt in need of some practice with green uniforms after so many redcoats. So I dug out the four riflemen which were part of their plastic British infantry set and used them as test subjects. But since each and every collector of British Napoleonic miniatures seems to have a set of 95th Rifles I decided to depict their sister unit the 60th Regiment of Foot. Although these men didn't fight in the Waterloo campaign the earned honour some years ago during Wellington's Peninsular Campaign and during the War of 1812. Additionally they're somehow a bit special and so I liked the idea to start a unit of them with those plastic figures.

With no more ado here is the result:

My first four riflemen on a reconnaissance mission.

This photo was kind of an experiment with my SLR and the Gimp image editing software. Next time I've got to use a tripod for the camera to get a picture with more depth of focus but actually it didn't turn out too bad.

Anyway back to the riflemen. As usual I used Vallejo Model Colours for painting them but this time I primed the figures black instead of white. The Vallejo colours are excellently pigmented and look really good to me on the dark primer. At least for this kind of uniform I'll stay with black. I'm a bit double-minded for redcoats...

Here are two close-up views of the boys which turned out a bit sharper:

Those men shall represent some guys of the 5th battalion. To be honest for no special reason except that I remembered it from Bernhard Cromwell's Sharpe novels. Some day I'll complete this unit with "Sweet William" Frederickson... However once again C. E. Franklin's uniform guide was my primary source for the uniform details.

Because I read that during the Peninsular Campaign different trousers and overalls were worn I painted two of the with the usual rifle green trousers, one with the later grey one and one with a pair of brown overalls. I wanted to have the a bit look campaign hardened and not completely equipped in mind condition.

I hope you like those figures. Actually I do so I'll proceed with some KGL men with similar colours but some other details of course.

By the way this evening I read Curd's appeal to his 4th yearly painting contest. Unfortunately all places are assigned already so again I'll be unable to join this illustrious round of painters. It's dangerous to be unobservant for a weekend... Whatever I wish all entrants good luck, good results and a lot of fun!

Keeping Quickshade fresh - Start of a long-term project

A lot of people appreciate the advantages of Armypainter Quickshade and so do I. It's an excellent shading fluid, protects the miniatures as kind of varnish and makes it much easier and faster to paint numerous miniatures in a reasonable ammount of time.

Nevertheless Quickshade has its downsides. It's not water based so you need a certain solvent to clean the brushes, it smells unpleasently and probably anhealthy but worst of all it tends to clod after a rather short time. I've read a lot of repords from people whose Quickshade clodded although they tried seal the can as good as possible. I presume it's just impossible to seal it hermetically after it was opened once and some paint was spilled over its rim. Unfortunately all my attempts to re-thin Quickshade were in vain. White Spirit didn't work although it was mentioned in the directions for use...

Before and after...

Anyway a friend of mine gave me the hint to decant the Quickshade into small plastic bottles. Those are cheap, rather easy to acquire and should be more or less air-tight. So I bought a package of small liqueur bottles, emptyed them into a larger bottle and removed the labels. Finally I bought a new tin and was well prepared for the last step. Yesterday evening I took a large syringe anddecanted the whole content of the freshly opened Quickshade can into eleven tiny bottles.

It woked better than I feared. The tin contained fresh and fluid paint. The pigments were easy to stir and the syringe took the Quickshade very well. Nothing was spilled over my workspace, no blothes on my clothes or hands. Actually a bit too perfect...

Anway I hope Holger will be right after all and the portions will stay fresh until I need them. From time to time I'll give you a short updaten here when I open a new bottle.