Completed 6mm 1980s South African micro-armor, 01DEC17

Here are photos of completed 6mm 1980s South African Micro-Armor, 01DEC17:

                                          6mm 1980s South African infantry.

                                          6mm 1980s South African AFVs

                                          6mm 1980s South African artillery and trucks

                                          6mm 1980s South African Mortars, Self-Propelled Guns

                                          6mm 1980s South African armored trucks

Review of The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodden

Author:  Mark Hodden.
Title:  The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack.
Publisher:  Prometheus Books.
Copyright:  2010.
Pages:  400.

Observations and Impressions:
This is a steam-punk book set in an alternate Victorian England with a time traveler nick-named Spring-Heeled Jack.  Oxford, his real name, change the course of history by having Queen Victoria assassinated.  History diverged from there...

James Burton and his companion, Charles Swinburne, set out to thwart Oxford's changes to their world.  More divergence happens along the way until it's no longer the universe of the Victorian era.  It's a new world of steam-punk and weird science.  Spring-Heeled Jack is eventually dealt with permanently.  But neither Burton's Victorian England nor the British Empire will ever be the same again...

Recommended.

Latest wargaming projects...

I'll be damned if I can't get my photos to upload on my laptop computer.  This will be a boring text only entry of what I've been doing recently....

1)  I put together a WH40K Dark Angels Deathwing Army List, 1996 points. 

It's for 8th edition WH40K.  I'm now working on a WH40K Blood Angel Army List.  That will be followed by a WH40K Death Guard Chaos Space Marines Army List, WH40K World Eaters Chaos Space Marine Army List, and a WH40K Adeptus Mechanicus Army List, too.  That should take the rest of the year....

2)  Flocking and basing 6mm 1980s South African micro-armor.  I'm in the midst of finishing my last batch of 6mm 1980s South African micro-armor.  Now, I need to organize it for 1:1 FFoT, III rules organization.  And label said 6mm 1980s South African micro-armor....

3)  Played an eighth edition WH40K game with my brother this weekend.  We got 2.5 hours into it.  I called it because my feet were hurting on the bare concrete floor.  The game could have gone either way.  He had 2000 points of WH40K Genestealer Cult.  I had 2000 points of WH40K Dark Angel Deathwing Terminators...

Blake

Review of The Romanovs by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Author:  Simon Sebag Montefiore.
Title:  The Romanovs 1613-1918.
Publisher:  Knoff.
Copyright:  2016.
Pages:  744.
Price:  $35.00 (US).

Overview & Impressions:
The Romanov dynasty had a bloody beginning and a bloody ending.  They defined Russian history as ruling autocrats.  I lost track in the number of murders, plots, and assassinations involving this dynasty.  They left their imprint on Russian history and nation in general.  There were high points like Alexander's march into Paris in 1814 and Golden Age of Catherine the Great. 

However, I felt sorry for Nicholas II, who was out of his league ruling the Russian empire.  World War I put an end to the Romanovs.  Though their successors sought their imperial mantle in order to justify ruling the Motherland.  Even today...

Recommend reading.

Late November 2017 reading...

Here's what I've read this week:

1)  The Romanovs.  Read Nicholas II's reign during the 1905 Revolution and years leading up to 1914...

2)  The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack by Mark Hodden.  Burton and Swineford learn about the time-traveling Spring-Heeled Jack by eavesdropping on a gathering of the Technologists led by Sir Charles Darwin...

3)  Old Man's War by John Scalzi.  John Perry becomes the platoon leader of the Old Farts.  Get introduced to weapons' training during their basic training on an alien planet...

4)  Finland at War:  The Winter War 1939-1940 by Vaya Nese.  Learning about Finish history from 1900 onward to the 1930s....

5)  The Legend of Drizzt:  Volume One by R.A. Salvatore.  Drizzt's exile and capture by gray gnomes...

The Promise: Mid-November 2017.....

I look at the backlog of painting projects overrunning in my office/painting room.  I want to cry. 

Where the hell has this year gone? 

I tried keeping up with my ambition.  Reality got in the way.  I've scaled back my painting schedule to manageable levels.  It's Mid-November 2017. 

Where am I at?  What did I accomplish this year?  What's left? 

I couldn't paint at this time last year.  I only got back to painting full time in December 2016.  Here are my completed projects:

Completed Projects:

1)  85 28mm Masai Warriors.

2)  42 28mm Colonial German regular infantry.

3)  32 28mm ARVN Ranger infantry & 4 28mm M113s.

4)  36 28mm Vietnam War US Marine infantry.

5)  90 28mm Viet Cong fighters.

6)  5 28mm Vietnamese villagers.

Current Projects:

1)  120 stands of 6mm 1980s South African micro-armor and infantry.

2)  130 stands of 6mm 1980s Angolan micro-armor.

Future Projects for 2018:

1)  30mm GW High Elf army.

2)  30mm GW WH40K Adeptus Mechanicus detachment.

3)  30mm GW WH40K Nurgle Death Guard detachment.

4)  30mm Warmachine Rhulic Dwarf Army.

5)  28mm Amazon fantasy army.

6)  30mm WH40K Khorne Lord of Skulls titan.

Mid-November 2017 reading...

Here is what I've read this week:

1)  The Romanovs.  Courtship and marriage of Nicholas and Alix in the late 19th century.

2)  Old Man's War by John Scalzi.  Got to the part where the Old Farts get new, green bodies and are shipped off to the Colonial Defense Force basic training.  Perry becomes the recruits' platoon leader.

3)  The Legend of Drizzt:  Volume One by R.A. Salvatore.  Drizzt escapes from his demented family, who are seeking to kill him for betraying Lolth, the spider-goddess.

Early November 2017 reading: Part II....

Here's what I've read the past week:

1)  The Romanovs.  I've worked up to the 1860s and absolution of serfdom....

2)  The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack by Mark Hodden.  More steam-punk adventures in Victorian London involving a cyborged time-traveling historian...

3)  Old Man's War by John Scalzi.  A 75 year old man is recruited to join the Colonial Defense Force.  Just got to the part where they give him and other recruits new bodies...

4)  Street Without Joy:  The French Debacle in Indochina by Bernard Fall.  See previous review.

5)  The Legend of Drizzt:  Volume One by R.A. Salvatore.  Got to read about Drizzt's exile from the Drow city...

Review of Street Without Joy by Bernard B. Fall

Author:  Bernard B. Fall.
Title:  Street Without Joy:  The French Debacle in Indochina.
Publisher:  Stackpole Books.
Copyright:  1961, 1964, 2005.
Pages:  408.
Price:  $19.95.

Overview & Impressions:
Street Without Joy is a defining book on the French debacle to recolonize Vietnam in the 1950s.  The author was there during the conflict.  After the war, he interviewed North Vietnamese leaders who were confident in winning the second Indochina war with the Americans.  Fall wrote pessimistically about the West ability to learn from Revolutionary War.  Especially, when the political will wasn't there to face a prolonged conflict.  Neither the French nor the Americans learned this lesson  Military might is a poor substitute for political acumen when fighting a counter-insurgency. 

American won two counter-insurgencies in her young history.  One of the Philipines' insurrection and the second was the Pony Wars against the Native Americans of the late 19th century.  Both were bloody, unpopular, and high-handed engagements.  That kind of will-power was needed in Indochina.  The French had the firepower, but lacked the will to fight.  The Vietnamese were spurred on by nationalism and a sense of mission to get rid of the hated Europeans.  America made the mistake in continuing the French fight in South Vietnam without learning from their defeat.  Fall made that clear in this book....

Depressing reading.  On the plus side, it goes quick for military history.  Too bad American policy makers didn't read it before committing lives and treasure to a losing cause. 

Recommended.

WIP, 6mm 1980s South African Micro-Armor, 10NOV17

Here are photos of a WIP, 6mm 1980s South African Micro-Armor, 10NOV17.  I'm done with the base coats:

                                          WIP, 6mm 1980s South African AFVs and trucks.

                                          WIP, 6mm 1980s South African MBTs and APCs

                                          WIP, 6mm 1980s South African AFVs and artillery.

                                          WIP, 6mm 1980s South African trucks and motorized vehicles.

Early November 2017 reading....

Here's what I've been reading this past week:

1)  The Romanovs.  I'm in the Crimean War.  No fan of the French or the Turks.  Poor Russians got outfought and out generaled in this conflict.  Now, I'm halfway through the book.  Should have it done by X-mas....

2)  Starting Old Man's War by John Scalzi.  Thought I'd never get around to reading it.  Sort of juvenile.  Supposed to be a good read.  I haven't read any other works by the author.  He's supposed to be a big time military sci-fi writer....

3)  Street Without Joy by Bernard Fall.  More French stupidity leading up their debacle in 1954.  Rather depressing read....

4)  The Legend of Drizzt:  Volume One by R.A. Salvatore.  Only read about a dozen pages.  Drizzt's father gets sacrificed to Lolth.  What a downer.  However, it was to be expected with evil Dark elves...

New month, new project...

For the record, I hate painting 6mm micro-armor scale. 

It's a pain in the butt.  I did two different WWI navies for 1/2400 scale.  That was no fun.  Micro-armor is worse.  It's the sheer scale of the project that is daunting.  Once you get in a groove, it's easy.  However, I have boxes and boxes of micro-armor to paint.

You wonder how I came about this project?  It fell to me from the sky.  One day, a friend named Sapper Joe put out a list of different stuff for sale.  Two complete 6mm micro-armor armies for $125.00. 

Looked like a good deal, I thought at the time.  Problem is Sapper Joe is annul retentive about his armies.  He collected everything complete a 6mm brigade. 

Did I tell you the project was 1980s 6mm Angolan and 6mm 1980s South African micro-armor?  What had I got myself into?  Everyone else is doing 15mm FoW Team Yankee Cold War.  Problem with that it was any East-West conflict would have gone NBC.  Bye-bye western Europe and a good part of eastern Europe.  Thank God there was no WWIII in the 1980s.  No matter what tread-heads might think....

So, I'm stuck with African Cold War micro-armor.  It needed to be based, painted, flocked, labeled, and sealed.  I'm almost done with the base coating of the 6mm 1980s South African micro-armor.  The system I'm going to be using is Fist Full of Tows, III.  I've still got to figure out how to create the unit labels with GIF flags.   This whole thing should take about 3-4 months once everything is based and flocked.  Though the figure Apocalypse is staring me in the face.  There's several hundred stands of micro-armor to paint!