Tarawa Progress

Threats to cut the Xmas sweetie rations produced some serious overtime by Dave's kids, here is the progress...



















Great comments on this one Blog fans, stay tuned:)

Whippet Tank

My Christmas present from Paul. I now have a full company (2) of these.





Actually a medium tank by designation but these count as lights for CD.

Dave's Scenery Factory 2

Second update from the Russell Clan...

Dave's Terrain Factory

A few pictures of the Russell Clan hard at work on the boards needed for Tarawa. Done for CD3, the ground area has been slightly up-scaled in order to include all of the main features








More progress as the pictures arrive

Xmas Haul

Here's what I got from my girls.

Best wishes to you all.

French Trucks

Gerard made me these excellent trucks for my French collection






Can't remember if they are Citrons or Renaults but am absolutely chuffed with them.

Volksturm

Had a game at Gerard's last night but forgot to take the camera. It was the excellent Buchneau scenario from the ever industrious Bob Mackenzie http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bob_mackenzie/





Nice figures in original poses and quite useful for any late war scenarios.

Panzergrenadier Project

Going to take a while this one but here is the first two of three battalions needed for my 1943-45 Panzergrenadiers

Mostly Pegasus figures but there quite a few from others sets as well

Base coated and washed

Will try to have the last of them based tonight and show you all some progress later in the week.

Merry Christmas to me, Merry Christmas to me...

It took a while but I finally found one I liked at a reasonable price. My dream bike

Insurance is problematic to say the least over here. However, I had the very good fortune to get in touch with Dave Hewer from Kiwibike Insurance who gave me a very good deal.

He is a practical and honest man to deal with and I would recommend any New Zealand bike owners to get in touch with him; the prices were way better than any of the mainstream insurers, who are, in the most part, not interested in us in any case. Here's the website link, check them out if you live here in New Zealand: http://www.kiwibike.co.nz/

Staghound

A present from Gerard, and the only late war armoured car in my British collection

Going to add a little more detail, paint and decals

As you will agree, built to Gerard's usually high standards

In just two days time I will start enjoying 51 of annual leave and have a number of projects on the go, so hopefully some progress on these soon.

Games Week Progress

Every year me and Dave get together for a games week; still haven't decided what I'm going to do for my contribution yet. This year Dave is working on a Pacific scenario and the various bits and pieces to go with it.

Dave is working on a shoreline map and has painted the scale onto the base tiles, the landing craft are placed to check for scale

Some of the atoll's minor hill features

Another scale shot

The map of Tarawa at about an inch to fifty yards. This may need to be 'bath-tubbed' as units and maps often are in this hobby. Because playability is important to us we often lift the playing area by scaling it up, as we did for the Tarakan game a couple of years ago http://20thcenturywargames.blogspot.com/2010/01/gaming-tarakan-1942.html

Sea wall

With beach and landing area

Here is a test fit. Usually we would now measure different areas to get an accurate idea of how many models etc can be placed in a certain area, without having them packed in cheek by jowl and thus inaccurate in terms of man-to-ground-ratio

Some of Dave's Marines getting in some practice work.

Dave's K-9s

These are essentially just recon stands but the inclusion of the dog adds +2 to it's spotting roll when looking for hidden enemy units

They are not unique to the US Marine units shown here, as a few other nations also had them included in their Military Police

HaT Golden Retriever

And, Revell German Shepherd, I think

Probably most recognised for their contribution to the Pacific theatre.