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.

Marder 3

Just some very minor finishing work to do

The crew figures probably weren't the best choice but they'll do

Painted in a late war scheme 44-45

In CD3 this counts as a weak AFV because it is open topped.

Progress

Here are a few pictures of a Unimodel Marder III that I've been working on for the last couple of weeks

Nicely engineered parts with a couple of brass bits to go with it

Crew figures donated by Paul

Whoever the marketing genius was that came up with the multi-link track idea should be shafted! I've never had a successful experience with these yet

About 3/4 finished. Well over a hundred parts on this kit so I'm bound to have a few spare bits and pieces left over but we'll see:)

Pre Xmas Haul - my half

My half, check Paul's site for the rest http://plasticwarriors.blogspot.com/

Early war Spitfire, been after one of these for ages

Haven't made up my mind on this one yet but it will probably get German markings rather than Italian if included

One each for the French and Germans for my WW1 aircraft collection

Probably the heaviest bomber usable for CD3

Early war Pacific addition

Apparently not too many of these actually made but I'm sure I'll find use for it somewhere.

Just for GReg

As requested a few pictures of some of Dave's buildings

The houses are Italieri

Think the church is by Hornby, a railway model of some description

Fits really well for several theatres.

Dave's Rangers

Progress on my friends Ranger project

All will eventually make up his one and only CD3 Ranger battalion 1943-45

All from the Italieri set

Smaller company sizes than most US formations of this era but with a reasonable complement of support weaponry

Yet to have their bases numbered but more or less complete

Weapons platoons.

WW1 German Infantry

Been on these off and on for a while now but finally have them close to the finishing stage. Once complete I will have five battalions of infantry and a small cavalry and artillery element also

The infantry include Airfix, HaT, Emhar and Zevezda in the mix. Here is a HaT/Zevezda combination

Another couple of mixed figure platoons. The HaT figures don't quite show the same amount of detail, due, in part at least, to the softer plastic I think

MMG. Awkward to put together but a nice result

Quite a few gaps to fill and minor details to attend to, though should have them complete in a week or so.