I started these the other night. I chose them for their classic early war appearance and smart uniforms. I plan to mix some of them with the Pegasus 1939 set, which is also in 1/76 scale.
Nothing really converted, just a few head-swaps. I'm thinking the look of the Pegasus set might be quite different, but we'll see how we go. I expect to see the full regiment mixing it up with the BEF around Calais in the not too distant future.
Spent the last couple of nights building this one up. The Matchbox kits are awesome given their age. It went together really well with no problems; excellent engineering of parts all round. This was a present from my friend Paul, and will fit just nicely with my early war German collection.
The box showed camouflage markings but I just went with Panzer Grey, some black ink and a little dry brushing. Just might need to tidy up the wheels a bit.
More or less finished these guys, just a bit of touching up to go. Between an old Airfix set and a new HaT one I managed to make a full regiment of three battalions. Here are a couple of companies. The Airfix figures had a lot of flash on them but still look okay; I also included a few Emhar figures for just a little more variety. The HaT figures are very good, although still in that wretched soft plastic, however.
I have been slowly building up data to do some 1914-15 games later in the year, either Neuve Chapelle or Loos, possibly both, and hope that if I put it off long enough, HaT will release their WW1 BEF, which I am greatly antiscipating. If they don't release them in time I'll probably have to get some more of the Airfix BEF set, which is less than desirable, as I already have a regiment of these. In the meantime I've started working with Paul on doing some early war WW2 stuff, starting with Calais.
Review time. The Ace BM range is quite extensive. I chose this one to go with my early war Russian collection, but I've since found out that it was used in many places by a number of nations, including Germany, Finland and China. The kit has a fair amount of parts for what it is.
Lots of superfluous under carriage detail; out of the 33 parts on the kit 14 of them were underneath.
This is where the engineering of the kit let it down, and parts of the armoured frame had to be heavily filled.
The dry-brushing didn't really work, and I have returned it to the painting line-up since taking these pictures.
The gaming part of me is chuffed but the modeller was less than amused. Still, it was remarkably cheap and may find itself in use with some other parts of my collection, such as Nationalist Chinese and possibly my North Koreans, if I can find a reference for it being used there. I would recommend this kit to gamers based on the price alone, at just under USD$6.
I have done this one as a command platoon, the turret figure is a soft plastic one, a cut-down radio operator from a British paratrooper set; Esci I think?
It has different markings from the one Paul gave me, but I might now give that one disruptive pattern and new insignia also.
Here are the two of them, really need one more for a full strength company, although they were sometimes mixed with other allied units, such as Cromwells and Shermans. Thanks to Geordie for the paint tutorial, one of the things I like most about Blog is the sharing of ideas, and the trying of new things.
Well, almost final. Still have to give the whole airframe a wee bit of a going over, as it's still quite patchy in places.
Despite its short comings this was still a cool model to make; forgot how much I like making aircraft.
Don't know much about the colours or markings, could be Coastal Command or Far East. Not really worried either way as it is an excellent addition to my collection. Started work on a BA the other night too, and have also been looking at my Comet since being inspired by Geordie efforts: http://exiledfog.blogspot.com/2010/05/comets-are-coming.html
Mostly complete but it actually didn't go together that well. Several parts required major surgery unfortunately, it was almost as if they were twisted. It looks as though the pilot's canopy has suffered the same fate and will be a tight squeeze too. Still, I'm not worried, it's for gaming and as long as it looks reasonable upon completion it'll do me. If I was going to do another Beaufighter kit I might try another brand.
Started this a couple of nights ago, one of my all-time favourite WW2 aircraft. All parts have been given a couple of coats on-sprue, and I have tried to make sure that all them fit together nicely before gluing - very unlike me. Anyway, I want to make a good job of this before starting on any of the new arrivals.
Lucky the garage was there to hold these trees up! Amongst other things, roofing iron, glass, other-fallen-trees, etc, this fence used to sit level with the ground. Have a lot of work to do this weekend cleaning up the storm damage, which is a bugger because I'd rather be making models.
After finishing the assignment from hell I now have some life back, and found an hour or so to mess around with the city fighting rules a bit more. This shows a German platoon firing at a French one. The French are on a higher level, so the -1 to hit for firing uphill applies to the Germans. At this stage of the test, units on level one could see and engage targets out to five inches, and units on level two, out to ten inches or 500 yards.
This is about as close as house to house fighting gets in CD, unless it is an actual close assault situation. If we followed the rules exactly here, then the bottom unit would not be able to see the Germans, however, our house rule of five inches means that more units can be involved because they can see further. There was fighting on the ground floor of this building going on at the same time, also.
This is the hotel garrison. They had remained unmoved and unaffected by other units breaking around them mostly because they could not see any. By the time all of the German units in this area were spotted, the French found themselves cut off from their nearest friendlies by almost 1000 yards. The play testing has been very useful for trying out common sense house rules for application in games. Next, I plan to try a hilltop garrison scenario, that includes similar conditions to that of cities, such as possible broken line of sight or difficult ground.
Couldn't help myself, stayed up last night and finished it. A couple of coats of Olive Green, a very thin wash of black ink, and that's it. I'll have another look at it under natural light over the weekend, and bet I'm bound to find something that I missed. I think this is a pretty good kit, and would recommend it, but unless you game Korea, it may get limited use. It was also quite expensive, as far as plastic kits go. 
More or less finished this now, just the final paint work to apply and perhaps a longer aerial, although I have an assignment due soon that really needs urgent attention so I'm not sure when I'll get back to it, but hopefully soon.
Got a bit of work done on this bad boy last night, a remarkably well engineered kit.
Still several details to add, and I have yet to decide whether or not to include a figure in the turret hatch.
Should get a bit more done tonight although I do have some student essays to mark. Still, why do something today that you can put off until tomorrow? 
Nothing much happened in the first few moves as the Germans had to spot everything, and they could not commit any reserve troops until 1/3 of their initial lot was engaged in the fighting.
Most of the German first moves were the order 'Full Advance' because they needed cover quick.
Slowly more and more units made contact with the French. These first few moves have already shown that there are some other things I need to consider for the built up area rules, such as should stands firing from a second or third level be able to see and shoot further? Hopefully further testing will answer this.
Most of the front French unit positions have now been revealed at the cost of one recon platoon being destroyed by small arms fire.
This German company entered from the flank, and although the stands could only just see each other, superior German firepower soon shifted the French from this position.
Sadly for the Germans, the French retreat position was better than the one they had been forced from.
All of the French front line platoons are now involved in house to house fighting, and there are no reserve units close. The next French positions are only about ten inches away, but because of the built up area rules cannot offer any direct fire support.
This company broke and withdrew in bad order, despite incurring only a few casualties. Here, they were saved by the rules as several nearby German units could not see them to finish them off before they recovered their morale.
Fresh German units move in, again not observed by the French due to the rules. So far I've made a lot of notes, and have a couple of other things I want to try, like sewer movement, but I'll finish the rules I'm trying to cover first, and worry about other things later on.
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