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@Solar_lion: I happened across a site on which it was claimed that the tradition actually isn't that impractical in the field, as it helps messing up the outlines of the helmet; kinda like putting shrubbery on the helmet. Might be a reason why it's still kept.

@RiTides: Thanks.

A bit more work on the Bersaglieri:


This is just one squad for now. They aren't finished (still need some detailling done and the skin needs to be finished). The full platoon will comprise two such squads. You can see the two fire elements in the back, each with a Breda light MG, both led by the squad's sergeant. The maneuver element in the front is armed with all rifles and led by the squad's corporal.

Some of them are wearing the green-grey jackets usually worn in Europe, because the Italian army was notoriously short on khaki uniforms. And trucks. And anti-tank guns. And their MGs were a horrible design and their rifles were kinda old and had a weird calibre (same rifle Lee Harvey Oswald used in the Kennedy assassination, by the way). And their doctrines weren't quite up to snuff for desert warfare, especially not against the British Western Desert Force who were rather capable and well equipped. It was only after a ton of their men and their stuff were shipped to protect Malta and Greece that they were slightly overworked coping with the Germans in Africa.

In short - the Italian army probably was just not able to keep up with Mussolini's grand plans for that Mediterranean empire. Certainly not within that short a timeframe. It's not like Italian soldiers couldn't or wouldn't fight (far from it), but there were so many factors working against them that it just didn't work. Right up until the end in Northern Africa Italians were the main part of the manpower on the Axis side, but they were mainly used for static defense. Until 1941 the British thought very little of them, and confidence in the Italian fighting capabilities on the German side wasn't too great either. Again, this was mainly due to the lack of everything in terms of material and a certain lack of training. Apart from a few formations the Italian army also never developed much in the sense of ésprit de corps, because they mainly were used as static defense and garrison troops, so many never got much combat experience nor a sense of their own capabilities as a fighting force, always playing second fiddle to a much glorified ally led by this golden boy. There wasn't even a sense of fighting for something greater than them, because Africa was viewed as a sort of colonial combat zone where in fact it required high tech, state of the art combat doctrine and was led against an enemy who had both of that.

Interesting stuff to learn about. At least I think so. But hey, the Italian army had one thing that worked and was quite beloved by everybody (apart from that Semovente self-propelled gun): The Sahariana jacket!

 Sigur wrote:
@Solar_lion: I happened across a site on which it was claimed that the tradition actually isn't that impractical in the field, as it helps messing up the outlines of the helmet; kinda like putting shrubbery on the helmet. Might be a reason why it's still kept.

All I thought was.. ' Aim for the feathers"...

Looks like some are the grey and some are brown.. wip?

Solar_lion wrote:...
Looks like some are the grey and some are brown.. wip?

Nah, that's meant to be that way.

Some of them are wearing the green-grey jackets usually worn in Europe, because the Italian army was notoriously short on khaki uniforms.

Took some additional work, but I'll take anything that makes a force look a bit different.

Last night that Star Wars Armada test game finally happened! My gaming pal insisted in repainting all of the ships because he found them not being pretty enough. And indeed, his ships are much prettier now. Unfortunately Frank Shandy had to drop out on short notice.



I played the Imperials, my opponent naturally went with the rebels then. I had a star destroyer and six squadrons of tie fighters, he got a corvette (pretty sure it's the big ship in X-Wing we played with once), a slightly bigger ship and four squadrons of x-wings. In this game they certainly got the way x-wings and tie fighters relate to each other in tems of 'power level' better than in X-Wing: X-wings are nasty, blunt bully tools, tie fighters are elegant butterflies. :p

Speaking of bluntness and lack of grace, On turn#5 I moved my star destroyer off board because it maneuvers like a bag of bricks in a vacuum. We played on a 36" x 36" mat, so maybe a bit too small for Armada, but the rulebook said it was okay for the test game with the box contents.



In the end, despite of the fact that none of the big ships had taken any damage, adding up points shot up I came up as the winner by a slight margin. I had killed all the enemy X-wings, afterwards my Tie fighters, after trying to scratch the bigger rebel ship, got mauled badly, but one squadron managed to flee the scene in the end. Of course if you count the Star Destroyer I moved off table as lost I'd be the loser, but they were just called to a more important mission I'm sure.

Armada pretty much is how I imagined it to be: 'x-wing for grown-ups'. Someone once called it that, it's not my words. X-Wing is fun and really, really well done. I mean there's a reason why it's so insanely popular. Armada requires you to plan ahead much more, it's quite a bit more complex, it requires more thought in general. It follows that it's also slower. Not much, but a bit. The star destroyer for example has to be given orders two turns ahead of time. these tall grey trivial pursuit looking dials are the command dials for the large ships. You stack them onto each other and the Star Destroyer always stacks three. The latest being added at the bottom. Each turn you issue a new order and execute the top one. This alone will tell you how it requires some forethought. Models a cumbersome capital ship really well.

Overall, it's very FFG in the way the rules are done: elegant and they work. Not much else to say. The basic box is very expensive, but so is every single bloody boardgame out there these days. We played with about 140 points, "regular" games are played at 300pts the rulebook says. On a larger table of course. Nice game.

Afterwards we played the "fast card game" version of Settlers of Catan because we still had some time. Solid game. Doesn't work that well with 2 players, but I can imagine it being quite a lot of fun with more than that.

Okay, time for a more proper update again. Between polish horses and other things I've FINALLY started doing these Salamanders here (just a few outta the batch):



So expect to see more green mereens again in the near future!

Looking forward to this.

HH Salamanders at that! Very nice.

Salamanders! Looking nice - i'm loving the HH fervour going round at the moment, wish I had money so I could be more directly involved :(

 Sigur wrote:
Okay, time for a more proper update again. Between polish horses and other things I've FINALLY started doing these Salamanders here (just a few outta the batch):



So expect to see more green mereens again in the near future!

Someone might want to point out to a couple of the troopers that wearing a brush on your head whilst wielding a heavy flamer might not be the best idea.

Unless the brush is also made of ceramite, of course...

@Gitsplitta: I hope that these don't end up disappointing!

@solar_lion: Indeed!

@lipsdapips: Thanks, it's nice to paint Space Marines again.

@Dysartes: Oh, you know what these Space Marines are like. You tell them one thing and they do the exact opposite out of principle. :p


Update:


The guys with the heavy flamers are done now, next on the list are the Firedrakes and after that it's time for some characters!

The only disappointing thing is that they're green, but they aren't Mantis Warriors!!

Mmm! Wonderfully characterful. You've done those salamanders justice there - looking forward to the characters

Those are really really nice Siggy! a very realistic shade of green on them with juuuuuuust enough pop of colour with the pale gold and red head brush! looking forward to seeing them all done with characters :-) what skin tone are you going with?

@Gitsplitta: Well, they aren't Orks either. Everybody loses when the Salamanders turn up.

@lipsdapips: Thanks muchly, Sir!

@nerdfest09: Cheers, I do my best. Skin tone? Well, black. People black that is, not pitch black. The customer wills it (and I vastly prefer it as well to be honest). It's a very simple recipe: Some chocolate brown colour base for which I used Coat d'Arms Horse Tone Brown if I remember correctly, some highlights using a mix of that and Horse Tone Roan and/or white, wash with black/brown washes, highlight again, done.



Alright, here we got the heavy flamers all by themselves:


Finished Pyroclasts:




...and still slightly WIP Firedrakes:





Hope you like them.

I like them a lot, especially bunched up like that. Something a single vindicator template can clean up nicely!

@Gitsplitta: Oh, you nasty man.

Proceeding swiftly...















What do you think, Sirs?

Beautiful. Still not Mantis Warriors though. What the heck is on those last guys' faces? Looks like pustulent skin. Uugh! DEFINITELY not Mantis Warriors.

It's to stop them smelling the burning MW's after they have been cleansed by holy flame of the Emperor

They look great Sigur, very nice flame effect you've painted

@Gitsplitta: It's dead skin of some local lizard. It's their cultural heritage, you fiend. :p

@GiraffeX: Damn straight! Cheers for the comment!



Update! Characters, I calls them, as they're all just different dudes really, which makes painting them a bit of a chore. More than one would think, seeing as they're all just green marines really.

Oh wow the flame on that chainsword

Very nice Sigur.

I always figured that Salamanders are kind lake Sisters of Battle who've had hormone replacement therapy. You can make them look like men, but the flamer fetish is there to stay!

@GiraffeX: Yah, it's awesome bro. Dude made it from the side of a rockin' van. The full airbrush portrait was a naked chick flying through space on a flame surfboard, shooting laser beams from a laser rifle with Manowar in the back as celestial constellations, playing a rockin' track.

@Gitsplitta: Cheers. On the second part: I couldn't comment.


Well, here we go again. Most of the "characters" are done now:






...and here we got two chaps who still are WIP. The fella with the banna (or feller with the banner, if you prefer) is done, except for the very thing which defines him aside of his fellaship. The Apothecary is still very much WIP as you can see. Nice to paint that chap again. Last time I painted that mini I think was in 2013?



I intend to finish him, along with some new guns on old guys, until the 24th. Maybe I can get to steal some time away for doing all that required merry-being and wassailing.

Beautiful. I just love the flames on the big chainsword. The reddish glow that they're set in is just perfect!

@Gitsplitta: Cheers.


Apothecary update:



Christmas eve is right around the corner! Waaaah. I think I still have to get one or two presents for people. Do you guys have all your stuff yet?

Speaking of which: The toys I ordered for myself as prezzies haven't arrived yet, despite me having ordered on November 27th. :( There's hoping for a christmas miracle....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Well, it's time for an update, methinks. Apothecary finished, as well as the new combi-meltas for the veterans.















Hope you like him.

I really like the way you did the battle damage on the armor. Black and light grey highlights wearing away to bare metal in some areas (that's what it looks like anyway).

@Gitsplitta: Thanks very much.

Alright, christmas update.

Here are three dudes (2 Australian or British officers, 1 Australian or British rifleman) I found lying around my photo setup. I must have forgotten about them at some point, so I painted them in little bits at a time whilst I was waiting for other things to dry:




Then I finally took a picture of the Polish horses:



They're done now. At least I hope to god they are and that I didn't make too many mistakes.




...and the WIP Salamanders Contemptor:



Won't get much more done today with festivities and all. Merry christmas. Oh gak,. I gotta take some christmas picture too, right? I suck at those. Mostly as I NEVER got the time to do anything miniatures related for christmas.

Merry Christmas Sigur. Hope it brings joy and fellowship to you and those you love.

@Gitsplitta: Thanks muchly, and: right back at ya.

So with us traditionally doing all the christmas stuff on christmas eve today I spent most of the day sleeping it off and putting my toys togeher which indeed arrived at the last minute yesterday in the afternoon. Quite a relief.


What I got for myself is the following:

The first bits of Bersaglieri support. Two infantry guns and a mighty armoured carro armato (which I think is tank in Italian?). Slowly clanking along, trying to keep up with the British opposition, it's a M11/39. As you can see, it's of this funky pre-war design with the main gun in the hull and a twin MG in the turret.





Then I got that thing why playing Chinese in Dystopian Wars seemed like a good idea. The Chinese Federation of course not being quite a global super power, but still trying to make their mark on geopolitics, I guess they told themselves "Yeah, this world war we got going on isn't quite wacky enough yet.". So they made a giant flying chinese dragon.



I got this one on a black friday sale type thing at a rather good price, so I couldn't put up any resistance any more and I'm sure nobody will blame me, looking at this fella.

It's awesome. Good choice!

Can't wait to see that dragon.

All looking good. I do love those little pocket sized tanks of the old days.