Some Newly Minted 3D Red Army Figures

 I have painted up all the command packs I received recently from Battle Honours in the UK. Great figures although they are a bit fragile (a few gun barrels snapped off, and I had to replace them). I think they look pretty good, but I probably wont get any more from this supplier due to the fragility and also their postage policy!

First up, the command group in summer uniform 

I interpret the figures as a couple of RT operators, two NCO' and two officers, one being female.

Now the same figures in the Padded Jacket uniform

You may have noticed, both officer have been awarded "gongs"!

And the third group are in full-on winter uniforms

Finally, here are some size comparisons with a range of other 28mm figures in my collection

L-R Battle Honours, Wargames Factory 28mm Plastic, Battle Honors, Mr3d Print (Eugene Smichnik), Battle Honours, Mr3d Print (Eugene Smichnik), RKX, Warlord Plastic, Warlord Metal

L-R Battle Honours, RKX, Battle Honors, Warlord Plastic, Battle Honours, Mr3d Print (Eugene Smichnik), Wargames Factory and Battle Honours.

A bit late to the party, but I finally got the NaukNauk app on my phone and created a couple of 5 second animations - some are better than others - my favourite is probably the GNW Livgarden advancing!

Now, once posted, I am off to check PWJ to see if my thumb nail is displayed or not!

A Visit to Ancient Greece and some 3D Prep Work

 Well, we played the new boardgame at Jules place last Friday and it was ......interesting! It was of course a "learning game" - none of us had any idea about the rules or tactics or.... anything, really!

As with most boardgames, not super photogenic - things happen but the look of the board doesn't change much

Typecast, MOI?  Julian assigned me a female character figure! Helen - but not of Troy, I don't believe.

There were three Monuments that we needed to build as part of the way to win the game - this one is Athena

I think this was Zeus

And this one is Hermes - like the aircraft carrier in the Falklands War!

The table laid out for the game

My "hoplites" - we each ahd a total of 15 to recruit

Various monsters that could appear and cause problems for the mortals

The Minotaur took on Chris's hero - and lost!

This one invaded my home territory of Crete but then sat there for most of the game, doing not a lot

I managed to recruit all 15 of the hoplites and looked to push John (green figures) out of his home territory. Chris (blue) to the north took on Julian (red)

My character card 

The turn sequence and how the combat works (below)

The table at the end (2240) I had my Hoplites surround the only completed monument - If I could hold it for three turns, I would be victorious - Chris said I had won - Julian pointed out Chris also had a potential route to victory, but after five hours we had all had enough so we stopped at this point!

I thought a few readers might be interested to see what the Battle Honours 3D figures look like with supports on .......... 

And a minute or so later, with the supports removed. It really was a pretty simple process, the figures more or less just "peeled" away from the supports.

I really like the way the mortar and crew are a single piece print

New 3D Arrivals

Within a few days of each other, two recent 3d printed orders arrived 

The first took just over a week from Temu in China - total cost of NZ$36 - two 28mm Lanchester armoured cars for use with my RCW/BoB collection 

The second took about three weeks from Battle Honors in the UK at a cost of about NZ$180, which included about $50 of postage for a parcel that weighs 284g - FFS!

Quite a large box and well packed and padded to be fair to them but 23 quid postage for 300g really is ridiculous!

One of the command groups purchased - very nice prints so I have no complaints about the cost of the figures - I just wish my mate in Wellington could print them for me!

And here are the armoured cars - again, can't complain about the packaging .... 

...  or the quality of the prints   .......

..... or the price per model ......

.... or, this time, the postage - free because I spent over NZ$35!

The Copplestone Bolshevik heroine gives an indication of scale

Very happy with the contents of both packages!

And to finish off, here are a couple more AI generated videos

It didn't get these ones quite right but they are not terrible for a first attempt. Unfortunately, as I am using free generation, I am limited to only 2 or 3 videos before they start offering me unappealing ways to pay them to continue! So this may be the end of my AI video experimentation.

Thanks for the visit. We are playing a board game based on Ancient Greek mythology at Julians tomorrow, it has some nice figures that Jules has painted up, so I will do a brief report over the weekend I expect.

Victory Day Parade - Part II

 With not a lot to do on Sunday 10 here in NZ - I pulled out the 15mm WW2 Soviets for their own parade. These are all the original, resin and metal models from the time the company was really just a cottage industry, run out of Marua Rodd in Auckland by Mark of "1866 and All That", with our gaming buddies Paul and Andrew working there at different times, and a couple of others also involved.

Assault guns and later war tanks at the rear, T34/76 and KV 1 at the front

I did have some KV 2 but back then, I did not like the disproportionately large square turret, and I sold them off to someone.

The aircraft are premade/pre painted 1:144 models I got for next to nothing out of a hobby store in Hong Kong - isn't the internet a wonderful tool?!

All stars, numbers and slogans were hand painted on - I must have been mad!

Goodness knows if they slogans are correct - in pre internet days, I got a Russian language dictionary from the library and just cobbled together phrases like "To Berlin" or "To The West" etc!

BUT wait ........ there's MORE!

I found a fourth box and decided for completeness, I needed to parade them as well!

Huge SU 152 assault guns at the rear then winter camo T34/85 and other assault guns, BT7 fast tanks and some transport for the infantry!

A lot of Lend Lease American transport - mainly because, at the time (early to mid 1990's) Battlefront did not do any Russian trucks etc.

Now that is definitely the last of the Russians and the conclusion of the Victory Day celebrations at my place!