Te-Ke (15mm Japanese Armoured car With tracks)

yes the title is misleading. It is not a Tank. It was not designed as a tank or used as a tank and it is not intended to be a tank. I grant you it does look like a tank, but a very small one. It was actually designed and used as an armoured car. Yes it has tracks but with only 12mm of armour (which is enough to stop bullets and shrapnel of the period,) It was never intended to be a tank.

 While it is NOT a tank it was armed with either a medium/heavy machinegun or a 37mm anti tank gun. All these have the second option. I was going to paint the other turrets up and use them, but as these turrets kept falling off (and at least 1 broke) I have decided to keep the glued in place.

The models are "battlefront" Flames of War 15mm vehicles. based on plastic-card 30mm frontage and 40 mm long. So feel free to measure the photos and see how big they are. (They are small) . During WW2 about 620 were built and they were used in China, Burma and the pacific Islands. In PBI they have an armour value of 4 and a gun value of 5, which is pretty low. BUT as they are intended to be used as tracked armoured cars we cannot really hope for them to stand up to late war heavy armour. They just could not. They only have a crew of 2 the driver and the commander. The commander takes the role of gunner, loader and vehicle officer, while the driver drives.

There are not so many of these that survived the war and many/most would have been destroyed but a couple of examples still do exist I tank museums around the world.

These 5 help to give some variety and a very little armour to my Pacific forces. Yes looking at the photo on the right they were this small. And small obviously means both low profile and harder to hit. So perhaps they may be alright on the table (who am I kidding players will kill these as quickly as they can).  Which takes nothing away from how much fun they were to paint. Just do not expect them to last long against many opponents.

Terrain (6mm SCi Fi)

 Ok I will confess I do not usually put Work In Progress (WIP) pics on the blog. But the things I were painting have had issues. So I will probably finish them tonight and blog them Saturday, ahead of the club on Sunday. While they are not actually needed for the club on Sunday they may well get an outing anyway.

But today I thought I would share some small 6mm sci fi terrain.  These are home made and not painted just yet. I may talk about painting later, there may well be a change of plan/direction afoot! (NO NOT a new project).

These are very simple. Just table-tennis balls cut in half and stuck on an MDF base. Then I went around them with some spare green-stuff to give them some texture. The connectors are just plastic 3/4 tube (again that I had spare) butted up to the tennis balls or on separate bases.  Very simple, very quick very easy. No big deal.

I went for some VERY simple buildings just because at this scale making things hard for yourself is just a waste of time and effort.  As I see as much if not more of the complex as being underground this is all I really need at this stage. The very simple design lets it fit all terrain and is only dictated by how I paint them. As I do not want to make trees I am thinking of either a desert or Ice planet. Ice planet was my first choice but since then I have started to tidy up my 20year(+) desert boards so I may paint all the Ice planet forces as desert forces. Just o I do not need to get the terrain done for an Ice world.

Hopefully I will get the thing I was painted finished for tonight/tomorrow morning. If so More Pacific WW2 will be shown next. If not I may have to wait until Monday and a club AAR.
Thanks for looking more soon.... I HOPE

LVT4's

NO not the bath-tub of doom! These re 2 Landing vehicle Tracked (Mk4) Know as LVT 4's, if you are American and the "Buffalo" if you are British. Either name is fine by me.

They are 15mm vehicles for my US forces, while they were also used a little by the British (and Commonwealth) they were not heavily used in Europe . But they did see action in the Pacific.

 These have been VERY badly cast with bits missing and air bubbles and mold slips and just about everything wrong you can imagine. But they were cheap on eBay I think someone tried to start casting from another make and just did not know what they were doing.  Ok Moan over, as I said they were cheap and for that I can forgive a lot. I will not use the seller again though. Americans being well American did give them between 2 and 4 machine guns which are not included. Also the MGs could be either .50 cal or .30 cal depending I think on the stock and how many were to be used. That does not matter.

In real life they could transport up to 28 men or a jeep or artillery piece or supplies or well just about anything from ship to shore. In PBI "Carriers" no matter how large can carry 4 infantry stands, so a squad, not a platoon. So an agreement needs to be made (which I have made) with normal players on using them. For me they will mostly be acting as troop deployment markers and not actual fighting vehicles. As PBI works in squares thy will (Temporarily) make the beach square Partial cover and allow troops to deploy in their square and the 1 on either side (Which will NOT get the cover bonus.)

Being just green with tracks and weathering they were an easy paint and both done and based and put away in an evening with no issues, complaints or squabbles. While not super useful they do round out the US amphibious capability in some WW2 games.

below is a Youtube clip of the LVT4 in action (from a film/TV series) just for those NOT familiar with the vehicle. And if anyone wants to know what to get me as a gift a real one would be most welcome. Colours and MG configuration could and were changed to suit the need

 Or here is a real life on in a separate clip

Beau Geste (or Carry on Follow that camel, I will let you decide!)

Yes I have enough figures for a trial game. The problem is, and it is not really a problem, more an issue to work around. Anyway the problem is people turning up at the club with no plans and hoping to squeeze into another game. They are not to blame, I do this any number of times in a year. But as it stands I DO not have enough figures for them to do this in a FFL (French Foreign Legion Game), Given a few months it will not be an issue, at all.

But at present I only have 7 FFL. I have enough MOUNTED Arabs But not enough dismounted Arabs so maybe after a few practice game up the shed on my own I can invest in some more. The good news is that TIM down the club (LINK) makes them. you may have to specifically ask for FFL as they are WW1 French Conversions and I do not think they are on sale just yet. But he is a nice guy and will probably sell some if the money is right. Anyway all the terrain is built and as mentioned the Arabs are painted. So finally at very long last here are the first of the FFL.

They are 20mm NOT 15mm or 28mm, a proper scale 1/72. (No one knows what 28mm is due to scale creep and while some call 15mm 1:100th scale it is closer to 1/123rd scale if we are being purist! as a man at 1/100th scale would stand 17.78 mm tall and not 15mm)

Climbing off soapbox these are 20mm or 1/72 nd scale.. As mentioned above they are all IT MINIATURES (follow the link above) should you want any.

I plan to use an adaption of the "Songs of Drums and Shakos" which in my head I am calling "Songs of Blades and Kepis" I only really need to re-write the points costs for each side and we are good for a game. However that is at least 1 month away (the Game). Due to other commitments down the club and a show, maybe 2.  So as ever my mind is faster than my paint brush.

That's it for today, just 7 FFL finished and a lot of waffle.
All the best Clint


take the vehicles out and we have an Arab town
in 20mm