Chariots, more Travel Battle French and Typhoons!

A month has passed since I last updated this blog, must be a record! I have been busy on the domestic front and my head has been in a bit of a spin so it's been difficult to find the quiet painting time I enjoy. For reasons I won't go into here our middle daughter and partner have had to move back in with us until the New Year so the house is upside down and as we're in the process of selling up the situation is far from ideal and if I'm honest it's all getting me down a bit. I look forward to more settled times ahead, family is family and you do what what you can for them of course, but it's not always easy, and given that I'll be 60 in January I guess I have turned into something of a grumpy old man!

On with the hobby related stuff, starting with a few pics of the two painted chariots and the first eight 'new' Roman codes. I'm far happier with the latter Legionary codes, they don't have heads the size of giant pumpkins and the shields have a better curve to them and take the transfers  better. The pilums are separately cast and must be glued into the hand but look good.To be honest I have lost interest in the Ancients so will put them aside until enthusiasm returns.

I also painted several more bases of the French infantry from the Travel Battle set, this time trying to give them a more 'campaign dress' look. I don't think they turned out at all bad? I still have a few more bases to do yet, plus more French cavalry. I'm trying to figure out how best to trim down the helmet plumes to create Dragoons, I do have an idea but more in due course.

Flames of War.
I'm still plugging away at FOW and currently have 4 Battlefront US M3 half tracks on the painting table as transports for my infantry and airborne platoons.

I bought a few Tiger 1 E's via eBay, but they turned out to be not such a bargain as I had thought, two of the Tigers were very badly built with the wheels right on the edges of the wide tracks and there was nothing I could do to rescue them so they went in the bin! Two more were better, but had the 'desert' exhaust pipes on the rear deck so not really suitable for Normandy, at least as far as know? The final Tiger however is the Battlefront Wittmann Tiger 007, a hefty resin and metal model, and it has been built with driver and bow gunners hatches open and heads visible, Wittmann also has his head out of the turret, it's a lovely model and came with the staff car and figures. A quick retouching of the cammo pattern and it was ready for action. I still have a couple more plastic Battlefront Tiger kits to build and three Forged in Battle Tigers already in the collection.... needless to say I'm a big fan of the Tiger 1E.

Micheal Wittmann was killed on 8th August 1944 when a shot penetrated the engine compartment of Tiger 007 causing a catastrophic explosion that blew the turret off. The shot was attributed to Gunner Joe Ekins of the Northamptonshire Yeomanry fired from his Sherman Firefly, but recent research has questioned this and attributed the fatal shot to the   Canadian  Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment who were much closer to the target. Whatever the case, most certainly Gunner Ekins bagged at least a couple of Tigers on that day.

The Wittmann Tiger 007 - still in need of a little re touching to crew figures etc.

Wittmann standing in the turret of Tiger 205, 7th June 1944.

Note the desert exhaust pipes on the rear deck of these two models.

I noted the full flight of 3 Typhoon aircraft over on the Mad Tin Hatter blog recently and immediately thought I must do the same! My Flames of War collection is of course Normandy themed, and version 4 rules now features the ability to field actual number of model aircraft in the flight rather than a single model with a flight dice. The Typhoon model in particular is now extremely hard to find on eBay, so when I spotted this box set on auction I was prepared to bid high to obtain it and won it. Still awaiting a paint job, I will use the Typhoon I already have as a guide and then probably put it up for auction as I wont need four of them!