Cracking On!

 

 The Maroon Machine

Wargaming is a tonic for the soul. Official! This has been one of my most productive weekends this year if not more, and as a consequence I feel relaxed and ready to take on the office again come Monday morning (in about 4 1/2 hours time now).

The Fun Stuff:

Cleaned, prepped and based 16 Welsh Guards, largely based on MJ Figures but with a couple of ex-Hotspur thrown in for command. The Guards include a number of conversions to British Army cold weather caps taken from ex-Hotspur Operation Corporate figs. One private underwent a delicate conversion to a GPMG gunner, using the GPMG surgically prised from a half figure supplied with Britannia Miniatures open back FV432.

I really do like these MJ Figures Falkland War Toms. I can't make up my mind whether my second force of Paras (well, technically my fourth), should be made up from MJ or continue with Rolf's square jawed heroes?

I'm keeping the beret heads from the Welsh Guard conversions above (with more in the pipeline) to replace the helmets on a pack of Elheim's Cold War British Army on Patrol . Might even do a like for like swap on some MJ Toms, giving them helmets to pad out the Taff Guards when required.

FYI, I found that the helmets taken from spare Britannia BAOR figures are cracking when added to both MJ Figures and ex-Hotspur Operation Corporate figures. Will be interesting to see if the helmets from Elheim's Cold War Brits will look as good.

Cleaned a pack worth each of ex-Hotspur Operation Corporate SAS/SBS and M&AWC. The head on the kneeling SBS figure with Sterling was shot, so I cut that off and placed him in the conversion bin till I have decied what to do with him. The standing figure firing a Sterling has all the hallmarks of being a great  personality figure for Welsh Guards hero of Abergavenny, Butch Squires. So he's been popped to one side as he really needs a woolly hat for authenticity.

Whilst talking of heroes, found a perfect match for Garri Wyn, from a CP Models Falklands era SAS 'command' figure with a new head from a suitable Platoon 20 figure. More on creating both these Winter of '79 Welsh heroes in due course.

Other M&AWC figures had their M16s removed in prep for replacing with SLRs to boost my ex-Hotspur Royal Marine platoon. 

Turned some Platoon 20 Male Armed Civilians into urban rebel command with berets and helmets which nicely contrast with their normal civilian urban attire.

Cut up some spare Britannia BAOR command figures and the best of Rolf's FalkcomH in helmets to give them berets taken from suitable Liberation Minis to create Para command figures. I know Rolf's brought out a pack but these are here in my hand right now.

The Interesting Stuff:

Established a core of 12 figure urban armed civvies during the week. All taken from Liberation Miniatures' URBMELT packs that I already owned, so I added a few helmets taken from other figures.

Created a five figure Union Steward cadre -  two AK47s, two SLR, Sterling - including two conversions. These are to enhance the core armed civvies when necessary. And finally a five figure Tooting Popular Front cadre (excluding Wolfie and Ken) mostly armed with SLRs. Well I felt Wolfie needed some dedicated minions.

That left some civvy bodies with AK47 left over. I have a crazy plan for these but that will have to wait till the Christmas Break. I've offered the remaining URBMELT figures to Maff, who has been working on a uniformed Clash Action Front cadre. 

 The Boring Stuff: 

Actually, not too boring. Watched Dan Snow on TV use satellite imagery to uncover the Roman Empire whilst prepping 20+ Britannia BAOR figures and cleaning up the bases on about the same number of Liberation Minis in berets. Just in case I go down the route of using them as Para reinforcements. Barely noticed the effort. From a prep point of view, Rolf's figures are a dream as far as cleaning up is concerned. To all intents and purposes free of mould seams and flash. All you need to do is file the base flat and you are done in most cases. 
  
And that was my weekend. Fully immersed in miniatures and Winter of '79. But not so much so that I couldn't enjoy being at home with H. too.


Cheers
Mark