Easter Holiday Wargames Day

Well I met up with Mark this week even though I was going down with 'C in C Home Commands' cold to see where we were with our Team Yankee project. It has become a bit of an arms race and sadly 'cold war going hot' seems to be in the foreground of current word news with a return to chilled relations with the Great Russian Bear.

Basically I've always wanted to develop a 70's/80's British Army and always thought this would be in 'Micro Tank' scale until Battlefront developed Team Yankee in 15mm.  Initial releases were for American and Russian Forces but the British Iron Maiden supplement soon followed as did my immediate purchase of 'Charlie Chieftains' British Starter set. Now thankfully Mark nearly always likes playing the Germans in WW2 (I prefer the Brits being a jolly wizard chap) and likewise he was happy to collect Russian Forces for this game. Trouble is he makes and paints faster than me!! So while i've trotted out 5 Chieftains, 4 Scimitar/Scorpions, an Abbot and a Fox he's painted twice that number and a whole host of infantry to boot!

Predomonantly he's made T72 and T64 tanks with Acacia Heavy Howitzers that are a lot meatier than Abbot spg's , BTR's of some variety, Shilka's for air defence (how many guns do you need on a turret!) and some nasty looking Gecko SAM jobbies.

Also he's doing an excellent job on the infantry which in 15mm is always my dread! Mine will be in DPM uniform oh joy!

While I was playing catchup by completing the construction stage of my Scimitars and Scorpions on the day he was up to no good building Mig 21's (Tamiya 1/100 scale) and painting Hind Helicopters!

An important element of any get together is to look at various wargames purchases over the last few weeks/months plan visits to any wargame shows (Broadside at Sittingbourne) trips to Deal Wargames Club (i've only manged 1 visit so far) and any new projects that may divert our attention or dusting off old projects. This is done over a brew or two which I think aids construction and painting.

Old Dairy brewery is one of the new breweries in recent years to be set up here in Kent and are now based in leafy Tenterden near the wonderful Kent and East Sussex preserved Railway  which runs between Tenterden and Bodium Castle just over the border in East Sussex a lovely day out in itself. Their beers are named after milk bottle tops so you can get red top, gold top etc and is a very quaffable pint whether from a pump in the local or out of a bottle highly recommended especially when building models.

We finished off by placing vehicles and some scenary on a Tiny Wargames Team Yankee Battlemat , the above shows a Fox armoured car primed in Halfords grey primer and two chieftains waiting for their camo and shading....I am a slow painter!!

For those not into late 20th Century wargaming etc have no fear other stuff is on the go as my previous post describes and I can't concentrate for too long on one subject! Now who mentioned the Franco Prissian War recently? PS the better photos are Marks (thought better credit them!)