Time for some Blog Necromancy

 I´ve been neglecting this blog again... time to attempt to raise it from the dead again.

The lure of social media has been strong and so I´ve been posting a lot of stuff on platforms like Facebook and Instagram as that seems to be the place were most people are located these days.  

And yet I am not a friend of these platforms with their endless feeds of content, with little option to filter for special fields of interest.  So after some consideration, I´ll be trying to give this blog another chance. 

Don´t expect many updates or a regular schedule... 

Here are some new sculpts I have been working on:

These will supplement my Australians for Vietnam, which were released last year and are already available in the shop:

As well as the Vietcong Sets armed with a variety of different weapons:

And to not make this just an advertising show, here are some more Work-In-Progress Afghan Captives. 

These guys popped up as a side project as I worked on more Taliban (pics coming soon). I had some reference pics with captives / hostages in my collection and after looking at them for hours I felt they deserved their own miniatures. 

These minis are also different in that I am using polymer clay here. 1 or 2 years back I bought myself some BeesPutty and tried working with Oven-hardening clay. It´s a bit different from working with epoxy putties, can be challenging especially when modelling the arms - but it is very rewarding in its own way and perfect to sculpt minis that have their arms close to their bodies such as these captives... 

or this Tank commander that I was commissioned to sculpt: 

On the Workbench - January 2018

This blog has gone silent again, hasn´t it?
Well, as usual when this happens, things have been going on behind the scenes but I didn´t feel much of an urge to take pictures, process them and put them online.

Still not feeling much like it, but at least I managed to take some shots of the various projects I have been or am working on right now.

Last week I finished these river pieces. I´ve long wanted to add some rivers to my terrain selection and finally pushed the project through after gathering some motivation and inspiration over the christmas holidays

I also worked quite a bit on Code Red (my Modern Warfare Ruleset) in the first two weeks of January. One addition to the Rules was stats for MRAPs for the Americans and Brits. 

During the work on the rules I felt the urge to add an MRAP to my collection.  There are some kits out there, and I might get one at some point, but I didn´t feel like spending money.  In the spur of the moment I remembered how other people achieve great results by scratchbuilding and started chipping away at some foam and plasticard.

  

After a few days, here we are with the scratchbuilt MRAP chassis. The CROWs is magnetized and can rotate. Right now I´m working on the wheels which are a bit of a challenge - too big, too small or too irregular and they start looking ugly.

 

On the sculpting front, I started another set of Special Forces -  these will be a Team in CQB-poses, one Pointman with a pistol (or out of ammo switching to his sidearm - you decide), a breacher with a Shotgun - and not yet started, an operator preparing a grenade or flashbang before the assault.

 

 Hope you enjoyed the small insight into my WIP stuff. 

I finished a lot more stuff in December that I did not take pictures of.  When my blogging motivation returns, I shall take some photos and put them up here. 

Until then, happy wargaming!

Code Red - Blocking Detachment (Game 2)

In our last game, the Opfor units suffered a resounding defeat at the hands of a US mechanized detachment suppressing and outflanking them in a forward defense position.

After this rather one-sided game, we decided to play the game in reversed roles. I would take over Opfor and have my friend attack.

I have to admit I was a bit anxious - after all, I had to prove that the forces and setup were balanced and that the shortcoming of both sides could be overcome....

Code Red - Blocking Detachment (Game 1)

Last weekend we didn´t only play By Fire and Sword, but also got some playtesting done for Code Red. 

This report covers the first of three playtest games. The games were quickly thrown together, without much thought about balance, dramatic scenarios or somesuch.  

We threw a US Mechanized Formation against a Russian-Style Force using my Soviet Cold War models. Somewhere in the Desert, a US Intervention force was pushing along a valley to reach a strategic refinery that had to be defended by the local authorities.  Let´s call our Russians OPFOR for the remainder of this report.

We wanted to test Vehicles some more, so both factions got vehicles. Unfortunately I forgot to give the Americans some spare AT weapons on their infantry squads -  it turned out to be an interesting tactical challenge to work with what you got.  

New SpecOps available

Today I put the new Special Forces sets online at Enfilade Figures.

Two new sets have entered the shop:  Another group of Special Forces in Light Gear in skirmishing poses and a pair of Snipers. 

Klick on the banner to go to the shop if you want to get them :)

Eye on Terror - The Marksman

On to the last figures of the Special Forces Set - the Marksman!
Actually, I´m not sure what to say about him apart from the usual stuff.

So let me share some trivia about the set. My original intention was to put a SAW-Gunner into the group, but the sculpt turned out so horrible that I had to scrap him. If I´m not mistaken, he´s found his resting place in the box of failures where all the bad or unfinished stuff is collected. 

I don´t remember which figures finally replaced him, but I believe it was this marksman?

Keep Moving!

This guy was a bit unlucky during the photo session - he got into positions that make it hard to see the full extend of the paintjob. I messed up the angle a bit with the pic on the left, so you can´t see that much (though it makes for a cool effect)

That´s not a Chainsaw...

This guy again represents what I was going for with the set. Take away his weapon and attitude and he´ll look like a local woodcutter. Except he doesn´t carry a chainsaw

He got a brand new paintjob and I think the difference to the older models is visible.

Fight Fire with Fire!

This is the second figure from the SF-set that has an older paintjob.
I still like him better than the Grenadier, who´s had a rather plain color scheme with little variation. This operator at least got some interesting camo on the trousers, which unfortunately is hard to see on the photo.

 

The set of figures was created especially with this interesting mix in mind - Special Forces in Light gear, i.e. with a mix of military garb and hardware + local garment to conceil their true nature. 

Codename UGLy

I prepared the next set of pictures to keep this rolling for a few more days.
After taking a good look at the new Insurgents, we´re moving on the Special Forces - an older set that - again - was unpainted for quite a while.


Well, unpainted is not true. Two minis had been painted more than a year ago, but I never got the remaining three figures coated in color.  We´re starting off with the least impressive, the Grenadier who was one of the long-painted figures that is barely good enough to still be acceptable without a repainting session.

But I promise the next few figures are going to be better painting-wise.

A quick glimpse onto my desk...

Hey folks,

I´ve been silent again for a while, mainly due to holidays. There´s a lot going on both in my regular job, on the figure front and I´ve recently spent some more hours playing PC than I did throughout most of the last months.

Figure wise, I´m preparing to release the new batch of miniatures that I´ve presented recently. I´m also trying to push ahead on the painting front, getting some more figures painted up for the shop.

During October I tried to mix in some Renaissance Warfare stuff again - this Blog is called Rifles and Muskets after all, as it was always my intention to dig into this era as well. I somehow never managed. Still, my very long term project of building as Muscotive Army for the 17th century has come ahead somwhat - I´ve produced a few custom 15mm models for that purpose, but I´m planning to purchase a sizeable force at Totentanz Miniatures sometime in the future. They´ve recently released very nice Cossacks both foot and mounted that are fabulous for my purposes.

 You can see my current progress if you look closely, the infantry bases will finish my first regiment (yay) and the cavalry is the first step towards a mounted unit.

In the foreground, my figures being painted up for the shop.
As you can see, I´ve made good progress throughout the last week. As soon as I have a large enough batch prepared, I´ll start a photo session.  You´ll get to see each of these miniatures in detail, I plan to take pictures of every one of them, maybe even reviving the idea of a mini-related christmas calendar?

We´ll see how my productivity keeps up and if I´ll be able to pull that off!
Stay tuned for more. :)

"In the tight spot" - Part II - Code Red Ambush Scenario

After getting stuck in a vicious ambush, the battle hangs in the balance. US Forces have taken casualties and are creeping ever closer towards exceeding their threshold for defeat, but have now taken up positions to launch their counterattack in the south.

"In the tight spot" - Part I - Code Red Ambush Scenario

Last saturday I had the opportunity to set up a scenario at our monthly gaming day. As usual, I used the opportunity to playtest some aspects of the game.
This time around, my intention was to test a potential scenario setup that had hence been tested just once. The scenario was set up with the help of the scenario generation procedure I devised for the rules.

More on this might be discussed in a separate dev diary as soon as my thoughts have matured and undergone more testing. 

The US force of two infantry squads in Stryker ICVs plus attached MG and command team found themselves surrounded on their patrol route through Resistobynsk, a troublesome hotspot somewhere in Eastern Europe...

"Solid Hit!" - US Infantry

After putting up all those Soviet pictures I noticed that I never put up the final pictures of my painted US Army releases way back in September 2015.

I painted them in a little of a rush, trying to finish suitable figures for presentation at the model expo in Mainz. At the expo I didn´t take good pictures as the light inside the hall was horrid - someone forgot to remove the top cover on our half of the expo hall, which blocked all daylight. Left with fuzzy artificial light, I didn´t have the opportunity to take good photos.
Returning from that event exhausted and a little disapointed I put the box of minis into my storage and never got around to take good photos here as well.

Now I finally pulled them back out and took nice pictures, here we are:

You can still see that the paintjob was a little rushed when you take a closer look at the bases, but overall I´m quite happy with the final look - especially considering that MultiCam/OCP pattern is never easy.

Diorama Time - Part 2

Halfway through, one evening left to do the finishing touches, but making significant progress.

All figures are painted and based, the terrain has received all major details and has been painted with the first two base colors.

Major to-dos are the detailwork on the bricks, rubble and the wall plaster to make them look remotely realistic. The ground requires some drybrushing and vegetation and I´ll have to define the shadows.

Should I have spare time left, l´ll dedicate it to adding more details into the pile of rubble at the front end of the diorama:

Sorry for the extreme lightning effects, these were quick shots taken without much consideration to special effects.

Diorama Time - Part 1

I´m a bit late to the show, but usually good at finishing things quickly when confronted with a tight schedule...  But I´m attending the model expo in Mainz next weekend and haven´t got the time or motivation to prepare anything yet.

In order to avoid showing up completely empty-handed, I´ve finally started building a mini-diorama that needs to be finished until the end of the week. By using a lot of figures that are already painted and setting it up as a modular display with rather simple terrain, I´m hoping to speed up the building process.

Nevertheless, being my first true diorama, it will probably break all rules and conventions. In order to get a good feel of the end result without running off into the wrong direction, I´ve assembled a very quick model of the final design.

The pillar on the right will be cut down about where the black line is painted in

Looks a bit imbalanced from this perspective with the wall effectively splitting the scene in half.. 

Might have to move the tank a little bit forward?

So... yeah... a crazy week of building lies ahead. I´ll keep you posted!

Juli Releases

After a stressful week I finally had some time to prepare the new batch of figures I received. Now that the photos are taken and the sets created in the online shop, the marketing drum has to be played

;)


The US Army range has received a few additions in the form of a specialist pack including two AT-gunners (AT4 +M72), a Marksman and a Leader:

I also added another fireteam to add some new poses - so you can swap out minis in the already existing US Infantry squad set to add some variety.

If you´re not interested in Americans - fine... I also got some commies cast: A variety of Chinese that had been waiting for production for quite some time. The configuration of the sets is not final, I´m planning to make a complete squad of 9 men available in the correct TOE - until then, they´re available as follows:


Four Chinese Riflemen with QBZ-95

And a support/command team including a leader and a PF-89 AT-gunner plus another rifleman

The figures are available at
www.enfilade-figures.com

Special Forces Painted

Painted some Special Forces & Afghan Suspects over the weekend to reduce the stash of unpainted and WIP figures.

Figures are Elhiem (3 leftmost) + Enfilade (right)

Mixed Update

Quick weekend update, throwing in all the things I did in the last few days.

After receiving a new package from my caster including new weapons I required to continue my sculpting, I built two Americans for the next sets.Not entirely finished yet, but close.

On the painting front, I finalized the base on one of my Demon Horrors to get him off my workbench and out of my sight. Unfortunately I was/am not entirely happy with the outcome, the color modulation on the mini drove me nuts and ended in frustration as I could not get my Airbrush to paint the very fine lights I needed for this figure.
In the end, I realized that I´d require a detail airbrush at some point, painting very fine details with a 0.35 needle is quite hard. The idea stuck... you probably know these situations where you just can´t get this idea out of your head, no matter how hard you try? That was one of those...
After several days of wrestling with the thought, researching and choosing a suitable model I finally said to myself "Screw it, I´m doing it" and ordered a Badger Renegade Krome.


We´ll get back to that later. But first, the Swamp Horror...

Now, trying the new Badger Krome and playing around with some color combinations, I came up with this  (WIP obviously):

The light is not ideal, but the shadows are indeed painted that way. Looks better in real life though :(

And the purchase of my second airbrush? I haven´t looked back yet! The amount of control I got with the smaller needle and the different trigger mechanics is fabulous. I really like the feel of the brush, definitely a good choice so far and it´s very likely that it´s only going to become better with more practice.

Problem is... now I need even more colors and miniatures to practice proper painting ;D

Mountain Warfare: Final Touches

Before heading off to the convention, I finished the last few figures yesterday, just in time for the game. Back home after a nice day of presenting Code Red to a number of interested people, I´ve finally taken some photos and uploaded them:

The New Insurgent Leaders from my own range at Enfilade Figures have made an appearance on the battlefield:

...just like two of the new Foreign Fighters. Paired with an Elhiem RPG-gunner, you can see the size compatibility of the two ranges.

And, the first casualty of the day in our demo yesterday, the Ranger GPMG:

Unfortunately I didn´t take pics of the game itself, but next week there´s another opportunity...