NSL Carrier Assets Primed

I spent yesterday evening assembling the heavy carrier and two escort carriers. The heavy carrier was a right royal pain in the 'arris to put together.This evening they got a blast of grey primer.

Heavy carrier with a 15mm NAC trooper to show the size

The heavy carrier is a weighty beast. I've now glued in a 2" acrylic peg, reinforced at the join with the ship using a short collar of 5/32" brass tubing. For painting the ship I've got a 4" length of 3/16" brass tubing. When I go to use the ship for gaming, I'll need to add another short length of 5/32" tube as reinforcement.

Escort carriers

Awaiting assembly are the light carrier, battleship and battlecruiser. I'll probably assemble them tomorrow evening (I need a break from superglue!). I'm taking the fighters and my extra NAC heavy cruiser to work tomorrow to prep.

Going back to basing the fighters, it seems that everyone agrees that 3 fighters on a large hex looks best, which is what I was leaning towards anyway. When I do them, I'll probably play around with different formations to give a bit of variety.

She's Been At It Again - More NSL Ships Prepped and Primed

Yes, I have been busy prepping and priming more NSL spaceships. The 2nd batch (armoured cruisers, light cruisers and frigates) were primed, on Sunday afternoon. Since then I've been busy prepping more staff and finished the last of the ships this evening. Now I've just got 48 tiny little fighters to prep.

This evening I've prepped a large bunch of ships - the tender, Q-ship tender, tanker, battle dreadnought, heavy battleship, 2 heavy destroyers, 4 missile destroyers and 4 standard destroyers.

BDN, BBH, 2 x DDH, 4 x DD

Tender, Q-Ship, Tanker, 4 x DDM

Currently prepped and awaiting assembly and priming are a battle cruiser, battleship, heavy carrier, light carrier and 2 escort carriers. That last 3 are soaking in warm, soapy water at the moment.

CVH, 2 x CVE waiting to be assembled

As for the fighters, I'm still trying to decide how to base them. I've got 4 possible schemes:

NSL Adler II fighters:

Japanese Wakizashi fighters:

I'm leaning towards the version with 3 fighters on a larger hex as it will look less crowded, particularly with the Japanese when I get around to doing that fleet. In Full Thrust, fighters are meant to be in wings of 6, but that is easily recorded with a D6 for each wing.

What do you guys think?

Pics of Anne's Cleavage (And Some Updates)

OK, to be more accurate, pics of cleavage painted by Anne! 

This lovely young lady was a gift she sent me via Fran. I would have received it a few weeks ago if I'd been able to make it to BlogCon. I'm pleased as punch to add such a wonderfully painted figure to my collection.

She also sent me this figure from Reaper, which looks as though it will be great fun to paint.


And now for the updates....

15mm Swiss Halberdiers

I finished prepping these during my lunch break on Thursday and primed them with gesso this afternoon.

28mm Berserkers

I prepped these yesterday and primed them this afternoon with Vellejo black surface primer.

28mm Mordheim(?) Figures

I received these two figures in a prize draw on someone's blog several months ago (or did someone gift them to me?). Anyway, these were prepped at the same time as the berserkers and primed with Vallejo white surface primer this afternoon.

NSL Fleet

Last night I got one batch of ships prepped, washed and assembled. I spray primed them this evening. The other batch got washed today and are now on long flight pegs ready for priming tomorrow.

Batch 1

2 Helgoland heavy cruisers; 4 Danzig class escort cruisers

2 Frankfurt class escort cruisers; 3 Nibelung class corvettes

Batch 2

2 Rommel class attack cruisers; 2 Kiel class light cruisers; 4 Emden class light cruisers; 2 Pola class frigates

I'm going to try to prep and prime the rest of the fleet this week. I'll probably go for a pretty basic dark grey colour scheme for these, with some panels picked out in a military green.


15mm Sci Fi - Heavy Grav Tanks and APCs

I've clearly had a busy afternoon and evening. As well as everything else, I also got round to finishing these vehicles from Critical Mass Games. They are from the ARC Fleet range. The bases were tufted and flocked, the vehicles sprayed with matt varnish and then glued to the bases. I'm quite pleased with how they've come out. After taking the photos, I added some magnetic sheet to the bases for storage and transport.

Grav APCs

Heavy Grav Tanks

Tipped to show the detailing of the  anti-grav units

Well, that's an awful lot of photos for one post, but they do show an awful lot of work that I've managed to get done since Wednesday.

Early Xmas Pressies For Me; Quick Update

A couple of posts back I told you that I'd ordered myself some early Xmas pressies. They've arrived, so let's look at the shininess!


From GZG:

15mm NAC Power Armour troopers

Some freebies - a J Peasmold waste recycling ship and some NSL ships: Q-Ship tender, 2 Emden class light cruisers, 2 Rottweil class missile destroyers. Not a bad haul at £23.10 of freebies from an order just over £100. Plus a 20% discount voucher I can use in the new year. But curses, curses, curses - the two Emdens mean I'll need to order 2 more Kiel class light cruisers so that I have 4 of each. That Mr Tuffley certainly knows how to extract money from your bank account!

6 packs of Adler II class light fighters

A Lady Christina class salvage/repair vessel and a NAC Battleaxe class heavy cruiser

NSL Odenwald class fleet tender and Walchensee class fleet tanker

Helgoland class heavy cruiser, 2 Rommel class attack cruisers, 3 Nibelung class corvettes, Kiel class light cruiser, 2 Danzig class escort cruisers

Graf Spee class battleship, Maria Theresa class battle dreadnought, Wien class light carrier

Neu Salzburg class heavy carrier, Prinzessin class escort carrier, Hapsburg Class heavy battleship

Gulp! That more than doubles the size of my NSL fleet and probably makes it much larger than my Japanese fleet. Even more prepwork for me to do....


Baccus 6mm:

Some extras for my ACW project:

Casualties and 3 inch ordnance

Casualties and 3 inch ordnance

Union and Confederate commanders

Union and Confederate dismounted cavalry (2 packs of each)

Wagons, civvies, tents, gabions and stacks of cannon balls

Apart from the casualties, I won't be prepping these up for a while as I think my current load of prepped figures for the Challenge are more than enough to be going on with. If it looks as though I may have time to get these done as well, then they will get prepped and painted during the Challenge.


As well as these, I've also received my orders for magnetised bases from Tiny Tin Troops (for the ACW project) and pick-and-pluck foam trays for my fleets from Figures in Comfort.


Quick Update

I haven't done any painting since Sunday, but did get a bit more prep done on the Swiss halberdiers on Monday.

On Monday evening I was at the club playing X-Wing with Simon. We got three games in - one at 50 points, one at 75 points and one at 100 points. I won the first two games but lost the last. I forgot my camera (well, to be accurate I didn't have room for it in my bag anyway) but Simon did take some pics and hopefully he'll post them on his blog at some point. Great fun was had by both of us.

Yesterday I was freezing my tits, err, toes off on the picket lines at work (yes, I am a trade union activist and proud of it) and at a rally outside the employers' association offices from 7.30am to 1pm. I decided to skip the main rally (and the march down to it) as I was desperate for the loo (I knew that third coffee was a mistake!) and head home, via the local Royal Mail sorting office to pick up the packages I'd missed on Saturday. After unpacking the parcels I crashed out for 3 hours on the sofa and when I woke up in the evening I didn't feel like painting or doing any prep.

Today has been weird. I had what I call an "episode". Over the last 13 years I've suffered these. What happens is that I go into a very deep sleep and nothing will wake me up - alarms, phone ringing even people buzzing my doorbell. I eventually do wake up in the early evening, feeling drained and somewhat confused. I did get tested by the neurologists several years ago, but as they occur so randomly and infrequently they couldn't make a specific diagnosis. Their best guess is that it is a form of sleep epilepsy. So, I haven't been at work today either.

Sunday Update

Well, Friday saw me feeling worse rather than better. However, I was feeling somewhat improved yesterday and today have been feeling almost 90%.

15mm SciFi Grav Tanks and APCs

These are very nearly finished. I've done the green camo, the detailing and washed with dark brown ink after giving them a spray coat of satin varnish. I just need to finish the basing on the flight stands and will then give them a spray coat of matt varnish.

15mm Seleucid Elephants

Especially for Mr Awdry, here are some pics of the almost finished elephants.

I just need to paint a few details on the mahouts and dry-brush the nellies with a lighter grey, then it will be on to painting the howdahs and crew.

The figures are from Donnington in case you were wondering.


NAC Intro Fleet

I got these painted this weekend, so here you go with a mass of pics.

All together:

As you can see, I've mounted them on clear stands from Litko (part of my purchases from Figures in Comfort this week).

Frigates:

Destroyers:

"My word! She's painted bits on the underside as well this time!"

Oh, in case you're wondering, those are Litko flight-peg toppers glued underneath. I've also added these to my FSE ships.

Light Cruisers:

Heavy Cruiser: 

Battle Cruiser: 

The painting scheme for these was:
Sprayed with grey primer
Washed with mid/dark grey
Wet-brush with 2:1 pale greyblue/London grey (went a little too heavy and it went into recesses as well)
Dry-brush 3:1 pale greyblue/white
Lighter dry-brush 1:1 pale greyblue/white
Flat red on panel details
Dark blue grey mixed with metallic medium on weapons and engines
Hazard panels done with 1:1 yellow ochre/flat yellow then black lines
Green nacelles - base coat of emerald washed with fluo green
Bridge deep sky blue mixed with metallic medium
Weapon tips - fluo green
Engine effect - same as for the FSE fleet I posted last week

I then sprayed with gloss varnish and washed with London grey, then finished with a spray of satin varnish.


Plans for this week

1. Finish up the grav tanks and APCs
2. Finish painting the Seleucid elephants and crews
3. Prep the NSL fleet
4. Prep the Swiss halberdiers
5. Collect the packages that the postman tried to deliver while I was out on Saturday (I suspect they are my GZG order and another order from Figures in Comfort)