BRITISH PILLBOX, UNIVERSAL CARRIER WITH MMG, FLARE GUN AND JAPANESE ZERO

 More items for the Far East, scratch built a British Pillbox found in Malaya, Aussie Universal carrier with a Vickers, Figure firing a flare and a Japanese zero.

AUSSIE UNIVERSAL CARRIER WITH VICKERS MACHINE GUN 

This is a Warlord games vehicle, I scratch built the Vickers and enlarged the front firing port to fit the machine gun.
This vehicle is only available to the Australians.

All the figures are Perry 8th army plastics modified to fit the carrier. The driver is glued in place, while the other troopers have mini magnets glued to the underside of their feet/legs to secure them in the vehicle.

The vehicle crew consists of a Junior Leader and 4 crew, the Leader is the one pointing his finger.

FLARE

A bit of conversion done to get this figure into a firing position, 

You may be wondering why I have this figure firing a flare. We are planning to set one of the tables at MOAB to play the night invasion by the Japanese at Kota Bharu.
As part of the scenario the Allies will have access to flares to luminated the battle field to better target the Japanese as they break through the barbed wire on the beach.

The figure will be placed with the Allies as a reminder that they have access to this asset. 

BRITISH PILLBOX

Scratched built a copy of the same British pillboxes found protecting the beach at Kota Bharu.

Here is a image of a pillbox at Kota Bharu, it was large enough to house a section of infantry. 

Working out the floor plan of the pillbox. 

Paper template used to construct the floor using MDF.

The side walls of the pillbox ready to be glued in place.

Based, painted and flocked ready for the gaming table.

Interior 

Access door.

Firing ports 

Two large firing ports for 2 Bren guns.

Troops manning their positions

JAPANESE ZERO

This is Airfix kit of a Japanese Zero.
The Japanese air support in the Far East rules can  be quite detrimental to the Allies. 

Cheers John 

TRUSS BRIDGE 28mm

Next project for the Far East was to build a bridge, I scratch built it used MDF. I cut out the desired pieces of MDF with the help of my brothers table saw and a Mitre box which speed up the process of cutting the MDF.

Normally the top of the bridge would have more reinforcement  poles however  I reduced the number to 3. This allows for easier access for placement and movement of figures/vehicles within the bridge structure.

The road area is made from a sheet of cardboard glued in place with PVA glue. I also scribed lines on the cardboard with a blunt instrument and added a bit of fine grit onto the road surface and edges.

Undercoated  with black Primer.

Applying a base coat of Vallejo Model colour Intermediate Green

I used this as the base colour for the bridge 

I added VMC Iraqi sand to the base to highlight, also added chipping with Black paint, rust with VGC Carne Marron Tan and a few stains with Agrax Earthshade.
I used VMC Biege Brown as a base for the road and highlighted by adding VMC Iraqi sand to the base.

PVA was added to a few spots on the inner corners of the bridge.

Added Woodland Scenic Blended Turf.

View I some of the detail with some bird poop to the left of the bridge.

I based the bridge colour on this one in Malaysia 

Bridge on the gaming table.

Japanese troops and vehicles crossing the bridge in the Far East.
Onto the next Far East project.

CHEERS JOHN 

LANCHESTER 6 X 4 ARMOURED CAR and BELFORD QLD 4x 4 TRUCK

With the release of the Far East Handbook I have started to work on more terrain and spent this long weekend putting together a Belford QLD truck, cleaning up sprues on Lanchester Armoured car and painted them both. 

The Belford QLD truck is a Rubicon plastic product while the Lanchester Armoured car is a OTP 3D print I purchase many years ago.  The Rubicon model is a sturdy, well detailed model, quick and easy to put together while the Lanchester is sturdy, it does lack sharp detail, however is workable on the gaming table.

I have also started painting up Australia troops in Tropical uniform for the Far East and early days of the Pacific theater. I choose 28mm 8th army Desert Rats plastics from Perry Miniatures for this task. The added benefit of their Khaki uniform does allow them to be used for the  North African theater hopefully when Chain of Command starts to cover that period.

The truck has a 2 tone camo while the Armoured car is mono toned.
I followed the painting technic and colour guide listed on my blog.

The Lanchester Armoured car was used by the 2nd Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders in the Far East.

A bit of trivia for those curious why the crew name their vehicle "Arethuse" "......Arethusa is a girls name is of Greek origin from Greek mythology, Arethusa was a nymph pursued by a river god, who was changed by Artemis into a stream to avoid a fate worse than death....".

The cargo is removable so I can also use it as scatter terrain. 

Cheers John 

O GROUP Demo game

My gaming buddies Steve and Chris have been talking up O GROUP  for a while now, I was keen to see the game in action so they played the game while I followed on with  my PDF rules of the game.

They used my 10mm figures from Mini Figs and vehicles from Arrowhead miniatures that I had painted up many years ago before I was swept up by Chain of Command and moved up to 28mm minis.

I build the module desert Hex terrain  from scratch, many years ago in  preparation to play another set of rules which I never got around to playing. Anyway it was great to see how O GROUP played out and we are planning another demo game in two weeks.

The objective of the game was for the 8th army (Steve) to secure and hold the village from the  DAK forces (Chris) which they managed to achieve. The DAK forces reached their 3rd FUBAR token and game came to a end. 

Steve and Chris gaming.

The objective secure and hold the village.

As I have not based by 8th army and DAK figures we utilized some late war figures instead.

Crusader Platoon taking up a Hull position while engaging a platoon of Panzer III's. 

Crusaders managed to destroy one of the Panzer III. 

FIRST GAME OF CHAIN OF COMMAND FOR 2024

Set up my gaming table at home and started gaming again, last time I played CoC was Christmas 2023, Early war Brits vs early war Germans, played the Hasty defence scenario from the 1940 handbook. The Brits were holding the Germans at bay and preventing them from achieving their objective but we did not conclude the game as it was getting late. 

Here are a few images; 

Cheers John

DICE TOWER with built in silencer

I made a portable dice tower, with 5mm MDF equipped with a Perspex window to view the dice tumbling down the tower, unfortunately the lack of thickness of the wood resulted in  one very noisy dice tower. 

To combat this I made another dice tower but this time I purchased a thin rubber sheet from the 2 dollar store. Once more, I used 5mm MDF and cut out all the parts of the tower, then applied Gorilla glue onto all the inner surfaces of the dice tower that would be in contact with the dice and placed them on the rubber sheeting. 

Once the glue dried, I carefully cut out each piece of  the tower from the rubber material. I sprayed all  parts of the tower  black that were not lined with the rubber material with black spray can. 

Allowed a couple of days for the paint to dry, then carefully drilled pilot holes for the tiny screws, secured all the parts together first with glue and then added the screws. I drilled suitable holes on the underside of the tower to accommodate some small earth magnets and glued them in place, then aligned thin metal strips on the bottom plate of the tower to enable the tower to be used with or without the base.

Happy with the results of  the silenced tower.  

My completed new Dice tower with the internal rubber sheeting and removable base.

My first Dice tower without the internal rubber sheeting.

The new silenced Dice Tower with the internal rubber sheeting.

The benefit of the removal base is that once the dice are rolled the tower can be removed to reveal the results of the dice throw. 

The thin black rubber sheet I used for the tower.

The new portable tower next to the fixed tower (I built a long time ago) we used in my gaming room.

Cheers John