Maarten's Gaming and Painting Blog
Friday 29 October 2021
A Bolt Action Campaign, part 3: counterattack at Mill
Tuesday 17 August 2021
A Bolt Action Campaign, part 2
By the fourth turn the germans had, at a cost, taken the three dutch pillboxes. The dutch however, despite the accurate german artillery, still firmly held the trenchlines with multiple units on ambush. A few fluke dicerolls had even enabled them to save two of the three pillbix crews from destruction and retreive them safely behind the lines.
Friday 6 August 2021
A Bolt Action campaign: may 1940, invasion of the Netherlands
Sunday 22 December 2019
Imperial Guard Battalion race to finish
The whole battalion in its current incarnation.
Monday 3 April 2017
28mm Dutch Marines Review
Yesterday a friend of mine brought in a few packs of May 40's new 28mm Dutch Marines. He picked them up for me at a local gameshow. I got a full squad of Marines(12), a set of three marine officers and a small separate three man Lewis team, aptly named the Rotterdam Team, for their poses where inspired by a locally famous painting of the Marines defending Rotterdam against the Germans.
Even though I have slightly to many projects going at the moment, I couldn't resist opening theblacks up. The Marine squad contains a mix of 12 different Marines in battledress and in long coats. One Lewis Gunner and a sergeant are included. The quality of the sculpts is very fine, and only a little flash. The detailing is excellent, the rifles have clearly sculpted bolts and even the anchors on the helmets are clearly visible. The quality of my tablet's camera don't do the models justice.
The size of the models is just a fraction larger than the warlord games plastics (even back than the Dutchie's were taller☺), but right on par with most metal ww2 ranges, and they blend in nicely on the battlefield with my BTD early war Germans and fallschirmjager. Because of May 40's attention to detail there really is only one flaw to find, and that is more of a personal taste: the helmets on a few of the models seem to sit somewhat high on their heads, which can look a bit funny to me at times. I'm really looking forward to painting these miniatures up, and fielding them in a few Rotterdam skirmishes against some of my disembarking German luftlande division.
Saturday 18 February 2017
Battle of the bulge scenario 2
Today we started playing the scenarios from the bolt action supplement Battle of the Bulge. First up was the battle of Hurtgen Forest, with some veteran Americans trying to take down a German fortified position occupied by regular units. I took a veteran Sherman to accompany my three units of veterans supported by two Mmg's and a sniper.
The German left flank was heavily defended, so I chose to attack their right flank with the majority of my units. The scenario special rules gave the German some fortifications, minefields(the green patches) and ambush positions, and limited visibility in the heavily wooded and hilly forest.
A carefully placed German flamethrower team funneled my troops through a narrow corridor. Some bad dice rolls and -draws saw my gallant attack slowly grind down to a bloody halt, the Sherman destroyed and a desperate dash of my commanding officer proved futile. Even though the Germans suffered some serious casualties, the veteran gebirgsjager were firmly in control of the pillbox and trenches.
All in all we had a blast: the scenario was quite well ballanced and the special rules added some nice touches. Looking forward towards the next scenario!
Monday 26 December 2016
28mm Dutch farm
Recently I purchased Sarissa's Dutch farm as a terrain piece for my early war Dutch and fallschirmjager to fight over. I'm pleasantly surprised by the kit. It's only the second lasered MDF kit I ever bought, but putting it together was rather easy, and the fit is excellent.
It consists out of a single ground floor, decided into two sections, two upper floors (no stairwell), and two roof sections. If you want great interior detailing you'll have to add some, but if like me, your main interest is a sectioned building suitable for bolt action, the structure is spot on. The size off the kit possitively surprised me, almost completely covering an A4 sheet.
After a quick fur brown spray painting was quick. Not entirely satisfied with the result though, so I'll add some more detailing later. The cardboard shutters fit reasonably well but don't paint up very good, I'd like to have seen them in MDF as well.
Tyrants Legion under construction
After much deliberation and a chance encounter in our hobby room with a the recent killteam box containing a full plastic tactical squad, I settled on building my centurions out of these parts. I also came up with just enough resin industrial/rubble bases to base my fledgeling Tyrants Legion on them. To make the process of building a new army manageable, I decided to go build and paint them in 500 put blocks.
Presented below is the first block; an imperial guard HQ command with meltagun and lascannon(not pictured), a ten men infantry squad with flamer and missile launcher (the tyrant guard combined marine and guard elements, I wanted the guardsmen to emulate Marines by carrying their signature weapons) a Chimera armoured transport and a single marine centurion. Since the marine codex doesn't allow veteran sergeants as independent characters , the only option is to make him a techmarine.
The guardsmen where painted a decade ago and have him surviving in a plastic bag ever since, so are in need of some touching up and adding some tyrant legion colours.
Saturday 17 December 2016
Revival!!!
A second attempt to revive my blog, mainly because it's an efficient way of sharing project progress. Currently running projects include, but aren't limited to, 28mm bolt action Prinses Irene brigade carrier patrol section, adeptus mechanicus guard army, 15mm bolt action and joining in a 2nb edition 40k Badab war campaign.
The latter project has had me scrounging through my stores, looking for suitable models. I'm aiming to build a 1500 pnts Tyrants Legion; an attempt by Lufgt Huron to rebuild the Imperial Army of old. I've selected my partially painted platoon of cadian shock troops to form the core of my army, supported by a handfull of Astral Claw marines. I'm still in doubt as to which models to use for the marines.
Wednesday 18 November 2015
Early war german paratroopers
Some support paratroopers for bolt action and chain of command. Mainly engineers plus an antitank rifle and a light mortar.
Friday 7 August 2015
Adeptus support for the Imperial Guard
I've stumbled across some of my adeptus models in various stages of painting. And recently acquired five battle sisters. Currently I have three assassins ( of which two are actually necromunda spyerers) 5 Arbiter, 5 seraphim, an inquisitor, a techpriest, two frateris militia and some naval advisors. I'll assemble them and try to get them painted soon.
Thursday 30 July 2015
German fallschirmjager for Bolt Action
Although I planned to paint a lot more during my holiday, I did manage to finish the first batch of my early war fallschirmjager. I've fudged the machine guns a bit, because I own only two mg34's, so the rest are mg42's. These fallschirmjager are to be used as enemies of my dutch reinforced platoon. Shown in the pictures are an officer, an air force liaison, a mmg and four squads of jager with an machine gun each.
Some engineers, a light artillery piece and a 37mm at gun are still in the mail, who together with some early war regular army troops whom I will use as the German 22nd airlanding division, will round out my German force for Fall Gelb battles.