Painting update: Tanks and boats and infantry ...

It's been a very busy few weeks at work which is my excuse for the lack of blog posts over the last 2 or 3 weeks... lots of weekend and evening meetings and pretty long days.  Despite this I've managed a few games and bit of painting.

I played a game of 'Tanks' a couple of weeks ago.  This is a fairly light tanky skirmish game which I'd actually bought a couple of years ago in a moment of weakness after playing in a demo game at a show somewhere.  I don't think I've actually taken it out of the box and had been contemplating sticking it on eBay but my friend Anthony also has a set and tempted me to give it a go.  Tanks has a WW2 version (which I have) and a modern game which is the one we played.  I say modern but 1980 is almost 4 years ago as my son likes to remind me!!

The game was good fun...not hugely deep but ideal for squeezing 2 or 3 games in an evening.   There are lots of upgrades and bonuses which can be applied to the tanks to give a bit more flavour.  in our first game we found that, with 1 tank per side, there is very little movement.... the tanks tend to take up a good position and sit there trading shots until one is destroyed.  I was gradually losing this attritional game so decided to recklessly charge across the table sacrificing cover for speed with the end result that I still died but also blew up the enemy tank with my last shot. 

Our second game should have been a bit more tactical with 2 Soviet tanks against 1 beefed up Abrams.  In the event the US tank was immobilised by a lucky shot and failed to move for several turns leaving it an easy target for the Russians.  It would have been good to have seen a bit more movement but the game has some promise as a lightweight bit of fun and it would be interesting to see how it compares with 'What a Tanker' from Too Fat Lardies (yet another game I own but haven't played!)

I've also managed to keep up my painting mojo and have completed a box of British AWI infantry

I used GW contrast paints again for the red coats on a white undercoat.   I find a white base very un-nerving as I worry about it showing through but actually it worked ok and made the red stand out quite brightly.

I've been in 2 minds about the new Black Seas Napoleonic naval game from Warlord but was tempted enough to pick up some of the freebie ships on the most recent issue of Wargames Illustrated.  I bought a couple of issues so I have a Frigate and 2 Brigs.  They are very nice models and pretty easy to assemble.  I think there are definitely some right ways and some wrong ways to assemble and paint these.  It definitely makes sens to build and paint the hulls before attaching the masts.  I painted the masts on the sprue which was a first for me but it seemed to make sense.

I think I need to give more thought about the order I paint the detail as well...trying to pick out the guns  while not spoiling the neat lines on the side of the hull or the deck colour was quite tricky and I might need to do these in a different order

The hulls assembled and undercoated

A generic Frigate

...and the Brigs

In the starter set these models come with sails and thread for rigging as well as some printed ratlines. As these are freebies the sails can be downloaded from the WI website.  I'm still in 2 minds about whether to add these or not but  I'm going to attempt some rigging...wish me luck!!!