A dreich week

A fairly lazy week so far, I based my new Paras but still have not made a move on getting some primer, I hope to persuade the memsahib to come in here for an hour so that I can get to town today and then get moving on everything that needs primed.

I finished the second of the Panzer III's this morning, no I am not impatient I just left some bits and pieces off last night and it was only going to take a few minutes to glue them. These kits are very good and cover every PzIII you would need to take you from the invasion of Poland to the odd few left in the ruins of Berlin. I chose an M and a command tank. The panzerbefehlswagen of course has several aerials, now two of these are to be modeled in the down position but you can change this and put the aerial base in the upright position. That sounds good but a brush bristle as recommended or thin plastic I suspect are not going to last long on a wargame table, I therefore used wire for my aerials and had to drill the holes on the two at the sides close but not on the aerial base, once painted I suspect no one will notice. I was hoping to be able to build the Flammpanzer turret from all the spares but you do not get two turret base plates, you could bodge it but I won't, what a lot of useless plastic you are left with, better hope Extinction Rebellion don't get a whiff of it.
 

Sprues from about four kits.

 I have also completed my Kriegsmarine squad, a nice little group of figures from Warlord, while reading Bloody Streets I now might add Spaniards, French and another German Waffen SS squad which I use as panzergrenadiers and need, would like, a reserve squad for them.

My next Von Luck game is a Para counterattack back into Ranville, possibly a bad move for the Red Devils but it is needed to put a delay on the panzergrenadiers and some pressure on Matt. I hope to build the table today and get started this week at some point.

The missus had booked us away for the weekend in the North Lakes, as you know I am not an outdoor type but I did need a break from the PO, don't laugh, we arrived at 1692 near Gosforth and it was first class, a five bedroom farm conversion finished to a very high standard. Did I mention it was raining on the way there? We were very close to the Roman Fort in Hardknott Pass and I said I would like to see it before our intended walk along Wastwater lake. What a desperate journey, the roads are very narrow and in places you have to back up if you meet anything coming the opposite way, the road up the pass was simply horrendous, thank god we did not meet anything on the way up, it was only suitable for a Roman cart. We eventually pulled in at a little sign which if you blinked you would have missed it, the laughable parking space needed some TLC from some Roman engineers. You cannot see the fort from the road but I took charge and headed up the hill to the crest, and yes there was the fort. It is a very good example of an Early Imperial fortress, I suppose it does protect the pass but I suspect that the Wall made it redundant, it was abandoned soon after building and only used once again for a short time thereafter. It was manned by a cohort of Dalmatians for whom I suspect it was a dire posting having come from the sunny Mediterranean. Oh, yes and it was raining.
The downpour at the lake prevented us getting out of the car so we gave up and went back to base.

On the Sunday we headed to St. Bees and a walk along the beach, I have never been so wet, despite all the foul weather clothing the rain eventually began to seep through. We managed to get a coffee and the high wind dried us out a bit in between the rain showers. Off to Seascale and another sodden tramp, a rather nice ice cream cheered me up but it was no good, out came the white flag and back to base. If our accommodation had not been so good we would have gone home. And the day we returned to civilisation, beautiful!

Friend Rob has just popped in and for a change we were not overly disturbed by customers while chatting. There is a huge diorama of Waterloo being planned and the organiser has asked for volunteers to paint up the figures, Rob has asked the club and we are doing a Prussian Landwehr battalion, he popped in my contribution so I can get started, 25 figures for now. He also volunteered, real life permitting, to join in the Ranville counterattack above, so watch this space.