La Blau with Magic Wash.

I just finished painting a squad of the Blue Division with the Magic Wash. I made them with half box of Warlord German plastic soldiers as they had the same unifom and equipment.
I block painted them and then washed them with the Magic Wash mix. The result is OK but I think this technique gets better on smaller scales like 1/72 th or even 15 mm.
They will soon see some action fighting against Communism in Russia! Here you can see some pictures of them. Pictures are clickable.

Acabo de terminar de pintar un pelotón de la División Azul con el Magic Wash. Los hice con media caja de los soldados alemanes de plástico de Warlord ya que usaban el mismo uniforme y equipamiento.
Los pinté con color base y luego les pasé la mezcla por encima. El resultado no está mal pero creo que esta técnica funciona mejor con escalas más pequeñas como el 1/72 o incluso los 15 mm.
¡Pronto entrarán en acción luchando contra el Comunismo en Rusia! Aquí pueden ven algunas fotos. Si pinchan en las fotos se ven más grandes.

Sargeant and Corporal. Sargento y cabo. Assaulting troops. Tropas al asalto.

Two Mg34 teams. Dos grupos de Mg34.


Group picture. Foto de grupo.

Magic Wash

I've been using wood stain to dip my miniatures for a time, but I haven't tried the Magic Wash with the Johnson floor wax so far, basically because that product does not exist in Spain. Now I have to paint around 80 Valiant German infantry to play DH&CF7B mainly, and the brown dip does not look OK on the German uniform IMO, so I decided to look for a floor wax to try to make a Magic Wash with black ink.

Llevo usando el dipping con barniz tintado desde hace un tiempo pero nunca he intentado el famoso Magic Wash, básicamente porque en España no se vende la cera acrílica para suelos de la marca Johnson. Ahora que tengo que pintar dos cajas de alemanes de Valiant para usarlos principalmente con Disposable Heroes, y que el dipping marrón no me gusta como queda con el uniforme alemán, me he decidido a buscar una cera que sirva para hacer un Magic Wash con tinta negra.

After looking in all the main shops in my town, I entered in Mercadona and there I found colourless brilliant floor wax by Bosque Verde. Next to that product there was Johnson soap for wooden floor, and the shape of the bottle was identical to the other one. Then I read the small print at the back of the bottles and noticed they both were made in the same factory in Valencia. Then I thought that maybe the Bosque Verde floor wax was a white brand of Johnson floor wax for Mercadona, that they were the same wax; so I bought one bottle for just two euros and run to try it at home.

Después de patearme todos los grandes comercios, acabé en el Mercadona de al lado de mi casa, y allí ví la CERA Autobrillante Incolora para suelos de Bosque Verde. Al lado estaba un jabón para parquet de la marca Johnson y la botella era exactamente igual a la de cera, así que leí la letra pequeña y descubrí que ambas se hacían en la misma fábrica en Valencia. Entonces pensé que quizás la cera Bosque Verde era una marca blanca de Johnson para Mercadona y me compré una botella por dos euros y volví a casa corriendo a probarla.

Once at home, I hastily block painted two Valiant German riflemen and then applied on them a mixture of Bosque Verde floor wax with a few drops of the old GW's black ink, and here you can see the results.

Una vez en casa pinté rápidamente dos alemanes de Valiant con color base y luego les apliqué una mezcla de cera con unas gotas de tinta, y aquí pueden ver los resultados.

I do not know if this wax is the same that Johnson's but I do not care as I am quite happy with the result and I am going to use it to paint all my Germans in one go! Now I must find the exact mixture of ink and wash, and maybe use lighter colours, especially for the uniform and the helmet.

Yo no sé si esta cera es o no la de Johnson pero la verdad es que me da igual porque me gusta como han quedados las miniaturas, y así es como voy a pintar el resto de una patada. Sólo tengo que encontrar la mezla correcta de tinta, y quizás usar colores más claros para el uniforme y el casco.

Down into darkness. Einar's saga chapter seven.

Einar, Fafnir and Rialto are travelling East, deep into the land of the Orcs, avoiding the evil Dark Elves and towards the Border Kingdoms. They travel keeping low profile and avoiding all contact with the Orcs, but as they cross the border and progress into the country of the Orcs, Rialto becomes restless, and when Einar inquiries about the matter, he confesses that he joined him as a mean to travel safe and retrieve a very important arcane tome lost in the hands of an Orc raiding party. He then asks Einar for help to find it as he feels it is near.

Einar feels a bit treasoned but also feels in debt with Rialto for helping him to get his sword, so he decides to help him in the end. They start to search the area and soon discover a hidden corridor that goes down into darkness.

As usual all pictures are clickable.

As soon as they entered they sprung a trap, but they managed to avoid any harm. Then the corridor turned right and they spotted a door at the end of it. The door was locked but Rialto, a resourceful magician, picked the lock easily.

Beyond the entrance they could see what it looked like a sentry room, but it was empty. The chamber had another trap and three closed doors. Rialto quickly pointed at the central one, a thick door made of stone. This one was also locked and proved to be more difficult to open, but again Rialto picked the lock without much effort.

Then they entered in a new corridor wich also had another door at the end. As they advanced towards the new door, Einar wondered in surprise why they had not met anyone so far; where the hell were the Orcs?

The group commenced to relax as nobody appeared; with a bored expression on his face, Rialto started to pick the lock of the new door once again. But Alas! Suddenly they met face to face with a huge band of Orcs, and with some Trolls too! They were waiting for them, it was a trap!

Einar reacted faster than anyone and led a charge against the brutes. He engaged with one Black Orc whereas Fafnir charged the Troll to his left. Rialto casted a domination spell on the Troll to the right, and convinced him to attack one Black Orc next to him. Pushing back and forward and exchanging blows fiercely they tried to kill each other, but the lack of room avoided any serious injuring.

One Orc close to the door tried to escape and sound the alarm, but Rialto spotted him and swiftly kill him with a "Steel Wind" spell. Another Orc joined the enraged Troll of the left to help him killing Fafnir, who managed to slain him in return but at the cost of losing all his Hardiness.

A new Orc tried to sound the alarm and this time Rialto could not stop him. Then the Troll engaged with Fafnir, released a devastating blow that almost ripped off Fafnir's head, smashing him against the wall instantly dead! Rialto, shocked in horror, tried to dominate the Troll, but he was not concentrated enough and suffered a backlash, falling to the ground out of combat.
Einar killed another Orc but then he was totally surrendered, outnumbered and outmatched.

A tremendous hit on his head left him unconscious and out of combat. Einar and Rialto were taken prisoners then and locked up in a deep and dark chamber.

Well, what can I say? This was totally unexpected. I painted a whole dungeon with lots of furniture and I have not been able to use it properly because the suckers fell in ambush too soon. Now what? All these months of Einar travelling distant lands, fighting fearsome enemies, losing dear friends and comrades, and finally getting the sword of his prophecy, for nothing?
We will see it in the next chapter ;-)

Operation Squad. Second game.

Today we played the mission 5 from the rulebook, but slightly modified. All the wonderful miniatures and terrain are from Estudio Porto.

I commanded a squad of seasoned Panzergrenadiers with two Mg34 and two servants, vs. a Red Guard squad with one sniper and one DP light machine gun with servant, commanded by Adolfo.

All the pictures are clickable.

The battlefield

There was a partisan in the middle of the table with vital information and we both had to capture him and his documents for interrogation.

German forces about to cross the road

I deployed one Mg34 with server and supported by one rifleman on each flank, and the rest of the squad behind the central wood. The Russians deployed two soldiers on the left flank, only one on the rigth one, and the rest inside the central wood in his deployment zone.

Machine guns giving support to advancing troops

While the central forces advanced towards the partisan, both flanks were shooting at each other, with the Germans dominating the left flank and the Russians the right one.

Germans dashing through the road and Russians crawling through the woods, towards the objective.

Germans exchanged with Russians wounded per dead, and soon the numeric superiority was noted.

-Schnell! -Davai!

Finally, the Germans managed to capture the partisan and take him back to their lines. Axis victory.

Operation Squad. First battle.

Today we played our first game of Operatio Squad. Our game did not go very well as I had not slept the night before and besides I had got flu, and my opponent had not read the rules. Actually, we run out of time and we could not finish it, although the victory was closer to Germans.

We played in one of the board games of a local shop, and with some of the figures from its studio.

We played the scenario number three, take the bridge, and we quickly were shooting at each other from the forests.

(We had to move the bridge off the road and put in the centre of the board as per the scenario).

Below you can see some instants from the game. All pictures are clickable.

Russians on the right flank spotted and pinned, with comissar in the forest at the bottom.

More Ruskies with a sargeant and a sniper on the left flank.
Germans closing to the bridge using the forest as cover

Germans on its left flank pinned by the Russian sniper

Here we can see the German and the Russian sargeants next to the bridge and throwing grenades at each other. The German was wounded and the Russian KIA.

I hope to post a proper battle report from our second game on friday.

HotT 48 AP battle with 28 mm. minis.

As we did not fancy anything very complex to play (we're getting old) we decided for a game ofHordes of the Things. So my buddy dusted off his two 48 AP armies and we quickly readiedthem for a battle.

I took an army of Rohan from LOTR and my buddy a Goblin army from GW. My army consisted of 1 Kn (Gn), 1 Kn, 6 Riders, 4 Wb, 4 Shooters, 4 Sp with a Sub general in it, 1 Hero and 1 Magician. The Goblin army contained 3 Behemoths, 1 Kn (Gn), 2 Beasts, 4 Shooters, 3 Riders (one of them sub general), 4 lurkers and 12 Hordes.
Below you can see the armies arrayed and already moving towards each other.
I got a lot of PIPs at the beginning and could go through the forest in no time, as my opponent unwisely chose not to use his Lurkers to stop me there. On the left flank I run with five Riders whereas on the left flank there were the Knights with the general, one Rider, the Hero and the Magician; on the center all the infantry with two shooters on each flank.
My opponent moved all his hordes between the two rough hills to protect both flanks, tried unsuccesfully to deploy his shooters on the bigger hill, and advanced with his general and the three Behemoths on my right flank.

The first melee in the battle was with my Hero against a Behemoth who retreated and stomped his general! (the one in chariot with wolves). As this was the first contact and we did not like to start a game again, we simply swapped places with the general and other unit and kept with the battle.
After that, a fierce fight for the hill ensued between the two generals, mine with knights and Hero and his with Behemoths. I had a slight advantage for being on higher terrain but my knights followed and lose such benefit, being subsequently crushed, and then the Hero and the Rider forced to retreat.
On the left flank I squeezed three units of Riders to disorganize the solid block of Hordes, while the center kept slowly advancing forward.
My three Riders on the left were surrounded and effortlessly eliminated, and my Hero barely held against the Behemoths while the Magician did nothing (actually he did nothing during all thegame due to the lack of PIPs). My infantry on the center finally clashed and started to massacre Hordes of Goblins.
The Goblin general and his Behemoths kept pressing and killed my Hero and then my Magician. All the Hordes killed were quickly redeployed again into the battlefield. I had already lost my general and now my main army, and the infantry was unable to do something effective, so we decided to finish the game in that moment with a major victory for the Goblins.
48 APs armies with 25/28 mm. figures look really impressive on the table, especially for me, used to 10 mm.

Wings of War

Right after New Year we gathered to play Wings of War, a game easy, fast and fun to play to start off with this 2011; but I could not post it until now as my PC melted down after nine years of loyal service.

The Richthofen's red Fokker I own belongs to the first serie of the game wich came without pilot, so I decided to put one and took one old GW's Epic Imperial Guard trooper and painted it like a WWI pilot; the scarf was done with a tiny piece of paper.
All pictures are clickable.

One moment during a game. Richthofen in peril!

We managed to play three games during the evening in which I was quickly shoot down in all of them, and then I played a solo game trying to destroy a balloon, but my Nieuport 16 missed all its rockets and then was shot down again by the AA.
Next day I encouraged my six years old son to play a simple game, and he enjoyed it a lot and was willing to play again another day, even though I shot down his plane!

Wings of War is an excellent game as it is very easy to learn, fast to play, miniatures are already painted and there is no need of terrain as you can play on any flat surface.