Feeling Spacey

In keeping with the flight theme, next up Space... the final... well you know.

As the 2 or 3 of you who follow these eratic ramblings may recall I've mentioned 'Project Z' a couple of times, which is my ongoing effort at a space campaign.  I've posted some attempts at finding ships with the right feel for what I want, but haven't really found anything that felt right.  Although now, maybe I just go old school and repurpose the ship designs most of my generation of wargammers recognize.

A couple of months go while digging through some boxes I stumbled on my StafFleet Battles stuff from the mid thru late 1980's.  Sadly, none of the Federation Heavy Cruisers had survived their time in mothballs (The pylons for the Nacelles were super thin, super soft lead and had needed repaired several times before they went into mothballs, and they had all broken again over time and multiple moves.  The Klingons, on the other hand, while all the warp engines had snapped off, a few were recoverable, but the ones I could recover were all for the same side of the ship, so no joy there.

In addition to the sad state of the mothballed fleet mentioned above, I also discovered a couple of unopened blister packs from the 80's.  So, off to the the Amarillo Design. Bureau store on shap ways and soon most of the below arrived.  (fun fact, in the late 80's and early 90's, for a while I was traveling to Amarillo fairly regularly on business.  The hobby shop whose name I don't recall, was located in a mostly abandoned shopping mall but I was able to get to meet most of the ADB folks).

All figures are Amarillo Design Bureau (Shaeways store), except for 1 Heavy Cruiser and the stations.

We start with a couple of Frigates

And a slightly different view

Followed by Destroyers

And a slightly different view of the Destroyers

The local star must. have sent out a flare at the time this image was captured resulting in the poor quality.

And some New Light Cruisers

And finally, the fan favorite Heavy Cruisers.  The one in the center is the one made from lead instead of all this 3D printed stuff  as I recall.  (I'm sure 3D printing is just a phase [like cassette tapes vs. 8-track tapes] and soon everything will be back to lead, right?  ... right?) 

The local system's star seems to have entered an active phase and washed out these images as well.  The Science Officer should have caught that before allowing the images to be published. 

Support ships, in this case a New Light Cruiser Scout and and Destroyer Scout.

Support bases, I hear the one on the left has implemented a no-tribble policy.  These are lead that I've had for at least a decade and a half, maybe 3 decades.

And the ships out on a major fleet maneuver

My hope is this diversion in painting a couple of months ago will rekindle the energy on Project Z.  A while back Joe and I had a good discussion about how truly massive the Universe is and how easy it would be to have multiple genres in the same universe, maybe I could build on that thought as well. Or maybe I'll end up going a completely different direction.

Hopefully I can get back to painting proper lead/pewter figures soon.

So much lead (and now plastic) and so little time.

Blood Red Skies - Luftwaffe

 Hot on the tails of the RAF, next up we have German contingent for the Battle of Britain.

At some point I'll go more into the campaign system and the record keeping.

First up, a Squadron of FW-190's.

The first Squadron of Bf-109's

The second Squadron of Bf-109's

A Squadron of BF-110's.  Hopefully they do better on the table top than in real life

A flight of HE-111 bombers

And here they are all formed up and ready to cross the channel and cause some mayhem.

Knowing that I'll be playing this campaign this winter is a bright side to the fast approaching snow fall.  I hope everyone has had a great summer so far and continues to have a good one.

So much lead, (and now plastic) and so little time.

Blood Red Skies - RAF

Wow, it has been a while.  But just because I've been silent doesn't mean I haven't been busy - or at least had some accomplishments.  After all it is finally summer up here in Vacation Land, so not a lot time of hobby activities, that's what the 8 months of winter are for - LOL.

The first set of the terrain boards for the Faux Fulda Project (debacle? train wreck?) are done.  More that in a later post, there were some positives, some disappointments but it was probably a little overly ambitious for the first attempt a terrain boards.  The painting of vehicles and troops is coming along nicely, but I really hate painting micro armor  infantry.  

On to something more upbeat.  

In the last post all of those months ago I mentioned Blood Red Skies.  The Wing Commander book includes Solo play guidelines as well as a nice Battle of Britain campaign (a little heavy on record keeping but that may get tweaked a bit).  So, with an eye towards a winter solo campaign, figures were ordered and received and pigment applied.  

First up, the RAF forces.  I still need to order more propellers from Litko one of these days.

A squadron of Hawker Hurricane's

The first squadron of Spitfires

Second squadron of Spitfires

A squadron of Lend-Lease P-40's

A squadron of Mosquito's.  While technically they entered service too late for the Battle Britain, I'm showing them here since they're painted.

And finally, all of the RAF forces that will be available for this winters Battle of Britain campaign.

That's it for now.  Enjoy what's left of the summer, snow starts to fall in about a 2 months.

So much lead (and apparently plastic too) and so little time.