A Quick Update

While I've been telling myself that I should be putting up more blog posts, so far 2015 has not produced much. While I didn’t post updates in February, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing any hobby related stuff. Here is a quick update on what I’ve been doing since my last post.

First up, I’ve been working on the terrain for the “Raid on St Nazaire”game that Kevin and I are going to run at Enfilade. Kevin has been working on the British ships and some terrain, while I’ve been working on terrain and Germans ships.

Here are a couple photos of the buildings and warehouses I’ve been painting up. The buildings will form the majority of the old town of St Nazaire and the warehouses will be placed near the old harbor entrance and the Normandie drydock.

Buildings for St Nazaire Old Town

Warehouses

All of the buildings are from Skywave 1/600 kits. We will probably need to scratchbuild a few more buildings and the bridges, but overall the terrain is coming together nicely.

I’ve also been thinking more about the modern submarine game. Based my previous success with Shapeways models, I decided to order a 1/700 scale Chinese Type 092 Xia class ballistic missile submarine from the Kokoda Trail Models shop. Unlike the previous order, this was the common White Strong & Flexible material and the final model feels a little grainy. Overall, I think it will paint up well and look good.

The starboard 3/4 view of the Type 092 Xia SSBN

Port side view

And it should fit in nicely with the Chinese Type 091 Han and the Kilo subs I already have.

Type 091 Han SSN (top) and a Kilo class SS (bottom)

The Kokoda Trail Models shop has several other 1/700 scale submarines that I’m thinking about too. Addtionally, it has several 1/700 scale after-market parts for warships, including sails for American Guppy submarines. One of my on-and-off side projects has been to make 1/700 scale models of American submarines, but no one makes any Guppy subs in that scale. So I ordered one of the sails and I’m going to try to add it to a modified Hobby Boss Balao class sub. The sails only come in Frosted Ultra Detail material, so the cost of one sail was almost as much as the whole Xia SSBN. But the smoother material should fit right in with the plastic kit. If it looks good once it is painted up, I will probably look into getting the other two sails so that I can show all the basic Guppy looks.

Sail for USS Cubera

I also took a little time to play a couple boardgames. On President’s Day (in February) Dave C. and I had a chance to play the Nightfigher boardgame. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the game, it is a tactical level game about nightfighters during World War II. It is a little different in that it is semi-blind game where one player acts as an umpire and controls the bombers, while the other is the nightfighter and only “sees” what the umpire places on his map. The game plays really quick (only about 30 – 45 minutes per scenario) and we played several games in a few hours. We liked it enough that we are planning on starting a campaign (rules included in the game) and will play by email using VASSAL.

Cover of the Nightfighter game

I also had a chance to play September’s Eagles with Kevin and Casey. I talked about this game in my last post and I’ve been looking forward to trying out. While the game could use a summary sheet to remind us of some of the rules, once we got into the flow of the race it moved along nicely. Casey was the winner for the game we played and we all agreed we want to try it again.

The Gee Bee Z, Wedell Williams, and Laird Super Solution lead the pack around the first pylon.

With the update out of the way, it is back to working on the St Nazaire project.