What once was hidden.....

Now is found....
I really can't believe I out together all these galleries and never posted them. I guess the site just got too big for me to notice they were missing! What's more, it's been a very busy week, so even just getting this little blog post written up has taken me the week, without having to take the photos. Thank heavens they were there for me to use!

6mm has always been a popular scale for me, and I think, thus by default, for my viewers so this should provide some interest, and with the embarrassing age of some of the pictures, some entertainment for you all - the Epic war machines gallery (44 pictures) is now live. Nothing new there, but a fair variety!

Returning to the historical side of things, but still from among the hidden vaults, there's a gallery for a flames of War German commission I completed a decade or so ago. To say my styles have changed is an understatement, but hey, I was proud at the time and the customer was happy! (20 pictures)

New galleries: 2

New pictures: 64

In the pipeline....

Its been a long time since I updated much at all here, and I've talked about the many projects I'm working on without much proof.

As we all kow "It didn't happen if there's not pictures", so here's a little "proof" that I have indeed been busy lately...

First up my Firestorm Invasion army. I only just Blogged the gallery for these guys earlier today, but as you can see its grown considerably since those photos were taken, and even the bases on the old models have been added to so it is in fact completely out of date already!

Then there's the last of the Kraytonian army which were painted a couple of months ago, and are actually almost ready for a proper gallery at last! The pic below is just the latest reinforcemets to the far larger complete force... 

Beyond that, I have finally had the excuse to work on a 28mm Soviet army of my own. I've wanted to since I did a commission force and had a few models kept in storage from those days. Of course, when I say a few... 

And then there's my flames of war forces. But whilst I've done a fair bit of work on them, there's few which I'd call complete just yet. They're ext up for final touches after just a few more soviets!  Then of course there's the "Tank Park" which is my current "To Do" board....

A fair selection of vehicles from different nationalities and eras on there. Mostly Forged in battle bought cheap from various sources - very nice models and I'll be painting as many as I can for ebay, so plenty of varied updates to come!

Well, that at least proves that I'm not idle even if it does fall short of a proper gallery update. More soon!

More from me for once!

Of gaming... 
The festive season hasn't all been food and photo uploads this year (though there will be more of those later in the day), I've managed to roll a few dice here and there as well!

First of all there was the "Painting and gaming retreat". That is to say I had a few mates round during the day on christmas eve to play some games and do some miniature slaughtering before the family overdoses began.

Space Hulk Smash:
I played what can only be described as an epic game of space hulk. I was the stealers, and Simon and Mo took on a squad of terminators each. Simon was unlucky and I got to him fast, chomping both his flamer and his lieutenant within the first few turns. However, it was the evacuation mission and he managed to get one guy out so not a complete failure.

Mo on the other hand was indeed blessed of the dice gods on that day. Performing a perfect fighting retreat, he killed scores of genestealers in multiple locations. Giddeon (? thunder hammer dude..) himself was responsible for 60 xenos deaths - he simply couldn't put a (cautious) foot wrong. With plenty of snacking, chatting and festive tales intermingled, we managed to make one mission last about 3 hours!

The rest of the day was spent with the other guys, painting and chatting about festive hobby plans until we parted ways to head off to various pubs and family events for the evening. Its at this point I realise I've achieved none of those hobby targets except website updates.....

And FoW too:
But it doesn't end there. Once a month we meet up at a local pub for Hobbyists Drinks, and last night was the latest of these. Beforehand, Eddie came to my place to start a game of Flames of war. I fielded everything I have made up for my tank Company (2225points) ad he took a small selection out of his Estonian SS collections to face against me (his small selection also being about 2225 points... ). The grand plan had been to start the game at a ice relaxed pace, head to the pub, then finish it off sometime over the weekend.

There's no need to finish it off. It was a massacre!
My brave Yanks would be the attackers in the Hasty Engagement mission. Unfortunately they paid heavily for their lack of planning.

Before me was arrayed a single squad with attached HMGs and Pak 40, spread thin to be within reach of both objectives. The Pak40 stood facing mennacingly up the cobbled road through the center of the board.  On their left flank stood two .88's and on their right, the remaining two Pak40's.

Those fearsome, but stationary, AT emplacements were the least of my worries however, for as the attacker in this mission, I barely crossed the center line. The reason for this being 3 Panthers anchoring the center of the German line. Less Anchors however, more harpoons. The Panthers were immune to my fire from the front, and rolled forward in the first four turns to be within just a few inches of my base line destroying everything in their path, whilst my carefully surrounding fire bounced off from all angles completely inefficiently.

When I finally managed to get a few shots on target, and subsequently got some infantry in ready to finish the job, my battle weary forces turned around to be met by the german lines, almost untouched, before them. We attempted to move forwards once more, but a combination of the torrent of AT fire, the arrival of a Tiger reserve unit and some very fine Goliath Maneuvering left me with no units in Eddies table half at the end  of turn 6, and the battle was lost.

Great game, but I got to the pub with my head hung low.

Saluting waffle...

Of Salute....
 Well, That's Salute done with for another year!

I was painting a couple of commissions (no, I dont really do those....) for the show and also painting as much World of Twilight as I could squeeze in. I didn't want to be buying loads more when I still had a heap unpainted - that would be totally against the theory of the Pledge!

The day itself was another great one, full of catching up with old friends, making soem new ones, putting faces to well known names and talking all things model and paint. Whats more, I actually rolled a lot of dice without it being "work"! Amazing result! I played a few games of World of Twilight, had a great intro of Timeline 300, and even played a demo of Flames of War V3. More on the gaming later.

 The Shock of the show for everyone was Dropzone Commander. 10mm sci-fi with great sculpting and model design, and an impressively large range which nobody saw coming! I'm very much looking forward to putting brush to resin with these figures. Lots of pictures can be found in the thread on TacComms here.

Another highlight for myself was finally meeting Chris "Curis" from Ninjabread. I've watched his blog for years, and heard many a good report on the man himself from Epic Tournament goers. I popped by his stand to pick up a copy of his new book - punishment of the Dice Gods and ended up temporarily taking over his stall frontage whilst we talked epic and looked through a few epic bits from my miniatures case. The Book is great - I highly recommend it for anyone who's not adverse to laughter!

The Obligatory Purchase List: 
A Pile of World of Twilight figures. I'm not counting them. I dont want to. :p
Two Cans of Coat D'arms Matt Varnish - I love the stuff.
 Warhammer Historicals Legends of the Old West and Showdown - they had a sale one, couldn't resist!
Peter Pig Destroyed Sherman & Jeep markers / Objectives.
 Half a Flames of War Intro Box with my Mate Ed "The Fez" Turner - I get the Shermans... you can see where this is going!
Ninjabread, Punishment of the Dice Gods (Signed, no less!)

 Overall I think the show felt nice and busy, but still had plenty of space between the stalls and the games. The display games were as impressive as ever, and those hosting demo games were doing a great job of keeping the punters entertained. Beasts of War had put on a large Hobby Lab area which looked busy every time I passed it and the trade stands were uniformly Bustling. A success for all!

Of Salute Gaming...
I've actually got a bit to report! I played Timeline 300 at Salute. Its 10mm Victorian Sci-Fi, and is being made by Troublemaker Games. What sets this apart is that there's a Construction and resources back end to the game but it IS a miniatures wargame. You start with a number of Coal mines, and a construction unit. Every turn your mines generate coal, and you may use this to construct new fighting units from your mobile construction unit and bring new forces to bear. Do you save up your points for an enormous Landship, or flood the field with infantry quick & try to overrun your foe? Love it! The game mechanics themselves are quite simple, fast flowing and fun. There's ironing to do, but it certainly has some good concepts and I'd happily play it again. Oh, and if you're playing as the Martians, DONT run your construction unit forwards - you are restricted by soem killer minimum ranges as I found out myself!

 I Played Flames of War. First time in a few years, but it hasn't changed too much. It was just 3 shermans Vs 2 Stugs, and I got killed in the end, but I didn't take too much persuading, and now I'm looking into a small American force. Yes yes, I've only recently finished selling off my huge Soviet forces, but who cares, that's Hobby!

 I also played World of Twilight. I love the game, but dont get to play much so I took my collection to salute and saw them in action as demos as well as playing myself.
Thanks to Gekilian (Chris! or hereafter, the Tactical Prof. ) for a great game. I certainly didn't deserve to come out with a draw. My Slingers are now the SS - the elite "Suicide Slingers" unit. Herder Captains are great additions if you have your head screwed on (which I clearly didn't). I also take back any bad word I ever said against Commander Brenar's usefulness in smaller games. If he's that lucky next time I use him then he's a permanent addition to my forces. Having watched my own poor commandership see to the death of most of my forces and helping me out couple of pointers, Chris then had to watch as Brenar refused to die until the last moment, taking down 2 devanu and a small sea of Grishak with him, leaving an empty board at the end of a marathon game!

Its Sale Time!

This time usually comes around regularly here at Hobby Brush HQ, but hasn't done so for a while. Well, with a free-listings weekend at Ebay.co.uk, I've shoved a load of stuff up and we'll see what goes!

Listings include: http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Warmachine
Hordes
15mm Medieval, Sassanids, Fantasy dwarves, undead and other Humans.
6mm WWII Soviets
15mm (FoW) WWII Soviets
And a bunch of other stuff besides!

Check out all my auctions HERE

Painting New, Uploading old...

I'm afraid its all old stuff again this week, as I work my way through the thousands of miniatures I've painted in years gone by and work out which of the photos I deem reasonable enough for public viewing!

I am still painting a mixture of my own projects and a couple of small commissions, but I've not managed to get anythign in front of the camera for a month or so. Thus, I do hope that variety will make up for the lack of any new brush work for the time being!

Whats New?
Following up from the MotoStrelkovy last time around, this time its the Soviet FoW Tankovy Gallery - 22 pictures
And a very small German Commission - 4 pictures
Black Tree Designs Fantasy Gallery - 6 pictures
6mm Goblin Gallery - 15 pictures (you gotta start somewhere...)
6mm amazon gallery - 14 pictures (ditto!)
And, just because we're missing the sci-fi element so far this week, a VOID gallery to finish off - 27 pictures

Todays totals:
New Galleries - 6
New Images - 88

LotR Dwarves, Rohirrm, Warhammer Empire, Modern Delta Force, and *deep breath* WWII FoW Soviet Motostrelkovy... phew!

Its update time again!

Another random selection of old projects for you today, including:
One of my favourite projects for Lord of the Rings - a Dwarven Warband - 14 pictures
My biggest and quickest - to - paint projecrt for LotR - Rohirrm - 7 pictures

Following on from the last update, a second Empire Gallery int he WHFB section - 10 pictures
Taking a historical turn....
Ultra-modern Delta Force galery from TAG miniatures - 6 pictures

And Finally, because the picture numbers need bolstering, the first Flames of War gallery of my own collections, the Soviet Motostrelkovy - 58 pictures :)

Today's totals:
New Galleries: 5
New pictures: 95 (so close!)

Snow is here, and so are the updates!

Its been snowing here in Surrey, UK, and that means everything stops working in England. Including me! Not by choice, but there isn't much one can do on a roof under 6 inches of snow!

So, I've been uploading pictures and creating galleries for a couple of hours & there's plenty more to come!

So, what's new?
General galleries:
First up a gallery that actually contains some relatively new models!
SoW Objectives gallery - 16 pictures

And then lots of old projects to fill in a few of the many gaps still to go...

15mm Dwarf army 2 - just 6 pictures :(
Warhammer Empire Army - 24 pictures

The Flames of war section finally opens, and with a bang!
Small british Commission - 8 pictures
DAK Army Commission - 27 pictures
and the Flames of War Objectives Gallery - 11 images.

Totals for the day -
New Gallery count: 6
Picture Count: 92 :)

And at this rate - more tomorrow!