Egging Myself on over Easter....Part 3

S.M.S. Blucher - the ultimate armoured cruiser but no match for 12" and 13.5" shells

It has been a busy bank holiday weekend and to be honest, I am surprised that I have been able to get as much done as I have. Aside from various shopping trips we also had friends over for lunch on Sunday which was great. A roast leg of lamb the size of the Isle of Wight and several bottles of wine later I decided that perhaps painting 1/2400th scale ship models would not be such a great idea after all....

As mentioned in a previous post, the typed up special abilities for Angels 20/Bandits High have been passed over to Mr Fox and he has spent some time looking over my assessments of the same. Happily we seem to agree over most of my classifications and so the next stage will be to 'drill down' into applying these in a more logical fashion by type and pilot. This will not be a difficult task but it will take some time but will really make a difference when completed.

The new German additions - SMS Blucher, SMS Scharhorst and Gneisenau and two of the later Konigsberg class - Konigsberg and Emden

The biggest news though is that I have completed the 16 cruisers destined for Fezia, Rusland and Germany. Five of these are for Germany - Blucher, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and a pair of the 'Konigsberg 2' class light cruisers. Seven are for Fezia and the remaining four are going to Rusland. Of the models used the Blucher, Scharnhorst and Kongsberg were all from Stonewall whilst the Nymphe and the assorted Giuseppe Garibaldi types were all from Viking Forge. I have to say that the Blucher is not a great casting and by far the worst of the lot is the Scharnhorst - it is truly grim! The overall outline is OK but there is little or no detail to speak of and so the paint job is very much a triumph of hope rather than expectation! The Konigsberg is a lovely model though; as are all the Viking Forge castings. The latter has a nice level of surface detail that catches the brush really well when highlighting and drybrushing.

Fezia gained the most in the way of new ships - three armoured cruisers; Abdul Aziz, Hamid and Mejid; two protected cruisers - Nijim-i-Shevket and Assar-i-Shevket and a pair of big light cruisers - Isa Reis and Hizar Reis

I was rather pleased with how the four Garibaldi type cruisers came out and It has made me think very seriously about using either Viking Forge or C in C to a/ replace the duff castings of the Scharnhorst and b/ to fill the gaps in the ranges available from Stonewall. Either way though, this will have to wait until I am in gainful employment once again and the coffers are restocked!

Dare I say it? A packet of Garibaldis....The Rusland armoured cruisers Admiral Butakov, Admiral Nevelskoi, Muravev Amurski and Admiral Kornilov

Of the three things I wanted to get done over the long weekend I have managed to tackle two of them which is not bad really. The fleets are growing rapidly in terms of what is available to use - especially those of Fezia and Rusland - and the air stuff has had a big chunk of the donkey work addressed. I missed out on a game but will be rectifying that over the next few days as well as assembling and painting the sixteen assorted pre-dreadnoughts I have for both Fezia and Rusland. Each side will have four old coastal defence types and four modern mainstream battleships. Once these have been completed the dreadnoughts will follow although I shall first of all want to tackle some back filling of the Royal Navy and the High Sea Fleet.

The Fezian cruiser Hizar Reis

The Fezian protected cruiser Assar-i-Shevket

The Rusland armoured cruiser Admiral Kornilov

I will need to paint destroyers. Lots of destroyers....;-)