Alex McC- Painting Kiwis

So Alex has come back, we had a few issues with getting him a set of our Kiwi figures at the start (we had sold out of them completely at the time!), so he was a bit behind the rest of us in starting his Armies of Afghanistan project. But, he has managed to get some progress, showing off where his Kiwis are at!

Well, this project took a little backseat for a while, as real life tends to get in the way, and I was a little held up getting all the elements in place due to Salute, and other things!

So far, I've begun work on the first fire-team of Kiwis After some pretty exhaustive research, I've settled on a coyote-brown vest and pouches, and the two-colour desert uniform. They're progressing nicely, though I think the base colour for the uniforms may be a little yellow. Never too late to refine!

The figures themselves are lovely, and needed very little cleanup to have ready for paint. I have 3 more fire-teams to work my way through, as well as some putty work to convert some combat engineers, and a Military Working Dog team. The dog is still too early to show, but there's a conversion from the Zombicide dog set in the works, and it seemed appropriate to pick the Blue Heeler model!

I've also begun working on the Humvee for the patrol, this is a lovely piece a resin from Imprint/Empress Miniatures. I did a little sprucing up, added a ratchet clamp to the spare strap from a 1/35th kit, and made the strap out of super fine masking tape for some texture. The antenna is just a piece of brass rod, mounted into the cast bracket. I also felt it seemed a little naked with no side mirrors, so I bent some brass rod, and cut plastic sheet to make the mirrors. It worked out okay if you ask me!

That's it for now, but I now have more time to get things done!

I reckon the base colour will work out- it will look a whole lot less yellow when you put the brown splodges of colour onto it! And as for the Military Working Dog- that sounds like an awesome idea, you will definitely have to share some pictures of that.

I am definitely looking forward to seeing how these turn out.

After Action Report- Hot LZ!

Despatches II is coming together nicely, but before it can be fully completed Colin and I thought we should be sure that all of the scenarios inside it work well. Plus, we have had some comments that more AAR's will be better, so we thought we should combine the two, and show off some of the scenarios you will be able to find in Despatches II!

Note: In the pictures you will note a few clear plastic tokens and templates, these are a trial run which we have done, watch this space for when they will be released!

The mission we played was the Clear the LZ mission from Despatches II. The basic idea is that an Australian force is on patrol in a nameless village in the Urzgan province, when one of their number trips a booby trap, becoming wounded. The Auzzies call in a CASEVAC blackhawk, bad news is, they need to move to the LZ, and the Taliban are looking to ambush!

The scenario includes a Blackhawk helicopter on table, which is waiting for the auzzies to confirm that the LZ is secure so that it can land. I took charge of the Australian patrol, with Colin in control of the Taliban.

The initial Australian movements were to run onto the table, in smaller groups of two, wary of any Taliban. The ideal LZ was in a nearby field, so the Auzzies were moving at all haste to secure it.

Moving on up!

Advancing in the lush fields of Urzgan!

Unknown to the Auzzies, the Taliban had already secured key compounds in the area.

The first the Australians knew about it, was when a Novice Taliban with a PKM ran on to the table, and attempted to shoot at running digger. While a lot of noise occured, the recoil of the weapon made it next to impossible to hit (01% chance in fact!). But, morale markers onto the Auzzie.

The Auzzies returned fire, but were unable to hit, causing morale markers onto the gunner.

Even worse for the Australians, in a bypassed compound, a Taliban was hidden, lying in wait.

A Novice Taliban, what is there to fear? Well, after all the modifiers he had a 12% chance to hit. Colin rolled an 11, followed up by no less than 15 points of damage. My Body Armour save? A 1. Making a grand total of 5. Meaning the digger took 10 points of damage, and then proceeded to fail his consciousness roll. One soldier immediately out of action!

While this was happening, one of the more skilled Taliban had spotted another Australian advancing on the right flank. Again there was a very low, to hit number, but again it was hit and Colin rolled 12 wounds on him. My Body Armour save? A 1. My marksman with the HK417 took 7 wounds, and also failed his unconsciousness roll (Craig H will no doubt laugh, I keep doing that to his German marksman!).

With that shot, two soldiers immediately out of action!

It was also at this point that the CASEVAC bird arrived, and proceeded to unsuccessfully try and shoot things with it's door guns.

With the helicopter nearby, all of the Taliban were forced to take a morale test (helicopters are scary!). Unfortunatly for the Australians, all of the Taliban passed.

Making matters worse, Taliban reinforcements arrived, and promptly began unleashing a fusillade of small arms, PKM and RPG fire onto the Black Hawk. Due to the Black Hawk's speed, height and dashing good looks, none of the Taliban hit, but the helicopter was forced off table for an activation.

With the helicopter overhead, the Australians managed to clear out the novice in the compound which they missed and managed to somewhat continue their advance. A perfect grenade shot from the Underslung Grenade Launcher managed to hit no less than 4 Taliban in the KZ of the weapon, ending the threat from the far wood.

The last Taliban standing, and yes that is SIX morale markers on the poor chap. He, unsuprisingly failed his morale (he is a novice after all), and legged it.

The funny looking plastic thing in front of him is the forthcoming Grenade Template!

The Australians hunkered down in as much cover as possible, trying to survive the withering Taliban fire.

While the Australians were slowly able to reduce the numbers of Taliban, but not before an Auzzie was killed outright by a PKM gunner. At the end of the first combat turn, we called the game. The Australians had certainly not won the game, but nor had the Taliban. It was a brutal slugging match between the two forces, the Taliban had certainly taken major casualties but it would be the Australian Soldier killed, and the multiple wounded which would be on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald tomorrow.

Next time I think we might try to get the bombmaker....

Pooch

Skirmish Sangin Armies of Afghanistan – M-ATV Build part 1

We have always been more than fortunate with the people we have involved with Skirmish Sangin, all those people that offer skills I just don't posses, which all comes together to create the high quality products we create for you, our discerning audience.

We are fortunate to have in our mists the Great Queeg aka Brent one of the world pre-eminent vehicle modellers (See the great example of his work above) and we asked him to put this together for you guys so over to the Queeg...

Musings from the warp...

While waiting for some of the ordered parts to arrive I filled in the time by assembling 2 Empress Miniatures Oshkosh M-ATVs to provide some patrolling and scout forces for our slowly building American forces.

The first thing that needs to be said is that these boys are big units. The only way to hide these things would be to find a building and drive into it for cover, and it’d have to be an American sized building at that, they stand over the Abrams and dwarf the British Jackals and US Bradley, which I thought were pretty big vehicles anyway. I must admit I’m unconvinced of their use outside of patrolling a tertiary warzone or policing duties but I guess time and combat success will tell the tale …. that and how they perform on the table of course!

 Now the models ….. as supplied they comprise 15 resin and 15 white metal parts. The resin is impressive, being very crisply moulded with very little clean up required to get the major parts flush and aligned. The basic assembly was straightforward  with only a couple of minor issues, while filing I did “break” through the resin surface and exposed a couple of sinkholes but a little Tamiya epoxy putty should fix them ok and one of my turrets was close to being a miscast. It looks like the moulds shifted during pouring with the top being off center to the base and one side pretty roughly cast, although after some clean up and paint I suspect only I’ll notice.  The white metal parts are ok and typical quality for mixed media wargaming kits.

And as usual for me lately I decided to add a bit of extra detail. These are big vehicles and as such I figured that any extra detail would help break up there size and provide a little more visual interest. After scouring as many web pics as I could find and also several 1/35^th kit build and logs I added the following details;

• lifting eyes on the lower hull sides and the upper rear of the cabin
• support chains for the steps
• front grill mesh
• Rhino front mounted IED jammer
• power supply boxes for the DUKE jamming system mounted on the rear cabin
• rear access step ladder
• mounting bracket for the spare wheel
• hatch for the gunners O-GPK (Objective Gunner Protective Kit) turret
• mounting brackets for the truck and turret wing mirrors
• turret joystick slew controller
• turret stowage rack
• wiring for the aerials and low light TV drivers aid
• Ibis Tek tow bar
• coil springs and lower suspension arms (only on 1 and undecided if I’ll do the back or the other vehicle yet)

With most of the add ons in place I primed them with Tamiya rattlecan desert yellow enamel. It both acts as a primer and seal coat for the various materials used during detailing.  From here the tops coats and finishing work will all be brushed acrylics (mostly last gen GW).  After the base paint is only and most of the shading done I’ll add the final details that I’ve left off so as not to break them during all the handling while painting.

Still to add after base painting;

• Aerials (4 per vehicle) and some wiring for them
• Flexible cover for the Harris AN/PRC-152 SINCGARS radio (left rear)
• tow shackles
• emergency door pulls
• tie straps for the Rhino and tow bar
• side mesh for the rear stowage bins
• various stowage bits to the rear bins

Brent

Aka Queeg ( check out more of Queeg's work at http://houseofqueeg.wordpress.com/)

Guns of August Convention Report

Hello everyone!  Our small local convention was held here in Williamsburg, Virginia back on the 22nd -24th of August.  The convention draws around 200 local mostly historical gamers each year so a fairly small gathering where most people know each other and things are always pretty relaxed.  The big difference this year was the fact that The Phalanx Consortium was there to promote and sell Skirmish Sangin.  Overall the informal and formal demos for the rules went well and we had the fun of adding the second board to the table so there were plenty of people stopping by to take pictures and ask questions about the rules.

Many in attendance had seen us at Historicon so they checked in to see what the latest updates were on the new supplements and figures.   We also had the opportunity to discuss participation in a couple of programs next year with a representative of the Virginia War Museum so we will be working with them on those programs and we will feature both game demos, as well as running a figure painting class for those wishing to participate.
While we held our formal demos in the evenings we did take time to take those interested over to the table to run through a few points of the rules before making their decision to purchase a set.  So having the demo boards on permanent display over the weekend help to afford these opportunities and we would like to thank the organizers for allowing us this flexibility.

As we announced on our Facebook page we were excited to add another retailer to our partner list over the weekend with The Dragon’s Hoard in Staunton, Virginia picking up stock for their store while they were down as another vendor for the weekend.  So if you live up that way or just passing through please stop by and see Harry and company in beautiful Downtown Staunton in the Historic Valley of Virginia.
During one of our evening demos the players were taken by how actual topography on a game table makes such a difference in how a game is played. While hard to completely appreciate in these photos the ISAF players used the low and obscured ground of the irrigation canal to bring troops around on the Taliban left forcing them to retire and melt into the populace versus getting overrun.

So all in all we had a great weekend and are looking forward to seeing those who can attend at Fall-In in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Southern Front in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Both of these conventions will be held in November of this year.  Till then happy gaming!

Building a Technical

As requested, here is a bit more information about the technical that my Taliban force had for Call to Arms.

To cut a long story short, a technical is:
a type of improvised fighting vehicle, typically a civilian or military non-combat vehicle, modified to provide an offensive capability similar to a military gun truck. It is usually an open-backed civilian pickup truck or four-wheel drive vehicle mounting a machine gun, light anti-aircraft gun, anti-tank weapon, or other support weapon. (Wikipedia)

Like this:

There are some good technical models out there- Empress do a nice resin one with a variety of armaments. So one could assume that I had one lying around ready to go?

Well, no. I didn't actually.

What I did have, was this kit from Airfix:

I bought this kit to go with my Irish force actually, the Snatch Landrover is 3/4 finished in a stunning shade of white for UN duties(which one day I will finish, honest!). Which leaves the WMIK, which I had always planned to turn into a technical.

I thought I would share some of the ideas and tricks I found while converting the Landrover WMIK into a Taliban Technical.

The first few steps are to simply build the chassis of the WMIK, making sure to not include the V underarmour, and removing any upper superstructure for the vehicle. With my technical was loosely based on the one above, I wanted to keep the whole vehicle structure low.

The first challenge comes in the back tray of the landrover. The back of the vehicle has next to no detailing, it is all covered by the upper superstructure of the WMIK. To correct this, I used some plasticard which had striations on one side. I think it was designed to be used to make roofing tiles, but it works perfectly as the grooved rear tray. I chose to also build up the sides as well, to make it look like a more interesting ute (pick-up) back.

Once you are happy with the plasticard, the next step is to use Greenstuff to smooth out the joins, making it look like it was always meant to be there! While the green stuff is drying it it time to make some crew.

Craig and I have always been in agreement that vehicles look cooler when they have crew. Especially when it is going to be an open-topped technical!

Luckily for me, I had a couple of spare Taliban lying around. The gunner comes from Eureka Miniatures, from the 14.5mm DsHK gun team, but had sadly lost his gun (he donated it to the ANP technical). The driver is a bit more complex. I started with an Empress Miniatures Taliban, who was last seen fleeing from Jose the Military Working Dog in Despatches 1 (page 62). Unfortunatly through the course of gaming, or maybe because of Jose (either the real one, or the model one), he broke at the ankle. So instead of trying to rebuild his ankle, I made him into my driver.

Step 1 is to remove the paint from the two of them. So into the Simple Green to soak, then cleaned up with a scalpel and an old toothbrush.

The gunner is the easier of the two conversions. The basic Eureka model is great, but I don't like how he has the gun pointed at the sky. To change the angle of his arms, using a scalpel I carefully removed his arms, keeping them as intact as possible. At this point I would recommend to remove his base, you will need to remove it for him to fit nicely on the back of the landrover.

Then it is a simple matter of using greenstuff to reattach the arms, in the lower position. You may find it useful to remove some cloth from the arms, to make it a more natural pose. It is up to you, it's just to make you happy with it. I also tended to test fit them on the bed of the vehicle too, to make sure that I wasn't pointing the 50cal at the ground, or at the driver or something odd like that.

The 50cal is the one from the WMIK kit, with a few of the optics removed (based on my dice rolling, this Taliban doesn't aim). I used a spare metal pike (I use these a lot) to form the strut to attach the gun to the landy. I deliberatly cut it longer than I needed, that way I could check it off against the gunner, and to the height of the vehicle. Once I was happy with the location, it was a simple case to drill a hole in the landy. The hole was wider than I needed, so that I could use Greenstuff to make sure I had a nice join. I glued the gunner on at the same time.

So while the gunner is easy, the driver is a bit more involved. First thing to do is to cut the poor guy in half. I used a hacksaw to do it, while I held it in place with pliers.

Brutal but effective.

The Empress Taliban that I am using as a base had his left arm moulded on at his side, and the right arm as a seperate piece. This was perfect for me, so I left the left one on, and put the right arm into the bits box for the future.

The lower half and the right arm for my driver both come from the Academy MH-6 kit. One of the more odd things about that kit is that it contains 4 pilot figures, for a two pilot aircraft. It is even more odd when you think of all the number of 1:48 helicopters which come with no pilots (I'm looking at you Italieri). Crew rants aside, the spare pilot figures are great to make the seated drivers. Simply cut the pilot in half. You will need to lop the feet of the model, it just makes him sit better in the vehicle. The driver's right arm will also come from this kit.

While it may seem a simple case of a+b+c= driver, getting him to fit nicely into the technical, as well as looking right. Green stuff is your friend here again, I added a dishdash to cover up a few of my sins in the waist join, and did need to do some sculpting around his right shoulder.

Remember to keep test fitting him in the vehicle. I attached the steering wheel to the driver, and made a length of wire (from a spare pike) to connect it to the dash. It just helped to make the whole process easier, it was one less thing which I needed to make align nicely! I found that the driver sat much too high to use the steering wheel as moulded by Airfix, so creating my own attachment really helped me out in this process.

My first test fit of the two crew, without any green stuff.

One you are happy with the driver, I chose to add doors to the landy. Now the WMIK kit doesn't have doors, but the Snatch does, and it conveniently comes with two sets, open and closed. Getting them to fit is a bit trickier- you need to remove the top of the door (the bit that has the window) and also to remove a 2mm (ish) strip of the back of the door. It seems finicky, and to be fair it is a little bit, but not having the doors to me looks a bit odd. It is important to do that after the crewman, as it is a lot easier to test fit him without the door. Although, make sure you don't put his arm in the way of the door.

The fully assembled land-rover looks like this:

Note that the driver is not glued in, but the gunner is glued.

I chose to paint up the technical in a lovely pastel blue, which I then attacked with a whole lot of weathering.

This is the finished product:

The technical will hopefully be the first of a few of these models, I have a couple more vehicle kits which I plan to convert into Taliban vehicles.

But for now, more Auzzies!

Pooch

Post 100+ A Look Forward

We had planned to have this post marks the 100th put up here on the Skirmish Sangin Blog, but we got so distracted by Call to Arms and sharing pictures of the weekend that we forgot about the milestone!

So although this may not be post #100, we would just like to take the opportunity to say that we have really enjoyed talking with the commenters, sharing our ideas for gaming and showing off some of the great work people are doing out there in the Sangin Community. While we three writers might think we have a great game, which we personally enjoy playing, it still surprises us, how it has been received by the wider community of gamers, your feedback, comments and images provide us even more encouragement to keep making books and writing rules.

In light of it being our 100th post (ish), we thought we would share some of our upcoming releases....

DESPATCHES II

Despatches II follows the same style as our first Despatches book, made up of articles, scenarios, ORBATs and other really useful stuff for Skirmish Sangin gaming.
Inside Despatches II you can find....

- Additional vehicle rules, including how to field on-table helicopters in your ISAF list.
- Scenarios, ranging from vehicle checkpoints to helicopter assaults and everything in between.
- ORBATs for the Dutch and the long awaited Taliban ORBAT

We hope to have this out before the end of of October. Its currently at the editors, so we are on track. Th final running order of articles may change as once again we have more articles than space but whatever ones make the cut you can believe it will more despatches gold :-)


MAALINTII RANGERS (DAY OF THE RANGERS)

Day of the Rangers is out first Battle Book, focused on the actions in September 1993 in Somalia. Battle Books are different to a Despatches book, firstly because they are no longer set in Afghanistan, but secondly because they are setting out to represent a specific series of combat actions.

In the case of the Maalintii Rangers, it means some special Somalia specific rules, things which will add to the main rules to give the right "feel" for the battles in Mogadishu. The release of Maalintii Rangers will be supported by a range of 28mm US soldiers amongst others, which you have already seen a preview image for here....

Inside Maalintii Rangers you will find....

- A Somalia ORBAT, with rules for mobs of civilians
- US ORBAT for Rangers, D-Boys and 10th Mountain
- ORBATS for the UNOSOM II forces, such as the Pakistanis
- Additional helicopter rules- Because it isn't the Maalintii Rangers without Blackhawks and Little Birds!

When will this be out you cry? The team are working on it now, but we are not sure just yet but lets just say as soon as we can after Sangin Despatches No.2!

Is that all we are working on? Well, no actually, no it is not. But we have to keep some secrets!

So thank you for reading our blog. Let us know what you want to see more of - scenarios, AAR's, painting guides, book reviews, ORBATs, miniatures reviews or something completely different? Get in touch either in the comments, or by email. We look forward to hearing from you!

Colin, Craig and Chris

Call to Arms- Armies done and dusted!

Well, I managed it, finishing the last bit of basing on my two forces for Call to Arms on the night before the event (well timed that!). The weekend went very well, I had three tough games, achieving the distinction of being Most Mortared by the end of the weekend, my forces being subjected to no less than 5 scarily accurate 81mm mortar barrages in their three games! Needless to say, this had a very negative impact on my force's ability to fight the enemy!

Mortars aside, I did have a great weekend, you have already seen a few of my photos as part of the overall pictures for the weekend, but I also wanted to share a few close ups of my two forces for the weekend.

This is how they came out:

My Taliban:

More on the technical soon, in case you want to build one of your own!.

My Australians:

Even the Javelin team that got left behind got to make an appearance!

Next on the painting table for me? I am going to finish the remaining 10 or so Australians, before I forget how I did them. Plus they have a few transports (you know which one Spyros!) so I am going to get them all off my painting table.

That is, unless I get distracted by a set of our brand new Taliban that I got over the weekend too!

Pooch