Summer, Girls and...Panzer?

Ah summer, time for diversions and relaxation. So if you are casting about for somthing to do this summer, allow me to recommend you spend a little time exploring the weird, funny world of Girls und Panzer. You'll find clips of the various 12 episodes scattered across Youtube and even the entire series on Anime Season or Crunchyroll. Its one of those things for which no explanation will suffice to convey what's going on. Let's just say its clearly science fiction with a fair amount of geek pride when it comes to WWII tanks, military history, gaming and movies.

Pzkw IV (in early war panzer gray)  battling Matilda II (in Western Desert tan)  in a street fight?

With Crunchyroll  you have to put up with advertising and edits of some of the funnier musical (musical?) moments.  Anime Season  has some odd - but comical - subtitle translation issues (as in gratuitous use of German instead of English) but the shows seem to be intact.

I could point you to the Wikipedia page, but its almost better if you watch it cold. But it you need a hook, I'll just share this flaky little video with you.

The Titan Gunship from Rebel Miniatures

Attended Cincycon last week and had a rousing good time gaming. In addition to the fine games, I acquired a new miniature - the Titan gunship/dropship from Rebel Miniatures.  The Titan is a larger casting (bigger than the Earth Force Saber class gunship, but you can see a clear family resemblance between the two miniatures. It's a nice casting if you are looking for something a bit larger to streak across your battlefield and pickup your isolated troops.

Here is a shot of the box right off the rack.

And we pop the top to reveal the contents

Nice! Not too much going on in here. Big solid pieces of miniature. 

Next we sort the pieces out on the table. Yep - the kit comes with six (6) rocket pods!

and a rough shot of what the final product should look like. Unlike the Saber, the engine pods are all integrally cast as part of the wing or the tail boom - a welcome feature!

Both in look and style, the Titan reminds me of another recent VTOL purchase - Khurusan's Doe gunship. Here you can see the two side by side. The Doe looks taller, but bear in mind that a.) its in the foreground and b.) it is sitting on its landing gear. In length and width the two kits have similar dimensions. The Doe is a bit taller, but not dramatically so.

The cockpit designs do vary a bit. Both use a tandem layout similar to the old Soviet Hind helicopterAs can be seen in the picture, the Titan has a pair of spacious cockpits compared to the Doe. Titan's layout reminds me of a trainer variant of an old Soviet IL_28, while the Doe is clearly inspired by the Mi-24 Hind.

Titan will make a great addition to my miniatures, providing a 'heavy' gunship that fits in stylistically with my existing Saber VTOL models. Look for more posts on assembly and painting of this guy!

Matchbox tracked SAM launchers!

It may sound rather odd, but my local grocer is rapidly becoming my go to guy for 15mm sci-fi miniatures. While in the store the other day I found another Matchbox Striker to add to the collection. But in a real stroke of luck I found not one but TWO of theMatchBox MBX missile launchers. (Here's a short video that shows the features and look of the vehicle - no I didn't post it).

The MBX appears to based on the chassis of the US Army's Multiple Launcher Rocket System (MLRS) though the ordnance appears more Soviet in appearance. At least, it reminds me of the old SA-6 and SA-4 launchers. 

The MBX Missile Launcher sports two heavy SAM.

For my purposes, these are a great find. While I doubt these will see action as a combat unit on the tabletop, they will serve as great objectives to defend or destroy.

The MBX in a travel column with a Stryker and a Buffalo - all from Matchbox.

These will fit in perfectly with the rest of the 15mm stuff in my collection.  Here are some shots showing the MBX with some of the RAFM 15mm mid-tech troops.

 

 

Its a great little toy. The launcher swivels 360 degrees and elevates a bit. The missiles are detachable (each individually) and look like they will take paint pretty good. Guess those Vargr doggies are gonna have to keep their air assets off the table for the time being.

The high tech Rat Patrol

Found another of the Matchbox M-ATV toys. Now I've got two that will serve as the transports for the scout squad. Cramming a fire team into each truck does not seem too bad.

I've got to start gearing up for games at Cincy Con in March - its 'only' four months away!

Progress report on the RAH-66 conversion

Did a little more work with the RAH-66 Comanche toy I picked up at Wally Mart a couple of weeks ago.

The Comanche in the early stage of painting. Still has the landing gear!

The toy comes with die cast landing gear. Its okay, but to me, it makes the helo look a lot like an AH-64. The real Comanche has retractible gear. So I grabbed my trusty Dremel tool and hacked off the main gear and the tail wheel. 

Now's we're cooking with hydrogen!

Nice shot of the tail rotor inside the tail assembly.

On the hunt for Vargr grav tanks

The business end showing off the rocket pod, ATGM and nose cannon. 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm liking the mean look you get when the gear is removed.

The latest additions - Top Gun Grav Tanks

I took advantage of Top Gun Marketing's recent sale on their 15mm Grav vehicle line. I've been eying these from some time to use as the vehicles for my Tech Level 15 Imperial Army and Marine forces. I ordered enough for a platoon sized combat team - one heavy grav tank, 2 heavy APC and 2 medium grav tanks.

The package arrived in the ubiquitous USPS mailing box.

 The contents were very well packed.

 Pulling out the extra packing material reveals some very well wrapped packets.

Each was well wrapped and taped into a secure, protective envelope.

When I opened it up, I found two vehicle hulls - bottom to bottom.

Opening them up, I had the chassis and the turrets for all the vehicles. The castings were very clean and had minimal air bubbles in the resin. In both cases, the bubbles were on the bottom of the castings. A very quick fix and sand job. Air bubbles in the resin is common with many resin kits I've seen the past few years.

Minor air bubbles in the resin. Its the bottom of the casting.

These are some good looking models! Mine have the active defenses modeled on both chassis and turret.

In addition to the resin hulls, these kits have some metal parts. All the metal parts shipping in 1 packet.

Barrels and ATGM tubes for the tanks and APC. The APC barrels are very thin.

I'll end with a group photo shot showing the Top Gun models mixed in with models from a variety of manufacturers that I've using.

From Left. Back row: Rebel Miniatures Commanche, RAFM Imp, Top Gun APC, Khurusan Caiman, Rebel Mini Earth Force APC, CMG, Bastion APC, Roco/Minitank Marder kitbash. Front row: Khurusan heavy tank, GZG Advanced Grav tank, Top Gun heavy tank, CMG Havoc, Top Gun medium tank, Rebel Mini Thumper, 'mystery tank'

Sometimes you just get lucky...

Over on TMP, Mako11 was asking about rules for gaming out planetary assaults. One set that was repeatedly mentioned was Game Designers' Workshop board game Invasion: Earth. I remember playing this game (once?) about - ahem - thirty years ago when it was released. In a fit of nostalgia I surfed on over to Amazon.com and looked for a copy....

...and found one copy for $89.99 from an outfit called Wanye's Books and one "used" copy for $30.00 from the "Friends of the San Buenaventura Library" in Ventura, California. Looking for something that might get played a couple of times, I opted for the 'used' version.

The box is a little scuffed up around the edges, but no tears or rips in the corners. I opened the box and found to my surprise that this used game....

....has never been played! Both the counter sheets are there and all the counters are unpunched.

I'm very happy. Friends of the Buenaventura Library - you've got a friend in me too!