Just arrived - "A World Aflame" and WarThunder

from Osprey site

Only a small update today ...  due to returning an unsatisfactory birthday present, I had a credit on my amazon account, and decided (eventually) to buy the "A World Aflame" wargame rules by Osprey Publishing.  (Note they are much cheaper from Amazon though!)

This won't be a review as I've not played them (or even read it all!) as yet, but from what I have read, I think that they would be ideal for my VBCW 15mm stuff that I'm intending to paint, and for the 20mm WW2 Norway game I want to do ...

As an example, units only have a limited amount of ammunition, but it can be resupplied in game and the rules use chance cards, both things that I like. They were written by Paul Eaglestone of Empress Miniatures with the Spanish Civil War and VBCW in mind, and I am very much looking forward to trying them out, although, unfortunately, I doubt that it will be any time soon :(

Also, some colleagues on World Of Tanks recommended "War Thunder" a free MMO WW2 airplane game. I've tried it, and thought it was damn fine, but I can't get on with flight simulators, so have given up on it :(  If flight sims are your thing though, you should give it a try!

1st Light -WIP 1

I mentioned in my last post that I've been working on WWG's First Light spaceship and thought I'd share with you the progress I've made so far.

The basic construction method of the model is to make the rooms and corridors as a series of boxes which can then be assembled how you wish.  There are bits to add or remove doors to the rooms and there are quite a few different rooms supplied - including cargo bay, airlock, bridge, turret and so on ...

In the pic below, the two big rooms at the top are cargo bays, with an airlock in between; a long corridor leads from the airlock which has 2 smaller corridors branching off and there are 4 other rooms at the bottom of the pic (which is going to be the front of the ship, btw)

Below is a close up of the exterior of the airlock (with Zombie-ME for scale as usual), which the only room that I've done a roof and any of the exterior for so far. There is a roof for each room - the intention being that you can reveal parts of the ship as they are reached - as well as exteriors

The doors in the kit are designed to be removed as needed, and the pic below shows the exterior airlock door partially removed showing Zombie-Me's base

I'm making the model with mounting board for the floors, 2 bits for the walls (so the doors can be sandwiched in between) and foamboard for the roofs.

I don't have a particular game in mind for this model (other than some kind of Space Hulk thing) but I've had it for ages and wanted to build it all that time, so I've finally started it!

An update ...

Well, I noticed this morning that I've not posted on my blog for over 3 weeks - naughty me! - so I decided to update it to prove that I am still here and let you know what's been going on with me ...

First, I have continued work on a special build using elements of Stoelzel's Undeveloped Real Estate, although that has slowed down considerably lately, as I've been losing the will to continue with it [in other words, I'm getting to the hard parts now ;) ]

I've nearly finished my build of Stoelzel's The Split Level. I've modified it to be a jewelry shop and need to make some interior fixtures before I'm willing to put up pics of it.

While waiting for the inspiration to complete the two builds above, I've also started making WorldWorksGames 'First Light', which is a 28mm scale model of a space ship. I'm enjoying this (although using mounting board is throwing out the alignment of some of the components) and it makes a pleasant change to my other builds.

A couple of new TV series have also caught my eye, that I thought I'd share with you all in case you haven't seen them.

• 666 Park Avenue - an American series starring the superb Terry O'Quinn as the lead (villain), set in an apartment building with lots of spooky, supernatural goings-on. 
• Bluestone 42 - a British 'comedy drama' where the characters are members of a bomb disposal detachment serving in Afghanistan. Only seen episode 1, and IMO that was superb.

That's it for now; hopefully next time I'll have some pics (of something!)