Month: December 2019

This was 2019!

thomasriepe , , , , , , , ,

So the year 2019 has past nearly. It went so quickly indeed. But I think the older you get the more time flies by. When I had a look at all the pictures I took this year I thought it might be a good idea to do something like a photo revue of the year 2019 .

The year started with lots of games of cruel seas and the scratch building of a lot of ships for that game:

I build the steamer Rheinland:

In February I went to a local convention , the Kiepencon in Münster. I hosted a cruel seas participation game there:

Until this years Salute I build a lot more ships for cruel Seas. Like the S.S. Bellota and the S.S. Green Island:

Then I started on the Hunt II escort destroyer:

Then came one of the main hobby events for me this year Salute 2019 at Excel London. Here are a few of the over 200 pictures I took. If you want to see more have a look here

After coming back home with a bag full of goodies I resumed building ships for cruel seas. Next were the coastal colliers. Three little ships with different loads:

The last ship I build for Cruel Seas so far was a VII C submarine , Das Boot

Then I stoped building ships for now as two companies started to release miniatures for a conflict I was always keen on building and gaming. The Vietnam war . Empress miniatures and Gringo 40 both released wonderful miniatures.  Here are a few of the Gringo 40 Miniatures I painted this year:

And a few of the Empress ones:

After my summer holiday i got myself a 3d printer and started on doing terrain for my Vietnam war project:

Then I thought about doing the jungle terrain I would need . I figured out that I would need a lot off scatter material to do the jungle pieces . so I went to a friend who has a upholstery shop and got some old foam upholstery pieces to make my own scatter flock . If you want to know how I did it go here

In November I went to Antwerp like every year for Crisis run by the tin soldiers of Antwerp. For all the pictures go here.

After returning from Crisis I build some jungle terrain pieces with plastic plant pieces , plastic palm trees and the scatter I did myself:

After Crisis i decided that I would drop one line of Vietnam miniatures as the size of both Empress and Gringo 40 don’t fit properly. I decided to go with the Empress miniatures.

The last thing I did this year was to start on some elefant grass for my set up. I used some offcuts from artificial grass to build these:

So that’s it for this year. There are a lot of projects in the pipeline for next year . Especially concerning my 3d printer. Expect to see a lot of vehicles for mt Vietnam project, trucks, gun trucks and even a huey! So have a wonderful new year 2020 and keep up the hobby. Hope to see a few of you at Salute 20 or Crisis 20!

Weapons and Field Gear of the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong

thomasriepe , , , ,

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Weapons and Field Gear of the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong by Edward J. Emering is a book about field gear and inert weapons and ordnance, that have long been popular items with militaria collectors. The Vietnam War by its very nature offers an incredible range and variety of these items for the interested collector. The North Vietnamese and their puppet troops of the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong or VC) relied primarily on communist allies (Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba and various Eastern Bloc countries of the era) for their weapons and field gear. For this reason, Vietnam represents a microcosm of gear from all of this century’s wars, dating back to World War I,

It is a tome of knowledge for people who want to paint NVA and Viet Cong soldier miniatures like the ones offered by Empress miniatures or Gringo 40. It has a wealth of information and color pictures of equipment and uniforms as you can see here:

Very recommended for the miniature painter, sculptor and collector. You can get a copy here.

 

Elefant Grass

thomasriepe , , , ,

As you can see here  I started to do some jungle terrain for my Vietnam games. What I missed so far are areas of Elefant Grass. While searching the web for an idea to represent Elefant grass in 28mm I came across artificial grass for gardens. you can find this as test pieces in gardening shops or online. The sample I got is about 2cm high. I started out to do some test pieces on 25 mm round MDF bases I happened to have available.

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I cut of a 2cm wide strip of the grass and cut this up in lots of 2x2cm squares, then I glued

the grass squares to the mdd bases:

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I then put some DAS modeling putty round the edges to hide them:

The miniature is a US Marine by Empress for size comparison. I think the grass is high enough.

I then put my usual basing grit on the bases and painted it:

I think they look quite nice for just being test pieces. Here they are together with my other jungle terrain, can you find Charly?

A rather green NVA soldier

thomasriepe , , , , , ,

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I painted this NVA soldier in an overall green uniform as some people said that there were no Kaki NVA soldiers uniforms. To my knowledge that is not true. I read kaki descriptions of NVA uniforms in many different books. I personally think Kaki and green together looks best.

More to come.