Selenite

The sun rose slowly on another long day. Crystal showers of frozen air fell gently, sublimed upwards under the sun's rays, only to refreeze and fall again. Fine snow littered the surface like baking sugar, lending the splintered landscape a surreal beauty. This was a place of dialectical extremes, of hot and cold, of light and dark and of stone and dust.
The only splash of colour came from Sarah's multiple reflections in the viewing port. Convention decreed that her long dress and tailored jacket be Royal Navy blue, her blouse cream, but she was allowed to express some individuality in a neck tie and the band around her straw hat. She elected to wear a defiant red.
Sarah was too keyed up to enjoy the bleak landscape. She gazed out of the porthole, lost in her thoughts, disinterested in the view.
"Ma'am?" a piping voice sounded behind her.
She turned, moving carefully so that her skirt would not fly up.
A boy in a midshipman's uniform half made a salute then thought better of it.
"Is that your sea trunk, ma'am?"
She nodded in assent and he clicked his fingers at the porters. Two Selenites scuttled forward, sharp claws tapping on the stone floor. Like all lunar natives, they were six limbed but their exoskeleton was without the tripartite division that characterised the insect body. The size of a large dog, they stood mostly on four legs so that their front claws could be used as hands. The Queen Below bred them for Port Bedford's use as part of the Co-operation Pact with the British Empire. A not unpleasant wet-straw smell drifted off the creatures as they grappled with her luggage.
"The captain presents his compliments, ma'am, and asks you to accompany me to the ship."
"Thank you," she said. "Lead on."
They made a strange crocodile through the narrow corridors, the midshipman in front, her behind, and the Selenites bringing up the rear. Convention decreed that they should walk in single file on the right. This necessitated one of the Selenites walking backwards, something that seemed to discommode him not at all. She thought of the Selenite as "him," though "it" was probably a more accurate pronoun for a sterile worker.


Storming Hell by John Lambshead (opening paragraphs)

Bolt Action: 6pdr

By Normandy, the British six pdr was the standard gun for infantry division anti-tank units. The Royal Artillery had shifted to the fearsome 17pdr. This gun was also the standard AT weapon for American infantry.

It had a similar performance to a German long-barreled 50mm gun, being a compromise between power and weight. The heavier anti-tank guns like the 17pdr or Pak 88mm were clumsy oversized weapons.

Bolt Action rules use a 3-man crew so I model the crew and weapon on one base for convenience.

Drop Zone Commander 'Clearance Sale'

Total Wargamer have a clearance sale running offering what looks like pretty much the full range Drop Zone Commander at 30% off RRP. That's £20 off the cost of a starter army. Even the rulebook is 20% off.

Very strange for such a new line to be discounted so heavily so quickly. Does this mean it is selling incredibly badly so TW are dumping or that it has sold so well that economy of scale is kicking in? Or maybe it means nothing at all!

But I have noticed some customer resistance here and here.

Another Bloody Tank!

The quote is from my long suffering wife.

A Warlord Games Bolt Action soft resin Matilda II. This was the best British tank of the early war, causing havoc at Arras in France in 1940, and against the Italians in Africa. Drawbacks were the small two-man turret and very slow speed. Advantages included a decent 2pdr AT gun capable of defeating all opposing armour in 1940 and heavy (for the time) armour that was effective against anything but an 88mm Flak gun. The Matilda was shipped to Russia as lend lease in '41.

A great kit that comes with a metal commander. I painted it in two tone green north European camo with Citadel wash to dirt it up and Tamiya mud paste around the tracks.

For those who care about such things, the photo was taken with a Nikon D60 using a standard 18-55 DX telephoto lens equipped with VR antishake.

We are in the north European winter so  took the pick indoors using a camera-mounted TTL flash equipped with a disperser. The gun was aimed up at a white matt ceiling which spreads the light avoiding harsh shadows.

Background is an A4 manilla envelope. the matt brown surface is nicely neutral allowing me to use auto-settings, which cannot be done with a white background.

The photo was shrunk  and the light balance tweaked using Paint Shop Pro. PSP always wants to increase the focussing, which I find should be avoided as it does strange things to the colour blending on a model.

Bolt Action Skoda 38 (t)

It is sometimes forgotten how important Czech equipment was to the 3rd Reich's war effort, especially in the 'Blitzkrieg years'. If Hitler had only been stopped earlier...

This is the Bolt Action 28 mil Pz 38(t), the t meaning tschechisch or Czech.

In northern Russia in 1941, the crews of these light tanks went up against T34s and KVs, an unattractive proposition. But then, Russian tank design made everyone else's AFVs obsolete so the Pz 38 (t)s and 35(t)s were in good company.

Another nice kit in light 'soft' GW-type resin.

Bolt Action: Russian AFVs

The T34 and SU76 were the two most abundant Soviet AFVs of WWII: over 150,000in the case of the T34.

The T34 was arguably the world's first main battle tank, a paragon of mobility, sloped armour and a dual purpose HE and AT gun that could defeat all extant enemy AFVs. The only drawback was a two man turret: only the Germans had woken up to the need for a three man turret for a commander free of other jobs. This was rectified with the uparmoured T34/85 fitted with the ZiS 85mm gun.

The SU76 was a SP artillery piece with the same ZiS 3 76.2mm gun that origially armed the T34. It was not entirely liked by its crews, who nicknamed it 'the little bitch' or the 'bare-arsed Ferdinand', but it was undeniably effective. The AFV was based on the T70 light tank chassis. The T70 was an obsolete death trap used to fill out the Soviet tank brigades in '43.

These two AFVs did more than any other to win WWII.

The models are both Bolt Action soft resin models and are superbly detailed. They come with crew - look at the cynical posture of the tanker leaning on his vehicle hatch.  They should add some much needed punch to my Soviet battlegroup.

Alien Invaders

Have been stricken by the wretched 'flu virus this week. I have had the jab but it only protects against last year's bug.

Oh well, onward and upward.