The Wheatcroft Collection

 As part of my son's 13th Birthday presents I took him to the Grand Prix collection at Donnington Park and some of Tom Wheatcrofts private collection of restored WW2 vehicles were on display (sadly not the Tiger 1's he owns ) an amazing collection .

on display has found on the Battle of the Bulge area of Belgium

This was uncovered with rthe dead rider still in place on his machine.

I could not believe the size of this I'm 6ft 2" and it towered above me.

If you are interested in seeing some of the Grand Prix collection visit my son's blog http://sportandtrnsport.blogspot.co.uk

Thanks .

Airfix Scimitar W.I.P

Had a Airfix Scimitar sat in my cupboard for about 4 years waiting for me to try and deal with it ,I had heard horror stories about how bad it was , but a few weeks ago Tim Gow asked if I could take a few snaps of the unmade kit for his brilliant history of Airfix reports on his blog  .Well last night I took it into work for my night shift and cleared my desk and set about the kit , well after about 2 hours of trying to get the tracks on one of them eventually snapped so I decided to replace them with elastic bands they don't look too bad .I will have to base it I think to help hide the joints  ,I did want to try and hide the joints under the front skirt / mudguard but the bands got a life of their own and refused to stick so had to join them under the wheels and they stuck straight away ?. Anyway thrown some S&S stowage on as every in the field photo I have seen of them they seem to have everything including the kitchen sink stowed on top /sides /front. Just need to paint and base and it will be taking part in the Royal British Legion, force on force  game at Triples this year so pop and along and praise my lackey bands .

Devils with Wings ,Frozen Sun

Just finished the third instalment of the Devils with Wings series by Harvey Black ,and it's the best of the three , the action moves with Paul and the rest of the Green Devils to the Russian front , some very edge of seat descriptions of the intense combat seen in this theatre of war , as I said this is the best of the three books so far but you must read all three to understand the friendship built between the main characters and you really feel for their losses both at home and on the battle front. The three books take you through the invasion of Poland ,the amazing action at Eben Emeal ,on to Greece and the most famous German Air Assault on Crete to the freezing cold of the Russian war .As a war gamer the books have provided loads of possible scenarios ,and in fact as spurred me on to start painting some Artizan Designs Fallschirmjager that I bought about 5 years ago . I now need Mr Black to right novels about the ACW and Zulu wars and my lead mountain would soon vanish .

the first of my Fallschirmjager platoon 

Uk armed police.

Some 28mm police I bought ages ago from the war-games emporium ,cannot remember the manufacturer but they are not bad figures ,painted up or some 7tv and zombie tv games ,hence the headlines on the newspapers ,these are real headlines as well ,oh the standards reached by the British Press .

PSC Stugs 20mm

All 3 together

A bit of battle damage

PSC decals as well

Rear View

The stugs come three to a box ,I vehicle per sprue very easy to put together and probably the cheapest way of buying tanks ,just bought these with matching infantry from the war-games emporium plus ordered some Pz 1v as well.

EXPO AB602 Air Brush

My good lady went into the Wargames Emporium during her lunch hour to treat me to an Air Brush and took John the owners advice and came away with the Expo AB 602 complete air brush deal , a grand sounding bit of kit which sounds like it should grace all garages and machine shops around the globe.  It is actually my first airbrush and looking at the box and instruction sheets looked very daunting ,but much to my surprise and joy its very simple to use . The deal includes a compressor ,airbrush ,water trap and air hose .The compressor is mains run and very quiet is very easy to use just turn it on set the pressure ,I set this at about 25 psi at this pressure the compressor keeps pumping at higher pressures (40psi) it automatically fills the air cylinder then cuts off till you use the contained air. the Air hose is braided and very tough feeling a glass water trap fits between the hose and the air brush .The Air Brush itself is a gravity fed type and even I managed to strip it down and clean it with no problems .John at the W.E informed Elaine when she purchased it that all the parts can be obtained     as spares through him if needed . I played about for 30 minutes or so practising and cleaning it before actually using it to paint 3 Plastic Soldier Company stags that I am painting for a competition and I am well chuffed for my first attempt. Also purchased some Vallejo Model Air paints to go with it and as always with Vallejo they are excellent .  A bit hard to score as its my first AirBrush but for a beginner I will give it 9 /10 (the instructions are a bit confusing ) Retail £125.   £110.at the Emporium

Devils with Wings:Silk Drop

Just finished part 2 of the Devils with Wings Trilogy by Harvey Black ,This see's Paul,Max and the other Fallschirmjager taking part in the invasion of Greece and Crete ,a really cracking read it is as well . The book covers a lot of ground from  the training and preparation as well as the actual invasion ,the Airbourne invasion of  Crete is gripping to say the least and the following battles and skirmishes have you wanting the Fallschirmjager to get through unscathed even though in this second book they are fighting British and Commonwealth troops , in a well known and bloody conflict. I am really hooked on Harvey Blacks work now and will read the third part of the the Devils trilogy whilst waiting part 3 of his Cold war books . 10/10



You can read more on Harvey's blog
  http://harveyblackauthor.org/author/harveyblackauthor/

and his face book page as well
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Harvey-Black-Author/320420457975001

But best of all buy the books .

7ombie TV horde

the 4 dogs

 I thought I would get some plastic zombies to bulk out my zombie hordes for crooked dices  7ombie tv games .I purchased two add on sets made for the zombicide board game .I got the box of zombie dogs and walk of the dead 2 box set .The dogs box contains 20 miniatures of four different types ,they come on stands but easily pull away to be re-based at your desire all four pooches have damage depicted where they were bitten .The human zombie set cantains 24 miniatures with eight different figures these figures are moulded onto very thin bases but are slightly taller than most 28mm figures so leaving them on the thin bases makes them the same height as figure on slotta bases .

1 of each of the variants 

a fatty 

The Boxes also include card decks for use with the Zombicide  game and come in a plastic tray which could be used to transport your painted zombies around in , I purchased mine from the war-games emporium in Sheffield along with a few other things so can't remember the exact price  but I think they retail around £20. per box ,so about .84pence for the Humans ? and about a £1. each for the doggies so a cheapish way to build a horde for your zombie games .I will put up some painted and comparison pics soon . 8/10

the sets come in a nice plastic tray 

the 2 box sets .