Got some pre-loved units!
October 8, 2014
Pz IV’s, 234/4’s, SP 37mm AA’s, SP 20mm quad AA, FlaK 88mm, SdKfz 8’s…
Mixture of scales, but – well, I guess it had to happen…
Owner was moving overseas. What those of us who were told didn’t buy went to his relatives, in order to try to pass the Wargaming gene on…
Amazing adventure of Peter and the Plastic Soldier Company 1/72nd Russian 45mm anti tank guns…
October 23, 2013
Hello! It’s been a while. And I have another post to do tomorrow or Friday.
But- this doesn’t mean I’m back. These are some of the intermittent appearances I may make. After all, I haven’t switched off transmissions for good yet…
Peter (co-author of the Panzerfaust: Armoured Fist rules) finished working on the Plastic Soldier Company 1/72nd Russian 45mm anti tank guns that he purchased some time ago. Here are his proud pics: 
. Look great, don’t they? Better than what I do! He commented that: “The guns had very few pieces, but the crew had to be stuck together, but looked awesome once done. There were four guns and crews in the box, and there were options to do the 45mmL46 or the 76mm infantry gun. Awesome value for one kit”.
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He and I will be having a game of Panzerfaust:Armoured Fist in a fortnight. First game for me this year!
IPMS Swap & sell back on 10 June
June 28, 2013
I went along to the IPMS Model Expo 2013 Swap & sell on the Queen’s Birthday Monday, but decided not to stand in the queue for an hour…as less and less of what I want appears at swap & sells now, I opted to sleep in and only stand in the queue for 25 minutes (the roads were so empty, I got there quicker than I thought I would).
Huge queue – here it is 15 minutes before opening, looking to the front: 
and then looking to the back: 
and of course it was even bigger by the time the doors opened.
No photos from inside, because it was too jam-packed to get panormic photos for drooling over! I’m sure that if you were there, you would have seen some things worth buying.
Here’s what I bought: 
– the Luftwaffe crews are destined to become Panzerwaffe crews.
Armourfast’s Normandy House
May 6, 2013
I see this on the shelves of a hobby retailer in the city last Monday. $22 was the asking price. I was going to buy one, but I felt that it was too Western European and so not much good to me at the moment.
It’s very straightforward…glue the four walls together, glue the corner brickwork on to cover the seams where the walls get glued together, glue the roof together then do the little detail bits and pieces. Apart from waiting for glue to dry, should be very quick.
AAR: ESSMC’s Annual Swap & Sell
March 31, 2013
It was lovely weather for a swap & sell, and Mrs Funker & Trainee Funker joined me for the drive (although not for the event itself). I didn’t get there an hour early and queue as per normal…Trainee Funker being so full of beans, we were too busy getting him ready and time just slipped away. After parking the car, I was walking up the hill to the venue when good blokes & fellow NWA‘rs Sean and Neil pulled up next to me. We went in together after some light banter and catching up about events at NWA.
The traders were really well arranged – kudos to ESSMC management for doing such a great job with such limited space. Here’s some of what was on sale:
I didn’t find any kits on my Wanted list, but came away with some books: 
– I was loaned “Tank versus Tank” two years ago by Kim from NWA and wanted to photocopy the whole thing, so impressed was I by it…but I only copied my legal 10%. To find it on sale was fantastic – even the vendor, just as I picked it up, sung it’s praises and I told him how I’d already read it and loved it…$20 was no problem at all.
The foreign armour book will be useful for doing “Beute” stuff for both my major belligerents on the Ostfront…and “PzKpfw IV” was a mandatory for my personal library.
So, no kits, but some great books. Sometimes it’s like that!
Some of you may want to try this vendor…
March 28, 2013
(I do not get any commissions from people for this blog).
My colleague Stephen AKA cheetah185 (from the In my own time wargaming blog) passed along this vendor for consideration:
Why are they notable? Because they do 20mm scale figures for the following:
French Army 1939 to 1943
British Empire 1930 till 1943
Dutch Army of 1940
Belgian Army of 1940
Norwegian Army of 1940
Polish Army of 1939
German Army Early War 1938 1942
Italian Army 1936 till 1943
Japanese Imperial Army
Other nations & export arms
Greek Army 1938 till 1941
As most of you would realise, two of those are Eastern Front, and the others round out a number of nations that are not currently well represented in plastic. Have a look and see what you think.
***
AAR from my trip to the first swap & sell of the year will be posted this Easter weekend.
French camouflage – may be of interest to some
March 22, 2013
I’ve been made aware of a new book about French AFV camouflage, covering the years 1900 to 2013 –
you can read more about it here.
May be useful for those modelling/wargaming captured French materials taken to the Eastern Front…
Improvised frames and tarps (with sag!) for AFVs
February 25, 2013
Chris Kemp has posted a brief but novel explanation on his blog about creating canvases/tarps and then getting the sag right when they are on frames. I hadn’t thought of getting sag using something like thin/flexible wire…I use rigid things like bulldog clips or clothespegs. Those methods of mine won’t really work for this sort of thing…this copper wire idea is simple and practical, and I should have some floating around the house or the shed somewhere.
Of course, I’ve always had pliers at the hobby table – they are necessary for when I’m working with wargaming figures made of various white metals or lead/pewter compounds (none of which are WWII, so you don’t see them here).
Does anyone else have any cool ways for improvising tarps/canvases when arranged on the frames of AFVs and other vehicles? Suggest them in the Comments!
A bit smoky in here…need to do some cleaning and re-organising
February 1, 2013
Two years ago I explained and demonstrated (with photos and all) how I made my wargaming smoke markers – if you don’t remember, click on this link. I’ve been very happy with them ever since and they have been serving me very faithfully, with no problems whatsoever.
Well, Paul from “Plastic Warriors 1/76 & 1/72 Plastic Soldiers,Armour & Aircraft” has shared on his blog how his mate Dave makes wargaming smoke markers. I was very impressed! Not only are the materials pretty easy to come by, there are times when a smoke marker having some sort of flat base to correctly position it (or anchor it, if you play outdoors and it’s a bit breezy) is a great idea. Mrs Funker, like Paul’s wife, would not be happy with using the family oven for drying – I think sun-drying during the summer or indoors for a few days in a quite-warm, low-humidity room in winter would do the job adequately…after all, if not perfectly dry after a couple of days, it’s very easy to just put them outside again during the next sunny spell…
Anyway. This is something I will remember for next time I need to make smoke markers…and I may even ‘base’ a couple of my existing ones using my current supply of caulk, sheet styrene cut to appropriate sizes and shapes, and paint. Thanks Paul, and thanks Dave!
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The blog ‘War and game’ is gone – it ceased being accessible last year, and I mentioned this on this post here.
But I didn’t remove the link and kept forgetting to do so every time I logged in to WordPress.
Realising today that I really need to do a little cleaning up and re-organising around here, I have removed it from my Links…
…
…and added a new link!
Chris Kemp’s blog “Not Quite Mechanised: Fastplay Operational-Level Tabletop Wargaming” http://notquitemechanised.wordpress.com/ is taking up the slack! It’s a blog about 20th Century wargaming, and one tank model on the table represents a whole company (which s quite different to ‘Panzerfaust: Armoured Fist’, which is 1:1). There are great photos, plus progress reports and lots more. So, welcome Chris!
“The Yankeez are coming!” – ‘Yankeez’, by Machine Gun Fellatio
January 18, 2013
– no, not Trainee Funker suggesting that I start assembling a US force and begin gaming the Western Front, but holding the first of many US Lend-Lease tanks I can add to my Eastern Front Russian forces.
Eastern Funker's 'Panzerfaust: Armoured Fist' blog 
