Bolt Action V3 Battle 3

    Recently I was in Athens. The few days I stayed there I had the opportunity to see some old friends, buy some products for the hobby and play a game of Bolt Action V3 at my friend Kostas' house. Kostas has a huge collection of BA miniatures!

   We were four players: Savvas, Dimitris, Panos (Kostas' son) and me, with an army of 500pts each. Two of us played the Germans and the other two the British and the Americans. The battlefield was somewhere in Normandy. We had an objective of 5 victory points in the middle of the table. Besides, each destroyed enemy unit was an additional victory point.  

A Panzer III

The battlefield

The German grenadiers 500pts

German vehicles and infantry 500pts

The British Airborne 500pts

The American Rangers 500pts

The Allies' corner of the table

The Germans' corner

The Allies advance

The statue in the middle was the objective

   After the first three turns, there were many casualties on both sides and a lot of pin markers (the little red explosions) around the battlefield.

The tanks duel

Matilda had a lucky shot

   When Panzer was destroyed, it was easy for the allied armies to move forward, take places around the statue and deny the five points of the objective to the Germans. 

   Finally, it was a victory for the Allies since they had more than two victory points from the Germans. It was a nice game and we had great fun!

   After the battle all the "warriors" enjoyed a delicious meal that Kostas' wife, Maria, prepared!

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for more! 

Bridges and docks

    Bridges are nice terrain pieces. I tried to make three wooden bridges proper for any wargame historical period. One bridge is short while the other two are taller but of different length. Each bridge is not a single terrain piece but consists of three pieces so that if I remove one piece, I can use it as a dock. 

Bridge A, the long one

   The bases are MDF. All the rest are pieces of balsa wood of various shapes and dimensions.

Bridge B

Bridge C, the short one

Bridge A as a dock

Bridge B as a dock

Combination of bridge A and B as docks

The three bridges

   I painted them with Vallejo "Cork Brown" and then washed with Army Painter "Strong Tone".

   Finally, I added some grass and yellow flowers to break the monotony of brown colour.

Four Red Army soldiers cross the bridge B

Bridge C

Bridge A

This must be a very strong bridge to stand the weight of a T-34 and a KV-2!

A and B as docks

A and B together as a dock

   Since I used Red Army soldiers and tanks for the bridges, I add a photo of the Lovers' Bridge in Sevastopol, which is a pedestrian arch bridge, very close to the famous Monument to the Sunken Ships which was erected in 1905 on the 50th anniversary of the siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War (October 1853 - March 1856).

Lovers' Bridge and the Monument on the background

Monument to the Sunken Ships

   That's all for today! Stay tuned for more!

Craters and the Palace of Knossos

    Craters are nice terrain scenery pieces for the battlefield. I found the term on google and it is a bowl-shaped depression produced by the impact of an explosion. So, I made my own bowl-shaped depression pieces, seven of them!

The seven craters

   I started with the MDF bases, where I did some cuts in a net pattern in order to stick the modelling clay and the acrylic putty on them easily.

With the modelling clay I made the craters' shape

On the big craters I added some DOW pieces 

   And after that the process was as follows: apply acrylic putty, add some sand and little stones, paint them all black, paint them with Vallejo "Flat earth", wash and finally highlight them with "US tan earth".

One of the big craters with two "Black Death" sailors 

One of the medium craters

And the two small ones.

   Two days ago, the famous singer Mick Jagger uploaded on FB some photos and asked "Somewhere on the Med...but where?" I didn't reply but I know where he was. He was here, on Crete and specifically in the Palace of Knossos.

In front of the "Queen's Megaron"

On the same spot my wife, me and a friendly couple.

In front of "Prince of lilies"

My wife and me, not in such a dramatic pose as the above!

   That's all for today! Stay tuned for more!

Some more trees and the ancient olive tree of Vouves

    Trees are never enough! This period of the year, it is easy to find and buy some lovely little trees in shops that sell Christmas decoration products. I bought three sets of trees, short, medium and tall. Each of them had a bright black conical base. I replaced those with 40mm flat bases for the short and the medium trees and 60mm flat bases for the tall ones.

The pine trees

   They are fourteen trees in total, five short, five medium and four tall.

The 40mm and 60mm flat bases

   On the four bases of the tall pine trees, I glued the bottlenecks of empty Vallejo paints in order to support the trees.

   Then, I made the tree trunks with modelling clay and covered the bases with acrylic putty.

   Some little rocks and sand, and the bases were ready to be painted.

The five short pine trees

The five medium pine trees

And the four tall pine trees

   I placed a Soviet soldier next to the trees to see the size of each set of trees.

The short,

the medium

and the tall ones.

   Speaking of trees, there is a famous tree here in Crete, the ancient olive tree of Vouves.

If you have an eagle eye, you can see the legs of my wife next to the ancient olive tree.

My wife and a good friend of ours.

   Have a nice month!

   That's all for today! Stay tuned for more!