Modelling-Friends crossed The Rainbow Bridge

We recently had to follow our faithful companion to his last journey over 'The Rainbow Bridge'. Linus was a well-traveled little guy, who loved mountain hikes and wandering along the shore, who loved driving, shopping for toys and who used to go into the local gas station and order a sausage. When going through 'old' photos it seems like he also liked (running) trains and take part in my modelling activities:

Linus overviews the first run and premier of my 16mm scale Heeresfeldbahn

Linus brings his ball to join the games too

Linus takes a look at some new some new acquisitions while running before they're heading off to the 'paint shop' 

Linus are inspecting the progress of the re-modelling of my Radio Controlled Combat Boat 90, and suggesting what photos to include in the blog

Budget Battle Mat approved by Linus

Linus while trying to recreate a drawing I usually use as a 'cover picture' of my annual 'year statistics'. The best photo of him was actually taken before the photoshoot started

Last year another of our long time fur companions crossed The Rainbow Bridge. Sofus did also like to hang around and have a closer look at the modelling activities:

Sofus picks out goods for a wagon in which we were also going to place a couple of miniature black cats 

While searching for these photos I also came by a really old one of our late fur baby Svarten, while he was inspecting the layout construction of my old H0-layout:

There was no blogpost on this layout as it got dismantled long before I start blogging. It looks like Svarten enjoyed it though.

They were all much loved, and will be deeply missed dear Linus, Sofus and Svarten❤️❤️❤️
To honor and remember them I've included a Jack Russell Terrier and 2 Black Cats in my military Garden trains:

Fly High and Run Free and Wild, Boys!!

Really large scale wargaming

Even if blogposts have kept coming through February and March, the truth is that I have been really busy in my real life for several weeks with military service on a NATO exercise in 'Northern Norway'. Due to the current global situation I'm not going to share any photos or information from it this time. Just giving my readers and fellow bloggers an explanation why (accumulated) posts has been coming at the same time as I have not commented actively on other's blogs. There has simply not been time for it for a while.

Anyhow, now I'm back to my (unclassified) miniature service and wargaming again. I've missed a couple of model railway shows I intentionally planned to visit and a garden railway running session in the meantime thoug.

The photos in this blogpost are outdated and taken 10 years ago during exercise Cold Response 2016.

Close Encounter in the 'Dawn of Man'

In 2023 I made a scenario and played a prehistoric 'fantasy' wargame between Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals using my own house rules. Is it possible to create a scenario for en even earlier period than this 'prehistoric' game?

In 2024 I made a 54mm 'Ape Army' for Sci-fi and Fantasy wargames. Even If my Apes depicts 'Chimpanzees' I envision that they also could substitute for early Hominids in the 'Dawn of Man', like those in the beginning of '2001 - A Space Odyssey' too. In that movie the evolution accelerates when the Hominids receives a Monolith from space some 4 million years ago, and they learn to develop tools and weapons. -Not only for hunting, but to battle each others as well. What if these early Hominids eventually got armed with simple spears not only received a 'monolith' from space, but actually got into a close and violent encounter with aliens armed with high tech weapons? -That could be an interesting scenario for another prehistoric Sci-fi/Fantasy wargame.

I don't have many 'alien' miniatures either, but I made some 'V'-miniatures last year. Like the early Hominids there aren't detailed records of the "Visitors" history either and all we actually 'know' is that they're from the 4th planet from Sirius in the 'Canis Major' constellation. They're a militaristic race of reptilian aliens, who travel to stars and plunder other worlds. We don't know how old their world is, and for how long they have been space travelling and plundered other planets. So for the scenario for this wargame I presupposes that they had such technology and were performing such activities at the same time as the 'Dawn of Man' on earth.

I had almost everything needed to play this game at hand, but decided go fancy and 3D-print and paint a 'Monolith' to set the scene:

The Rules

For this little skirmish game I wanted to combine FUBAR 4th Edition with FUBAR Dark Fantasy, as they have (almost) similar Core Rules. Close Combat and morale rules are slightly different between them, and are played as FUBAR 4th edition. I'll use FUBAR Dark Fantasy for the Hominids due to their melee weapons, and FUBAR 4th edition for the "Visitors" due to their ranged weapons and body armour. Their laser rifles are treated as 'assault rifles' according to the rules. 

However, some house rules seemed necessary; I guess early Hominids are 'comparable' with modern Chimanzees which are very fast, so I let them move 8" insted of 6". They also have brutal strength, a strong bite and deadly teeth, so I think they will be far superior to the reptiles in hand-to-hand combat, so they get to improve their expertise with +1 in melee for their physical strength and another +1 for their 2 handed spear.

The Scenario

About 4 million years ago an alien space-ship on their way home to their planet after a plundering raid on another planet, experienced technical difficulties when passing our solar system. The technical challenges resulted in that they needed to drop their loot from one of their cargo bays.

The dropped loot was valuable hard drives from another ancient world, and salvage patrols was eventually sent from this reptilian's home planet near Sirius to see if this loot could be found and salvaged. Several patrols searched through our solar system to see if the hard drives could be found by smaller crafts and recovered by larger vessels. 

One of these smaller 'Search and Rescue' patrols were searching planet earth. When passing the area we know as the African continent, they spotted an objective which could be one of the hard drives. They decided to land to have a closer look before contacting their Motherships and report their possible find...

Forces:

• The Shock Troopers:
• 1 squad of 2 fireteams:
• Fireteam 1: 2 troopers with High-Output Energy Rifles (like assault rifles according to the rules) and 1 trooper with a heavy laser blaster (like a LMG in the rules)
• Fireteam 2: 2 troopers with High-output Energy Rifles (like assault rifles according to the rules) and 1 trooper with laser launcher (rocket launcher in the rules).
• The Shock Troopers have body armour which will save on 5+ and are 'Veterans'.

• The Hominids are not 'organized' but fights as 3 groups of 5 each. They have not yet developed the capacity of throwing their spears, so they can only use them for thrusting. They will fight as 'Seasoned and their  experience gains a +2 in melee. They have no armour but will save on a +6 due to a 'stray shot'.

Mission:

• The Shock Troopers: To gain access to the 'monolith' for one turn to decide if it's a rock or if it's one of the lost hard drives.
• Hominids: They see the 'Visitors' as invaders and a threat to their tribe, and will try to eliminate them.

AAR

Time:    30 minutes

Turns:   3 (!)

Result:  Hominids victory

A 'Search and Rescue' Skyfighter flies by an object and decides to take a closer look at it from the ground:

When the Skyfighter lands the crew disembarks, and then they sees that the objekt is surrounded by some sorts of primates:

The Shock Troopers does not know if the inhabitants of this planet are friendly or not. It doesn't look like they have any advanced technology or weapons.The Shock Troopers goes on guard to see how the primates acts:

One group of Hominids rush against the strangers, and it becomes clear to the Shock Troopers that they are not friendly and they opens fire:

And makes one hit, which is 'pinned':

Then a second group of Hominids hastes against the other group of strangers. It's very clear that they have no friendly intentions with this behavior and the Shock Troopers opens fire:

This group of Shock Troopers also have a heavy blaster:

The Shock Troopers tries to hold the Hominids on a distance by heavy fire, but the Groups of Hominids just don't seems to care and and now a third group of Hominids joins the battle. How long can the Shock Troopers hold them back:

Not very long. Despite some hits, none of them were critical and the Hominids didn't seems to care and they rushed into an assault on a group of Shock Troopers:

It's a fierce melee and casualties on both sides, but it still looks like the Hominids have the upper hand:

The second group of Hominids also rush into an assault on the Shock Troopers:

And it's a brutal melee with casualties on both sides:

Finally the first group of charging Hominids have killed all the Shock Troopers in close combat with no further casualties:

That alien gunner is a though one, and really  hold his ground in the close combat for another turn:

-Until the third group of Hominids also made an assault and joined the close combat agains the last alien. Even if he was a brave alien, he was chanceless against this horde:

This was an victory for the Hominids. They tried to enter the space craft, but didn't manage to open it.

While on their way back to their 'base' they heard a nose from above. On the sky they could see another similar ship as the one they just abounded, but it didn't land as the first one. It just opened fire and destroyed the first ship, so the 'enemy' wouldn't take advantage of their advanced technology. They did not have intention to land in a such hostile environment...

... at least, not yet. Perhaps they would come back to this planet in the future better prepared for battle:

Making more rollingstock for my Heeresfeldbahn and WDLR Garden Trains

Too long ago I bought these two very colorful LGB starter set wagons second hand cheaply at a model railway exhibition in Germany:

They were so dirty at the time that I had to give them a quick wash at the hotel before I could bring them home:

They have been laying around in my hobby-room too long so I decided to finally just paint them up to fit my large scale Heeresfeldbahn and War Department Light Railway (WDLR) trains.
I noticed that one of the wagons had to large and unsightly holes in the floor

The holes was simply filled with Miliput:

It was also missing a buffer...

...which I 3D-printed and replaced both sides (so they'll look the same):

Since this is a very common LGB wagon and I have so many other identical wagons of the same type already, I painted them slightly differently than the others. This one was simply spray painted grey and drybrushed:

With the second wagon  I decided to make even greater variations by removing the axles and replace them with bogies in stead, suggesting a wagon for heavier loads. I got a couple of leftover bogies from my previous project:

On Cults3d I found a free stl-file for a truck mount I 3D-printed to fit my chassis. Then the Accucraft trucks were fitted to the new truck mounts:

I guess this is a wagon that can handle heavier loads than the first one. -Like vehicles for instance:

Painting these wagons has been like:

I think these 2 wagons are about ready for deployment now, and that they won't look out of place running in either a German or a British rake.