Half-Tracks

Finished painting some half-tracks.  They're Old Glory (I think).  I can't bring myself to spend a lot of money for transports (granted, these have machine guns on them, but still).

Here's a comparison with a Quality Casting Kfz. 7.

Doesn't even look like they're in the same scale.  Luckily I don't worry about stuff like that.

Battlefield vs Call of Duty (again)

I wrote a post awhile ago comparing Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty:  Black Ops.  Last Winter I got really into playing Black Ops 2 online multiplayer as well and really liked it.  Over the past couple of days I started playing Battlefield 3 again and I've come to the conclusion that I like Battlefield a lot more than Call of Duty.  Basically it boils down to the fact that in Battlefield I can go 15-39 (as in 15 kills and 39 deaths) and still have a great time.  Like, I barely notice what my kill-to-death ration is.  But in Call of Duty it's such a focus that playing that bad (which I do) bums me out.  So, really looking forward to Battlefield 4 and I might be done with playing Call of Duty games altogether.

Speaking of these modern shooters, I'm just about done painting up some Eureka NATO frogmen and an African heavy machine gun and crew (like something from Angola, that sort of thing).  Also painted up 9 German half-tracks for Command Decision.  Pictures soon.

Played the Letters from Whitechapel board game a couple of times last week and so far it's pretty awesome.  Similar to Fury of Dracula but much, much better.  And that's not a knock on Fury, which I think is a pretty good game in its own right, but I think Letters is way better.

Vikings

After a long delay, I finally finished up my first set of Vikings and assorted Dark Age rabble.

These are Viking Huscarls from Wargames Factory.  Overall I'm not a big fan of these miniatures.  They're too skinny and their poses are kinda lame.  I really had to work to get them posed somewhat naturally when I was assembling them, which made the process worse than normal (I hate assembling plastic figures).  Still, painting them up to a decent standard wasn't too hard and I more or less don't hate them.

These are Gripping Beast metal figures.  They came in a blister pack that was labeled something like "Armored Vikings with two-handed Axes."  I don't remember and I poked around on Gripping Beast's site and couldn't find these particular figures.

I absolutely love these guys, not least of which because they're armed with two-handed axes which means no shields! (I really hate painting shields)  They're also kinda chunky and I like bulky mini sculpts.  Lastly they're covered in chainmail which is easy to paint up to a cool looking standard.

This bunch are from Old Glory's Dark Age "Revolting Peasants" line.  Not sure if they're revolting as in they're rebels, or they're just, you know, revolting.  I bought these guys at Cold Wars 2012 I think, and when I dumped them out of the bag my first thought was they look like something Robin Hood and not guys that would be fighting Vikings.  But now that they're painted up I really like them.  It's funny, I think most people look down on Old Glory, but these are some of my favorite 25mm miniatures.

This guy is really pissed off!  I mean, he doesn't even have a weapon, just his fist.

I love the look on this guy's face.

Right now I'm working on some other stuff, but when that's wrapped up I've got some more Dark Age figures to paint, including some priests which I envision will be trying to escape with their golden crosses and chalices as Viking hordes swarm ashore from their longships in some future game (hopefully not too far in the future).  Guess I'll also paint up some more of the Wargames Factory figures since I have this boxed set to go through:

But I won't be happy doing it.