Just a quickie....

Its been a while. But here are a few more Zulu's. November and December are always busy months, four family birthdays (including mine (yippee!), the run upto Christmas, blah blah blah! So consequently it took a little longer than anticipated to finish these models.  These are empressminiatures married Zulu's and with these dozen completed it now means that the twenty Zulu figures I originally purchased are complete. 

Once the snow has abated I will be able to use the workshop and take some better photos.

Zulu's Sir, 'ate of um!

In between making terrain, I've not been idle. These Zulu are coming along very nicely. Few more to do yet, quite a few more actually.

These are all empressminiatures figures. Have about another dozen or so of these to finish, then start on the Foundry Zulu's recently purchased at Derby. I'm interested to see how the two will mix together or not! The Empress Zulu's look quite slight next to the Foundry sculpts, but best to judge once I have painted versions of both.

Scrub

A few more terrain pieces. I got the idea whilst watching 'Zulu' ( again!) a few weeks ago, and noticed in some scenes that there were odd trees scattered about surrounded by tall grass and bush. I then remembered having some 'Woodland Scenic' tree armatures lying about and voila!

They took a little longer than I had planned. The colder weather recently, meant the glue was taking longer to dry and I didn't really take that in to account and half the first layer of sand fell off, when I came to paint them. Patience is the key at the moment. Again I've used CD's for the bases.

This little project was a learning curve 'Hob-e-tac' (Woodland Scenics own glue), is good stuff but it does just what it says-its tacky. Worse than super glue if you get it on fingers. I used a mix of Woodland Scenic, Javis and GW materials for the foliage and scatters.

Here's a shot with a red coat lurking in the bush.

I have a few other ideas forming for future terrain projects. Time to crack on.

Zulu- Just One!

By the magic of technology, this looks like it could be one of the Zulu's from the last post? Well I'd lying if I said it was. I finished this little fella about a week ago and have done a few more since.

My main concern with painting the Zulu was getting the black/African skin colour right. Or at least do it justice. So this was the test figure. I must admit most of my previous painting has been of white Europeans. Mainly because thats have been my area of interest, not because of anything more sinister.

I had an idea of what colours to use, and after some research on the 'net' to see how other people do it, I stayed with my initial scheme. Which to be honest wasn't to far off what other painters have used. Some of the best skin tones I found, involved eight or nine layers/glazes/highlights etc. of paint which I decided was just too much, even for me! Though the result was very good.

I am once again finding I'm using a limited palette, for clothing (what there is of it!) etc.. I seemed to have turned other a new leaf, I no longer have to agonise over what variation of brown or white or whatever colour to paint a loin cloth, they will all be the same colour-Oh the joy!

I seem to have caught the colonial bug at the moment. (Sounds nasty, what!).

P.S. Colonial bug is not a reference to Starship Troopers-you know who you are.

P.P.S. Yes this is an Empress Miniatures, Zulu. Follow the link on the right hand side if you would like to know more!

On the Workbench

Currently working on a 'ruck' of Zulu's and some more Apache. The Zulu's are from Empress, and nice they are too. These are the Married warriors packs. In each pack you get, four figures, a choice of shields generally one large and three small and a weapons sprue, with spears and clubs. I've decided to use wire spears for the assegai, but since some of the models with rifles have a cast open left hand, used the cast weapons to give the appearance that these warriors are carrying a secondary weapon. I would assume thats what the sculptor had in mind?

Ashlee

Ashlee, Zombie Killer. Another Hasslefree figure.

Dionne

First of my Zombie Hunters/Near future adventurers. Had these for a while and like so many other models, just did not get round to painting any of them. This little beauty took about two hours last night. Dionne is a Hasslefree figure.

Make a nice change, so will probably paint them as 'inbetweeners'. Inbetween other projects.

Rocky Outcrops

Made these over the last couple of days. Gathered a selection of stones from the garden, found some old CD's lying around the house. Stuck the stones onto the CD's then covered blank areas with sand/gravel mix and undercoated and painted. Lastly stuck on the static grass. Not a new idea I know, but something I wanted to do. My kind of terrain making.

I intend to use these with 28mm figures, for Ambush Alley, Old West and Zulu War plus others. Here's a shot of one with an Apache for an idea of scale.

Will probably make a few more soon.

Return of the 24th.

I found these three lurking in a dark corner, based and undercoated, and looking a little bit lost. So I picked them up, brushed off the dust and started painting.

I've slightly changed the colours used on these three. Used GW's Mechrite Red as a base coat for the jacket and Dheneb Stone as the base coat for anything white. This certainly speeded up the painting process. Before I had been using GW's Scab Red as the base coat, which meant applying a couple of coats over black, before highlighting. Previously the webbing, helmet etc. had been base coated with Khemri Brown and then highlighted. I first used the Dheneb Stone on the clothing for the Apache and then washed with Graveyard Earth and then highlighted up. Also boots and anything else just going to be black I drybrushed with Codex Grey rather than highlighting the black. Overall I was able to finish these three much quicker than before.

And Yes I have broken my rule not to get sidetracked onto other projects!

'You're one ugly motherf****r!'

The Predator!

This lovely sculpt is from heresyminiatures. I've been dipping in and out of the Heresy site for a while, viewed their models at Salute but even though I saw quite a few models I liked (check out the demons) never made a purchase since it was a case of 'what am I going to use it for?'. Then about two weeks ago whilst browsing saw this sculpt called a 'Hurn'. The rest is history so to speak.

This is the first model I've bought for a while which I have assembled and painted straight away (which I think speaks volumes). The figure is a multi-part kit. The body is one, but the arms are in three pieces. The arms are sculpted to the elbow and then you have the choice of either having the arm mounted blades extended or retracted. The forearm weapon mounts are are a one piece casting. The hands are separate, and you have the option of either the clenched fist (as I have used) or the right hand holding the extended spear. One of the hand options is holding a small tube which I think allows you to cut down the 'retracted' spear and mount the ends onto the hand.

The plasma gun mounted on his back also comes in three parts. The upright, swivel mount and the gun itself. The swivel mount had to be pinned to the metal arm, which was fiddly but not to difficult. (I had to use a small piece of a staple, it was all I could find at the time). When ordering you have a choice of base size options and I went for the 40mm round lipped display base. I'm glad I did the model is bigger then what I thought it would be. Next was to paint it. I had decided that I would base any colour scheme on the movie alien, but what colours to use was the issue?

The colour scheme is based (loosely) on the Predator from the the second film, the one with Danny Glover. I searched on various sites which revealed that there is no generic colour scheme, each film has added its own twist/slant/variation to the original Predator.I must admit I had not actually noticed the difference in the various movies. I also read on a couple of sites that the original colour scheme was based on a banana skin! The yellowish colour and black spots. So I decided that as long as it looked menacing, I was free to paint it how ever I liked. I had considered purchasing a sculpted resin base, like the type made by Fenris and available from hasslefreeminiatures or Fenris's own e-bay shop. But I decided against this, maybe next time?

The last photo is a comparison to give an idea of the size of the model next to a 28mm scaled human. In this case a Delta Force operative from the grippingbeast range. Who are you going to put your money on?

Overall a great model and I'm pleased with the result. I will be purchasing more of the Heresy models. I just need to find a set of rules to use the thing in.

Hopefully another variant of the Hurn will be produced, a helmeted version would be good and some Xenomorphs to battle against?

Yet More Apache!

Two more Renegades to add to my small but growing Apache warband. These models are proving quite fun to paint, and I'm limiting the colour palette to spend up the painting. This is made easier due to the fact that I can give them white shirts and trousers, historically the Apache adopted these garments following contact with the Mexicans.

I actually finished these about a week ago but have been completing another little project since then. More on that later.

More Apache

Here we have a couple more Apache, completed over the past week.



This warrior is particularly well armed with a repeating rifle and a six gun! Wearing a traditional war cap on his head.

This warrior is holding in his left hand a flop head club, or traditional war club.

The reasoning behind starting the Apache was to use them in 'Legends_of_the_Old_West'. Quite a few of the usual club attendees, have Old West figures and the indomitable Capt. Nolan has a large collection of Cowboys, Mexicans and a very nice set of frontier buildings. The Apache fought against the Americans (Anglo-Americans) and the Mexicans, so it made sense to paint up a force of these Native Americans.

Project 7 Revealed

Here it is Project No.7.


Foundry-Apache.

Purchased these nearly a year ago, to be used in Legends of the Old West. Like so many other pieces of lead they have languished in a draw until now. But from now until the end of the year these and my FoW project will be the main focus.

More on this project in another post .

Project-Flames of War

Now in the last entry I mentioned that I have a plan of where my Flames of War gaming/collecting will lead. Initially when I decided to play and collect miniatures for FoW, I chose the US Airborne mainly because I had some US Airborne in 28mm, and thought it would be nice to carry on the same theme in the smaller scale.

Since I was painting the US Paras to represent the 101st and/or 82nd Divisions in Normandy, ie wearing the m1942 jumpsuit, it seemed logical to collect German forces which featured in that campaign.

Primarily the Airborne will represent the 101st Division 'Screaming Eagles'. Both Paratrooper Divisions were dropped behind Utah Beach on D-day, but were badly scattered, numerous small scale actions took place as a result against the defending Germans. Now this means that I should be able to eventually create scenarios to represent these initial encounters, against the troops of the static divisions defending the coast line. The supplements produced by Battlefront cover some of the units defending the Normandy coast, so it should be fairly straight forward to use these to recreate the Grenadier Divisions.

Yet my initial German forces I have decided will represent the following German units.

The 6th Fallshirmjager Regiment was engaged against the Americans pretty much as soon as they landed. Was involved in the defence of and the attempt to re-capture the city of Carentan.

The 17th SS PanzerGrenadier Division 'Gotz von Berlichingen', was involved in the counter attack to re-capture Carentan from the 101st Division.

Both of these units have 'Briefings' on the Battlefront website allowing for their recreation. So this will mean I can build forces around their orders of battle, rather than use the generic army lists. Though I do not intend to give any of the models specific unit markings, so that any model units can be used to represent other Divisions present in the Normandy campaign or just to be 'generic' units for for use in the game.

After these units have been built for the Germans I will look to add in models for the Heer Grenadier formations, and for the US forces probably an armoured formation. I will eventually move onto the British, and would like to start with the 7th Armoured, who had the misfortune to encounter Michael_Wittmann at Villiers-Bocage.

This will be an ongoing project, but I'm hopeful that by aiming to design my forces and 'real' units it will be one which will maintain my interest.

So why Flames of War?

So why Flames of War? This is a question aimed at myself. I've long had an interest in WW2 gaming, having first used Airfix, Matchbox and Esci model kits and figures to refight the battles of the conflict and then moved onto 1/300th. 1/300th scale, was a) cheaper and b) allowed you to build bigger forces, plus no fiddly plastic kits to build!

I gradually moved away from WW2 figure gaming to play the hex based board games. Avalon Hill, SPI and a few others no doubt. Squad Leader was a particular favourite, Panzer Leader/Panzer Blitz also having a few outings. Of course these board games ranged from the platoon/company level right upto divisional/army level. It was possible to play both the tactical and strategic level of the war.

Then a few years ago I decided to return to WW2 and purchased some 28mm figures, and have used them in some games. But having joined the Evesham Wargames Club, I noticed some of the members played Flames of War week in week out (actually we meet fortnightly, but you get the idea). This intrigued me and made me think that there must be something good about it for people to play the game time and time again.

So I decided to investigate. I was certainly aware of Flames of War, but since it was in 15mm I had never really been interested. 15mm was one of those scales I never really 'got into'. I bought 15mm models etc, most people I have known over the years who are wargamer's have 15mm armies, but I had always found the figures uninspiring to paint and there were always lots of figures too or so it seemed.

A visit to the Battlefront website was about to change all that. My first impression had been that Battlefront were to historical gaming like GW is seen by many in the wargaming community as a whole ie in it for the money (NB. I like GW, they almost make wargaming seem cool). My view changed, on the Flames of War site I found modeling/painting articles, gaming articles and most impressive of all historical articles detailing campaigns/battles and unit histories. The fact that time had been taken to research the period, convinced me that this was a company worth supporting. Plus I liked the models.

So a short while latter I had a copy of the rules and the boxed US Airborne Rifle Company set in my hands. Now having actually played a couple of games, I can say that I like the game as well. I'm aware that the rules have a large competition circuit, and are perhaps viewed by some as being a set of tournament rules but that's not what I intend to do or to use them for. More on that later.

Projects an update & a reply

In response to Paul's comments, firstly I not sure why I didn't realise that he had a Dark Age army since the banner to his blog movealongnownothingtoseehere is a photo of some nice Norman Knights.

Now on my last post re Projects, I didn't mention what other subjects/periods I would like to do since I am hopefully not going to be buying anything new this year. By new I mean of course a completely new period/army.

But projects I would like to start eventually are;

1) ACW in 6mm-yes I had intended to start this in this year but it will have to join the waiting list for a while.

2) Napoleonic in 6mm-a definite maybe.

3) Pulp gaming-this has been attracting my interest for a while. The idea of turn of century/early 20th Century games of daring do! I like Copplestone's Back of Beyond range, and the Russian Civil War figures are a particular favourite. Or that Tarzan/King Solomons Mines/King Kong/Lost World/Indiana Jones type thing, you know what I mean!?

4) WW2 air war-Battle of Britain, 8th Air force over Germany, Pacific air combat. I would like to do this in 1/300th and raiden miniatures have a nice range of aircraft.

Yet for now its going to be Flames of War and Project number 7, which will be my focus for a while.

Fire Support

81mm Mortar Platoon, to provide much needed fire support to my US Para rifle company. They had their first outing in the last game I played but were not that successful in my opinion. Nevertheless here they are. I haven't posted a picture earlier since I hadn't finished off the bazooka teams, when the Platoon got its first outing.

I decided after the last game heavier fire support was needed so I have started, a battery of 75mm Parachute pack howitzers. First section is prepped ready for painting.

Projects

For a while now I've been mulling over the number of wargaming 'projects' I have on the go and how to lower the proverbial 'lead mountain' the bane of all those committed to this hobby of ours.

The recent house move did bring sharply into focus just how much 'stuff' I have despite having had a clear out some twelve months before. So what to do with it all, put it back into storage, sell it or dare I say it, paint it! (crazy fool). Well there's just too much to paint in one go but what if I was to actually be disciplined and only concentrated on one or two projects. Sound to far fetched, impossible?

At the moment this is the list of current projects;

1) WW2 in 15mm aka Flames of War.

2) WW2 in 28mm.

3) War of the Ring-GW mass combat for Lord of the Rings.

4) Ambush Alley in 28mm-'Black Hawk Down.'

5) Zulu War in 28mm.

6) French and Indian War in 28mm.

6) Dark Age armies in 28mm for Warhammer Ancient Battle-Viking, Saxon et al.

7) The secret project.

I have bits done for nearly all of them, in varying amounts. But I should, I have concluded narrow the field. Since the whole point is having 'bits done' is not really good enough.

At present the Flames of War project is probably my favourite, and the one I really want to complete. So which of the above should I concentrate on? Obviously its got to be a project which I'm interested in, and will sustain my interest, but also one which I can use against opponents. There are certainly enough members of the club, who have appropriate forces for the majority, of the above except maybe WAB, so what to do?

Somewhere in France....the next day!

So last night got to play my second game of Flames of War. It didn't go as well as the last game. The forces were pretty similar to the previous game but I added an 81mm mortar platoon and reduced the strength of one of my infantry platoons from 3 to 2 squads. The scenario rolled was Withdrawal, with me attacking.

Kampfgruppe von Churchill was entrenched on either side of a river. The Germans flanks protected by armour, Tigers on their left, Jagdpanthers on the right. I strung my infantry out across the board, with the mortars being able to set up on a hill (gave myself a big thumbs up for that! How wrong I was to be proved.) Running centrally across the board, from wide table edge to wide table edge, was a road with a village on the German side clumped around a ford. Entrenched infantry clustered around that.

So the scene was set and in a rather mad moment I charged my platoon of Sherman's, down this road (taking aleaf out of Monty's book!), and straight onto the entrenched infantry, the assault failed, and by turn 3 I was short one armoured platoon. The paras then were left to slug it out alone. The mortar platoon was exceptionally ineffective knocking out one AA halftrack, and having no effect against the enemy infantry. The air support was only marginally better, bagging one Jagdpanther, though probably giving the Germans more frights along the way. All I could do was watch as the enemy withdrew their platoons one by one. Not the most glorious of moments for the 101st.

Quite a sound defeat, but still an enjoyable game. Now I must decide what to add next to the growing 101st arsenal, 75mm pack howitzers, 57mm AT guns or the M10 option, what shall it be?

Somewhere in France...June,1944

The scene is set. Elements of the 101st Airborne push south of Carentan in a bid to locate enemy forces. Heading north, on a similar mission are elements of Kampfegruppe von Churchill (no relation to the stalwart British PM). Two platoons of paras move into position and occupy a defensive position. To their immediate front, a infantry gun battery occupies the high ground and AT-guns encroach on the wood land. On the paras left flank two Tiger tanks (scourge of the Allies), move into position. The paras dig in to ride out the approaching storm!On the paras right flank the dull rumble of armour can be heard. Then a platoon of the workhorse of the Allied advance burst onto the scene-M4 Shermans! They begin to advance towards the enemy.

On the left the Tiger's realising that it will be hard work to dislodge the entrenched infantry begin to steadily creep around the flank. Time and again air support is requested and P47's come screaming into attack the 'big cats'. The panzer crews unfortunately hold, and the bombs of the attackers fail to dent the armour of the tanks or break the nerve of the crews. As time presses on more German reinforcements arrive. To oppose the Sherman's, two Jadgpanther's come forward. (In typical Teutonic subterfuge, these machines are disguised as Panzer 111's, is Otto_Skorzeny nearby?!)
Not to be out done. The Americans realise that they will have to take the fight to the enemy. One platoon of paras break cover and advance towards the foe. The M4's occupy the high ground and quickly lose one vehicle to the guns of the tankhunters. The Shermans pull back slightly, and snipe at the enemy artillery, on the adjacent hill (without success), whilst those same guns take a steady toll on the advancing paras, who make it to the next hedge line. The paras now begin to trade fire with the AT-guns and infantry (who had joined them in the wood). The Jadgpanthers, perhaps overconfident that they had halted the American advance, did not seek cover, and then the P47's swooped down again this time knocking out one of the tank hunters on the first pass. In response the Germans rushed forward a platoon of two halftracked AA guns only to see them burst into flames when the Shermans pressed forward the attack again.

The lone Jadgpanther now pressed forward to the hill to take the fight to the enemy, and despite having lost another machine to its 88mm gun, the M4's spotted an opportunity to take the fight to the enemy. Two American tanks outflanked the tank hunter, one pressing forward to the far base of the hill. With the vulnerable side armour exposed the 75mm AP round struck the side of the German machine and knocked it out. The other Sherman turned it's main gun on one of the surviving 50mm AT guns, and torn it apart.

On the American left, the two Tigers and slowly worked their way around the back of the remaining platoon, and realising the danger, the paras, swept forward to assault the enemy tanks. Despite bazooka rounds ricochetting off the hull and infantry, attempting to clamber all over them to exact revenge the two German tanks drove off their attackers .

With the sun setting both sides broke off and withdrew.

So ended my first game of Flames of War. First impressions......I liked it. Didn't remember all the rules, but at the same time didn't seem to difficult to pick up with steady practice. Played the encounter scenario, and fortunately rolled for my reserves on the second turn, which was fortunate only having one platoon to bring on. Chris very sportingly called it a draw, I personally felt that I had come off the worse.

The air support was not as effective as I would have liked, despite having priority air support, but thats the problem with any diced based game. If a recall correctly, I was able to call down air support three times in a row against the Tiger's and did nothing!

Now I just need to paint up more troops to have a variable force to game with.

Carentan in 15mm

This is a Landmark building, Carentan Houses. Purchased mine from Timecast, and at the moment I believe they are no longer being made, though Timecast are hoping to take over production. Nice little buildings overall.

I've decided to mount all mine on to MDF and add scenery. I've also 'weathered' the buildings a little. I can't say painting scenery has ever been my thing. The seemingly recent expansion in pre-painted scenery is for me at least, a bit of a bonus. At the same time I like to see scenery which has been modelled, and hence why I decided to base all the houses. This is the first one finished. I intend to have enough to make a town scene, if necessary. Not sure how this will work in games, since the vogue at present is to have buildings with lift off roofs etc so models can be placed in side. Can't do that with these Landmark buildings.
The pavement is a mixture of textured plasticard from Antenociti Workshop, and good old cereal packet card, cut and scored. The cobble stones in the backyard is textured plasticard from the same company. The advertising poster is also from Antenociti. They do sheets of French or German advertising/propaganda posters, all copies of originals.

Then there were two....

Another Woodland Indian completed. These Conquest Miniature figures have got to be some of my favourite 28mm models I have ever painted. They are a joy to paint, delicate but well detailed and cannot be rushed.

I decided to paint a thin band of warpaint on this one. I had painted and highlighted the face and then added the warpaint. I used 50/50 mix of Chaos black/Scorched brown, I thought pure black may have been to harsh. The paint was thinned so I applied a couple of thin coats to build it up. Again I did not want to destroy the detail, so the original skin colour underneath can in places just be made out. The warpaint looks more brown in the photos but on the actual model it does appear to be more black.

Why I love.....

Webbs of Wychbold!?

Mrs G and I took the brood to this fairly local gardening emporium on Saturday. Always a grand day out with the pets section, and climbing frames to keep the kids occupied. I actually went with the intention of pricing up/purchasing shelving for the green house. Now part of the store is given over to Hobbycraft. This area is always worth a perusal, useful for modeling supplies, and imagine my surprise/delight/horror(!?), when I discovered on this visit that they now stock Battlefront products. Not a huge range but enough. I ended up walking away with a Flak36 battery. And the greenhouse? Still needs shelving!

So bravo to Webbs.

I'm back....!

Well the house move went pretty well. I've finally now got round to start painting again, which just over a week on is not to bad.

So on the workbench we have.....

US Para 81 mm mortar platoon. Based and undercoated, just need to be painted. I will paint the base first then the models. I started basing and then painting the models many years ago, if I think I can get away with it. I never liked the painting the model first, then basing routine. Particularly if drybrushing the base detail, paint had a tendency to go on the figure, which would mean touching that figure up again, plus once figures were based some detail could not be seen. So I experimented with basing groups of models and painting them once in situ. At the time I was painting 15mm ancients for DBA/DBM (long since gone), and it worked. FoW bases lend them themselves to this method perfectly. Though I have yet to try and paint more than 4 figures on a base, or camo ie Germans. I work on the theory that if I can't get the brush into an area to paint the detail then it will not be seen anyway! So this area will be left black, representing shade or at least in a base colour. Also I have a 'base' to hold when painting the models, which can make things easier. Others like to place figures on sticks or whatever, this is the method I use and it suits me.

Next up....

Woodland Indians for French and Indian War. Observers may notice that I haven't sprayed the figures on the base, but undercoated them and then applied the model to the base and put on the sand. I've then applied a wash of brown ink to the sand and will then drybrush the base.I wanted to try something a little different, since the black undercoat can make the base colour(s) look to dark. I'm happy with results so far.

All Stop....!

Well with the house move looming, no painting action taking place here. Everything is packed or soon to be packed. Not sure when I will be able to start up again but hopefully in the not to distant future. I hope to be back up and running by the Easter weekend at least. Fingers crossed!

And now for something completely different....

Now to paint up the rest of the war party, so they can strike terror into the Thirteen Colonies!

P47's Part4 and finally

These P47's are based on the 56th Fighter Group, 62nd Squadron who flew out of Boxted, Essex from April 1944 until the end the war. For more information on this go here-littlefriends.

These models I'm fairly confident represent P47D's not P47M's has I originally thought. For more information on the P47 go here-P-47_Thunderbolt and here-p47.

My choice of the 56th FG was largely based on a recent vist to Duxford Air Museum and seeing a P47 on display in the grey/green colours, but a could not remember the full squadron details. Then on return and looking through 'The Mighty Eighth' by Roger A Freeman, I came across a coloured drawing of a 56th FG aircraft in the relevant camo scheme so my mind was made up. And the rest is history.

P 47's Part 3

The P47's are finally completed. I've weathered the models with Tamiya weathering master, and painted the canopies.

The canopies have been painted, with a further coat of Regal Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Ice Blue and finally Space Wolves Grey and finally a touch of Skull White to give a final highlight.

For the weathering I used Tamiya weathering master Grey and Green (which I surmised are aimed at weathering armoured vehicles), these lightened the paint quite effectively, then on the upper Sand, then Light Sand, then Soot around exhausts, weapon ports. The underside had the same but with Mud used first (and not the grey and green obviously). Definitely feeling more confident using the weathering powders, they have taken a little getting used to, but practice makes perfect. And less is definitely more.

Once all that was done the models were sealed with Army Painter matt varnish, and where the decals were to go a painted those areas with GW gloss varnish. Decals then applied over the gloss varnish. I read on a forum that applying over gloss varnish would hide the surrounding decal paper, but I think this has been only partially successful. The planes codes were painted yellow to represent the correct squadron colours (more on this latter). Decals were then weathered slightly, and two further coats of matt varnish applied.

The decals, which once upon a time I'm sure were called waterslide transfers or just 'transfers', were not that easy to use. I don't recall the decals which came with Airfix models ( I distant memory!), being that hard to apply from backing paper to model. The decals I used on the M4's were also a bit of a pain. They need to be soaked for a long time and then do not want to come off the backing paper, which results in tears. Oh the trials and tribulations!