Right, here we go.
Not only have I not being doing any blogging, but I finally figured out that it is not my innate lazyness (though this is a major feature of everything I do, or don’t do) but also because I tired of wrestling with my old blogging software, so now I’m going to have a go at this. I shall probably fail dismally, but I’m used to that.
PLDG - Yes it is a victim, and I know it
In celebration of my new found fancy software, I once again failed to take decent pictures of something I’ve painted. This is a constant annoyance to me, the 4th Princess Louise Dragoon guards. And yes, here they are in most of their glory. A cross over between Mid-war and late war, a canadian Recce regiment in Italy. I think all the stuff are Battlefront miniatures.
Of course, the first thing those charming people at Battlefront did was make the late war version not exist. The Canadians (and the rest of the Commonwealth and Empire) were removed from the Fortress Europe book, the replacement for Festung Europa. Not only were the Canadians removed, Recce regiments were removed. This made playing it in late war a touch challenging.
Eventually Battlefront showed up with a PDF. This meant I had to paint more armoured cars (I need more armoured cars the way I need to gain weight) but Canadians did not feature in the PDF either. All rather frustrating.
Mortar Platoon
Here is the mortar platoon, complete with Late war PIAT chaps. Which, as I pointed out, I cannot use.
Then the new Africa book came out, complete with Sicily and Italy. Well, on the good side, I can use these chaps again. On the bad side.. I had to paint more stuff; the M3 White thingies for the assault squad, for instance.
Epic discussions have taken place on the color of the softskins and other stuff, the Magic SCC 2a “s*** brown”. While people have said over again to use the Vallejo Khaki color, I decided to go with something a little yellower, as the Khaki was a bit close to the uniform color of the infantry for my taste. Its an artistic license thing.
And here is the AT platoon. The Portees are strictly amid war thing, in fact I’m not sure the Canadians used them, I’ve not been able to find evidence, one way or the other. Its also been hard (as the list does not exist) to motivate me to paint the Lloyd carriers that the late war version deserves.
Look, its AT guns on lorries, bet those huns are scared now
In fact, as I think of it, this army has caused me endless grief. When I bought the Humbers, despite buying Mark III blisters, a good 50% had the wrong turrets, and 2 had guns from Daimlers, complete with littlejohn adapters. The 4 supporting poles on the Portees has a casualty rate of about 50% too, coming out of the blisters.
I must complement Battlefronts customer service though. I sent them an email with the issuers, and withing 10 days had the defective things replaced. Very good deal, chaps.
Now just do a PDF with the commonwealth lists from Italy, and I’d stop complaining. Those who know me know that will never happen, me stopping complaining. But maybe the nice guys at Battlefront have not figured that out.
In fact, I brought my problem up with some emissaries from Kiwi-land at Adepticon 2010 a week ago, and they indicated that maybe a PDF would be a good idea. We’ll see.
Having mentioned them, lets see the “Assault Platoon”. Hard to see here, because of my crummy photography, but 2 of the M3 White scout cars are Black on
Assault Troop, much less scary than they sound
Gray, and the other 2 are Olive drab on Gray. Because I can never make up my mind about these things. And the mixed them anyway, so I thought it might look interesting.
The actual infantry a mixture of blokes I had living in the “bits box” . Some Mid-war Commandos with a leavening of the baled out figures that came along with the armoured cars, for variety. And because I ran out of Commandos.
OK, finally a couple of pictures of the combat platoons for this lot. Mind you, “combat platoons” is probably excessively strong for these people. Combat is not really the thing.
In fact being shot at is probably a terrible plan.
"Combat platoons"
The combat platoons consist of a mixture of Humber armoured cars (They probably should be Foxes, but I could not find a model) armed with a terrifying 37mm gun. This is as much of a treat to the average late war panzer as a balloon on a stick. Added to those are the Otter armoured cars. They have an Anti-Tank rifle (a weapon found to be obsolete in 1939) and a machine gun. The Canadians used this, in preference to the British Humber LRCs and continued to for as long as they could find them, because they had much more room inside and much better radio reception than the Humber LRC. Rather important in a Recce vehicle.
Added to this are the marvelous universal carriers, whose main function is looking good, I think.
More scary Canadian tin cans
The single based blokes running around in front brandishing revolvers are “vehicle bailed” markers.
It seemed appropriate to paint up all the figures they had included on individual bases for use as bailed markers. the couple of times I’ve used it, bailing happens a lot. Unfortunately pillars of smoke and fire happen more often, but at least we can look stylish doing it.
And besides, no rational set of counters is going to have close to the number of bailed markers in it I’m going to need. Time to think ahead, for once….
So Battlefront, if you publish something allowing me to use it, I’d be very happy. I might even bring it to nationals, ensuring that the people who play me get excellent points scores.
On a technical note, if you want to see old posts (cannot imagine why) look here.
Tales of cunning (losing) plans for gaming 
I’m probably going to have to redo these photos, though that does sound like effort. And I hate effort