Preparing to Leave

As private contractors they carry the gear they want and wear what they want.

Their are even taking a dog with them.  They said he makes a good watchdog and companion.

Technical staff record the event.

Some wear body armor, others prefer to travel light.

All carry weapons.

They will scout for three days and then return.

Good luck on your mission.
 

Stargate

A group of ex-military mercenaries go through the stargate.

Fewer legal issues and other problems if contractors get killed.

Or captured.

So they line up to go.

Chevron locked and ready.
 

Wargame Rules from Ancient Times

H.G. Wells, the War of the Worlds author also wrote a set of wargame rules for toy soldiers.  It is interesting to read.  It involves shooting toy cannons at the soldiers to make your kills.

 

This is Angriff, the first set of wargame rules that I played. I played it so much the pamphlet wore out and I had to get the second edition, shown here.  Long out of print, as I understand it there is a problem getting hold of anyone who wrote it or published it to get the rights to reprint it.  I think it would sell, it's quick and easy to play and works for models as small as micro-armor 1/300th scale and as large as 1/72nd scale. I eventually wrote my own set of rules but these are still a very good set.

The next set I got was Tractics.  It included modern armor up to about 1980 for Cold War gone hot games.  It was similar in many ways to Angriff.  It was designed for one solder and one tank model were equal to one real soldier and one real tank.  I like that.

Tractics consisted of three books each as big as Angriff, and a similar number of charts for the armor of the different vehicles and penetration and chance to hit the target for hundreds of weapons.  IT was also more complete than Angriff with more countries represented, and other aspects to war like paratroopers.

 

 

Taking Photos

The photos on this blog are often taken outdoors.  Sometimes like this one, I take a bit of plywood, put it on a table and take photos.  The plywood is what I use to paint models on, so it often is different colors and adds interest to the base.

By getting down low to the figures I can give them a background of trees. It also gives nice close up photos of the army men.

Being outside usually gives me good lighting.  I often take pictures outside when the sun is below treeline.  That puts my table in shade but still gives lots of light.

My photos are taken with a Nikon Coolpix L340 camera.  I like that it gives me a nice macro lens so I can get very close up to the figures.  It also takes a large photo so I can crop them and the viewer of the blog can blow them up to see lots of detail.

I can also move up a little bit and get grass and trees in the background and it gives the impression that the troops have a vast space before them because of the way the ground slopes away.