Sash and sabre dio continued

Hi guys
Have nearly finished the first 5 figs, ignore the gloss areas, some oil paint is still drying, as I said in the earlier post these figs are very good war gaming quality, but probably not so good for displays or dio's, there are a lot of fine mold lines and some of the detail is a little oversize (the bayonet for instance, which is fine for war gaming) let me know what you think.

build review Sash and Saber 40mm ACW dio sets

Hi guys
A mate of mine (trailape at http://trailape.blogspot.com/) has asked if I would paint up a couple of 40mm ACW dio sets, so I thought I would do a build review for anyone interested in these products in the future, the 2 sets arrived in the post yesterday. I have an interest in the ACW but haven't ventured into this era before.

First look- I am doing 2 dio sets, I received 26 figures, including 9 casualties, 2 officers, 2 ensigns, 1 gun, a bag with some loose muscats and odds and sod's, 3 trees, and 2 resin bases.the figures are of a very good wargaming quality, but with more mould lines (mostly very faint) than I would like, they have some nice poses and really give the feel of the era, the gun has a lot of small pieces, but looks good. the trees are soft metal and have bare limbs, the bases are nice but have a lot of small air bubbles, her are a couple of photos of what the kits should look like when finished.

And some photos of the figures, not good photos but the light was going down

a night of firsts

Hi guys, this was my first (and only so far) cage fight, in an organization called X-agon, it was about 18 months ago at the Forum night club at fox studio's Sydney, there was a large crowd of a couple thousand, it was also my first professional fight (all my kickboxing and other martial arts tournaments were amateur) with a purse of $500, not bad for 4 minutes work, it was supposed to be a 3X5 minute round fight with UFC rules, for those who don't know, punches, back fists, elbows, knees and kicks allowed to the head and body, kicks and knees allowed to the legs, all forms of take downs and throws allowed except spear tackles, on the ground all submissions and chokes allowed except small joint manipulation (toes and fingers) punches and elbow allowed on the ground but knees only to the body of a ground opponent.

Well the fight was a battle of 2 halves the first couple of minutes I was able to dominate the stand up effectively, landing some punishing leg kicks and knees to the body and head, cutting him above the eye brow, I had prepared for a kickboxing apponent (as that was the info I had been given) however he turned out the be a grappler with strong BJJ, we ended up on the ground and his superior grappling skills were evident, after being on my back and being punched and elbowed for 1 1/2 minutes I managed to escape from his side mount and ended up turtled up, he delivered a knee to the side of my head in this position (which is illegal) that stunned me for several seconds then pulled off a sweet arm bar, I wont take anything away from him though his ground game was superior and he deserved the win, so it was back to the drawing board and more work on grappling for me.

Hats 1/72 M-10

Hi guys, this is Hats 1/72 M-10, anyone who is familiar with the Hat fast build war gaming kits knows that they are generally good in shape and proportion and are a good start for conversions or for those who like to do a lot of detailing from scratch, but lack detail, the Hat M-10 has no internal turret detail at all, in fact the turret has a floor that shouldn't be there, I have cut the turret floor away, and scratch built the internal hull and turret detail and gun breach, using stretched sprue, plasticard, foil and wire, I also built most of exterior detail (lights, tools, stowage racks etc) from scratch, I replaced all the running gear and tracks with Italeri Sherman ones, I might have to re paint this kit, I made it a very long time ago and am not happy with the paint job (too monotone). All markings are hand painted. 6/10