My "last" set of 28mm WW2 Russians?

Again the 28mm assembly line is churning out the assembled figures, akin to a Space Marine factory with all the "snipping off the sprue". It does wear on the fingers and thumbs though and is best done in short bursts. A squad a time so to speak. One of my completed projects (or so I thought) was my Stalingrad Russians. Now looking closely at the early orders of battle, at the outset of the battle the Russians had eight riflemen to their squad (much in alignment to the rest of the world's armies), but soon as attrition set in this came down to six (as per the "Two Fat Lardies" order of battle anyway and who am I to argue). Looking as this hole in my collection I spied the Warlord Games KV1/2 pack that came with a useful sprue of eight little Russians so a perfect match in heaven was made (see below, Ivan and his friends, all sturdy run-of-the-mill riflemen of the Soviet Union, no sexy SMGs to be found here):

Could this be the end of the Russian infantry component to my 28mm collection (a collection I remember swearing never to start on several years ago)? I suspect not as there will always be little add on extras (my fellow wargamers laughed at me when I announced this). It was also pointed out to me that the official roster at the start of Barbarossa had "ten" Soviet riflemen to a squad. Have I a need for a second KV1/2? I wonder, but I think there are other nationalities I need to consider first!

28mm LRDP or SAS

These came from a Wargames Illustrated "free" sprue of figures with the magazine and have been lurking around for some while now. Seeing as I am in 28mm assembly mode they passed through the production line quite quickly (see below, balaclava and Arab headdress a plenty):

The only trouble as such with the free sprue was that they did not fit int the 8th Army collection I was assembling which was from the Perry's 8th Army pack. Warlord figures are just so much chunkier and bigger than the Perry's equivalent models. The solution is that these troops serve in different sections and don't mix in my order of battle.

Note: I also had to use some "too hand" wooden bases (purchased from The Works a while ago) to give them a stable platform.

Spies do it best in "Plain Sight" and a link to a free AI course and what the Vatican thinks!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51467536

Black boxes are just that and they could be working for another side as well as your own.
If you want to take a look at what can be inside them there is a free AI course running at the University of Helsinki:

https://www.elementsofai.com/

Vatican, IBM and Microsoft call for Ethical AI:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51673296

GW Banshees

I was really blown away by these GW Banshee sculpts. I have no intention of raising an army to fight Age of Sigmar but I am more than happy to pick and choose from the interesting undead figure ranges that seem to be pouring out of their moulds (see below, may the black forges issue forth multitudes of such demons and devils to fill my RPG adventurers with horror):

Even better I got them at a reduced price from the normal boxed set because they were in a GW Magazine!

Embrace the difference in thinking!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51014028#

How to Learn to Play Board Games

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=13&v=P5fjDaFuft8&feature=emb_logo

This old dog can learn a few new tricks here ;)

28mm: 1940 Germans Continued

I seem to be going through a phase of assembling 28mm plastic WWII soldier and painting 10mm WWII soldiers. My thinking may not be quite as joined up as I want it to be. Slowly they are getting assembled, my second platoon for Chain of Command - although I do feel the insane urge to get Bolt Action too (see below, the results of making one pack [which is not quite enough] of Warlord Games Blitzkrieg Germans):

They make three full squads, the HQ [officer ad sergeant] (minus the attached 5cm mortar and crew) plus the MG34/42 with some riflemen for the fourth squad (see below, my fingers are raw with all the snipping done):

I realised I had forgotten to add the German Officer and Senior Sergeant on the previous photograph (see below, Hans and Ruben admire their command):

A brief pause ensued, then as the Warlord Games German Pioneer set was purchased it enabled me to complete the fourth squad for the basic platoon and add 'the spare figures' to the possible support list by making them up in various engineer combinations (see below, the German 5cm Mortar is created from two prone figures and the 5cm mortar parts from the Perry's DAK box - the arms are a little smaller but it is a passable conversion):

The remaining troops are made up in a plethora of engineering combination and specialist weapons (see below, including an anti-tank rifle, a sniper, the 5cm mortar team, a wire-cutter, a mine clearer, a remote control Goliath operative, a demolition expert, a flamethrower, an officer with a SMG, three NCOs with SMG, a anti-tank rifle grenade and five riflemen in engineer garb - note the yellow figures [an AT rifle team are from the Perry's DAK box and although made them up I will not be using them with the Warlord Games figures as the scales don't quite match, they shall be heading for North Africa after all]):

Now it is time to put them to one side for priming and painting, but first I think I will assemble the remaining boxes I have of 28mm kit. As mentioned at the start of the post I have seemingly the urge to paint 10mm and assemble 28mm. Well if it works, don't knock it - but I need to be a ruthless finisher of projects, nit WIP collector!