Picking up those brushes again.

Hi and welcome to the occasional mutterings of Dave Doc, a military modeller and some time gamer. Gaming and model making has given me a real education, History & Geography(obvious really), Artistry, Politics, Economics, Logistics, Project Management -you try building miniature armies without the last 3.

I will use the blog to record my creations & the odd occasion I actually do some gaming.

I have always been inspired by the aesthetic side of gaming. Playing on well constructed terrain using excellently painted units is always a joy.

Sunday, 23 November 2025

Gaming - Ardennes , Race for a bridge

 Today saw a regular meet up and James and I did another Ardennes game . This one is based on KG Pieper and a race to capture a bridge . 

Played along the 12 feet with only US Combat Engineer platoon with some ATG support trying to delay while the bridge is prepped for demolition. 

The Germans had elements of Skorzeny’s Kommando and Panzer Brigade 150 leading the way to create confusion and try and sneak through . 

View from the German end 

There were some road blocks and minefields set in obvious places 

US defenders view 

Skorzenys guys manage to sneak through & overwhelms the outpost 


Lone Sherman looks along the road 

ATG proceeds to not hit anything 


The village assault begins 

It’s cleared pretty quickly .

KG commander view progress from the heights 

Pioneers advance 

Infantry advance 

M10 in ambush 


The Tiger and his ace commander are brewed up

The lone US reinforcements raced toward the bridge 

The bridge is blown after seeing a fake German tank approach , but it’s not taken the bridge out properly 

The bridge defenders are replaying charges , and overcome . The bridge is intact but needs some repair 

Overall an excellent and challenging game 










Sunday, 16 November 2025

Back of Beyond - British forces

 Another catch up post for stuff completed a while ago for my British and Indian army for the Back of Beyond campaign.

First up a 3d print from MarDav of a Lanchester armoured car . It was decent resin print and a pretty simple paint job 




I found an interesting camouflage project while looking for a paint job . I found something that might be useable for it in the grandsons toy box 😆



I have completed some Highlander units 



All Empress stuff. Incredibly detailed sculpts , great to paint but hard work 


British 4.5 inch howitzer 



Indian army mountain battery and mule team 





Some individual adventures 


And I painted up a Bolshoviks plane for Dave at the club 



I had the laser room guys at Pendraken make me a propeller disc for it to finish it off 





That’s the last few months work caught up on ! 









Wednesday, 12 November 2025

Ardennes - A few new German bits .

 I am a bit behind on posting completed stuff , so just a bit of a catch up post . The latest additions for the Ardennes collection is a small up top of vehicles . The first being the Ersatz Stug ( could do with a few more ) for a poor attempt at fooling the US defenders , a resin piece from battlefront . I picked up a couple of Quad 20mm AA half tracks off e bay several months ago , and found some other half track tractors that will be used for anti tank gun transport in the stash  . I have found the STL for the Ersatz Panther/M10 and have one being produced . 

Earlier in the year I had picked up a 2x2 winter town layout map from Deepcut which is a useful addition 






Armoured cars 

Hetzers  support for the Volksgrenadiers 


Bonkers of course , a niche SturmTiger 



Completed a second King Tiger .
Pleased the paint job was pretty close to the one I did 4 years ago 




Will need to knock out some more infantry support next for the Germans . Then another US infantry platoon . 

We are planning another winter game at the end of the month , so they will have an opportunity to fail miserably pretty soon