It's alright lads, help's on the way!

It's been an odd few weeks, gaming and modelling-wise.  Family were coming up to visit this weekend, which has meant a concerted effort to make the spare room habitable.  We've left off decorating the room for some time, as it's had a bit of a damp problem from next door's leaky shower; however it looks like their landlord is finally sorting things out after some thinly veiled threats about involving Environmental Health.  Whilst it's nice to gain a spare room again, it has meant some serious thinking about all of my gaming stuff, which has been stored in there.  The agreement with 'er indoors (or, my lovely and very understanding wife, Melissa) was that I could keep out a handful of projects I was actively working on and the rest would have to go into 'deep' storage in the attic.  After some consideration I decided that I'd keep out the WWII Normandy stuff (which takes up little room anyway, being 1/72 scale), and a handful of models that I fancy painting for the sheer pleasure (my collection of 'C' series ogres by GW, the 'old school' Imperial Guard and a few other odds and ends.  This does mean my Warhammer and AI armies have gone into storage for now but, as my main opponent for these, Matt, has b*****ed off to Japan to teach English or a while (Hi Matt, hope all is going well!) they wouldn't be getting much use anyway.

So, on to current projects:

Thanks to a possibly ill-advised trip to a model shop in Derby while Mel was out with her old school friends, and a bit of ebaying, my Brits have some reinforcements on the way.  First up is some much needed anti-tank support in the form of an Airfix 6lb gun and carrier.

Although the 17lb gun (the same one used on the Sherman Firefly) was more effective, the 6lb was still widely used throughout the war, being lighter and more maneuverable (and was the main armament on most Cromwell and Churchill tanks).  It was also adopted by the US as the 57mm gun, so this model can do double duty with my US forces.  The kit is a little on the small side, being in Airfix's typical 1/76 scale, but not worryingly so.  It's a pretty basic kit, but nicely moulded generally; the crew are pretty awful though, so are likely to be replaced with some of the leftover models from the Hat Mortars and Heavy weapons sets I have.

Next up, arriving from ebay just yesterday, we have a Daimler Dingo scout car and Leyland Truck from the venerable matchbox 'Monty's Caravan' set (later re-issued by Revell, but out of production now I believe).

Dingo's seem to be really tricky to find in this scale, unless you want to go metal or resin (which for some illogical reason, I'm trying to avoid unless I have to, can't explain why!), and I need at least one for either command or scouting duties in KGN.  The Leyland, although configured as a command vehicle, will fill in nicely for all kinds of command/control/supply/objective duties as needed if I don't look too closely and squint while doing so (Airfix make a nice pair of bedfords that might get added some time).

Also arriving from the reserves is Italeri's Anti-tank teams set.

For some reason, none of my sets of German Infantry included any panzerfausts, which this set has four of.  It also gives me access to a US mortar and browning .30cal, albeit airborne, but with a decent paintjob this shouldn't be too noticeable.  The British Infantry in the set are also airborne, but I already have PIATs so don't need them immediately (but will hang on to them as I fancy doing a small force of paras at some point).  There's also four soviets per sprue that I have no practical use for , more on them anon...