tank week... tank 2 the chieftain

the chieftain was one of the best tanks of its day! of course this meant that Oronegro built lots! Most of these were normal size but the "Mk1 Omega" as it was known or more affectionately as the "chieftain's son" was another of the LMTB's  (light main battle tanks) that Oronegro produced. Mainly for Urban combat (thanks to David for that idea) and for jungle warfare, where smaller tanks that could fit on narrow roads were preferable.

while the gun focuses on the Leopards the chieftain moves in for the Kill!!!!

This one was slightly more difficult to fix up... first I had to find the right gun, which I am not sure I have managed to do. whoops. Then came adding the fabric cover that hides the joint between the gun and the turret. Thank goodness that this is a feature in real tanks as the hole left in the join was not small. I did have to do other thinks but thankfully apart from the fun there was only cosmetic surgery required.

a view from the front showing off the quick fix fabric gun and turret joint cover (thing). I have no clue what it is really called

side view... nice shot of some damage caused by either years of service or recent fighting.

Well there we have it guys, another tank down! two more tomorrow with all luck. ALSO I DID BUY THAT T-90 :-) 2-5 weeks until it should get here but at around $17 NZ it was not a bad price at all.

Well have a nice day guys and if you are living where I used to in England please take the Warning Tank Crossing signs seriously. hmm maybe that's why I like tanks? they remind me of home... what an odd concept.

My tank week! lets start the fun with...

... the Leopard 1. Well sort of first let us see what the week has in store for us all! Now let me first say a HUGE THANKS to Matt in Australia for sending my all the tanks (there is the hull of another and a turret of one more which don't go together and shall become battle field wrecks). All I needed to do was fix up all the guns, put on a few road wheels, fix up some paint, cover unwanted decals and generally take these guys from a state of sorry green models and turn them into fighting machines once more!

so without wasting any more of your precious time let me introduce the Oronegrean tank force as it stands today! also if the week goes well I might order a T-90A to add to the ranks (I still have the other challenger to do).

what a lot of tanks! (why is the Self propelled gun aimed strait up should have noticed that when I took the picture bugger....) can you spot the one that is not new, it should not be that hard as only one is black with white plates.

 Well as you can see there is 7 new tanks... I don't think it will take me all 7 days to get through them all as 2 are the same and today I am getting through 2 tanks! though they are both leopard 1 tanks, one is of an early type and is also 1/76 not 1/72 so is in Oronegro a special design... more on that later!

The Rebels are worried that is a nasty looking tank coming straight at them!

the leopard 1 A3 is a scary tank! this one built in Oronegro has some features that set it apart from the others.

first of all black diagonal plates either side of the gun! these were painted on at the start of the civil war to cover any symbols of the nation it was intended for (this case a kangaroo, yes I painted these over Matt's decals)

painting on the tools was not as fun, its quite a tedious task. the fabric/carpet? covering the gun was added by Matt

A lucky hit from the rebel gun destroys the tank but whats that coming up behind?

 Some of the tanks Matt sent me have turned out to be 1/76 scale instead of 1/72 but as I have already made up a nation that builds thousands upon thousands of tanks a year I may as well make up a few tanks as well! So here was my solution. Light Main Battle Tanks! Now I am not saying these are main battle tanks, the name is rather misleading, rather these are light versions OF main battle tanks, smaller, leaner and meaner versions. The Following is a small Leopard 1 tank its slightly smaller than a normal one, its gun is designed to take on lightly armoured vehicles and cars, its high speed and high rate of fire make is a useful is vulnerable tank!

moving in quick the Leopard 0.1 (had to think of a name quick) fires upon the rebel emplacement.

a comparison of the Leopard 0.1 on the left and the Leopard 1 A3 on the right.

hmm not the best shot but the Leopard 0.1 is clearly shorter... so much so that because of the different turret and size difference, I thought they were both 1/76 versions of different tanks.

Well there you go guys, 5 more tanks (4 types) to go! Looking at the range of heavy tanks I think that if I get the T-90A I better save up for some APC's or anti-aircraft vehicles because I certainly have enough (western) tanks.

have a good day guys!

modern and 18th century, Oronegro my plans

well I love these t era's as you all know, but in recent days I have once again been pulled towards the tanks and planes and less towards the brigs and muskets. Blame Arma 2 for that... anyway I thought that I should use this to my advantage, I want to build and 18th century project but my ideas are far ahead of what is going on on the model front.

the cause of the whole problem, fun but its drawn me back to the future.

on the other hand my moderns are ready and waiting to be used. However the buildings and tanks are covered in MDF saw dust... horrible stuff. but once clean I can play a few games and carry on with that story. of coarse I will not stop painting and preparing my 18th century stuff, there is still lots to do on that project, but its nice that I have had to opportunity to start it.

now the problem is that now I have to find where I left off, and to generally re-organise to prepare for modern warfare once more. Yet now is a great time for this as we are having a large garage clean out. now that my father has almost done making the new bookcases (the reason for the mdf saw dust) its a good opportunity to finally organise the space, and this means preparing an area for my models. I'll have a place for my city boards and my boats and hopefully somewhere for my boxes of completed models. Also its about time that I put back together the tanks that Matt sent me (one of the ships will be named after him), the tanks are all a bit of a mess but I should be able to make something of them. Of course I still have all those modern figures to paint also so lots of work to do even if I am gearing up for my 18th century stuff later on.

well there we go a brief look at what should be happening, running the moderns a bit longer should mean that I can post more stuff here (18th century soldiers take so much longer to paint) and that perhaps a half decent game can come from it... hope your all happy to hear this news now I am off to paint some figures... moderns and 18th century.

and of coarse Greetings to Mojo from Weapons In Mass Production my 60th follower, welcome to the blog

P.S
for the sake of consistency all my moderns shall still have black bases in most cases.

Waiuku College athletics day or....

Never doubt my insanity!!!!!!! ah athletics day when our schools 4 houses; Rimu (red); Matai (green and the best!!!!!); Totora (blue); and Kauri (yellow) face off against one another. Today was athletics day and perhaps the only reason I am posting this is because I am too exhausted to do anything else. I have a few pics for you but not many and yes the first picture is of me... never doubt my insanity, and never think that I'll miss an oportunity to publicly humiliate myself.

as you can tell I was exhausted... running with a drum is hard.

 Now I know the photo is terrible... I didn't take it and trust me I wasn't ready... if you can't tell which house I am in from the colour well your more colour blind than I am. My ears still hurt from all the drumming I did today and I am going to pass out from overheating at any moment. But it was a fun day and what can I say but I just went mad!

I'll let you all know that my hair is not actually that colour.

Also that drum was perhaps the most important thing all day for me, first of all I can barely find a way to get it secure, using my belt to hold it. Later I replaced my belt with lots of string which was half decent but did mean I had to be cut free from the drum at the end of the day.

Well I hope your all having a great time and that your having nice weather.... sure the weather was nice but that was actually a problem with the heat and sunburn... not sure if I am burnt right now.

all the banners going up in the morning.

Totora seems to have got their students helping there was only 3 of us there early on and only 7 by the time the bell went

Getting ready for the 800 metres... I didn't come last which is amazing as that drum really was cumbersome... notice the people already running in the background

some of the 100 metre sprints... I did this also, came last but hey I was there for fun

more sprints... I'll tell you now that its not fun running in the mid-day summer heat.

and now let us cool off and relax, still some photo's from school but as you can see one of out nice gardens

 Well there we are then. I have now humiliated myself in public and on the web I am on a roll today!!!!!!

had a test for my new rules last night. pics will be posted soon, I realised I have to make some major alterations. I almost deleated all my pics and I have had to restage one, a key moment in the battle. but until the have a good day/night

Rolando and Giorgio

Giorgio and Rolando are other members of the Castillo family, more about them can be found here on the Oronegro blog. for those of you who just want pictures remain here. Rolando and Giorgio are from the Airfix wagon trail set, they were a joy to paint and I hope they look good to your eyes also

Giorgio on the left, Rolando on the right

I really like this new backdrop system, its merely 2 flip notepads one vertical an one horizontal

and here is the whole family so far, still 3 children and the mother to go... she is a scary mother as well

Well there you go a nice change from the rant that was the last post. on the soldiers side of things I got 2 more infantry done which brings me to a grand total of 6 so far with only 14 left to complete my first company. I also got a package from Michael or Mickey mouse for those of you on Benno's, which contained some Alamo defenders (great conversion opporunty there) which are better IMHO that the AWI militia available because their dressed for the warmth unlike some of the accurate figs, not that I would say no to that set id I was offered it... this is just a preference... SO this does mean another boat to the list the San Miguel or St Michael which means all I need is another boat on the to build list and then I'll double the size of my fleet when their done.

have a nice day/night

I AM A SPACE MARINE or WTF GW

So many of you here may have heard this but Games Workshop is claiming ownership of the term "Space Marine"????? Now we know that they use this term lots BUT they did not create the term and its been around since the early days of Sci-fi BUT what does that matter? does it matter that millions of people will have read stories about Space-marines other than those in GW? Does it matter that many authors have used the term? Does it matter that its so generic that anyone could use it by accident.? OF COARSE IT MATTERS!!!!!!!!!!

Games Workshop is doing something another company tried to do... Now all of you in New Zealand may be aware of N'eck minute, right, you may also be aware that some company used that phrase without the creators consent and that they even tried to copy write it! do any of you remember that story on Fair Go? The response was HUGE the company had to apologise, give him compensation and give him royalties for that phrase when they used it... Games Workshop Will wither have to do the same, something similar OR... stop using the phrase... I know that's harsh but claiming something that is not your own is stealing and either you give it back and apologise or you get it taken away from you by force and then your punished.

What I am asking is that they stop this madness, allow the term to be used, compensate any author they prevented from having their work sold and apologise to everyone for "misunderstanding" or they should Drop the term and create a new one, which they can copy-write.

is that too much to ask? or does common sense and understanding count for nothing to them?

I AM A SPACE MARINE, are you?

Rosa and her father

Rosa (Diosa) Castillo and Jose Castillo are members of quite a family, 6 children, numerous cousins and a nice pile of silver in the bank. Rosa is seen as perhaps a heroine in her home town and her father is a well to do trader. More can be heard of these two's lives On the Oronegro blog actually this time I highly recommend you look if you want to know the story of why little Rosa's nickname is goddess!

Posing for a painting, unfortunately for Jose he just had to be talking to his son Rolando when the painter asked for them to stop moving to allow him to paint

then for some reason once he had finished the first painting he asked them to come back another day so that he could paint them from behind... what a strange painter.

There we go guys and before I leave you to hopefully have a good day/night I'll make a special mention to Chikita now she does not have a blogger blog but I met her a few days ago and so we know of each others blog. here is a link to Messages to Mumbai her blog which is on wordpess, in which she talks about some very important issues that face us today, she is a peace advocate as well, she talks about bullying as well. So perhaps not for all my followers but I am sure some of you here would like to hear her words and see what she has to say. I myself am following her blog by email and would like it if perhaps some of you did too.

Well there we go! Today was a busy day, because of swim sports, I got Best Dressed Swimmer... you might see a picture either on the colleges site or in the news paper, all I know is that I looked ridiculous... all part of the job eh! Well hope your all looking forwards the week end, have a great day everyone!!!