Drawing short at a straw target

After having gone 2 years without doing any, I've decided to get back into archery! I fell in love with the sport when I spent a year at Northumbria University, at which the team was then lead by David Wright, a British champion who came 3rd in his BUSA category at the tournament I attended in 2008.

Here's the bow I bought at the time; it's a Prostyle recurve with a draw weight of 34Lbs. Quite a light-weight bow, ideal for a beginner such as myself. Prostyle is a pretty common brand, available in most archery stores. I got mine at a great little shop in Notts called Custom Built Archery. The owners are extremely helpful and kind.

When I told one of my uncles that I was taking up archery, he produced a longbow seemingly out of knowing stating matter-of-factly that it had been "under his bed for years". He generously gave it to me. I have yet to string it and purchase suitable arrows, for budgetary reasons, but I did restore it by sanding off the old cracked varnishy coat, oiling it and repainting the tip markings. Of course, one has to use suitable arrows for each bow (weight, body and length), other wise the archer's paradox can cause this to happen! There are 3 markings on the front of the bow in 2 circles which I have yet to decipher. The draw weight is 46Lbs.

Among my recent purchases are a 3-tube quiver (about time!) and an arrow puller, used to safely remove arrows from the target without bending them.

I also bought a target bosse and target face! The bosse is 90x90cm and is made to withstand arrows shot from 25 to 30Lbs bows from a distance of 5 to 30 metres. None the less, after testing it in my garage, I've found that it can stop an arrow from my bow drawn almost to the max at barefly 6 paces! Good stuff. I now can't wait to go back out into a field to test it properly!

Although I'm a traditionalist, when I bought the bow, I decided to also get a sight and a push button, just for kicks.

Joe the Barbarian, glad to be back doing archery!

Here's my new project. 600pts of Soviets.

What I like about our Russian neighbours is the romance (in the artistique sens you understand, Hugo, Byron, Pushkin. The XIXth century emos) of the harsh climate, the living conditions and the propaganda. I like the power and boldness of communist icons and art.
Russian soldiers, while maybe not being the best fighters, have always been known for their sturdiness. These men suffered far worse conditios of climate and hunger than the rest of europeans. But they shown incredible risiliance against Napoleon, and in the 2 world wars. That inspires me.
So it seemed logical to go for a winter army, in longcoats.
For the army format, waves of men, the soviet image we've come to know, with the terrible losses.
My first purchase was a squad of soldiers in longcoats. There are unfortunately very few figs of this type. Thought to myself "Don't forget the lact of equipment!".
So to represent this along with le chaos in the ranks, men struggling to survive, I bought a squad of regular soldiers and a squad of hardenend veterans, to mix them all.

Before receving them, I undercoated all my winter dudes in an hour and a half. 28 figs. That seement like quite a lot and I was pleased with myself. But now with the others, Yikes!

But the small size and even the Russian armement production style go well with my painting style. Simple but quick. With some embarrassing faults that show up later.

I started by organising each type of fig (normal, winter, veteran) ilteams. Then I randomly re-arranged them.

I spent ages trying to decide on the styles of figs to represent at best the rangs of NCO, lieutenant, co comander, komissar, 2nd in command and general; while at the same time having figs that all the the same for eack rank. You follow? No mean feat! With the various helmets, hats, caps, fur hats and bare heads...
My aim was for brave NCOs, a proud and inspiring co commander, blood-thirsty komissars, 2nd-in command and general with all these qualities.

I'd bought a cossack command for fun and I thought their savage look, fur hats and the sword would be good for the HQ.

I'll give more details when painted.
But here's a pic, with 2 of the 3 SU122 tanks.

To complete my 600pts, I'll need another squad, or heavy support.

I think you'll see a big difference in numbers with BarbarianJ's Krauts. And having the advantage on my side is far from unpleasant.

Tank you very much!

Well, it took some time, but I'm back on the blog with 2 Marder IIIMs, a birthday present from my brother, to join my first German Grenadieren platoon for F.o.W.! I need to re-do the camouflage, as I've since noticed that the actual base colour for summer cammo on Gerry vehicles had a slight green tint, so some Vallejo Middlestone or some such like will be required. I'm taking the opportunity to finally decide on whether to go for Summer or Winter as a theme. The 26.V-G saw its most famous actions at Bastogne, so Winter, and on the Eastern front during the summer... so like a Western Winter.

As it is, the cammo needs some more work anyway, as the base colour should be a lot less visible, with more dominant green and brown strips of paint.

I am rather pleased with the mud effect, though. This was acheived by applying all-purpose D.I.Y. filler, which I then painted in the same colours as the infantry stands, before giving it a coat of gloss varnish, thus obtaining a wet mud appearance... I hope.

Note that as Marders are self-propelled guns, the epaulettes have red piping, rather than the white braiding on the shoulders of the Grenadieren.

As promissed, I have also got back into my E.C.W. project, by doing some G.S. touch-ups before praying the last 1st & 2nd rank pikemen and 8 musketeers with a great can of brown Humbrol undercoat I picked up over Christmas.

Joe the Barbarain, humbly begging your pardon for my tardiness.