The Brandenberg Quartet*

*Technically these are the four battleships of the Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm class of the Kaiserliche Marine circa 1900, but I didn't let that get in the way of a good blog title.

Back row: Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm,Wörth. Front row: Brandenburg, Weissenburg.

These are all scratch built in 1/2400 scale, about the smallest scale limit for my abilities these days. All are mounted on clear acetate, with the wakes created using thick PVA mixed with white craft paint followed by a coat of gloss varnish.

I aim to clear the gaming table and try out a set of rules called Battlefleet 1900 by War Times Journal go get a feel for them. After that, the German fleet will need a few cruisers of one kind and another for the hypothetical 'Morocco Crisis turned hot' mini campaign scenario I have in mind.

Yak shaving & 280mm guns

For one reason and another I lost my wargaming mojo over the holiday season. I do enjoy reading other gamers' blogs, but a general feeling of "can't be arsed" and my general SAD dislike of the winter months overcame any inclination I had to clear my cluttered games table and put my own models into action.

Thankfully, I'm coming back into the scheme of things one small step at a time. Hence the 'yak shaving' title.

Yak shaving ~ Any apparently useless activity which, by allowing you to overcome intermediate difficulties, allows you to solve a larger problem.

The yaks in question take the shape of four 1/2400 scale German Brandenburg class battleship models, which have languished half-built in my to-do pile for months. The 280mm guns are the teeth of these beasts, and they're the penultimate step to be completed before the lot gets undercoated and painted. It'll be a fiddly but necessary job to do, and hopefully should revive my interest. Small steps, small steps...