Flames of War - US Para’s

I’ve been tinkering around with Flames of War for some time, I even have a German armoured company (all PSC models) but never really taken the time to focus on Battlefront models and collect a force that I actually wanted to. In previous posts I highlighted my intention of collecting 101st Airborne and have been slowly acquiring models, well I’ve finally got down to finishing off a whole Platoon (wow).

Its not really an earth staggering quantity of painting to be honest however for me its pretty good for me, I’m not the worlds fastest painter and often don’t find the time to really focus on something. Anyway with these I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed painting them, I approached it in an assembly line way of basing the whole platoon, spray undercoat and base coat, pick out all the detail and then wash and highlight. The one mistake I did make is to finish painting the models and then paint the base which is far too risky on 15mm mini’s as I had to do some unneeded touching up.

Colours used were:

Cheapo Auto Black spray undercoat

PSC US vehicle spray base coat

Vallejo Model Colour Khaki - Webbing

Vallejo Model Colour Flat Earth - Boots and rifles

Vallejo Model Colour Brown Violet - helmets and water bottle.

Vallejo Model Colour Black - Weapon barrels basecoat

Graphite Art Pencil B - Weapon barrels

Vallejo Sepia Ink - all over wash.

Vallejo Game Colour Leather Brown - Gloves

I’m please with the results, even the abstract Screaming Eagle “blobs” on the uniform sleeves looks ok. I decided not to paint the US Flag on the Para’s as I can’t find consistent imagery of the presence of the flag. I’ve painted it on the Glider Recon Jeeps and the Glider 57mm gun crew as a) it looks cool and b) I painted them first and I wanted to see how hard it would be.

Anyone think I should put it on the Para uniforms?
So now in my painting queue I only have:
Para platoon (No. 2)
Para HQ
Airborne Engineer Platoon
Machine Gun Platoon
Mortar Platoon
Recon section for my M10's
Four M10's
Two MG jeeps for my Glider R&I platoon

And in case your wondering this army was built around the "oooh that looks nice" ethos rather than an actual list!

Oh and incidentally these models haven't rolled a dice in anger yet, I really should roll them out on to the table top!

And finally the images are crap because I took them with my phone under bad light (bad light, bad light screamed the cricketer!). Sorry

In the Fields of Joy

All you music aficionados out there willl have linked the title of this post to the rather nifty song by Lenny Kravitz however this post is (unfortunately) not about music but rather about terrain. Now for some time I have been meaning to set up a gaming board at home, and in a previous post you will have seen my efforts to that effect. Well no board is worth playing on without the addition of representative terrain (unless you play 8th WFB!) and therefore I have been beavering away with bits of tat picked up over the years and stashed in a box.

So without further ado I give you - Fields!

 These are the most ridiculously simple things to make, in fact I’ve kind of overdone mine a little. All you need is a cheap ribbed door mat or coir door mat (no I don’t own shares in Wilko’s before you ask!)

Then just go wild with a sharp craft knife and hey presto instant fields. I took it a step further to give some durability and based them on hardboard, textured the edges and added flock. I also gave the ploughed field a dry brush of various browns.

I’m quite happy with the results. As I’ll be playing on a tiled board I needed to provide a textured edge to each field as the roads are created by blocking out the tiling and on occasion my fields may not have hedges or fences surrounding them (therefore they all have a dirt verge!).

I’ll pop up some pics of the board with fields once I’ve finished dulling it down a little (see previous post on tiles!)

And finally - A popcorn Frog Dog!

IHMN - Inspector Johnsons Casebook - A Pharoah, Gas Grenades And Those Darned Rifles!

My Lords of the gaming world I present to you the latest instalment of the incorruptible Inspector Johnson's Casebook. I must warn you that this episode introduces a most despicable villain in the ongoing tales, the likes of which shall not be seen again (well until next weeks episode anyway).

The tale of heroism continues on page 40.
Toodle pip!

 simplebooklet.com

The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug - 13th December!!!!!

Well, like much of the rest of the world I am eagerly awaiting the next instalment of the trilogy (?), or should that be "The Hobbit/LoTR Appendixes trilogy as interpreted by Peter Jackson". There is much discussion on the interweb that passionately criticises or praises the aforementioned for his vision/interpretation however I have to say that I am firmly in the camp of those who think its a great piece of cinema. A rollicking adventure tale that pays homage to one of the greatest authors in history.

Roll on more Jackson interpretations I say.

IHMN - Inspector Johnsons Casebook - The Rogue Rifles

simplebooklet.com
Ladies and gentlemen of the wargaming world I present to you, for your literary edification, another exciting instalment of the indefatigable Inspector Johnsons Casebook.

The adventure recommences on page 31!

Terrain Update

This is a quick one as I beaver away at populating my nice new gaming board. There are many really good blogs that document the authors efforts at scratch building buildings and terrain (and here’s just two -  Scotts Wargaming and London By Midnight) however I really don’t have the time to devote to it at the moment (two young children, busy job etc etc).

So I have invested in the amazing innovation of MDF laser cut buildings. Now with a limited budget I have had to spread my funds around a little therefore I have decided that I can afford the time to paint and accessorise my terrain. I shall be doing a little scratch building however these are my first purchases from Martin at Warbases: 

The Church is a lovely little model, very reminiscent of the small village churches dotted around the English countryside and shall be styled on the local church in Ilkley close to where I grew up. It was easy(ish) to build using wood glue, almost all the slots fit well except for the tower floor which needed a little filing. 

However now we come to the problem, I also bought Warbases warehouse model with the view to use it a either a coach house or some kind of steam factory. After building it I then put it next to the church and did a little mental scream - its huge!

 Without a sense of scale the warehouse model makes the church look ridiculous and I shall have to dress the model to explain the scale of. Therefore I’ll be calling in to my local craft shop today for plenty of Evergreen and Plastruct bits and pieces so I can then explain the scale. I’m thinking along the lines of pipes and guttering, fire escapes and walkways (both internal and external). One of the key criteria for my buildings are that you can game the interior therefore I’m very happy that 4Ground have started releasing furniture. Hopefully that should help put the building in scale.

The plan for the Church is to set it in its own grounds, surrounded by a low stone wall. To give it some more height I’m going to mount it on a slight incline and I’m toying with the idea of seating it on some plasticard with etched brick work to give it more height. I also have a graveyard planned to sit separate from the church (using the Renedragravestones) as quite often in the UK graveyards are apart from the church.

Now, I have a deadline for this lovely terrain as I recently had an email chat with Steve at Sarissa and have some of their lovely Gaslamp Alley buildings on the way, they currently don’t list a bundle offer on their website however they’re happy to discuss your needs.

Next up is an update to Inspector Johnsons Casebook which describes a very brutal encounter with rogue elements of Her Britannic Majesty’s military!

Stay tuned and thanks for reading.

Ste

IHMN - The Tiles in Action

My project to create a suitable gaming surface for my Inspector Johnsons Casebook continues apace. You may recall that I purchased some of these lovely little items from a UK DIY store recently - http://www.wilko.com/wall-and-floor-tiles/wilko-floor-tiles-textured-vinyl-mosaic-beige-305mmx305mm-x-6/invt/0318811

Well I have finally thrown together my 3ft x 3ft board and thoroughly glued them in place (the self adhesive properties are exactly that - they stick to themselves (and me!)). Having finally badgered another member of my gaming circle into joining the weird and wonderful world of VSF (he plays Malifaux so it wasn’t difficult) we thrashed through a rather boisterous 3 player game with my regular opponent which I will not go into detail on (an update to the Casebook is pending). However it did give me chance to try out my table and assess whether the tiles look right in terms of scale and colouring. The buildings used are the clubs prepainted resin Conflix ones as my Warbases and Sarissa ones aren’t ready yet.

The comments I received from the other players are that the tiles are a little clean and look too Mediterranean. Too a degree I agree however they were never intended to reflect a gritty Victorian London street but rather a quiet leafy country town/village (Little Minching as detailed in the Casebook!). Luckily I have a few tiles left over so I can try out some weathering washes to see if I can muddy it up a bit.

So let me know what you think:

WW2 Terrain (Parte Deux!)

Not sure why I’ve gone French in the post title, must be one of those days. Anyway as a follow up on my previous post regarding terrain I’ve been a bit of a terrain junkie recently. Not content with painting up the bunkers for my clubs campaign day I decided to get my Quonset huts painted up as well.

Once these little beauties were complete I thought they looked a little lonely so raiding the bits box I pulled out some cocktail skewers and picture hanging wire and managed to bash together some ok looking razor wire. The only issue with it is it’s a gold colour so next time I may just have to give it a light spray with back to dull it down some.

Now looking at this pile of terrain I thought to myself “how would Quonset huts get delivered? By road of course” and so I settled down to try making some roads. One hour, some lengths of balsa, sandpaper and a little paint and base flock later I have some perfectly acceptable roads for my 28mm WW2 gaming.

Unfortunately I’m a victim of my own success and after taking my roads to the club I’ve been roped into making some more roads. This doesn’t sound too bad until you realise that one of the club members runs his own terrain company (click here to see some of his stuff http://wargamestournaments.com/index.html) and has access to a large quantity of spare mdf and a laser cutter. So I now have about 60ft of roads to make from the offcuts of various shapes that he gave me (thanks Ed!).