Rocky Outcrops - from Aquarium Ornaments

Hi Folks

Just a short posting today about Rocks. I am sure most of you who are interested in terrain have seen various wargame pieces sourced from materials used to furnish aquariums. If you have not then you are missing a great source of ready made pieces.

The problem with many of these pieces is that they come in a multitude of colours and don't always work together on the table top. Never fear a quick coat of paint can create stunning effects and help to tie in all your terrain pieces.

Whilst building my desert landscapes I cam across a couple of these rocky pieces cheap on ebay and since then I have scoured the web for other items. They are all resin and fluctuate wildly on price - don't just buy the first one you see and be sure to check out the auctions.

Two of the best pieces I have found look like these. They typically retail for around £11 but I have found them cheaper. They are about 25 cm long and c15cm tall. Their shapes are brilliant for 28mm figures.

You don't have to paint them but as I said earlier a paint job does help them to blend in.

In the following series of photos you can see the process I adopted

Step 1: Paint using a cheap emulsion the base colour. Mine is a specially matched paint of the GW Steel Legion Drab...I have a big 5 litre tin of the stuff.

Step 2: Dry brush on a yellow ochre - for comparison you can see the front set has this first coat

Step 3: Dry brush a Titanium cream

Painting these two pieces excluding drying time took less than ten minutes


The following pictures show these and my other acquired rocks on one of the desert baseboards. They have all been given the same paint treatment.

I hope you agree the uniformity of the painting really helps to bring them all together

Until next time

Railway Cutting & some more Hills

Following on from my last hill build (see link below) I decided that these were definitely the way to go to give my battle field some undulations and reduce the 'flatness' of my displays.

http://shedwars.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the-hills-are-alivewith-sound-of.html

So in this thread I'll talk about the build of my latest addition the railway cutting, which can also be cunningly used as a gorge and also a rod cutting. Nothing beats multi-purpose


I started off with another 9mm thick 50 x 50 board and laid out two hills pieces with a gap running down the middle. This needed to be wide enough for both my railway track pieces and my road sections and the cork escarpments running alongside.

The polystyrene was then shaped to create the slopes

Cork pieces were then glued alongside the flat cliffs using really strong interior adhesive .

A quick check that the railway still fits...

The polystyrene was then covered in filler. Quick tip - by the powder stuff its mucjh much cheaper and you can builf it up to the consistency you want.

Since I had made up a lot of filler I quickly rushed out a couple more hills. Note only make the amount of filler you need.

The cliffs are then given a good coat of black paint. They are going to be grey eventually so they blend in with all the other stone features of my temperate battleground stuff.



Then I painted the whole thing brown umber for the base.

Finally add the static grass. By luck I discovered most of my boards appear to match up with a spring mix green.

Once the grass was dry I could drybrush the cliffs in the cutting

The finished result can either have a road

or a railway line

Oh...and that hill - fortunately I had enough static grass to finish off that as well.

Until next time

Building the Saracen Army part 5

With the new found enthusiasm to finish off projects I managed to get round to basing all of my Saracen Army. In addition I bought a shed load of Little Big Man Studio shield transfers to get the shields onto the troops.

The first post on this subject can be found here

http://shedwars.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/building-saracen-army-part-1.html

Almost finished...but hopefully worthy of at least one set of photos...

 

 

Just need to touch up a few figures, fix the pennants and the job done !

Until next time

 

28mm Daleks - The Army takes Shape - part 2

Hi Folks

Well I am delighted to report that the Dalek Army is now starting to take shape. Since I reported on this last month a few more of the metal pepper pots arrived and have been painted.

For sources of these and the start of this project head here

http://shedwars.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/something-very-different-from-shed28mm.html

I decided that rather than paint all of them in the same colour scheme I would have some variety - this not only allows ease of identifying units on the table it also makes them slightly more interesting to paint.

Up first four greys -

Then we have six bronze/gold versions

and a dozen red Drones

And here is the Army in its full glory - including a white supreme version at the front

In total there are 86 Daleks - that's a lot of domes to paint.

A quick review of my eBay expenditure revealed that I paid around £52 (inc postage for this lot) across 7 lots. That works out about 60p per figure. The ones from Blacktree would have cost me in the region of £3 each so this proved a good option.

And the whole lot all fit into one of my boxes that I use to store minis

There is still space to fit in Dr Who and Davros - currently on order from Black Tree

Until next time


Part 3 of this project can be found here

http://shedwars.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/28mm-daleks-leader-added.html

VBCW Posties - Heavy Weapon Support - part 4

So I finally got round to actually finishing off a unit ! And if I don't say so myself this is rather a good achievement for me. Too many projects started but not completed, so I have decided a change in direction...no new purchases, no new builds until I have actually finished what I started. Yes that does mean the Pulp Tramp Steamer will get finished !

So in this short post I'll picture the final part of my Postmen Unit..

The thread starts here

http://shedwars.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/vbcw-posties-mechanised-unit-part-1.html

The Post Master General  and his staff - yes I know the table needs a map..(mental note to add). These are mostly Mutton Chop Minatures BEF range (bar the officer pointing at the table - source eBay)

http://empressminiatures.com/userimages/procart84.htm

The following support weapons all came from Renegade Miniatures WW1 range - great figures !

http://www.renegademiniatures.com/ww1br.htm

First up Medium Mortar, Crew and spotter

Close up shot of Mortar crew

Artillery piece and crew

Machine Gun Section

So that's it folks the Postie Unit is finished and ready to do battle...

VBCW - The Crown Jewels

For those of you following a Very British War you are probably very familiar with the VBCF - there own dedicated forum. If not head here for more info...

http://vbcf.freeforums.org/index.php

A few weeks ago it was brought to my attention that the members of the VBCW fraternity were holding a global event. I have taken the liberty of posting in the proceedings...

As we were told there are no set of rules to use, no set size of forces, the setup map is for six foot by four foot, but we could use a larger or smaller table (we did).

Even the force size was left to our own devices

The GameIn the east Red Force, in the West Blue Force. To control the Fosseway both side must hold the 3 farms on the Foss. In the north Bridge Farm, the centre, Grange Farm and Brookfield Farm is in the south.

Both Red and Blue Forces plan to send small forces forward to take the farms before the big battle starts.

Any player or group of players fights a battle for 1 or more of the farms and tells us who won, Red or Blue. They can fight it in any scale and with any size force, all we need to know is who won.

We add up the results and the winners for each farm hold it when we do the big game at Partizan.

In one of the farms there is a part of the Crown Jewels collection, laying hidden, so at the end of the game, the players can roll to see which farm it is in and whoever controls the farm also has procession of a part of the Crown Jewels.

The Shed table was set up to reflect the map provided and I created two forces - the Fascists (Blue Force) and the Socialist Militia (Red Force)

We played using Bolt Action Rules with bOth forces fielding very similar forces. With four players involved the forces were subdivided into equal parts. Typical compostion being

1 X Commander (+2 Morale Modifier)
5 X 6 men Rifle sections  - (some had additional lewis guns/smgs)
1 X Medium Mortar
1 X HMG (crew served)
1 X Armoured Car and/or Light Tank

We used the road bisecting the table to create the deployment for each side.


How did it play?

Well rather than wait for our fourth player to arrive John and Alastair (of a Wargaming Gallimaufry fame - http://wargaminggallimaufry.blogspot.co.uk/) Kicked off proceeding on the south side of the table. John quickly threw most of his forces towards Brookfield farm whilst Alastair split his to attack Brookfield and Grange Farm.

Johns Fascist troops quickly seized the farm outgunned Socialists using his tank and armoured car to great effect. Extremely vicious hand to hand fighting soon saw the Socialists retreating from where they had come. Unlucky dice for Alastair, an aggression never before seen from John soon captured Brookfield for the Fascists.

Meanwhilst both my Socialists and Mark's Fascists had entered the fray. The positioning of Bridge Farm meant Mark could get his troops in far faster than my own and I quickly realised his defensive lines were too strong to break. I therefore focussed on the centre...I should really say dawdled.

My attacks were unplanned, lacked cohesion and quite frankly atrocious. I did not deserve success and to be blunt didn't get it. Not only was Bridge farm left uncontested the Fascist could pour in their reserves into the centre.

It was a whitewash. Casualties for the Socialists mounted quickly and by 10.40pm we were beaten. I suspect the Fascists lost no more than 20% of their forces - 80% losses for the Socialists.

A great game - lots of learnings and I can report that Blue Force held all three farms with the Crown Jewels.

Thanks to Panzerkaput on the Forum for organising this...

and now some pictures..

Socialist Troops advance towards Grange Farm (playing football)

Brookfield Farm ( can be sourced from Doug at Em4)

The Socialists debate whether going into the barn is sensible

Grange Farm (in the centre ) - Buildings from the now defunct PMC  - some are still sold by Caliver

Again more Socialist dithering outside Grange Farm

Alls quiet at Bridge Farm - this end of the table has not started yet

The Fascists arrive in Bridge Farm

Our Socialists dither in the Woods between Bridge and Grange farm...

That's better - form a nice straight line...just like skittles. Yes they all fell over killed in the next round

Even the Fascists Mortar had a field day - a drop shot on the Socialist Armoured Car ended this threat 

The Socialist tank pushes on up the road

Whist a Fascist Panzer 1 creeps up on Grange Farm

The Farm house in Grange Farm takes a direct Mortar hit wiping out a Fascist unit - our only success in the game !

Until next time....