Managed to get another couple of bases of mediaevals done in time for the deadline of Task 2 of the Guild's 2014 build. Another base each of archers and pike for my 15mm Feudal Scots. Minis are, predictably, Essex.
And a group shot of my entry for the task. One day I'll have enough for a proper group shot...
Of late, the hot weather has made my workbench a thouroughly unpleasant place to be (it's in the loft), and real life has been somewhat hectic both at work and home. However, come the Autumn, I should be able to get beasted on with some more regular painting...
In addition to working on the generic landscape pieces,
I also resumed the search for some suitable pieces of 80’s looking terrain, to
populate 20mm Cold War games with.
Once again turning to the model railway sector, I headed over to New Modellers Shop, an absolute treasure-trove I stumbled upon a while back for all sorts of terrain-building japes. Here, I
hit upon some items from Dapol which looked like they might do the trick…
The
modern girder bridge and signal gantry I’d already come across and earmarked
for purchase; the girder bridge will be easily converted from rail to road, and
by the removal of signal lights replacing them with suitable German route
confirmation boards, the signal gantry will become a nice overhead sign for….
Yes. This has been playing more or less on loop
since I began thinking about this. The neighbours will grow to love it when I
start construction on said Autobahn…
Away from the open road, I found some items that I
hadn’t previously thought suitable, but thinking about it, the shop and flat,
when combined with the German signs obtained a few months ago should look OK
(considering buying a second one to be the airfield NAAFI shop for RAF Ost-
Totenbraut…), while the British styled bungalow would make an ideal guardhouse
for the airfield with some appropriate signage and tarting up.
I’ve got plans forming for a sort of non-descript,
generic industrial area, consisting of a gas-holder, tall chimney, lots of gantries/ huts, etc, and thought that
the water tower could look suitably industrial with the right paint scheme, and
the signal box could pull duty as a sort of control room/ ops centre for the
complex, again with the appropriate signage added.
Just as I was about to pay for the items I noticed
that there were some other manufacturers listed, and decided to have a look at
the Knightwing section, since they’d already supplied me with some very nice
security fencing, and found the piece d’ resistance; the checkpoint with
barrier. This would make an ideal gatehouse for RAF Ost-Totenbraut (especially
when accompanied by a suitable gate guardian…), so in the cart it went.
The beauty of these items is they usually cost
bright washers compared to purpose built wargames scenery, and lend themselves
to almost infinite customisation. Once this stuff starts to go together, it
should provide a pretty decent looking board, which should hopefully capture
some of the character of Germany in the 1980s...
Since I’ve been in the throes of the dreaded Painter’s Block,
I’ve tried to drag myself out of it by building some terrain, working on the
assumption that since it’s nice and non-genre specific, then I’d be able to
concentrate on it long enough to finish it to a high enough standard to
re-ignite my enthusiasm for painting the actual miniatures that are currently
insulating the loft. The fact that it’s the current Guild group-build also
helped…
Last year, I put together a rocky outcrop made of
foamboard, to add some height to our muskets and Tomahawks games. It came out
quite well, however, it did look a bit odd on its own, with no other similar
hill or outcrops. With this in mind, and with half the foamboard still
remaining, I decided to put another, bigger outcrop together, as well as some
Big Ominous Rocks™ to place around them, and blend them into the landscape a
bit. It would also give The Bear somewhere to live when he’s not chewing his
way through the warring factions…
The Original Outcrop
The New Outcrop
Taking shape…
Bocage!
Something that occurred to us when playing M&T
was that the Indians could really do with some more cover when conducting
ambushes, and the roads could be made to look a bit more claustrophobic for the
troops marching down them. With this in mind I also set about making some “bocage”
type hedges to wall in the roads, and add an air of menace and unease to
proceedings (should also serve to channel the armoured hordes of 3rd Shock Army into nice neat killing lanes for the MILANs and 120mm APFSDS of 1BR Corps...). It’s all a bit experimental with the hedges themselves justnow. I
have no idea how these are going to look when they’re finished…
Still not quite sure how effective this method is; it definitely needs more height anyway. Some bits worked really well, and look very convincing, like this bit with the brown lichen showing through as bare branches-
But other bits didn't, like this bit where too much flock clumped together...
Big Ominous Rocks™
Unfortunately the PVA has caused the MDF bases to
warp a bit. Will need to see about rectifying that…
I’ve never been totally happy with the dead flat “bowling
green” surface on the tops of the outcrops. I had been consciously trying not
to fall into my usual trap of making a very naturalistic piece of scenery which
looks perfect but is totally unusable since no figures will stand up on it due
to the landscaping; however, on this occasion I’ve went too far the other way.
As a result, I’ve decided to compromise and go back and vary the shades of
static crass on the surfaces, and hopefully break up the look of it a wee bit…
Still a bit of work to do; I'm going to add in some patches of a lighter shade of flock, and also re-cover the plain green areas on the new outcrop, as it's quite thin. I'll also revisit the bocage sections and build them up a bit (got the two long stretches to do, too) and then crack on the with the rocks...
