Lydian Walls

Following on from my earlier post, I made some (more) walls using the same techniques as described in detail previously.  They are about 20mm high.

I needed some sections with gates in them so made the doors out of cardboard, scored them to look like they were made from planks and inserted them into holes I'd cut in the polystrene.

Here's a little compound with some light hoplites (Magister Militum) marching about in it.  And here's a close-up of the gate which as you can see looks a little the worse for wear (again painted with emulsion from a tester pot).

When I make terrain items such as walls I tend to construct as many as I can at any one sitting and in fact I've probably got about a metre and a half of similar wall sections in the box now.

One of these days I'll get them all out and set them up with all the various buildings I've made and inflict pictures of them on you in a subsequent post.  The only problem with doing that is that I'll never get them all to fit back into the box again...

A Lydian Temple

I have a DBM 500 point Lydian army (I/50) that I first started in 1994 (I think it was) and finally finished painting in 2010 (result!).  The army is made up entirely of Chariot 15mm figures sold now by Magister Militum (see below).  However, in parallel with painting the figures I have been slowly building up arid terrain and particularly buildings.

The general idea with these has been to make them a slightly large 15mm and have them suitably desert-like so that they could be used for any likely period including Ancient Near East, Africa (AK47) or Mexico (for my long term plan to wargame the Maximilian Adventure in Mexico). Anyway, here's an account of something I've made over the last few evenings.

I started off with my usual building materials, i.e. strips of polystyrene pizza packaging (with the pizza juice washed off) (a.k.a. 'poor man's foamboard') and thick cardboard, glued together with PVA and pinned until set.  It's worth roughening the polystrene surfaces before gluing.

I decided to add a portico to the building by using sections of compressed paper lollypop/candyfloss sticks for the marble pillars and then cutting some arches into the side panels.

I then made the roof from sections of pizza base and added a dome to the rear section, made from half a squash ball.  I'd used the other half on an Indian Mutiny building I'd done about 15 years ago (wargame rule No.1 - never throw anything away).  For larger scale buildings (20-28mm) I usually make the roofs removable but at this scale it's less fiddly to just glue the roofs on.  However, in this case I left the main roof removable and indeed, reversible, so that it can be turned over to make a flat roof if required.

Once dry I roughened the external surfaces, coated them liberally in PVA and stuck the building into a large tin of sand I have, the contents of which were salvaged from a child's sandpit that had been left in the front garden of this house when we bought it.  When that had dried I painted it in a milk chocolate brown colour, actually a Fired Earth domestic emulsion tester pot called 'Raw Earth'.  At about £2 from B&Q for a 125ml tin it's quite useful as base coat for all sorts of projects.

Finally I gave the whole building a dry-ish coating with another DIY emulsion (a Laura Ashley Home tester pot of 'Parchment' no less, very lah-de-dah), and then highlighted and dry-brushed it a bit with white acrylic.  The surrounding ground was painted with an orange-sandy coloured emulsion called 'gamboge' (I know, I'd never heard of it either) and then finished up with some Galeforce Nine static grass ('straw').

And there you go, finished.  I have to say that I have only 2 or 3 resin buildings in my collection as everything else has been built by myself (with varying degrees of success).  There is something immensely satisfying about scratch building things and using bits of packaging and waste cardboard to create something.  Not only is it 'green' but it takes you back to those days of self-sufficiency when you had to make everything yourself because you couldn't actually buy anything.

Dom Bütgenbach

I was over at Geoff's house for a WW2 skirmish game last weekend. The idea was to use some free rules called "WW2 Skirmish (Platoon Commander)" (I think) but I didn't get very far with them on the bus because I'm a bit pedantic when it comes to rules and expect to be able to understand most of them on first reading.

Anyway, the upshot of this was that in the end we just decided to use Rapid Fire, which we normally modify for tank battles by using the good old Airfix AT rules (not that they were required in this game)

The scenario was supposed to be Dom Bütgenbach, adapted from one of the many useful WW2 scenarios provided on the Fire and Fury/Battlefront website.  However, due to limited time (and space) Geoff decided that we would only fight out the central bridge-crossing section of the action (see map above made with MappingBoard) using about three platoons of infantry each, although the Germans would also get a lone PzIV.  The table looked like this.  As you can see, it's Geoff's kitchen table with scenery on it.  Simple but effective.

Basically the scenario was that on 20 December 1944 Kampfgruppe Kühlmann of the 12th SS Panzer Division would try to push elements of the US 1st Division out of the aforementioned village.  However, with the scenario now only having one way to get into the village I could see that the SS (my forces) would be lucky to succeed.

As expected, things did not start well as within the first move I was taking casualties from a mortar somewhere in the village. However, I usually don't hang about when I'm attacking and like to push forward manfully.  So, here is my PzIV pushing forward manfully.

It's by Raventhorpe I think.  Anyway, I kept up my advance returning fire when I could and quickly got one of my platoons onto the bridge, whilst managing to silence the not very well concealed (but nicely scratch built) 6pdr with some accurate mortar fire of my own.

Supported by the PzIV which was firing HE at everything and missing, my aim was to rush the trench on the right.  However, before I could do that a suicidal flamethrower guy popped up and roasted a few of my men on the bridge.  Nice.

Here's the same move from the reverse angle.  You can see that the place is well defended.

Following that rather warm welcome things started to go a little better as I managed to grenade the trench on the right and get my troops into it in short order.

Sadly this minor success was short lived as they were cut down almost to a man by the HMG on the hill and also by some deadly accurate mortar fire.

Despite taking heavy loses I realised that the defenders were also suffering and only needed a few more casualties before they had to take a morale test.  So I pushed on, throwing my last troops across the bridge.

However, despite destroying the US HMG with mortar fire and whittling down the defenders the last moves were a disaster.  The defenders managed to immobilise the panzer with a bazooka round and again I lost more men.  At that point we both had to take morale tests and although the defenders' passed theirs, my troops had had too much and were forced to retreat.

Overall, it was nice little skirmish and I am not surprised that the SS attack was beaten off.  Frontal assaults across narrow bridges against well defended villages do not often carry, although I have had my successes in the past.  Next time I'll discover a ford that Geoff doesn't know about so that I can outflank him.

German figures are Revell and US troops are mainly Esci (the HMG is Revell).

Darkest Africa No.6

Well, I finally finished the Copplestone Darkest Africa/Dinosaur Hunter figures.  It was the first time that I'd really tried painting large figures using the, what appears to be, now standard three stage process, i.e. laying down the dark shade colour, then painting in the main colour (leaving the deep folds and shaded areas) and finally picking out the highlights.

For my first attempt at this technique I think they've come out not bad, although perhaps I should have created a greater contrast between shades.  I had a bit of trouble with the eyes so just approximated these..

I need someone (or somethings) for them to fight now and will be working on that over the next few weeks, assuming I don't get distracted onto anything else.

Waterloo

I've got a wee bit behind with my Darkest Africa posts what with a) being unable to source any matt varnish directly (until yesterday - God bless Harburn Hobbies) and b) because I was sent off to London on business this morning.  It was meant to be Shetland today but someone changed my itinerary.

Luckily, as I write this, I'm sitting on the train back from Kings Cross (First class - at only £6 more than 2nd class, you'd be mad not to) scoffing sausage and mash washed down with G&T.  I'm a first class kinda guy ...

Anyway, having been sent down here on some fool's errand relating to Isembard Kingdom Brunel and potential interactions with rare mammals (don't ask), I was reminded of some joke or other, as I got on the tube at a well known railway station just south of the Thames, which goes something like this:

Insignificant man at party trying to impress haughty female:
"You know, one of my ancestors fell at Waterloo."

Suitably languid reply:
"Oh really?  Which platform."

(c.1907)

Darkest Africa No.5

Yet another post demonstrating progress with the allegedly intrepid ones.  I've done most of the shading now and have added in main colours and highlights on quite a few of them.

I couldn't quite manage the detail of the Harris tweed on the stout fellow with the deer-stalker but did give him a gold watch chain.

I'm sure these posts are literally like watching paint dry .... (geddit?) ... so I'll make the next one the last on this particular topic.  However, making myself report progress does motivate me somewhat....

Darkest Africa No.4

Well, making some more progress on my Copplestone figures.  I've blocked in various shade colours and so should be getting on to the main colours and highlights later.

I've gone for various khaki, ochre and green shades with some sensible blue-grey flannels for the gentlemen.

Lofty's in his voluminous KDs (Khaki Drill) of course.

Darkest Africa No.3

I'm not much of a painter in terms of speed, motivation, skill or output but I've decided that I should really try to get those jobs finished I said I'd get done this year.  So, I've been cracking on with the Copplestone Darkest Africa figures and managed to make some progress and get some of the flesh tones done last night.

I'm trying to follow the Foundry three-stage method (sort of) by mixing up/down shades as I need them but it seems to be going OK.

I'm using Revell acrylics as there is a plentiful supply in my local model store (Wonderland, on Lothian Road, Edinburgh).

Desert Forces

Just a few shots of some other desert terrain and my axis forces in 1/300 scale that go with the desert fort I posted about earlier.  I got them out to see what forces I still needed and to add some more buildings.

Some Italian armour loitering in an Arab village.  Buildings are made of balsa offcuts coated in woodflex and painted.  The ruin's walls are made of the offcuts from the polystyrene disc that comes with pizzas you get from Sainsbury's.  It's a sort of poor-man's foam-board (you have to wash it before using).

A Semovente hiding in an oasis.  Classic pool of varnish pretending to be water there.

Something they're still fighting over in Libya.... and I'm not talking about the slices of toilet roll inner.

DAK forces descending through a gully.  All models are 1/300 Heroics and Ros.

Matilda on the March

This Commando book (No. 933) from 1975 has haunted my dreams for years - until I found it on ebay not so long ago.  It was reprinted in 1989 (as No. 2259), apparently with the same cover.  I know, slightly too much information but, well, it is a classic.

It is also still an inspiration for all the various bits of desert terrain and (admittedly) Afrika Korps resources I've built up.  And I also like the cover with the interesting low level light source silhouetting the Germans and highlighting the Matilda (and the grenade).  In the book the dialogue goes "Was ist das?"  as the grenade sails into the Kubelwagen followed by "Gott in Himmel!" and "Argh!" as it goes off.