Afghan Compound

Binx and had our first game of Skirmish Sangin last week.  I had some modern troopers and Binx had some world war 2 Germans.  We fought over some Normandy houses.

As a game it was great and very lethal.  As a spectacle it was weak.  Not as weak as Cortez suggesting up turned rhinos could be drop pods but then again what is :o)

So Binx ordered some Taliban from Empress, I have everything in the recent Empress Kickstarter to choose from when it arrives any day now.  So we will be sorted for figures next game. 

So I started some terrain.  I saw a post on 15mm terrain and eventually it lead me to another blog; so I used it as inspiration and came up with this.

Still some bits and pieces to do and of course paint but it's a good start.  I will post again once complete.

4Ground 28mm Detached House Assembly

This is not my first 4Ground building that I have bought and built and nor will it be the last.  The models are well made, well thought out and cohesive.  The ever increasing range covers a good number of periods and looks to continue to expand.  Even the price is ok; whilst they are not exactly cheap they are not in the same price strata as a lot of resin suppliers.

 
So everything is great. Ah well no, sadly not.  The instructions need some work.  Firstly there are some errors with the part labelling in the pictures, then the written dialogue trends towards scant.  The pictures are colour but they are far too small and sometimes the image appears to have been flipped.  This does prove confusing but with some looking ahead in the instructions and some dry fitting it’s manageable

 
On Sunday I built the 28mm Normandy detached house and an effort to ease the frustrations of others I have taken bigger pictures and added some additional description.  To help anyone who is in building the same model. Whilst the result is excellent I feel that I should have been able to do it in about 30% less time than I did.
 

I give it 8 out 10 sash windows

For those you that are thinking of building the Semi Detached house. below are some close up shots of areas that I found confusing

East is восток

4Ground are currently churning out a lot of terrain.

Recently released were Eastern Front style log cabins in 15mm scale and I was lucky enough to assemble the ones we got for the Wolves (not that there was much fighting!)

We got the village which is 4 buildings for £25, with a 10% discount for being newsletter subscribers. Nice! Zed has the 4th to do.

These things flew together very easily. The pieces came out of the wooden sprues with no problems, in fact most just fell out!

If you've ever done any scratch building or kit building these will cause no problems at all. Excluding drying times for the glue I probably took less than an hour to assemble all 3. The roofs are removable to allow placement of troops. You can get one standard flames of war base in each.

Only real criticism I have is the "lugs" that help put the roof together are clearly visible once stuck together. You could paint these out with the right colour match but I didn't want to risk it!

I quite fancy making a village base for them to bring them together and add a bit of life but that can wait!

Highly recommended for some Eastern front feel to your table top.

score:

Четыре из пяти степняков

(4 out of 5 steppe dwellers)

Oi, Packet Inn

I have completed another of the Cortez built Mordheim buildings.
This one being the White Wolf Inn.

I tarted it up by adding a flagstone floor and some cobbles outside using filler.

The paint job could have plenty more detail added but it will do for now. Better to get all the buildings painted and see how it goes from there!
I believe Cortez has some barrels and "stuff" to add a bit more flavour

Side shot

Some Friday night regulars upset at the loss of their boozer...



4Ground 15mm Terrace House Review

With all our games the look of the table is one of the important components of a satisfying game.  We have been dabbling with various manufacturers of 15mm terrain and will no doubt continue to do so but with our latest purchase we have found something rather special in the 4Ground product.

We all range in abilities and interest when it comes to scenery, I for one quite enjoy building and painting scenery but just can't fit it into my schedule, but we are all feeling the pinch especially with our time so we have tried a couple of prepainted buildings.

For £20 the three house terrace comes flat packed. You need to remove each component from the frame; this is easy to do by hand and whilst there is a small amount of cleaning up to do it is easily achieved with a sharp knife or a piece of sandpaper.  Assembly is simple and, as long as you read the instructions and look at the picture, easy to follow each stage.  The only section I found tricky was the two dormer windows in the roof which I used a dab of hot glue to fix, for the rest of the model I used PVA or white glue.  I recommend leaving some time between stages to allow the glue to dry.  Overall it took a hour to complete not including drying time.

Below are a few pictures of the completed project, the doors are supplied brown but I chose to paint and gloss these myself.  The posters on the building are supplied as part of the instructions and I fixed them to the building with some thinned PVA.  My only comment is that I would have liked some prepainted floors for the interior but this is really nitpicking.

Score: 10 out of 10 maison d'hôtes

It's all about the terrain

A lot of games we play utilise WYSIWYG = what you see is what you get; the effects are often WYSILOB = what you see is lots of bickering

Within our regular gaming group terrain and how it is handled is not a subject of constant discussion but it is the subject of constant commentary.   Often containing one or more of the following words – What!? - Rubbish! - Really? - Pointless! - Wanker!  Depending on which rules are being used terrain or scenery can either be as depicted by the ‘piece’ or it may confer an effect.  A wood is a good example of this; does a wood on a base mean that the whole base is wooded or just where the trees are located on the base?  This will lead to either or both of these statements “I can see across the base but don’t have line of sight? That’s a load of shi…”, “I can shoot across the base (WYSIWYG) as I have line of sight, and you are not in cover Ha! In your face!”

Mordheim, Normandy.....

Bank Holiday weekend.
That extra day to get stuff done and really enjoy yourself!
Or just an extra day of chores.

I managed to get a bit of hit and run hobby in this weekend with some terrain painting.

Cortez has knocked up some ruined houses with an eye on a Mordheim campaign at some point, which I'm all for.
He didn't want to paint them though so I've volunteered to have a go at least at some.

First a quick hobby tip:
Painting scenery can use a lot of paint. Over the years I've taken to using tester pots from DIY superstores. The range of colours these days is vast and can easily match your chosen model paint range (I wouldn't advocate painting your models with them though!).
I recently restocked from Wickes as they're testers were on buy one get one free.

This little lot for a tenner

Some great names in there, Grizzly is going to be pretty useful as a dark brown base. A great place to start for most terrain.

Here's what I've produced this weekend. A bit rough and ready (photo too!) but they'll do the job

And as they are likely to pull double duty for WW28mm games here they are with a squad of soviets in position

.



Wargaming River

Not finished, like a lot of my posts at the moment but work in progress.  Just a bit of touching up and some static grass siflor tufts and a river to compliment any wargaming table.

Either way a whole lot of river.  We bought it from TBM at Salute 2012

Down on the Farm

I finished this a couple of weeks ago and decided I would put it on here for completeness

The Dread of Blight

My first post of 2011! Happy New Year!!!

Not a lot of hobby activity over the Festive season from me but did manage to get the Dreadstone Blight tower* done.

*No wizard included!

Sparkly Marine

As requested - Verdi GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

The colours are slightly messed up with the camera but you get the idea and will see it in the flesh soon enough.

So, he owns the field as well?

Mine! 
Booby Traps and stuff

Blackadder: Now, where the hell are we?

George: Well, it's difficult to say, we appear to have crawled
into an area marked with mushrooms.
Blackadder: [patiently] What do those symbols denote?
George: Pfff. That we're in a field of mushrooms?
Blackadder: Lieutenant, that is a military map, it is unlikely to list
interesting flora and fungi. Look at the key and you'll
discover that those mushrooms aren't for picking.
George: Good Lord, you're quite right sir, it says "mine". So,
these mushrooms must belong to the man who made the map.
Blackadder: Either that, or we're in the middle of a mine-field.
Baldrick: Oh dear.
George: So, he owns the field as well?

Wanna see my Rusty Rhino?

Easter weekend has come and gone and it seems at least a few of us had a chance to get some painting done.
I've cleared the terrain backlog I've had for a while with the second lot of planetstrike craters and the battlescape all finally finished.
Quite pleased with how the rhino has come out.

Will be bringing it all on Weds night.




Good old sponges!

Lay-Zer-Burrrnnnn

One set (plus one piece from the next) of Planetstrike craters all finished up.

There's a lot of whining about these around t'internet.
Yes GW were naughty and put the resin masters in all their advertising and the detail is not as good as expected but its really not that bad.
5 big terrain bits for about£10, fine by me!
I've tried to paint the top left piece as glowing rocks (meteorites smashing into the ground would be hot!) it just about works!
I think the laserburn in the centre is my favourite though.



Not added any flock to them as yet though for 2 reasons:

1. My flock no longer matches our tables!
2. Not entirely sure they should have flock as they represent sudden explosions/burns/rents in the ground

Happy to add or not as is appropriate at a later date.

Incidentally if there were ever a 40K special of "QI" I reckon the following info (stolen from wiki!) would feature:

Laserburn is a set of wargaming rules written by Bryan Ansell in 1980. Written for use with 15 mm sci-fi figures, but also playable with 25mm figures, the laserburn set of rules, published by Tabletop games, is set in a universe where man has reached the stars and the highest pinnacles of technology and is well on his way back to barbarism. The rules consist of 'Laserburn' and four other supplements, still available. A range of 15 mm metal figures were produced for use with Laserburn and are still available.
The rules say Laserburn, sci. fi. combat rules, copyright Bryan Ansell, August 1980, Produced by Tabletop Games
There is a small, but active, internet group promoting and expanding on the limited Laserburn background and rules.[2]
Some elements of the Laserburn rules, such as power and dreadnought armour, bolt guns and jet cycles were carried forward and appear in Warhammer 40,000 by Games Workshop who Ansell worked for in the late 80s onwards.



Hmmmm, quite interesting!

Five hops left...

According to Lordy, we are nearly half way through our 40k campaign. The unstopable Imperial Guard (Misunderstood renegades) have finally been slowed with the Grey Knights showing their power armoured kin the way to victory.

Anyway here are some pictures of a our new tables and new trees being used.

Table No1

I painted the outside

Can You Guess What It Is Yet?

hum a hey a hummm a wocka wocka

All Along the Watch Tower

Knocked this up this evening, might even paint it at some point.

Theresa Green

Over the next couple (!?!) of months the plan is to revamp/spruce up our terrain and boards.

With this in mind I'll be knocking together some new stands of trees.

I'm making them with 2 things in mind

1) the changes in LOS in 40K and the need we have for more LOS blocking terrain

2) ease of use and being able to actually place models in them!

The trees are all based individually on metal discs (cheers Cortez!) and fit into holes in the base board which have magnetic tape in them to keep it snug.

This one is essentially the prototype but has worked out well! I've learned though that the "sockets" need to be a little less snug and there may need to be a bit more magnetic tape used but, hey, that's what prototypes are for, right?!

I've got enough trees for about another 6 stands and they will kind of tessellate together to make really big woods!

LOS checking, can you see the target?

Nope?

WAAAGH!!!!!

The dread really was behind the trees!
Job's a good un!

Winging it!

I'm not generally known for getting involved in scenery building, but for some reason the skulls on display around Halloween gave some ideas and so I got down to it.
Here is the results of one of the two projects I put my mind to.

Firstly is a red wing....















Then a nice big red sword....



















And then another red wing....



















Put it all together and you get a nice big Dark Angel Icon













My other project is half done and should be ready in time for the first games of the new year