Check out the Splintered Light minis here.
He has Historicals (Normans, Vikings, Early Saxons, Picts, Scots/Irish, Romano-British and a Robin Hood Line). He also has fantasy miniatures. Recently, he just launched a 28mm line as well. Great stuff from a good guy. Hop on over and wish him a happy birthday.
I love the detail. The floorboards on the inside are even defined. I can't wait to get started on this.
The company publishes a painting guide on their website. I think I will try out their recommendations.
Mark IV was a company I found through Google search of 15mm buildings. These are perfect for what I need. Please check them out. http://www.markivminiatures.com
I did get some pointers through the Guild web site on some Russian sources for the battles fought by the CSIR. Thus far, they are not too terribly detailed and have not provided much new information. But the confirmation is welcome.
Since over half of the battles I am looking to make scenarios for take place in the winter, I need to create a host of dead trees with no leaves. I am thinking that a Woodland Scenics tree sprue by itself would not look so good. Any suggestions on how to make that look better?
Check it out.
Next up is one of the JR Miniatures ruins that I bought over a year ago. A very nice ruin that I have forgotten which of the Stalingrad line it is from. It has a spot for a propaganda poster on it that I have painted up. A week effort with just a hammer and sickle and CCCP. Not even sure if the Soviet Union was using that designation yet in 1941. Anyway, that is easily corrected if someone points out that it is incorrect.
The first couple of pictures are using the flash. Next I fooled with the brightness setting on my phone. Not quite sure that this was an improvement.
Still have a bunch of trees waiting in the wings, another JR ruin (the French Corner Cafe one) and of course more fences.
Since I have a pile of stuff still to paint, I decided to order some more stuff. I found Gamecraft miniatures which seems to be the US version of 4Ground. I bought one of their factory complexes. It looks rather nice in the website. It should take up considerable real estate on the games table too. It measures in at 12.67" long by 8.76" wide and 4.64" tall. At $13, it is a good value. The downside is that it is one more item to be painted.
The next purchase, my Father's Day present to myself, is the Mark IV miniatures Urban Brick House with Tin Roof. They don't take Paypal but e-mailing Jeff, he agreed to take it as a payment outside of their shopping cart system. So I now am eagerly awaiting the two items.
Here is the question of the day for our viewers. For towns in the Ukraine circa 1941, what were the streets made out of? Cobblestone or something else? It almost looks like if from some of the other pictures that I saw but I am just not sure.
This a great way to support your hobby and find what you really want and get rid of the items you no longer need. Take a look through the blog list. There are a bunch of great blogs on there (much better than my efforts) that are well worth reading.
Basically, I need some funds to finish off my CSIR book. So, for $15 I am selling both western Desert Air Campaign books and my ACW scenario book. For more information on these, click here for The Coming Thunder, click here for The Falcon and the Gladiator or here for the first Western Desert book. If you know of anyone who might be interested, please send them my way.
Sample Scenario for The Coming Thunder
Sample Scenario for Falcon and the Gladiator
Thanks
It seems that the town was built in the late 1800s under the impetus of a Belgian investment. The town began as a collection of a few shacks surrounding a few mines. The town began to grow and grew to fame as the site of an armed uprising in 1905. There were a few actions in and around the town during the Russian Revolution.
The capital of the region was Stalino. The city of Stalino had its own issues with crumbling infrastructure. It was viewed that Gorlovko could be upgraded easier than fixing Stalino. The plans were to add a new modern city center called Novo Gorlovko that included a party headquarters, modern appartments, hotels and businesses to the town. Also schools, hospitals, telegraph and telephone lines, sewage, paved roads and a tram line were all to be built.
This move of the capital was short lived. It seems a high party official went for a visit and his vehicle became hopelessly bogged in the mud roads near the mines. He promptly returned to Stalino in a huff. While some funding was cut, many of the building projects did take place. The town rapidly grew through the 1930s.
The tram line was run from the city center out some 8 kilometers to one of the main mine complexes.
By the time the Italians arrived in 1941, there were a few modern structures present in the town. Most of these were industry related. The town had taken a war production footing in relation to coal production. The mines were running at full capacity. The mines were still surrounded by low ramshackle structures.
And some of the buildings that the Italians were fighting among.
Anyway, it was interesting to find out a little about this city in the Ukraine. I also got enough pictures to figure out what my map will look like for the scenarios.
Sources:
http://moyagorlovka.blogspot.com/
http://forum.gp.dn.ua/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=941&sid=9324176d89c7749fba15579546851d0e&start=75
http://gorlovka.prostogorod.ua/%D0%9E-%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B5/%D0%98%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8F/%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0-%D0%B2-xx-%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%B5-345/
http://infodon.org.ua/stalino/198
http://beket.com.ua/doneckaja/gorlovka/
I am down to 13 scenarios left for the CSIR scenario pack. This is proving to be the largest effort to date. I will get some pictures soon of some play tests. I think I may start with the Bersaglieri attack on Stalino Station. This was a scenario that I considered dropping but it was a fun one that I might post as a sample.
Tonight will be spent making more trees.
