Terrain and Miniatures - Clearing out the backlog

Well, productive day. Managed to finish a bunch of stuff. First, a Things From the Basement house. I really liked this house but the roof was modeled to be a tin roof. I decided to make it a thatched one instead. I tried for a different paint scheme as it was a fancier place. I like it.

Next up is some fantastic Charlie Foxtrot casualty dials. These are flat and lay fairly low even though they were designed with 28mm models in mind. I can't wait to use these. I need probably two more packs.

Then there are my Dux Britanniarum items. Sabot bases and some looting Saxons. And a bishop that is upset. These were fun figures to paint up.

Last item is two haystacks from Six Squared Studios. I really like these. The picture is not the clearest though. Sorry about that.

I still have three buildings and a well to do for Things From the Basement. And the watermill from Star Fort Miniatures. I will thatch the roof of the watermill. Not sure about the others yet.

And a quick update on the Second Kharkov Campaign. I have finished the first 3 scenarios of the second campaign. Three more to go and I am making good progress. I anticipate a release within a month or two.

Until next time...

More Terrain

I have been working on two of the Things From The Basement buildings. I have made thatched roofs for these two. I have gotten one about half painted. It is shaping up nicely.

I also assembled my brand new Charlie Foxtrot shock markers. They came 5 in a bag. I will probably get more of these. They look different from the Warbases ones but are flatter. I really like these. i will still use my Warbases ones.

The only things i finished were two haystacks from Six Squared Miniatures. I followed their blog's painting guide and I think they came out nicely. I have many more haystacks from other manufacturers to work on, but these have been my favorites.

I also finished painting my looting Saxons from Peter Pig's Viking Range. These guys came out nicely.I only painted 4 of the five as one was a duplicate. I also based my bishop who was from the same pack. These will go in the Dux Brit shelves soon. Speaking of that, I managed to texture and basecoat four 4-man skirmish bases and eight 6-man shieldwall stands. I can probably knock all of this out tomorrow.

After my buildings, I have the Star Fort miniatures water mill. I will be doing a thatched roof on it as well. I looked on line and only found thatched roof water mills. So we will go with that. Then comes the Things From the Basement Russian Church. That one has me thinking. I am not sure about what to do with it. I may push it to the side and work on the Red vectors ruined village. Anyway, pictures tomorrow once more stuff is done.

The scenario sale has 5 more days with the coupon code "ZWOSESMPIF". I added a Napoleonic Sharp Practice scenario involving a beach landing to take a battery recently. Remember the coupon code will get you 50% off.

https://payhip.com/ChrisStoesen

Scenario Sale is Winding Down.

Just five days left on the scenario sale. I added a Napoleonic Sharp Practice scenario involving a beach landing to take a battery recently. Remember the coupon code "ZWOSESMPIF" will get you 50% off.

https://payhip.com/ChrisStoesen The coupon applies to all scenario books in the store. Thanks.

Warbases Skirmish trays

Just got in my order of Skirmish trays from Warbases. These are wonderful. They are 20mm holes that will fit a US penny that has sloppy basing materials on it. This is perfect for me. I previously had these for my Sharp Practice forces. I have a number of them for the six man skirmish groups that work perfectly for Saxons in Dux Britanniarum. I just picked up the 3x2 trays for my Romano-British and four 4-man trays for my skirmishers. So once again, I am off track in what I am doing, but I am having fun.

I have been basing and painting the SP skirmish/Saxon group trays. I have enough for a base force of 5 trays for my 2 elites and 3 warrior groups. These will be finished today. Not much work left on them. The new stuff may wait as I have some buildings that are primed and need thatched roofs.

I did finish the first five bases. Also finished a jump off point and a single shield for my saxons that I attached to the figure missing it.

But that is not the only distraction I am facing. I have been following the work of "wartoendallblogs.blogspot.com" and "https://sbminisguy.wordpress.com" Dux Arda Project. This is converting Dux Britanniarum to Lord of the Rings. What attracted me to this is that I can use some of my existing troops for this - mainly Saxons. I looked at an Isengard orc force and a Rohan force. I have no fantasy figures what so ever. But I do have plenty of Saxons painted. But Rohan was mostly a cavalry force while my Saxons are rather infantry. The good news is I don't need that many figure packs to sort this out.

For Rohan, I would need some new cavalry types. I have a base force of Elite shock cavalry thanks to the Splintered Light pack of Saxon Cavalry. These guys look great. They are in armor with shields and they stand out. I have 4 already painted and ready to go. I may have a couple more laying about as well.

What I am missing is Raider Cavalry and skirmish cavalry. For the skirmish cavalry, there is the Splintered Light Romano-British light cavalry. These will work great. Just guys with javelins on the backs of horses. I need some for my Romano-British anyway. The Raider Cavalry I struggled with. Then I found the Late German Range at Khurasan miniatures. They have cavalry followers. This is perfect. It is mounted guys with spears and shields but no armor. That gives me three classes of cavalry that you can identify on the table. I also found a secret that he has casualty figures for this range. It is a dead guy in a helmet that you can put either a round shield or a oval shield on and he could work for Romano-British/Late Roman or Saxon. I will order some of these for sure. So basically, 3 packs of figures and I now have a base Rohan force.

The orcs are not so easy. There are a number of good lines out there including Splintered Light, Khurasan, Eureka and plenty of others. I don't like most of them for LOTR. Eureka is the best fit that I have found. The problem with orcs are that they need TONS of starting troops. Dux Arda has six different troop types for the orcs. These all come in different size groups.

So the lowest level troops are Snaga that come in 2 groups of twelve guys! Ugh. That will be a bunch of painting on its own. I am thinking of using their orcs with pikes for them with a couple of bowmen sprinkled in. Next come the soldier orcs. These guys are in groups of 9 and you need two groups. Again, orcs with swords and some archers to round them out.

By this time, I will probably be burned out on painting orcs. The next needed are Uruk orcs. These are two groups of six figures each. Finally, a reasonable one with sabot bases I already have! These guys are supposed to be tougher so I switched over to the man-orc range and looked at their light infantry (they have patches of armor and shields) with some more bowmen thrown into the mix.

The last of the base force is two groups of Uruk Hai or the elite of the orcs. They are also in two groups of six. For these, I love the image in the movie of Sauruman's hordes marching forward with pikes. So I will use their armored pikes for this. Sprinkle in one or two crossbow armed ones and they are done.

For leaders, they have plenty of options. I am thinking of making more command stands for them with a standard bearer and musician accompanying the leader. But I may not. You need 3 officers and a champion. That is the only easy part of the mess. Some of the standards are huge and a US penny may not do to hold them up. But that is all theoretical as I am not buying anything for this until I finish out my Dux Reinforcements for both the Saxons and the Romano-British.

The Dux Arda project has plenty of variety to get you going. I picked Rohan and Isengard as I thought they were doable. Some of the other orc options are just too big of a force for me to want to start. Isengard alone is 70 figures. Mordor is 106 figures for a base force. Misty Mountain Orcs are 118 figures. Gundbad orcs are 106 figures. Some of these, the reinforcements include trolls and warg riders as well. So Isengard seems to be the most cost effective force to start with. It can be built upon and fleshed out later.

The Free Peoples of Eriador are interesting as they look like they could be my Romano-British. They come in two types: Levy and Warriors. There are three groups of warriors (so only one group more than my Dux Brit base force, not bad). But six groups of levy! That is three more groups than I have. The Dux Brit reinforcements really don't net you any levy reinforcements so I was not expecting to paint any more. Also my shield designs are rather Romano-British centric and would look odd fighting the orcs. But I won't let that stop me. They get hobbits as reinforcements as well as shock cavalry. That and some rangers thrown in the mix.

Anyway, this is a long post for something that is mostly theoretical at this point. Maybe 2020 for a LOTR project? Who knows.

More Painting Progress... Most off Target

Broke out the paints over the weekend and managed to finish off some more stuff. The only Kharkov related items I finished were three jump off points and some sheep.

That brings me to 7 Jump Off points finished. These are fairly generic and should work for The sheep were nice little models. I really enjoyed painting them up. Very quick and probably not an accurate job. There were six ewes and two rams. They make a nice little herd.

Next up is a group of farmers. The one with the shovel maybe could fit with the Kharkov project but I painted him more to match his buddy with the hat who seems more AWI to me. The third fellow is a Dark Age Shepherd.

Lastly are my Saxons. I had five warriors on a painting stick and then six Saxon archers. This gives me a complete unit of archers and allows me to change my mixed unit of skirmishers to all bowmen. So that is a win for me. I think that helps round out another full unit of warriors for the Saxons as well. I may have had a spare warrior around. If not, I think I have spare lead in a bag somewhere.

I wanted to do something nifty with the shield designs but in the end, my hands were shaking far to bad to accomplish anything like that. I did paint a shield for a Saxon Elite that seemed to have lost his. I also have a bishop that is ready for basing and five looting Vikings (who I will use with my Saxons) as markers for when the Saxons find loot during a raid. Those are some fun figures. There are two carrying sacks of who knows what. A guy trying to make off with some church relics (read a box box filled with skulls). There is a guy pulling a crown from a treasure chest and the last one is making off with a woman in a dress. It was their high value loot pack from Peter Pig. Very colorful figures that I have been enjoying so far.

Lastly, I just undercoated a group of 5 goats and two haystacks. More to complete my farm stuff. These will work for Kharkov. So I don't feel too bad about it. Once that stuff is done, back to painting houses for Kharkov. I am struggling with the roof joins at the moment so I have placed them aside. I also have the Red Vector Ruined village pack sitting underneath those. I doubt I will get much of that done this week but who knows.

Till next time.

Things From the Basement Russian House

Finally I got around to painting up on of the TFTB buildings. I am not sure about the roof yet. I mixed gun metal gray and black then inked it in black. Once dry, I will ink it in rust. I hope that comes out looking like a tin roof. Still have to paint up the chimney and then I will take a few pictures.

Looking over the lead pile on the desk, I am really wanting to get to some of the miniatures that I brought up. All are for Dux Britanniarum and none for Kharkov. Well a couple of peasants may fit in but not really. I do have some grain sacks and boxes that I am going to use for jump off points that I can paint. But the motivation to work on those is low. I do have some T-34s from Gaming Models to use as wrecks that I can work on. Again, I just haven't felt like working on those. The Saxon Archers keep calling to me.

I finished off the house and here it is. Not sure I like the roof. I may tile the next one with the slate tiles I got from Warbases.

More Terrain and Force Morale Tracker

I finished up my Things From the Basement Fences. There are two types. There is 13" of tall fences and 8" of shorter fences. I am planning on using the shorter fences for the Chicken coop. The shorter one comes with a gate that is hard to see in the picture and two sections with missing planks. It came with separate planks but I managed to loose one. The tall sections have some nice details cut into them. Some hollows and cracks that make them stand out.

The last item is the German Force Morale tracker. It is the Phalanx Consortium one that matches with the Soviet one I did earlier. I really like these. They came out nicely.

Next up is some more fences from a manufacturer that I don't know. These were an older eBay purchase that has been sitting in the cupboard for a long time now. I can't wait to get these done and start laying out some tables for the Second Kharkov Campaign. I have taken on some distractions as well. I am attempting to make some Jump off points/deployment points to use that will be generic and I can use them for Sharp Practice or Chain of Command. So I have a round base and will stack them with Generic boxes and barrels in the hopes of making something that looks nice but is identifiable for what it is. I have some specific ones for Sharp Practice with an exploring officer looking around on horseback and a couple others too. Between these, I hope to have something that will add to the games.

I also could not resist and started painting a Dark Age bishop for my Romano-Briton force for Dux Britanniarum. I also have some Saxon archers (2) and some Saxons hauling loot to add to that game. I have no business working on those but there they are. I pulled out some more farm animals as well. I found I have eight sheep primed on a painting stick and a mother pig with babies to work on. Then I found a pack of goats from Donnington miniatures. This should keep me out of trouble for a little bit. Anyway, onward and upward.

MDF Force Morale Tracker

I got this one and a German one from the Phalanx Consortium over a year ago for Christmas. I finally got around to painting the Soviet board. I am a fan and will be getting more of these even though painting the text was very painful. It looks pretty good even with my sorry paint job.

As you can see, it comes with a peg for marking force morale and has a spot to place your chain of command dice. It won't fit the TFL COC Dice but will take normal sized dice. (Whatever normal is.) These are pretty nice. They make UK, US, German and Soviet boards so far. I plan on getting a full set and probably an additional German and Soviet one. They run about $10 US. There are others out there (Warbases for one) but I like the simplicity of this one.

Shock Markers

A while back, I purchased some Warbases Casualty Markers. What is cool about these is you can specify the text on them. I put Shock on mine. I only ordered 2 because I didn't know if I would like them. Turns out, I really do. They painted up nicely. I have managed to not glue it together and it still work. They cost a pound each. I want 11 more of them. That is sometime in the future.

These will be rather nice. I'll use these and dice for the rest of the units.

I will finish some fences next before working with the Things From the Basement Buildings. I might sneek in some Saxon Archers too. Who knows.

Distractions, Ugh

So I found a youtube channel that was posting their Dux Britannarium campaign. I love the game but have barely played it. I knew I spent a ton of time painting figures for it. I thought I had a base force for both Saxons and Britons. I also had some Picts around somewhere. So instead of painting today, I made an inventory.

Saxon Horde

It was refreshing to see how well my Saxons are doing. I have most of what I need. What I found out was I was an idiot when it came to skirmishers. I have 2 guys with javelins and two guys with bows. They should all be the same type. Oops. Anyway here is my base force.

Pardon the junk picture. I have to paint the movement trays. I stole the skirmisher trays from my AWI guys. I am using the same basing method so if I paint them up for this, it will work for them as well. Bonus!. I sorted through what else I had. I found I had a nice set of dead Saxons. Donnington Miniatures, I think. They have a nice selection of dead guys.

Looking through the tray, I found two Wicca Priests or wizards. The picture was horribly out of focus and that is annoying. They are much nicer than the picture shows. These guys wouldn't be seen util a first battle and after the Saxon leader has advanced himself a bit.

One of the reinforcements is Saxon Cavalry. I have 4 of these guys ready even though they don't show up until the last round of reinforcements. They are also armored. Which makes them not light cavalry. But they will do and I really like them.

Next we have some reinforcements. I am out of skirmish trays so they are individuals. I have two groups worth here. Then I realized something. One of those groups was painted as foederati as possible mercenary support for the Britions. So I really only have one group of reinforcements of Warriors and one Mercenary Warrior group. Still, they could be used either way. The foederati were painted more uniform in appearance. I neglected to get a picture of them.

All in all, not bad. I need at least one more group of warriors for reinforcements (preferably two), another group of skirmishers (I have 6 bowmen to sort this out that need painting). I think that will have me set. I am pretty happy with what I have so far.

Post-Roman British

Here is where the gaps are occurring. I have the base force needed but really nothing beyond it. I opted to get smaller group shots for the base force. I kept the troop types having the same basic shield design to keep them straight. This was very helpful when I went to them years later and tried to sort out what was going on. I placed a warbases order today for more sabot bases so I can accomodate 8 groups of British and 4 groups of skirmishers. That should sort out all of my forces.

The first group is my British Lord and champion with his loyal warriors.

Next up is the second noble and the levy.

And then comes the next noble and his group of Milites/Elites.

The last part of the base force is the skirmishers. Here I at least have four of the same type. All bowmen.

I searched for anything else I had ready. Very little emerged. In fact, there were no unpainted figures much to my horror. I will have to visit Splintered Light again and order some more troops. (Reminder, I am running a sale on my scenario books. Use coupon code "ZWOSESMPIF" at check out for a 50% discount - https://payhip.com/ChrisStoesen). What I did find was three lone figures. A British noble on horseback, and two country priests. They will come into play a little later in the campaign. I can use the noble on horseback when he reaches the fourth level of reinforcements. The priests come into play if I help one out in a scenario.

With that disappointment, I made a list of "needs". This includes another group of bowmen or slingers (4 needed). A bishop. Good news there, I had purchased some Peter Pig figures hauling loot. It includes a nice scandalized bishop as well as five guys hauling off loot. I intend to use these for Saxons when they succeed in finding loot during a raid. They are primed and awaiting paint. A group of six warriors. The SL packs come in 12 so that shouldn't be an issue. I'll have a spare. A group of 4 light cavalry. The SL cavalry packs are in packs of 4! Two groups of shock cavalry and a noble. Well I have the mounted noble at least.

I am thinking of picking up a pack of elites as well. The reasoning is late in the campaign, you can gain extra elites depending on your path. The same holds true for the Saxons. I may have some spare unpainted figures for that though.

Picts

This is my smallest force yet. When Dux first came out, Mark L decided to jump in and went for a Pictish force. He made his way to paint 2 of the 4 groups of raiders, four crossbowmen, four slingers, a noble and a champion. I may have painted the raider cavalry. I only say this because the bases are ones I used. Mark based on very small washers. I will have to rebase to match the other troops.

Now for a base force, I am short 12 raiders. However, I have all 12 on painting sticks! Good news. I think I would rather have javelins for skirmishers than slingers. The slingers are generic enough that maybe I could move them to the Romano-British and get some javelins. Still thinking on this. I have another pict Noble to paint up to round out the leadership. Also a standard bearer and a musician just because. That would round out the base force and give me something other than a mercenaries to be used by either Saxon or British.

But the expansions call for Pictish war hounds. I have two dog holders for my Saxons that I bought from somewhere. I can picture the website in my head. The figures are a little on the thin side so they are just there (painted though). I will look at splintered light and see what they have. Next is 4 more raider cavalry. They are in the box on painting sticks! Next one is six more raiders and another noble. Got those ready to paint too. But alas, I don't have six noble raiders with a noble. I potentially have the noble but I would want him to match his men so that is probably splintered light again. I also have 4 more crossbow guys but they are just extras.

I need a druid type of guy. I will see what I have. I probably need to buy something. All in all, I have no excuse not to play this now as a solo campaign or talk my son into it. I should be able to manage a few raid scenarios before needing more figures.

What I really need to do is finish my East Front stuff and stop being distracted. Lets see how that works. That's it for now.

Terrain Coming Along Nicely

I have gotten in some good days of painting lately. This has felt really good to have gotten stuff done. First up is the last of the Red Vectors buildings.

Next up is the Things From the Basement Shed and Blacksmith shop. I really like these buildings. They are more delicate than the Red Vectors but have more personality to me. I don't think my paint job is up to the quality of the models. I have several more houses to do and their fences. I hope to make more progress next week. Its going well.

Next up is the insanely small 15mm chicken coop from Things from the Basement. It was a tough build and I have two more to do. I loved it so much, I had to paint some livestock as well. I managed 4 pigs and three chickens. I think the livestock is from Donnington Miniatures but could be wrong. I need more chickens. A big thank you to all who helped me paint the pigs. Apparently, it is hard to go wrong. I googled Ukrainian pigs and found some gray pigs with black spots and went with that.

This brings me to show off the pigs in their new home, my previously painted sty. They seem rather content.

Next up on the bench is some more Things From the Basement Houses, fences, and some older fences that I never bothered to paint yet. Once that is all done, I plan on working up my tables for Second Kharkov. I am getting close.

Sometimes you get what you want.

My order from Things from the basement arrived. The fences are great. There are not many of them but they look good. I have assembled them but that is as far as I have gotten. Then there was the surprise. Three 15mm chicken coops. They are tiny and thin. I have punched one out to assemble. Currently my hands are shaking too much to accomplish this. I will try again tomorrow after a good night sleep.

I finished the last of my Red Vector's buildings today. And have all sorts of fencing and two Things From The Basement in the queue. I intend to do the chicken coop first. We will see how it goes.

A Few Buildings More

I managed to get the steps done on the first two buildings I did last week and finished off another house, shed and pig sty. I am happy with how they came out.

I took them down to the game room and got some better pictures. Not sure if I achieved that or not.

These are the originals.

These are the new ones. All in all, I like how they turned out. There is one more of the Red Vector's houses left to do. I have it primed and depending on how I feel, it may see paint.

What I have next on the work bench is some Things From the Basement Models. I have a shed, a blacksmith's forge and a small house. I really like the look of these buildings. They are finer detail than the Red Vectors buildings. I am not sure how they will look together but until they are done, there is no way of telling. Both the blacksmith forge and the shed will be wooden roofed. The house will probably be a tin roof like I did for the Wild Lands building. I need to figure out how I will do the roof detail as I am not entirely happy with the engraved look. But at 15mm, it may not matter.

I am also working on 10 pieces of fencing. These were unfinished from before. All are straight pieces that are four inches in length. This with the order I placed for Things From the Basement (fences) should give me a nice mix of ratty looking and nice looking fences to create the village.

So where does that leave me? I still have a Star Fort Miniatures water mill to paint up. I have a bunch more Things From the Basement Buildings. Both of which intimidate me. I really like the models but they look better than what I can paint if that makes sense. What I would like to do is have a different color scheme for the TFTB village. Being partially color blind, that is daunting. I liked the blue I used for the Red Vectors. Not sure what would look right? A light green or a yellow?

After this, I plan on making some garden plots for the back yards and those chicken coops from TFTB when they come in. I also have an order for the Red Vector's ruined village that I want to get done to replace anything blown up during the course of the game.

Now since these are primarily wooden buildings that would burn up most of the way if there was any artillery bombardment, I also wanted a bunch of brick chimneys to have around for terrain. I know that Total Battle Miniatures has one. I have that building and really like it. But it is 8 pounds for just one. Surfing the web, I found some from Novus Design Studios that are more factory chimneys that won't fit the bill. Then I found on the Balagan website that Ironclad Miniatures used to do some. They are not part of their current catalog and the Balagan post made it seem like they were discontinued. So I sent them a quick mail. Turns out they are remastering these with the intent to release them again. Depending on price, I may be buying a bunch when they come out.

Bit of a long post today but lots of thoughts rambling through the brain today. Until next time.

Wargamers Odds & Ends Sale - Spring 2019

It is that time again and I am running a sale on all of my old scenario books. I have created a new webstore with PayHip that should work out the rough patches I have had with direct sales before and there should be no waiting on me to email you the file.

To celebrate getting all of this uploaded, I am offering a discount code for the Month of April. Using the code "ZWOSESMPIF" will get you 50% off each of the scenario books that are availible. I have included a number of my one off scenarios in there as well for $0.99.

Please let me know what you think of the new web store and if it is any better than what I have been doing.

Work on the Second Kharkov Supplement is moving along but won't be ready in time for the sale, unfortunately. But I may do a sale on it when it is released.

Head here for the sale: https://payhip.com/ChrisStoesen

New Web Store for Wargamer's Odds & Ends

I am busy attempting to set up a new web store for my books that hopefully will be a better option than the direct PayPal links I have been using. PayHip is the service that I am using. So far it has been pretty easy to use. I hope that I can get everything loaded today. I am trying to update some of my older books that don't have covers and lack graphics to make them look better. That is a longer term task that I may not be up to.

According to what I am seeing, I should be able to provide discount codes to run sales from the site. That will be great. Once I have everything set up, I am going to run a sale to test is out.

Health update: I had to go back to the ER yesterday. Severely dehydrated and very low blood pressure. They loaded me down with fluids and sent me home. Doing better today. Hopefully I can get back to writing and painting to have some more stuff to show off.

Progress at last

I finally got some painting done. Two of my Red Vectors russian village pieces are now complete.

I used an old washcloth for the thatching and I think it came out alright. I still have another shed and two houses to do as well as a pig sty. Then that little corner of my village will be complete and I can move on to Things From the Basesment's Russian village. Those are far more intricate buildings and have intimidated me to paint them so far. I am hoping to overcome that and knock them out by next week.

Speaking of Things From the Basement, they are run by a great guy who is adapting his 28mm chicken coop to 15mm for me just because I asked. I ordered some fences from him and he offered to send me a test run of the chicken coop in 15mm. That is an item that I have been wanting for some time. I have an HO scale chicken coop that I am not entirely happy with.

Yesterday, I engaged in retail therapy. Besides the fences I ordered, I also ordered the ruined version of the Red Vector's Russian village. And some roof shingles from Warbases. I am excited about this and it should help me finish the Second Kharkov campaign. Speaking of which, I and well into the second campaign that will be in the book. Have been working on scenario 2 of 6 for the second campaign. The map is done and I think it looks pretty good. I am doing all of the game maps in Campaign Cartographer instead of using aerial photos like I did in the first book. Hopefully they will be clearer.

Once this is done, I will be back to making 1/300 sailing ships to wrap up the last bit for my KMH supplement. Onward and upward.

Painting Time

I have been getting busy on my Russian Front Terrain. I have two buildings primed now and waiting for the Gesso to dry. The buildings are from Red Vectors. I have three houses and two sheds on the table right now. As I am working on these, I liked them enough to order the ruined versions. With the new changes in Chain of Command in the France 1940 supplement, I will be able to replace the complete buildings with the right destroyed ones. What I haven't figured out is how to model burned out thatched roofs.

If I get these finished this week, I plan on moving over to the Things from the Basement Russian buildings. Their website is phenomenal as it has plenty of tips and tricks to get the buildings done right. One thing I have noticed, is that he has more items in 20mm and 28mm than in 15mm. I am casting a covetous eye on his chicken coop. The website doesn't show it in 15mm but I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask. Who knows, he might make it.

I have also started surfing Warbases again and found out that they do roof tiles in 15mm. Definitely ordering that if I can.

Lastly, I am very sad to see that the Star Fort Miniatures site is down. I have two buildings from them that are fantastic. A Russian Water Mill and a southern European building. I wish someone else had picked up the range but I haven't been able to find anything, yet. Does anyone know if they are still availible?

Also, it looks like Foundations of War has closed as well. I bought a fantastic warehouse from them a few years ago and have been meaning to shop them again. Very unfortunate. Need to look at ebay, I guess.

Thatched Roofs

One thing I have been wanting to do was to create thatched roof buildings for the Eastern Front. I have the buildings that have some rather plain MDF roofs. I have been struggling with this. I attempted to copy what the Red Beard Baron did on youtube with caulk. The caulk I had dried clear and looked bad. I switched to spackle. That was worse, brittle and ended up needing to be cut off of the roof. Furiously searching the net I came across the War Bard's article on his towel roofing. I decided to give that a shot. And... It looks like it works. I have three of 4 buildings with strips of a worn out wash cloth across them. I glued them down with a mix of tacky glue and water. Then once attached, I have covered it in more glue and water. It has dried hard and looks sturdy. The tough part is working around the chimney's of two of the buildings.

My goal for tomorrow is to give the whole mess a base coat in black. If I have any motivation left after that, I may even paint some. I'm not holding my breath though. Still really tired and weak from the hospital. But at least I am back home.

With these four buildings, I should have a decent amount of terrain to start laying out my Second Kharkov games. The buildings are really nice but I can't remember who the manufacturer is.