German Armor For Singling

I managed to 3d print two JadgPanzer IVs. These are Bergman models downloaded from Wargaming3d. They printed really well. Very happy with the results.

The US 76mm Gunned Shermans that I printed are another story altogether. The parts printed really well. However, the tab on the turret that fits into the hole in the hull is way too big. I am not sure how to fix that. I may need to attempt to reduce it. I may cut that tab off with a band saw and see if I can find the right size wooden dowel to replace it with. If that works, I will be really happy.

I do have some other Shermans and some Panther tanks for the remaining American forces. These are painted and ready to go. I could use a couple more Panthers. I have not yet based any of the infantry. I just made an eBay purchase for some additional Germans to complete out the platoon with additional light machine gun teams.

I did begin to winterize some trees. I based about fifty of them and gave them a light spray of Gray paint. I will try to give them a brown wash next and lastly glue some snow flock on them. I think these will look great.

I did get to spackle the Warbases Townhouse and get some paint on Building 28. I also managed to order some additional roofing tiles. I am not sure if I have the right size but the price was OK and it should be close. For building 28, I only need the ridge tiles to complete the building.

With this done, my next concern will be how to simulate the hillside that the town is built on. The school was built on the side of the hill with the basement exposed on the back side of the building and completely underground on the front. I will need to figure out how to have the hill and the building together. I had originally 3d printed a lower to the building but it is a different size than the one I am scratch building. I will need to sort that out.

The hardest part of this is waiting in between steps.

Singling - The Orchard

In the first scenario of the campaign, there is an armored attack uphill through an orchard. All of my current trees that I have are summertime trees or late spring. I have a handful of fall trees. So I need a large orchard of winter trees.Looking through the bits box, I came up with fifty-eight Woodland Scenics armatures. These range from small trees barely bigger than the 15mm miniatures I have to about four inches tall. This should be a nice variety of sizes.

Now that they are bent into shape, I will need to decide on the basing. At this point, I am guessing that individually will probably be for the best. I will give them a light spray of gray paint and then a brown wash. This should make them look less plastic. Once this dries, I will use a spray adhesive and then sprinke them with some snow flock. We will see how that looks.

I also have to make two winter gardens. I have not figured out how I will do that yet. Anyway, it is progress.

Singling Progress - 4/6/2025

I did manage some hobby time over the weekend. I completed the roof on the Warbases Townhouse. I still have to plaster the building. I am not sure what else I will be doing to it yet. Nor what color to paint it.

Next, I was able to get some work done on the Building 28. I got the roof tiles on and have them taped down. I also put lintels above the doors and a shelf below each window. I have the ridge tiles cut for the roof but may not quite have enough. Will have to check. I also 3d printed some chimneys for the building. I didn't plan for the chimneys when I did the roof. This may cause me issues.

So where am I with this? Actually, I think I am more than half way done. Here is the setup with the buildings i have so far:

I am really onely missing one building. I plan on buying a rowhouse that will sit behind the L shaped buildings. There are some stone walls that I have that need to be added and I need to print some more fences for around building 28. These will be 3d printed. I am happy with the progress so far.

Singling Revisited 4/3/2025

I have run out of some needed items. First is some caulk and super glue. I ran out of both. I also ran out of gloves for the 3d printer.

Building 10 needs to have a crack repaired in the building. The caulk is needed for that. Building 28 needs roofing tiles and some work done on the windows and doors. It is largely spackled. I also need to add some chimneys. I made some basic ones in Tinkercad. I will add some brick paper once they are printed.

Hopefully, I can get more work done this weekend.

Sidetracked - Cold War Miniatures.

I have been going through my Cold War miniatures again. This was one of the last projects I was working on and talking to Brian English about before he passed away. It is hard to believe that it has been 18 months already. I visited his widow over the weekend and was trying to help her with Brian's hobby stuff. She graciously gave me a bin of his Cold War miniatures and some of his Dark Ages stuff. Both things we had either gamed together or talked extensively about. I am very greatful for the gift.

One thing that surprised me was how much stuff that he had that was painted. He must have sent them out to be painted and got them back without ever unwrapping them from the painter. What I unwrapped was a big surprise.

Lets start with the Warsaw Pact forces. There was a large number of painted infantry. I am not sure which nation they belong to. There were a few miniature with fur hats. But there were light machine gunners with a top loading magazine fed weapon that to me looked like a Bren gun. based on this, I think they are Czechoslovakian troops as they carried the ZB vz 26/52/57 that look like they would be a good match for this weapon. However, the images on the Team Yankee website show the uniforms as much lighter than what I have. They could be Cuban as they also used the Czech weapon in their military. For now, they will be treated as a generic Eastern Bloc force.

There are 8x RPG-7 wielding guys, a general officer with a host of medals, a dismounted tanker, three pistol wielding junior officers, 24x AK47 wielding troops (some may have RPKs but I didn't look closely), 1x fur hatted AK wielding fellows, 1x fur hatted Bren gunner (easier to write than the Czech weapon) 2x fur hatted NCO/Offier types, 8x dead troops (with greusome paint jobs), 3x prone light machine gunners, three steel helmeted bren gunners.

These troops are really nice. I am looking forward to gaming with them. There are some minor touch ups needed on some helmets but look great. There was some kind of support vehicle that had some equipment/rails on top that had broken. I need to determine what that was supposed to look like to fix it. I just haven't been able to identify it.

In addition to these, there were a number of tanks. This really stretched my recognition skills. I have determined that they are T-62 tanksand a ZSU-23-4 anti-aircraft vehicle. I have wanted one of these for a long time. I wanted them for my Syrians for Lebanon 82, but this is a very welcome addition. The tanks had bent barrels from travel and most of the paint chipped off those bends. The ZSU required some straightening as well but was not as bad as I had feared. I have more than enough T-62s at this point. What is nice is I have a mix of hatch open and closed vehicles.

Then there were three BTR-60 (I think) vehicles and a pair of UAZ-469 (I think). In addition, there were some support teams in the box: Three mortars, three anti-tank missile teams and three DSHK teams. These are welcome additions to my estisting troops. My existing troops and vehicles are in the tray minus the T-55 tanks.

I also have five T-55 tanks of which only one is painted. The rest are at least undercoated and assembled. These I had purchased previously and are not pictured.

In addition, the lot came with some US forces. There were three M1 tanks! I have a box of unassembled M1 Abrams tanks that I haven't done anything with. I may have one painted but without the MERDEC paint job. There is what I think is an M2 Bradley, eight infantry and what I think may be an LAV-25. The LAV-25 mostly served with the 82nd Airborne Division within the US Army. I am not sure how much that will see action on the table but I have happy to have it.

This will provide me with more than enough for a Chain of Command sized game. I will try to spend some time doing touch up on the paint that has chipped before getting back to the Singling Campaign. For Chain of Command, I think I have enough men now for two to three platoons of Soviets. I now have both Mechanized Division and Armor Division forces. I have some T-72s in a box waiting to be assembled. I have one completed T-72 and another that is partially assembled. I will try to have three T-72s for my Soviets and build the rest for my Syrian troops.

Singling Progress 3/26/2025

I worked some more on the buildings for the Singling project. The progress has been exceedingly slow.

The first up is building 10/8. I will try to print the opposite image of this building to make the other half. It is coming along. I have fixed the roof and will glue the roof to the main building just to simplify it.

I finished the plastering of building 28. It still looks horrible. I will paint it before putting on the roof and chimneys.

The school is stalled while I was waiting to finish a print job. I am uncertain what I did with the print stick. So it is unchanged in a while.

I have finished bricking one chimney of the warbases townhouse.

The L Shaped Barn has the most progress. It is coming together. While gluing the building I ran out of super glue. So it is still in some pieces.

I purchases some snow flock for the infantry. I promply ran out of spackle for basing. I did get two successful prints of 76mm gunned Sherman tanks. At the most, I will need four of them. This is very achievavble. I also bought a US Army paint set from Vallejo. I should be able to cure and base these in the next few days.

Building 10 and more

When you work on a 3d model, you never know how it will turn out until it is printed. I had a friend print out the model that I cobbled together for Building 10 in Singling. The results were interesting. The building itself came out well. The side portion also printed well and looks good. The main building, I didn't piece together well enough and it left a cut in the building that is currently held together by the window frame. The main roof is the problem. The join between them failed. The roof was too thin and looks bad. It will need to be reprinted. I may try to print from my resin printer to see if there is a difference.

I finished the assembly of the parts of the Warbases Townhouse building. I am using brick paper for the chimneys. I have about half of one of the two chimneys done. The building will be plastered and I may add shutters. still debating.

The order from Tabletop Terrain order came in. The models are very nice. They are detailed and come in multiple parts. Far more parts than I had anticipated. It will take some fitting to get them to work. The L Shaped Barn arrived in ten separate pieces. I am trying to figure out how to assemble it without messing up the models.The Cafe Gonderee model is very nice as well. It comes with a removable roof and separate floors. It is a little more straight forward on how to assemble. These will be nice additions to the table.

I brought home a 3d printed version of the Singling School. I was disapointed. The windows on the back are barely visible. The details on the front door are almost invisible. Also the building came out smaller than the scratch built version. The slanted base that I had made for it is also too small. I will have to scratch build a base for it. Hopefully that won't be too bad. For the scratch built one, the back and side windows still need to be reprinted as well as the center second story window. I have a file ready to print, just not the time to print it. I did get the front center window printed over the weekend with a partial print of some Sherman Tanks for the scenario. The print failed to print part of the hulls. The treads had some issue being removed from the supports and one broke.

The image above you can see the original broken window from the first print and the other windows of the second print. I may need to rethink that thickness for other projects.

I started work on the L Shaped Barn. I had to sand the parts where the buildings joined as they were a bit rough. The Join on the corner had a piece that extended I cut with a band saw so the pieces fit together. In doing this, the model broke but not too badly so it could be glued. I am doing a few pieces at a time. I will end up with a solid building piece in the end and a solid roof in the end.

I also started work on the Cafe Gondoree over the weekend. I glued it together and will deal with it as a single piece instead of removable floors.

Sorry for the rambling nature of this post. I put it together over the course of a week.

Singling School House

I spend a little bit of time on the Singling School house over the weekend. The house is artist mounting board with a tile roof on it. I have spackled the front and one side of the building. I need to print the missing window frames. The front upper center window failed when I printed it. I need to try and get those redone. The side and back windows need to be done as well. Since this building is on a slope, I have a 3d model of the full building as well. My debate is on do I 3d print the sloped base or scratch build it to match the rest of the building or dump what I have and 3d print the whole thing. The building is currently held together with a considerable amount of hot glue. I am not happy with the roof as it looks like it is sagging. I still plan on keeping it and finishing it out. But I am also going to have it printed. Then I will choose which one I like.

I am waiting for pictures until I have at least all of the windows in place and have the building spackled. At this point, it is less than impressive.

Besides the school, I purchased a 3D building off of Wargaming 3d from Hartolia Miniatures. Actually it is the set "Set of three traditional European stone buildings with farm and stable (7)." Within the set, there is an L shaped house. This was a reasonable approximation of Building 10 in Singling. It did have some features that I wasn't interested in. It had an L shaped wall stuck to the building. It also had a set of stairs that led to the back door. The main part of the building was too narrow. I put these in Tinkercad and cut the stairs off. Lowered the door. Changed the windows and sliced off the L shaped wall. Then I stretched the main part of the building to a size closer matching the historic building. This made the building much closer to Building 10 of Singling. The roof is still not right as in Singling, both halves of the building were the same height. I had to work on the main house roof and rebuild it so it would fit with the resized building. This made the modeled roof tiles looking wrong. So I reuilt it but did so with a smooth roof with the intent of putting on separate roof tiles sheets on it. I will see how it comes out. The building will need to be plastered to cover up the changes that I made to the building. It definitely left it scarred.

I did do some work on Building 28. That consisted of measuring for the roof tiles and glueing the two halves of the building together. I also started work on the Warbases townhouse in 15mm. It is a nice building. I have the pieces assembled. Other than that the weekend was spent on things other than hobbying.

Here is an update on the town square table. The first image is pictures of the actual buildings from just after the battle and in the present.

The second is the buildings I have worked on for this.

One item I did do is work on the dirt road section for the town square. It was still drying and didn't get any pictures of it.

Tabletop Terrain & Sabotag3d

I have been seeing ads for Tabletop Terrain popping up in my feed for quite some time now. In looking through their items, I have been drawn to the large Rural Barn in their WWII range. It looked ideal for Singling. There is a "U" shaped farm building near the middle of the town. I am only using a portion of this building in one of the scenarios. This building would give me more than enough to work with. I placed an order for it today. In addition, I picked up the Cafe Gondoree Benouville model as well. Depending on how it shipps, I may only use the smaller half of the building. It has the slopping roof that I was looking for.

The prices on their models seem reasonable and the shipping didn't seem outrageous. (They did have some shipping methods that would heve been 3xs the cost of the models. I did not pick one of those.) They have many different categories of buildings and depending on how these come out, I may be ordering some more.

I have also been eyeing some of the wonderful things on the Sabotag3d website. I jumped in and bought their farm items (green houses and outbuildings) as well as some shutters. I am looking forward to printing these. This should give some nice updates to existing buildings. There are lots of gems on the website but some of them are harder to find than others.

Additional Buildings for Singling

Building 8 no longer stands today. But the building next to it, Building 10, does or at least a similar one stands in its place. These two buildings seem to be mirror images of each other. Given this, I decided to see if I can find an existing 3d model that would be a good standin. It took a while but I did find an L Shaped house but the main part of the house was too small. The building in Singling today has both halves of the building the same height. The one I found had the smaller side of the L with a lower roof. I decided that I could live with the roof difference. But I spend some time remaking the building in Tinkercad. I am happy with the results considering that I plan on plastering much of the building and some of the joins will be covered and the building will look better.

The roof of the larger half proved to be the most difficult. I basically had to rebuild it from scratch. My problem is that there were so many pieces to it, the file is not downloading from Tinkercad. It will not join several of the pieces together in a group either. I am concerned that I will have to redo the roof again. Tinkercad is a fun tool but it does have some limitations.

If I can get the files exported, I am going to try to reverse the building and have a mirror image of it so it can be used for both buildings 8 & 10. But I need to get the roof fixed first. I measured it and I should be able to print the thing of my resin printer. It will be a very long print though. I have run everything through a slicer except the main roof as it is still not cooperating.

Hopefully the next update will have pictures.

Building 28 - Printed

I made a 3d Model of building 28 in Singling. It is based off of partial images of the building from the period and Google Earth images of the current building as it stands today. The building would be larger than the print bed of my resin printer. I could have cut the building into multipe portions but instead, I had a friend print it for me. He has a Bamboo printer that is really nice. He printed it into two pieces. The building has three dormers in the front of the building but none in the back (from what I could tell). The plan for this building, is to give it a plaster coating, a tile roof and then place lintels on the windows. I am concerned about the roof as the dormers will present some difficulty to cut around. The doors on the physical building are recessed as are the windows. I am debating on how to address the windows. I may just place black paper behind the windows. Currently, it is still in its raw printed form and not very interesting.

In addition, waiting on my desk was an order from Warbases. It was one that I forgot that I had placed. I got the two storey townhouse and a set of Raven dice for Midgard. It will become the building behind Building 28 or the church in Singling. The raven dice are nice as well.

So at this point the town square is coming along nicely. I have a ruined house (#44) taht was burning that is 80% done, The Church across from it, building 28 on the square (just starting), the school (about 20% done, need to print some more pieces), and Building #7 (this is complete). These are the immediate buildings on the town square. For the table, I still need several more buildings. Some of these will be provided from my existing buildings. The goal is in the next two weeks to have all of the buildings on the square and the fences for them complete. Then I can set them up on the table.

I was messing around in Tinkercad and decided to build out the whole school house building. That was an interesting exercise. It looks pretty good but would take a VERY long time to print on my resin printer. It would just fit. Lets see how the scratch build goes first.

Weekend Work

I did get some work done over the weekend. I was able to sort through my US Winter troops and believe I have enough to tackle the Singling scenarios. I am missing a machinegun squad and a 60mm mortar squad but the records of the battle do not show those units playing a part. I only had one bazooka team but I think I can pull from some of my summer troops to make up the difference. I still need to order three LMG teams for the Germans.

All of the infantry needs basing. I need to get some snow flock. I think I will base on US pennies again and use the sabot bases that I have for the leaders. I will prime the pennies first this time.

I managed to get some paint on the ruined building. I went with a red scheme and am not entirely happy with it. I need to pick out some details still and add some rubble inside.

I also 3d printed some of the fences needed for house #28. It had a low stone wall with a wrought iron fence on top. This was my interpretation of that.

I had some fun making these. I could go back and put grooves in them for bricks. But I was thinking of not doing that and just painting them gray.

I also started to print some M4 76mm tanks. However, I may have run out of resin as I was printing. I need to pull them off the print plate and see how they turned out.

Singling House and Barn

I did get some painting done on Sunday and Monday. I finished off a barn from Empires at War. I had plastered the barn but left the exposed brick portions alone. I then painted it up. The roof is some plasticard tiles that were painted. In general, I think it came out pretty well.

I also revisited the blue house I had worked on. The house was far to bright. So I used some Army Painter Light Tone that was watered down to try to dull our the house. I think it is better but the stains I had placed on it originally is too dark. But I will keep it.

The town continues to grow. I worked on cutting out the road section for the town square. I made a paper template earlier and ended up cutting the roads larger than the template. I am not 100% sure this is perfect but it isn't bad. I am looking at existing buildings that i had and seeing if i can use these in the town as well. There are definitely differences in painting styles between the buildings but I think it will work.

I have started working on a destroyed house that I will use off the town square. The building is assembled. I will need to plaster it and then glue down some additional rubble. Then it will need painting. This is the building that I will use for the one on fire on the town square. I should be able to work on this in the next few days.

The School needs to be worked on. I am concerned that I'm running out of the tile roofing material. This building, along with the church, are notable structures in the town. I have sketched out a template for the building that I will use to cut out some thick card or foam core for. The house, building 28, on the town square will also be on my to do list. There really isn't any significant architectural items for me to 3d print. I have some rough dimensions for the building and will try to sketch out a template for it next. The roof will be the worrisome part of it.

Infantry wise, I just received a package from Gajo Games. I have sorted through the miniatures and am very pleased with what I received. My only problem is I will need three more LMG teams to complete out a Panzer Grenadier Platoon. For the scenario, I am probably OK as the platoons were greatly reduced. It came with two PanzerShreck teams. I need to base these. They are wonderfully painted. I am very pleased. I also received my US troops as well but didn't take them out of the bags yet. This should be more than enough miniatures for the battles. However, I am still working on how to integrate the German infantry into the actions given their performance in the battle.

Singling Project Continued

I started to assemble a ruined house. This will probably serve as the burning house on the town square. The plan is to order some infantry from Gajo miniatures to have a winter base platoon for both US and German infantry. (Note, I just placed the order today. Gajo has excellent customer service and I have ordered from them before.) This will open up some additional options for gaming. I have a winter platoon of Soviets still in the box unopened. I will eventually get to these miniatures.

For the town square, I will look to work on the streets for it. I will likely make a set piece that will be the roads as it is such an odd join. I have made a paper template that I need to match up with the existing road thickness that I have. The My current roads are felt strips that are covered in grout, sand and paint. They are simple and seem to work.

The church is largely done. The other buildings on the town square would be buildings 7, 8, 28, the school. Building 8 is an L shaped house. Seven is also a house. I may use the blue house that I have painted up for it. The school and building 28 will need to be scratch built. House 8, I will look for possible buildings I can purchase. These will be my focus for the time being. If you look at the village now, Building #7 is now replaced with a new cinderblock building. Building 44 has been rebuilt and seems similar to the original eventhough it was buring during the battle. Building 6 no longer exists. There is a picture of it at the time of the battle and does not look significantly damaged. Buildings 8, 9 and 10 are no longer present. There are new buildings in its place or an empty lot. Building 12 is a set of row houses both then and now. The building was damaged during the battle but it is unclear if this building is a replacement or just rebuilt. Now a street exists where before it was an alley betwen buildings 10 and 8. The school house still stands. A new building now exist between the school (still standing) and building 23. It is unclear if the building in the space where building 23 stood is that same building or a new one. The large U shaped farm structures are still present but are likely new construction.

For the other tables of the battle, I think I have a good selection of miniatures. I do need three JadgPanzer IVs. The 11th Panzer Division, whose Panther V tanks were in Singling, had as one of its organic units the Panzerjager Abtielung 61. This unit was equipped in November 1944 with a mix of Marder III and JadgPanzer IV vehicles. There are pictures online of knocked out vehicles of both types attributed to this unit. The after action reports list the self-propelled guns as ones based on a Panzer IV chassis mounting a 75mm gun. This matches the Jadgpanzer IV and not the Marder III. This is still just an educated guess but a reasonable one.

I need to make some winter trees. They should be straight forward. To make an orchard, it should be a difficult thing. I believe that I have spare tree sprues to do this. Most are from the

Once more as things are finished, I will post pictures. I have been enjoying building this up.

Singling Updates

The Church came out too light in color. I gave it a black wash over the weekend that was thinned out with water. I am not entirely happy with it yet. I may put some undiluted wash in places to see if that will give it a splotchier look. Here it is in the current version.

Again, here is what I am aiming for:

I think I am getting closer but am not there yet. The blue house needs some more distress to the building. This will provide a good background building outside of the immediate town square. No progress was made on the barn, stable or ruined stable. The central table in the campaign will have a large number of buildings. Besides the church, school and a home on the town square, there will be two townhouse blocks, a large farm building, and eight houses. But this is for a 15mm table. It could be reduced for one in a larger scale.

what is now clear to me is that I will need more dirt roads. I have at least six feet of dirt roads now. But the section for the town square is such an odd shape I would need create something. The screen shot below is the current town square. The roads have been paved since 1944. During the battle, they were ankle deep mud. But the shape is similar. I marked out the principle buildings on the square.

Church at Singling - Progress

I finished spackling the building and gluing the ridge tiles in place. I think I made a mistake in trying to paint the brick paper on the stepple. I am not completely happy with it. I used a speed paint of Army Painter Holy White. It made for a grayish color. I am not happy with it and will paint something else on it. Possibly a drybrush of white of somekind. I need to prime the 3d printed elements. These will be a gray color. I haven't decided on what the windows should look like.

Just to compare, this is the building now and in the war.

I have several other buildings started but none are for the town square besides the church. So far I have a stable, a ruined stable, a house and barn. These are from Empires at war. So far they have been assembled and the roofs built out. The tile ridges are still trying and this explains the tape. I put filler on three of the buildings and hope to get some paint on them later.

The next build will be the School House. The school house is a simplier building. My thought was to use Warbases 2 Storey Townhouse model as the base for it. It will lack a central chimney that I would have to build. The upper windows match. I have a 3d model of the doorway to use and will move the other windows over. I am not sure about the backside of the building. In addition, the building is on a ridge so the back of the building is taller than the front. Here is the building today.

You can see the changes from the war. Here is the image taken after the battle.

Little Progress

Little progress has been made on either the Roman/Celt project or on my Singling 1944 project. I am considering to do the campaign in both What a Tanker and for Chain of Command. Given that the principle action was between armor and the occasional artillery barrage, WAT seems to fit well. I should be in a position to start playtesting soon. I am lookig forward to trying out my new battlemat that I got for Christmas.

I did get in a few moments on Thursday and started to plaster the church. I still have one side left to do. My plastering skills are suspect but I think it is workable. I managed to get around the windows and door frame without covering them completely. I have also glued most of the tile on. I have two more small sections to finish on that. I am using masking take to hold the pieces in place while the glue dries.

I need to start thinking about how the buildings will be painted. The reports of the battle list the schoolhouse as a brownstone building. The houses were painted white, red, yellow, blue and pink. Most buildings had red tile roofs. I am not sure how I will paint them up. Building #44 from the historical maps is painted yellow today. However, it was on fire during the battle and is not likely the same structure. The church seems to be a gray or dirty white structure currently. Historical images of the building look like it had a white brick stepple and a very dirty looking main building. This may have been due to the smoke from nearby fires and the damage it took in the fighting. The building #28 on the square is currently a white building. I could not find a historical image of this building. Nor could I find any reference to its color.

This weekend it is camping with the Scouts, so maybe I will get a chance to do some more work on Sunday.

Edit: Here is a picture of where the church stands at this point. No pro0gress for the weekend.

Printer issues Resolved -Singling Church continued.

Finally, I was able to get the magnetic print base to stick. A little super glue went a long way. I got a clean print done of the church steeple. In addition I now have extra church steps and window frames. The first door frame came out wonky so I have a clean print of it as well. I set these out to dry last night and will put them under UV light tonight for curing.

The steeple came out better than I thought it would. I got some help from the Tinkercad facebook group in getting the shape right. I am not 100% sure it is centered correctly but it is close. I plan on using brick paper for the bottom of the steeple.

The church is currently just taped artist mounting board. It is a little rough at the moment but I plan on plastering it and adding the 3d Printed Items to it. I would like to base them but need to order something to base them first. You can see the cut out for the steeple in the picture. I plan on reinforcing everything with some hot glue on the inside. That should make it sturdy.

The other buildings that I have been assembling are the Sarissa Precision terrace block.

The terrace block back gardens (Also Sarissa).

And a stable and a house from Empires at War.

Singling Church Continued...

Attempted to print out the Steeple and other items for the church. The print failed as the new magnetic build plate came unglued and fell into the vat. This time I super glued the magnetic plate on to see if it would hold better. Just kicked the job off again.

I also started to build some of the MDF models that I have. I have built a stable, a bombed out stable, a house (all empires at War) and a Sarissa terrace house. The Sarissa model was wonderful. However, the yards that they have, the walls are made of card and extremely fiddly. The card has to be folded in half and glued. Getting it to line up was problematic. I am waiting on the glue to dry on those. I have a few other building from unknown manufactures that I worked a bit on the roof until I realized, I only dry fit the buildings. Lastly, I built a Sarrisa American Cabin. That was an easy and fun build. I will have to get more of these once the Singling project is finished.

I am looking at winter infantry. I think I will order from Gajo and get painted miniatures. I think this would be the fastest option. We will see.

Singling Church

I started my build of the Singling church over the weekend. I had some left over artist mounting board from a previous project that had enough room left and I mocked up the walls for the church.It took some trial and error but I have the form of the church complete. I will reinforce the building with plenty of hot glue. What I am looking to do is seal the mounting board. Years ago, I had a spray can of sealant that I had. I will look for something similar to try to protect this. I have just sliced the details for the church that I did in Tinkercad. If I can, I will take these to my printer today.

The School house is my next target. I also sliced the doorway that I made. There was not enough room on the print bed to include that with the Singling church items.I purchased the townhouse building in 15mm from Warbases. This should be a good base for the school building. I will need to add another chimney to it. I am undecided as to how to do the windows. I may 3d print them like I have for the church. The school is on a terrain change. The front of the building is at the top of a hill. The back half of the building is on the downhill side of the building. Currently, there is a parking lot behind the building. It is uncertain what would have been behind it during the war. I am assuming some kind of yard for recess. I am uncertain how to model this for the tabletop. The hill plays a significant role in the battle. As in places, the Americans used the hill for a hull down position and the infantry took cover behind it as well. My thought would be to build a separate understructure for the hill to cover with a terrain cloth. Then the building can rest on it and an extension under the building. Still thinking it through.

Other Items...
When I ordered the townhouse, i have also ordered some raven dice for Midgard. I liked the look of the Ragnar raven dice and figured I would get some at somepoint. So in the cart they went.

Things have slowed with my Roman project. I just haven't had time to paint miniatures. Hopefully I can get to it this week. I would love to have at least one fully painted project.

Mansio Troubles

The basing for the mansio proved to be a disaster. The card warped badly and looked horrible. I pulled the building off and didn't ruin too much of the paint on the building. I still want to base it but may wait until I can order some of the base materials from Sarissa Precision.

Before I order those, I need to place an order with Litko for more metal bases for my miniatures. I am still trying to figure out the group basing for the celts. I don't really like what I currently have. Either the washers used have too much zinc or the magnet in the movement tray is too weak. Or a combination of the two.

I started to look at terrain for the Singling scenario. I have laid out the likely buildings from what I already have. I do have some that will do which is nice. I will need to do some modeling for some of the houses for the town square. I think I already have a pretty good start on that. I wish the old blog posts from TooFatLardies were still around. Rich did some excellent tutorials on making buildings that I really liked. The one he did for his Post-Roman British church is one that I wish I could see again.

I started assembling an Empires at War French farmhouse last night. While waiting for the glue to dry, I assembled a Sarissa Cantina that I found that I had forgotten that I ordered a long time ago. I am looking forward to painting it up. I have several other French buildings, including barns and stables. The center of Singling had some agricultural buildings and it is noted that there was a massive manure pile in the middle of the town between some houses. While that was probably OK in the winter, I can't imagine that being a healthy thing in the summer months.

I have started to plan out the church that I want to scratch build. I have the size worked out but I need to determine the material that I will build it from. After the basing disaster for the Mansio, I am hesitant to build it out of card.

New Book - Nothing but Blood and Slaughter Volume 4

With some Amazon cards received at Christmas, I was able to get the 4th book in the series by Patrick O'Kelley. This covers the battles in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia for the year 1782. It is a slimmer volume but is still very interesting. The partisan nature of the battle in the south is emphasized with the continuation after the fall of Cornwallis' army at Yorktown. i am not sure that I will end up making any more books in the series on the war in the South for the AWI. But this one has me thinking.

Between work and helping my son complete his paperwork for his Eagle Scout application, I have been swamped and have not done anything hobbywise. I did buy the PDF copy of The One Ring RPG rules and have been enjoying the "Waking of Angmar" podcast. It is very interesting. I have been pleased with the Free League Publishing rules. Betwen the new Twilight 2000 mechanisms and TOR 2e, it has been a fun read and something to think about. I am wondering how to use these elements to time them into other wargames. Who knows. Probably nothing will come of it.

Roman Mansio and Pint Sized Campaign Musing.

Infamy Infamy Project

Over the weekend, I had a few moments to work on some miniatures and terrain. I wanted to finish the mansio that I started. The base that I decided on using was some thick cardboard that I had lying around. This was likely a mistake. After putting basing matter on the cardboard, it began to wrap upwards. I flipped it upside down and coated the bottom in PVA glue in hopes to reverse that. This made me rethink how I plan on basing the Villa. I will use plastic for that. We will see if the base can be saved of the mansio.

The tower is complete. I do not plan on basing it.

The new Celts I received, I managed to get mounted to painting sticks. This should complete out my Briton/Celt/Gual force. This will give me 3 full units of armored/noble infantry. The problem that I have for them is basing. I had based the rest of the celts on steel washers, and then used a magnet sheet for the movement tray. What I noticed was that this does not work as well as the reverse that I use for my Romans. The Romans are based on magnet sheet and I use a steel rectangle for the movement tray. To assist the Romans to be able to line up better in formation, I have glued a thin wood strip to the front of it that the bases can push up against. Their basing has worked out well. The Celts are another story.

I did get some paint onto the horses and riders for my Roman Cavalry. Not much but the spears are painted as well as the horses tack for a single group.

WWII

I have been looking for winter troops to buy for an upcoming project. I may go with Gajo Miniatures as I can get them painted already. It seems like all of the metal Battlefront figures have been replaced with plastics or are unavailable. That was disapointing. eBay was not that much help either. Now that I have a snowy ground cloth, I really should have winter equipped soldiers. My previous supplements had summer uniform troops running around in the cold. I should do better. I am eyeing a German platoon at the moment. I found a box of winter Soviets in a drawer that are unpainted. Not what i needed but a welcome find.

For the village Church, I am happy with the STLs that I have made for the details. I found some plastic bits that I plan on adding as well. Next step will be to make the walls of the building and see what I can make. I have some unstarted buildings that I was looking over. I am seeing what can be modified to make it look more like the buildings from the town.

Reading the account, I have decided to custom model the buildings around the town square. Thus far I have targeted the church and school house. I will also work on the other building between the two. I am still trying to piece together what that will look like. The tough part is figuring out the maps and where to snip them to match the action of the historical battle. For most of the day, according to the US Army publications on the battle, the Germany infantry has little to no impact on the battle on the 5th of December right up to late afternoon. The German panzer Grenadier battalion was reduced to just 150 to 200 men. Those troops that the Americans did encounter tended to either get shot or surrender without much of a fight. The German Armor and artillery played the largest roll in the battle.

My thought at this point is to have three simultaneous tables for the battle. An oversized section that is slightly out of scale running up to the north west, another centered on the village square and a third on the east side of town running up to the valley in the north. The Germans would have some set forces that will be present on each table already deployed with some static jump off points. The Americans would enter the table at specific points with the goal of taking the town. The Germans would have a number of forces that they can use as a reserve and pick which table they want to deploy to. So once that resource has been deployed, it is committed and cannot be used elsewhere without leaving the table and attempting to move to the new location. They will have to have a clear path to get from one point to the other or the resource does not arrive at the other location. This is just a preliminary idea. I also want to utilize some off table resources. There was a 75mm anti-tank gun that was deployed north of the town that fired into the town and knocked out at least one American tank. I am not sure how to use that yet. My thought is that the infantry can spot it and relay the message to the tank crew or if the tanks are unbuttoned they can have a chance to spot the gun in the distance.

I am looking forward to v2 of Chain of Command and what it holds.

Attempt at 3d Modeling a historical Church

In working on the current Pint Sized campaign, I looked at the scenery for the town in question. In particular for the buildings that stand out the most in the battle. One in particular that caught my eye was the town church. It is not a particularly impressive structure. It looks more like a shoebox than a cathedral. But it did have a few unique features. The doorway was rather distinctive. So i took my hand at making just the doorway. I have a period picture of the church and the church still stands today so it can be seen in Google Maps Street View. This is a huge help. The buildings in the town in several instances extend out into the street itself. How this is not a terrible traffic hazard, I am not sure. The battle has a number of pictures of the town just after the battle. This is helpful but the Google Street view allows you to get a better understanding of the spacing that you loose with some of the historical images.

Historial Church as of December 1944:

Church Front Today:

After doing the entrance as 3d files. I think I will also model the windows. There are four windows per long side of the building. The building will be made outside of my printer as the printer is too small to handle the building, even though it is a small church. I am thinking of going with foam core for the building. The image taken of the church after the battle showed that it survived mostly intact but the stucco was pock marked on the walls and in many cases, the stone underneath can be seen. Since the town was shelled prior to the attack, I will probably try to model the damage on the church. The modern church has whitewashed walls with a white and black steeple. The roof appears to be tile. The town had mostly tile roofs so this makes sense. The historical image supports a white and black steeple. The steeple roof is black while the square building part appears to be brick.I can only guess at the building color. Possibly a brownish color.

Details modeled so far:

The back of the church is extended out (my geometry eludes me to describe the shape) to make the building a little more interesting. During the fighting, the steeple took fire from US forces thinking a sniper would be present in the building. It was also struck with something heavier than a rifle round to leave a large hole under the window on the front face of the church. The blinds covering the window in the steeple appear to have been replaced with smaller thinner ones compared to the period picture. I am unsure if the roof of the steeple has changed over the years as the picture of the church cuts that part off. I will base the steeple roof off of the modern building.

Back of Church:

I will mess with mocking up the building later today. I don't plan on modeling all of the buildings from the town. Just a few that stand out and seem important to me. So far my list has:

1) An MG bunker: Probably purchase the Sarissa one at some point.
2) The AT Gun Bunker: I may just look and see what is available.
3) The School House: Another building with pictures from the time and still stands in the city across from the Church.
These are just my first thoughts. The others I have some that seem similar enough to stand in.