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 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.

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.

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.

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.