Ukrainian Village

All of my Things From the Basement Buildings are now complete (chapel and well). I also finished off that Star Fort Miniatures Water Mill.

Things From the Basement has a few more items that I want to order. #1 - Their windmill. It looks great. #2 - Outhouses. I need many more. So far my village has to share a single one. I can see that being a health and safety issue that even the communists wouldn't go for. #3 - Their fence packs. this is my only complaint about TFTB. The fence packs do not have enough fences to be practical. I need a bunch of them. I plan on using theirs for interior fences for animal pens and the like. They are really nice but not enough.

Speaking of fences, I have ordered some 46" of fences from Blotz along with a pack of tombstones as I do not have a graveyard. In terms of terrain items that I need to do, I think I am done. I have a ruined Red Vectors village that is now glued together. It is a bit basic but should paint up well. They match their regular village pack and can be used to hot swap buildings as they take damage. So that is on the "want to do" next list. I also have 2 more tiny chicken coops from Things From the Basement. I also found some haystacks that I should paint up.

After that, it is laying out the terrain for the Second Kharkov campaign. I am starting with Scenario One. This is a big hill with a Balka (dry river bed - the Ukrainian version of a wadi I guess). To accomplish this, I had the idea of cutting up a thin exercise mat and layering it up. The problem was, someone had already chopped up the mat I intended to use. I want to blame someone else but no one else did.

Plan B involved Home Depot. I found some 14" x 48" x 1" foam sheets. it came in a pack of 6 of these for $15. I bought one pack (foolishly) and thought it would be enough. Well, it is not. I did the bottom of the hill and part of the second level. I need another pack. I should have that finished by Sunday.

The plan is to have a 1" thick exercise mat as the base. Then pin the hill structures to it. Then cover and pin a ground cloth to the under structure and decorate that. All in all, it should be workable.

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.

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.

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.

New Toys - Gaming Models

Gaming Models

The more I get of the Gaming Models products, the more I like them. My most recent order included 1x T-35, 3x BT-5, 4x T-20 tractors, 3x 45mm ATG and 3x T-26 w/37mm gun. These were a few items I needed to fill out the missing gaps in my Chain of Command supports for my 1941 and 1942 Soviets.

I also ordered some of his blowout packs. These are models that were not quite up to standard when they came out of the mold. I picked up a pack of each, T-34, BT-7, T-26, Panzer II, Panzer III and Panzer IV. I plan on using these for battlefield wrecks. The only disadvantage to these are that you can't specify which version of the tank you get. So my order arrived with much of it being late war kit (with the exception of the BT-7s and T-26s which are only Early War).

Honestly, the wrecks are in good enough shape that it would not take much modification to make them into regular tanks for your tabletop. The most noticable issue with them is that the post under the turret is missing. One could easily be fashioned for them. I am very pleased with this order and will be making another shortly for some more T-26s (need some twin turret types) and for an SDKFZ 232 8 Rad (he said this is under development now).

The price is definitely right on these models. They lack some variety that other manufacturers may have but you can always add your own stowage.

Things from the Basement

Having read a review of their 15mm Russian buildings from VisLardica's website, I had the urge to order their village set. I had some book royalties laying around and used it to buy the buildings. Everything arrived well packed and in great shape. He threw in a freebie as well, a nice freight pallet. The village pack came with some nice additional buildings. A blacksmith shop and tool shed, two farm outbuildings and a well, two log cabins, two houses and a church make up the pack.

I have yet to assemble any of it, yet. I may take some time tomorrow to get to work on a few of these just to see how they look. I now have enough terrain projects to tie me up for a while now. All of these will be useful for the Second Kharkov campaign. I really hope that he makes more 15mm items. He sells some 28mm kits that look really nice.