Thanksgiving

As we approach the Thanksgiving Holiday I just want to send out a thank you to the few of you out there reading my scriblings. I hope you have enjoyed this blog and the intent is to post more as I can. Thank you.

I have a quick recap of projects that I have tinkered with.

To Covet Glory

The scenario pack is coming along. I have made a concious decision to pause work while I get ready to make a bunch of ships for it. I am struggling with what do do. I have a significant fleet in 1/300th scale. These are mostly Sea Dog Studios and some War Artizan paper models. The issue is the War Artizan look great on their own but next to Sea Dog, they look a bit odd. I have printed some Henry Turner miniatures upscaled to 1/300th but the detail starts to go when expanding from 1/700 to 1/300.

The scenarios that I am looking to do will need some merchant ships. I purchased several Henry Turner models of indiamen and some usable merchant men. If I expand these to 1/300th scale, they will be too large for my build plate. So I have decided to make some 1/700 scale models. This should allow me to expand the models that I get onto the table. I should be able to print a number of frigates as well. These will end up being used for larger scenarios. Particularly the scenario I am doing for a convoy raid.

Sharp Practice

I am still looking to where to create a new project. I have a few ideas. The fourth book in my AWI series is always on my mind. I have started it four times now and will finish it one day. It will cover the Continental Retreat into North Carolina and drawing Conrwallis' forces north and ultimately to Yorktown. I need additional resources. Most of my books cover South Carolina and Georgia. I am not sure what I am calling it yet. I have twenty-six pages of notes thus far.

There is also a thought on a Seven Years War campaign featuring Freikorps troops. This one is based on period training manuals on petiete guerre. I have bought some good books on it but haven't gone anywhere with it. I have some notes but not enough work has been done.

Third is a Thirty Years War campaign. i have bought some miniatures a while back but painted nothing. This one is likely a back burner project until the enthusiasm builds again.

Fourth is one of three ACW projects. I have a pennisular campaign laid out, some battles around Atlanta and lastly Jackson's Shenandoah campaign. This project should be close to ready. I need to finalize some scenarios.

Chain of Command

There are two projects here. First is the Third Battle of Kharkov. I really want to do this but have dragged my feet in getting this off the ground. The second is the battle of Singling in 1944. I really am interested in this little battle. It seems like a good opportunity for Chain of Command. It could be done on a large table with Big Chain of Command or on separate tables with separate American platoons pushing up on the village. I have made good progress on this and want to get it on the table top soon.

What a Cowboy

I have a beta of a campaign for WAC about the Second Battle of Adobe Walls. I lack Indians to pull this off myself and have not found any reasonable prices 15mm mounted Indians on eBay yet. I purchased a couple of Indian STLs but want to pick up the really nice set from 3D Breed.

Wargame Vault

I finally hit Electrum Status on my East Front Bundle. Thank you all who purchased. I am very happy to have hit that goal. Here is where my books currently rank. Thanks again.

Book	Current Sales	Status
East Front Bundle	260
Action at Ustilug	89
In the Name of Roma	58
The Campaign for Kharkov	155
Second Kharkov Campaign	90
To Covet Glory Bundle	2
To Covet Glory	167
War of Jenkin's Ear	30
The Coming Thunder	167
The Falcon and the Gladiator	52

Wargame Vault Deal of the Day

Well I have received notice that my East Front Bundle will be the deal of the day on Nov 1st, 2023. I just need 2 more sales for it to hit the Electrum rating. Back when I set the bundle up, I did it incorrectly and the ratings do not reflect down on the individual products within it. Thus the individual books should have a much higher number of sales. But if you can pass the word to your friends, it would be much appreciated.

Work on the To Covet Glory scenarios has stalled out. I have two books I am reading to complete out the Convoy scenario that I am working on. One is an analysis of the sunken merchantmen near Yorktown. And another master's thesis on the merchant shipping coming in and out of Yorktown in the 1700s. Both are interesting and offer some interesting details. I am still trying to work out how to make it a reasonable scenario in terms of ship numbers. I think it will end up being a large scenario reguardless.

AWI Naval Wargaming

One of the things that I want to model on the tabletop is a convoy raid. The Royal Navy was constantly escorting convoys between England and the United States throughout the American Revolution. Between the US Navy, American, Spanish, French Privateers and later the French and Spanish Navies, there were countless vessels on the ocean looking to raid these convoys. These convoys could contain hundreds of civilian vessels, most of which are unarmed. The escorts were few in number and had to protect the entire fleet. As such, hit and run raids could pull away ships from the convoy before the escorts could react.

The complexity here is that most gamers have large numbers of warships in their collections but fewer numbers of merchantmen. The scale I choose for small ships restricts this further. Henry Turner has three different East Indiamen among his 1/700 to 1/1200 offerings. I might switch scales for this scenario.

I am struggling to figure out how the scenario should work out.

Revisiting The Cold War

I broke out the figures that I had and did a little cleaning up. I still have a tiny bit of work to do to round out this force. The one item that i want the most is Israeli M203 gunners. I think I can make it work with a 3dBreed Vietname M203 gunner. I would like 4 of them and 3dBreed sells them in a 4 pack. Amazingly, I found a business card with the notes on how I painted them. I have some additional Galil armed infantry with a few extras that are painted as well.

The next thing I need is some .30 cal MGs to add to the last M113. they just have to be glued and painted. I also wish to 3d Print a Merkava II and another Magach 6. I also have the Peter Pig model of Nagma Shot. It is only undercoated and needs to be painted. Lastly, I have three jeeps. I have one mounted with a machine gun but it needs to be painted. I would like to buy the Peter Pig recoiless rifle pack as it mentions that it can be vehicle mounted. This should give me plenty of support troops and enough to get in a game of What a Tanker with them as well.

My Syrians are not as far along as I thought. I have a full Motor Rifle platoon minus the designated marksmen with a Dragunov. I am not finding any miniatures for them at the moment. Definitely a nice to have rather that a must have. I have a QRF Sagger team that is undercoated. It is lacking a crew member but I will just add a kneeling infantryman with it. The bases are not yet painted but that should be simple enough. I do need to paint up an additional RPG-7 gunner.

My European troops are looking a fair bit better. I have plenty of Soviets to fill out a BMP mounted platoon. I have a box of BMPs from Team Yankee that need to be assembled. Not sure I even remember buying these. But the thought is to assemble three as BMP-2s and two as BMP-1s (to give to the Syrians). I have three painted and ready BMP-1s that are metal. Not really sure of the make at this point. Old Glory maybe? I also have a painted T-72 and a painted T-64 for my Soviet force. I also have a box of T-72s from Team Yankee. This is where my painted T-72 came from. The plan is to paint at least two of these for the Syrians above and the rest for the Soviets. I have an additional 3 unpainted T64s in metal as well. Possibly QRF or Old Glory, just not sure. For supports, I have a painted automatic grenade launcher and a heavy machinegun team. If I want to go with a later era force, I have six painted Soviets with under barrel grenade launchers.

Lastly, my Amerian force is doing pretty good. I have four M113s. Three are complete with MERDEC camo. The fourth has the base coat for the MERDEC that I never finished. I have a complete platoon of mechanized infantry ready to go. I do need to paint some additional riflemen but the force is largely complete. I also have a single painted M1 Abrams. It is not in MERDEC. I regret not painting it in the camo as the M113s came out really well. I do have the remainder of the Team Yankee box to assemble and paint as well.

I do know that I have a Cold War British platoon. I just couldn't find it. Somewhere in my games room are the miniatures that I got for Christmas several years ago. But I plan on getting some STL files for their FV432s and printing some up. I am not sure if I will get any British tanks to go with that force or not. Probably will get something that I will 3D print.

The only other force that I have is a contingent of 8 PLO militia men. With my current interest being actions of the IDF against the Syrians, I am not sure that any additional troops will be added here. Since the PLO wore a wide variety of uniform, adding in a few PLO militia into a Syrian platoon wouldn't really be totally out of place if I wanted to game some of the actions in Beirut.

All in all, these troops are in pretty good shape. I am happy with where they are and it was nice to work on miniatures again. It has been a while.

Just a reminder, since it is October, I am running my Annual Birthday sale. PLease stop by https://payhip.com/ChrisStoesen and use coupon code Birthday2023 to get 50% off anything in the store.

A Great Weekend

I managed to catch up with Mark at Gigabytes and get in a few minutes of an excellent game of Sharp Practice. We just began to maneuver some troops around when I had to leave. It was still good to get caught up with him. He presented me with a box of books. These belonged to Jim who is having some health problems. There are some fantastic sources for the 1982 Operation Peace for Galilee. I have been meaning to dust off these figures for a while and this may lead to me doing just that.

I really want to do some more scenarios for the Rock the Casbah supplement. I am not sure why this is buried in the IABSM section of the Lardies web site instead of in Troops, Weapons and Tactics. I would like to see if I can tune them more towards Chain of Command and What a Tanker. I don't have many tanks for the period but I do have a number of BMPs and M113s. I plan on printing some 3d models for the Magach 6, Merkava II and the T-72 for the period. I do have a Magach 6 that I made from a M60 QRF model that I made my own ERA armor for. It looks OK, but the 3d print should be better. For Syrian tanks I have two. Both are T-55s and one is the Peter Pig destroyed model that I received as a Christmas present several years ago from Francis. It is better painted than the non-destroyed one.

I have completed a couple more scenarios for To Covet Glory. I am working my way through a great article about a British Privateer during the American Revolution. While there are several good sources for Rebel privateers, this is the first I have found in detail on British privateers. i would love to find something on Spanish and French privateers during the same period. The To Covet Glory supplement is currently around 32 pages of scenarios. I hope to have a beta release of it by the end of the month. The problem is finding interesting scenarios not involving unarmed merchant men. I have some ideas about convoy raids that could be interesting but will have to see.

Lastly, since it is October, I am running my Annual Birthday sale. PLease stop by https://payhip.com/ChrisStoesen and use coupon code Birthday2023 to get 50% off anything in the store.

Brian English

I just learned of the passing of Brian English over the weekend. Wargaming has given me a good number of friends. Brian was a good one. While we never were able to get together to game as much as we wanted, we stayed in touch and talked often. I am very sad to learn of his passing and am praying for his family.

Father's Day wrap up

This year I had a most excellent Father's Day. my wife and son went above and beyond. First, they bought a new 22" Blackstone. I plan on taking that camping with me next week if I can get it set up correctly. Second, my wife bought me the Vallejo Painting War: Wild West book. The book is fantastic. Not just cowboys, but animals, barrels, and even basing. They nearly make it paint by numbers easy which I need. All colors are listed with the Vallejo item numbers listed. I highly recommend this to anyone who is partially color blind like I am.

New Scenario for To Covet Glory

I stumbled upon an interesting naval action off the coast of Jekyl and St Simons Islands during the American Revolution. This is right in the same area that the War of Jenkin's Ear naval battles were fought. It is a small scenario of three ships per side. The Rebels have three oared galleys compared to the larger sailing vessels of the Royal Navy.

I have largely finished the scenario and am going to publish it on my PayHip site. Since it is a one off scenario, it will be just $.99.

The British have an advantage in number of guns but face a significant challenge.

What a Cowboy - Painting Progress and Campaign

Made some painting progress over the weekend. It was good to be able to have the time to paint. I managed one 3DBreed miniature. It is the town drunk figure that they give away for free. He has his jacked partially off and is staggering with a bottle. It was a fun miniature to paint and will become a townsfolk for the mining camp and the town.

I did a few scenic items as well. I finished a small mine entrance and some cacti on desertish looking bases. I tried using contrast paints for the first time and was pleasantly surprised by them. I think I may try some more of these. Also painted up some camp items that will go on a base for a mining camp.

I also started on some bases of some animals. I printed three horses successfully which will be mounts for some mounted Mexicans. Also printed a cowboy horse holder with three horses. I have four Texas longhorns to paint up as well.

For having only played one actual game, i really like these rules. Enough that I started a historical campaign for them.

I am looking to model the Second Battle of Adobe Walls. This is rather ambitious considering that I have absolutely no plains Indian figures. The historical battle pitted 28 buffalo hunters against a force of some seven hundred plains indians. It boiled down to a series of cavalry charges against men in adobe and sod structures. The indians took casualties over the course of three days before pulling out. But the incident has a number of smaller surrounding actions as well. I can see these leading to an interesting campaign.

I am looking at 3d Breed again to pick up the miniatures for this project. I think I have some ideas about how to carry out the campaign and split up the battle into three separate actions. Anyway, still doing the research for this and it may end up with the pile of other half started projects on my hard drive.

What A Cowboy: Progress

Been printing quite a bit. I made a mine entrance but broke the track section. I managed to print some scatter to place on the stand in front of the entrance.

I also printed campsite items as well. I still need to make a few tents and a cook fire.

I printed a number of animals, including a deer, a buffalo, a rabbit, a wolf and a dog. but more importantly, six longhorn cattle. but in removing the spruces, I destroyed 2 of the.

I also printed some cacti as well. I found some old bases that I mounted the cacti to. they are a bit thick but look pretty good. I am concerned about filing them down since they appear to be resin.

Lastly, I printed a set of dice for What A Cowboy. I started to paint them but figure with use, that might be pointless.

while I need to paint all of it. I will attempt to use some contrast paints on the cacti. I need some white primer. it will be interesting to try out.

I reached out to Rich since my preorder has not arrived but with the posting of the desparado cards, I should be able to play. I have worked on a campaign, but want some practice with the rules first. I have watched the games that Tabletop CP posted and can't wait to try.

My Mexican town is small. I want just a few buildings and a church. My goal is the cantina from Sarrissa. Also their 2 story building. I want a few more buildings but am not sure what to get.

I did get to play a quick game today. It was a quick two on two game. It moved quickly and was good fun. I can see where this will be a good game to get on the table and do multiple playthroughs in an evening.

WAC Campaign

It is now over a week since the release and I am still awaiting the arrival of my rules, cards and tokens. I have the PDF but without the cards, you can't get a full feel for the rules. But that doesn't stop planning.

I managed to successfully print 3 horses. Out of a batch of 6, three had broken legs while removing the supports. The mounted figures all printed fine. I also printed the free drunk figure. They need to be primed and painted still but I am making progress.

My next stop is My Mini Factory. There are some minor terrain pieces that I had my eye on. Among them are a mine entrance, cacti, a preacher and some scenic scatter including loot bags and wood stacks. I now have my painting guide for the cacti from someone on the WAC FB group. That will be some paint to buy and my first experience with contrast paints. That should be 90% of what I need terrain wise.

I still have some painting for minis and want to buy a stage coach. There is one I have been following on eBay for a while but just haven't committed to yet. My last task is to convince my son to play the game.

What a Cowboy

Well as the clock slows down as Christmas approaches... er the release of What a Cowboy approaches, I finished up my Mexican gang. Sort of. I painted standing figures so far. I have yet to get a good print of horses yet for mounted figures. I am trying something with the settings in Chutibox to see if I can print a horse will all of its legs.

I painted the one holding the guitar and another one in black as if they were in a mariachi band or the like. It seemed like a good idea at the time. You will notice that I had trouble printing the pistols. So the gang is carrying snub nosed revolvers. I struggled with how to paint them but I think they are passable.

I need some dead figures to go along with them. 3DBreed does not make casualty figures... yet. I have emailed them and they said they may come back to the range and add to it. In the mean time, I found that i had purchased a pack of Peter Pig dead Mexicans. I have them ready to paint but have not primed them yet. The difficulty will be making them match.

I have three previously painted gangs. Each are painted similarly to make them look like they belong together. The plan is to have mounted, foot and dead figures for each gang member. So far, I only have foot painted and a few dead. I think I only have one mounted figure painted.

The one gang with no dead figures may be some miniatures I purchased on eBay 10 years ago. I can no longer remember. I have some additional figures on painting sticks as seen in the images. i also have a few more cowboy casualty figures to paint up. Peter Pig's range is great as they actually have matching mounter and casualty figures for each of their foot miniatures. I need to get some cattle and dead horses next. I am trying to decide between 3d Breed Cattle or Peter Pig. I'll probably go with the longhorns that are in the Peter Pig range. They have some real gems in that line. I am going to try to paint what I have first.

In looking at what is needed for What a Cowboy, I think I am happy with my terrain as is. I might like to get some cactii. Again, there are some nice Peter Pig ones availible. In the videos that Rich made, I am thinking about buying the pinned markers and wounded figures from Peter Pig to use instead of the acrylic splat token. Just need the game to be released now.

Slow Updates - What a Cowboy and Dawn of Iron

For What A Cowboy, my Mexican faction has been glued to a base and primed. I am still amazed at how well the detail held up on the 3dBreed.es models when shrunk to 15mm. I have no idea when I will get around to painting them. I have made multiple attempts to print horses and mounted versions of these figures. All have been failures. The legs on the horses end up being too fine and either don't print or end up at the bottom of the resin tank as they snap off during printing. These too come without a base. My thought is to add a base in tinker cad to the horses. That and possibly figure out how to thicken the legs. I have not bothered to print the riding figures yet. If I get this done, I need to look into making casualty figures for each of these. Not sure how I will do that.

I have saved off all of my supports from my printing efforts so far. I intend to make some forest sections with them. I just haven't had time to attempt that yet.

Dawn of Iron I am now only missing a mast set for the CSS Jamestown and a good print for the USS St Lawrence. When I went to prime what I had, I didn't like the way the hull had turned out. I do have one good print of a vessel in that class. I managed to glue the masts to the second USS Minnesota class ship and the USS Congress. I now have most of the vessels at least primed. Shouldn't be too much more work to have everything primed. I have enough vessels and the first version of their cards printed out to have a game. I also printed and primed some splash markers. I have no idea what I will do with those yet. I will likely use them for Coastal Patrol as well.

Anyway, these two projects are coming together. I have terrain ready for What a Cowboy. Most of the terrain that I have is paper terrain from Eric Hotz. I really like those models. If I spent more time on them and added raised details, they would be really nice. But since I haven't been able to convince my son to get into any of the games we have had so far, I am unlikely to invest money in MDF terrain for a project I probably won't play.

Not much of an update.

3D Printing

I managed to get some nice prints done with my new printer so far. The first print I did was of the USS Cambridge, the CSS Raliegh (stand in model) and the CSS Harmony (stand in model). Everythign turned out really well. However, I was using regular resin. The smell was too strong and I switched after that to a water washable from Sunlu. It took a number of prints to get things tuned in. The water washable gave me a good print of the USS Minnesota and the CSS Jamestown. I only lack prints of USS Congress and the USS St Lawrence. Fortunately, these are the same class ship and I have the STL files for it.

I am also anxiously awaiting the release of What a Cowboy. To prep for it, I am looking at a Mexican gang to add to my existing unit of Peter Pig minitures. I checked out 3d Breed's models and purchased their set. I printed the foot minis and am happy with them so far. They look good. I should have added a base in Tinkercad first. I still need to see how well I scaled them to match with my existing Peter Pig.

Well, it is a start. I also have mounted versions of each of these. In addition, they come with two different horse variants each. Seems like their miniatures are really nice so far. I am happy with it. They need casualty figures though.

Wargame Vault Review

You may not know, but Wargame Vault using a rating system for products based on their sales numbers. Each level is assigned a "metal" as it rating. Starting at Copper, it progresses to Silver, Electrum, Gold, Platinum, Mithral, and lastly Adamantine.

The sales levels are as follows:

Rating	Number of Sales
Copper	51+
Silver	101
Electrum	251
Gold	501
Platinum	1001
Mithral	2501
Adamantine	5001

As of this morning, I did some research and was pleasantly surprised. My books had done better than I had expected. Thank you very much.

BOOK	Type	Sales	Sales Rank
Action at Ustilug	WWII Skirmish Scenarios	81	Copper
In The Name of Roma	WWII Skirmish Scenarios	45	-
Battle of Kharkov 1941	WWII Skirmish Scenarios	149	Silver
Second Battle of Kharkov 1942	WWII Skirmish Scenarios	86	Copper
East Front Bundle	WWII Skirmish Scenarios	226	Silver
Falcon and The Gladiator	WWII Air Campaigns and Scenarios	42	-
The Coming Thunder	ACW Skirmish Scenarios	156	Silver
To Covet Glory	Age of Sail Small ship Battles	114	Silver
The War of Jenkin's Ear	Black Powder and Age of Sail Skirmish Scenarios	25	-

These are only sales from Wargame Vault and do not include the hard copy sales from Amazon, direct sales (before I did a PayHip store), or sales from my PayHip site. Now, I had messed up when i did the East Front Bundle. Within the bundle are both Kharkov Supplements, Action at Ustilug and In the Name of Roma. If you do bundles correctly, bundle sales increaase sales of the products under them. All in all, I am very happy with how they have done. Of the 9 books, only four are on Amazon in print form. Two are available as kindle. Kindle is a terrible format to release the books on.

In the Name of Roma is the oldest of the series and sold 63 kindle copies and anther 14 print copies. The First Kharkov supplement sold 14 kindle copies and 41 print copies. The Second Kharkov book was only available in print and sold 55 copies! Thank you! Lastly, To Covet Glory was only released as a print copy and sold 48 copies!

I forgot to look at PayHip.

Book	Sales
Action at Ustilug	36
In the Name of Roma	11
Battle of Kharkov 1941	26
Second Battle of Kharkov	26
East Front Bundle	31
Falcon and the Gladiator	14
To Covet Glory	16
The War of Jenkin's Ear	8

Now there are other items that are only on PayHip that are not on the other sites. I may have to change that as it seems peopel trust Wargame Vault more than they do PayHip.

The copies I sold directly and from PayPal are lost to history. No idea of how I would ever figure that out. Anyway, it was a fun exersize to look through how sales have gone. Compared to many, this is a drop in the bucket. But for me, I am pretty proud as to how they have done. I would love to see the War of Jenkin's Ear book get to copper status. That it is half way there made me really happy. I didn't think I would sell 5 copies of that, honestly. It is a very niche subject.

Anyway, that is some motivation to push ahead.

Travel and Battlefield tour

I am going on a trip to Nashville soon. My wife agreed to a battlefield tour of the battle of Franklin (1864). While the battle is really larger than what I can do in Sharp Practice I am particularly interested in the fighting around Carter's Farm. The fighting around the farm house and the cotton gin were particularly fierce. I am wondering if it would be possible to play a game concentrated on that feature.

The battle was a disaster for Hood's forces as they took terrible losses that they could not replace. A large number of senior officers died in the action including general officers. This is a battlefield that has undergone considerable conservation in recent years (since 2000). Given its location, it is amazing that the whole sight is not under the pavement of a mini-mall and subdivision.

Happy New Year 2023

Once Again, we have reached the time when we need to buy new calendars. Happy New Year, dear reader. I am attempting to focus my time for the upcoming year that is already seeing scope creep.

Seven Years War - Skirmish

At the scale of Sharp Practice, having a multitude of poses for skirmisher figures is a thing I am looking for. Since I am looking at the April 1759 actions in Bohemia, I am struggling to find appropriate figures.

I have some painted Prussian Jagers that I purchased off of Ebay. They are all in firing poses. They have the advantage of being painted and based. They are based in blocks of 4 figures, two accross and two deep. I prefer single based figures. The figures are kneeling and stanging firing figures. The figures are likely from Old Glory 15s. While my other purchased (but not yet painted) miniatures are either Eureka (Prussians) or Blue Moon (Austrians).

The Grenzers from Blue Moon look good in variety and in poses. I had purchased the skirmishing pack and the command pack. These just arrived recently and have not been base coated yet. My Prussian musketeers are from Eureka and are all marching poses. Which is probably fine for regulars. These are base coated but no other paint has reached the miniatures.

I have been looking at the miniatures from Henry Turner. These are STL files and could be promising. In the off chance that I get a 3d printer for Christmas, I was told that he has just released some Austrian skirmishers on his patreaon that will go to other sites in January. If that is the case, that may sort out some Croat/Pandour troops out for the Austrians. Wunsch's Prussians encountered a large number of "Croats" upon crossing the border in their advance.

The other troop type that I need are Hungarian troops. Among them were the troops from the Arch Bishop of Mainz's regiment Kurmainz Infantry. I will probably go with Blue Moon for these.

One terrain item that I need is a powder magazine. At this point, I have not been able to identify where the powder magazine in Peterswalde would have been. I am attempting to make one similar to one I found that was in a fort from the period. It is across the country from Peterswalde but it should do in a pinch.

ACW Naval

The plan is to print and paint some more ships for the Dawn of Iron rules. I am waiting to received the wash solution before attempting to start printing. I did pick up some books that should prove insightful on actions along the eastern sea board but I have not read them yet.

Terrain Beautification

I watched Rich's great video on his Burma build. It got me motivated to look over some of my older terrain pieces. One that sticks out is a Game Craft Miniatures factory building that I assembled a while back. I won't claim to have painted it. It is too basic for that. I plan on going through my existing buildings and seeing what I can improve. I also have a set of Impudent Mortal 15mm buildings that they did years ago that is still unopened. I plan on modifying these to look more Middle Europe that could be in Bohemia for my SYW project. As always, I will also try to make some more trees. Just dropped some money on eBay towards this.