Singling - The Orchard & Chain of Command 2

I found two likely models to use for the bunkers on the western side of Singling. There is an eBay trader named MiniatureTanksCompany that had two that would fit the bill of a anti-tank bunker and a machine gun bunker. The machine gun bunker is still visible today. It is a simple square structure that is low to the ground. While I was there, I notices a nifty miniature of a German Field kitchen in 15mm. I got that as well. I have no idea what I will use it for, but it could make for an interesting objective. While I was shopping I purchased some decals for the armor I need for the battle. This should put me in pretty good shape.

Chain of Command2 is ordered from the US retailer. I have watched the videos that have come out on YouTube and some of the changes look really good. I am looking forward to getting my hands on them. I joined the TFL Patreon on the free level so far. I have some reservations and wonder what this will mean for the future of independent scearios for their rules but will wait and see what happens. I have some IABSM scenarios that I have been thinking of converting to Chain of Command.

I have been working on the winter trees. I have finished just under half of them so far.

The ones in the bin are the completed ones. Some of the snow mixture started turning a dirty gray. I will have to throw it out and try again.

I did finish one more building. I think I am happy with how this turned out. This will be Building 6 on the map.

I also started on the large row house that will be house 9 on the Singling map. It has a long way to go. I added the tile roof and painted part of one side.

I also finished off my platoon of German Panzer Grenadiers. It is complete based on the Chain of Command list in the original book. I also have an addition LMG team and a panzershreck team. I have enough miniatures to add another Junior leader and plenty more riflemen. I just lack additional light machinegunners.

From the picture, you can see my painted version of the large pile of poo that stood in the courtyard of buildings 8, 9 and 10. It is mentioned in the after action reports and I felt it was important to have availible on the table.

I am still waiting on the final building that I have ordered. I should have it by month's end. Not sure if I will have Building 9 finished by then but I sure hope so. Here is there the village stands:

As shown, building 9 is in progress.
Building 8 I need to get a building for this. I may have an existing one that I can use.
Building 12 has been ordered and is in the mail.
The School house.... I am very frustrated with this. I can't get my printer to produce the remaining windows. It is a simple object but the printer is just not printing. The items stick to the bottom of the resin tub no matter what I do. I will have to figure something else out to get that building finished.
Building 23 I will use something out of my existing collection.
Building 33 will also be an existing building.

I am getting very close to finishing this build off. I need to get some more fencing built to surround building 28. I have some existing walls that I can use for the large yard next to building 10.

I managed to take a look at some miniatures in a drawer. I have been watching the Crusty Colonel's YouTube channel and enjoying his Sharp Practice games. I took a look at my French Napoleonics. I was modeling a Legere Unit. I have a mounted officer, 9 groups of Chasseurs, two groups of 6 Carabiniers and a group and a half of Voltiguers. I have a number of sergeants for the Chasseurs (like 5 of them) and three officers and musicians for them as well. I have a Carabinier officer and musician as well as a sergeant and musician for the Voltiguers. Lasty in support, I have a light gun with four crew. On painting sticks, I have enough Voltigeurs to make another group of six and some Carabiniers to make them groups of 8 instead of six. I also have a drum major and a pair of sappers/pioneers. Lastly on painting sticks I have a pair of mounted ADCs. I have some French cavalry as well. They need some flock on their bases but are otherwise completed. There are three groups of 8 (possibly Hussars). I think I want to start a campaign with them. I will have to look at my British forces.

Follow Up on Winter Germans

I am struggling with my winter Germans. I am trying to give them snow bases. I am basing on US pennies for individual figures and on FOW small bases or some round bases for LMG teams. I have a small tin of Army Painter snow flock. This is the same flock that I was using on my winter trees. I read the section on this in Pat Smith's book on winter terrain but he was using Woodland Scenics products. I tried to use his recipie with the Army painter product and I am not sure that it looks right. I only did one squad just in case I didn't like it.

Here is the rest of the platoon.

In all, it could be OK. I will look at getting some Woodland Scenics snow at the local train shop and trying again.

Also, the building that I intend to use for Building 6 in Singling is coming along. I managed to get some painting in. I still need to paint the downspouts and shutters on it. The doors are also in progress. Still thinking through if I will change the scheme.

Singling - Seeing the End of the Tunnel

I just purchased a set of row houses on eBay. The seller was Kristoff_Designs. It comes with two row houses with a cobble stone street between them. I probably won't use the street. I will take one of the row houses and make a damaged version. I will make a ruined version of the roof to match the state of Building 12 during the battle. There was a large enough hole in the roof that the American infantry were shooting bazookas through the roof down on the street below.

It may take some time to get here and since the preorder dropped for Chain of Command2, I made my preorder.

I did the initial basing for the Winter Germans. I have enough for a Panzer Gernadier Platoon with a few additional figures. I still need to add some snow to the bases. I am trying a different way of applying the snow flock and only applied it to a single squad. We will see how it goes. Not sure if the new version of Chain of Command will change the orders of battle. I also started painting more on the Cafe building from Tabletop Terrain. It is coming along nicely.

My 3D printer is giving me trouble. I have not been able to successfully print for a while. I still need to print some more walls and the remaining windows for the school. I have no idea what is going wrong.

Distracted with Coastal Patrol

The past week was too busy to get any painting done. My hobby plans for the week are to buy the remaining buildings needed for the Singling build. Possibly to complete some more trees. But instead of working on that, I was rereading the Coastal Patrol rules. Back when i worked on the East Africa supplement, I wanted to do a semi fictional campaign with the naval force present in Italian Somaliland against the British Red Sea Fleet. I had done a good bit of work on it but it never went anywhere. Mostly because of how bad the Italian forces were. Most of the vessels were out of date or in a poor state of repair. But they did have a number of vessels that could have seriously challeneged the Royal Navy for control of the Red Sea. One of the things I wanted to do was to have scenarios with submarines.

I didn't realize how much work I had done with it. It turns out that I had been emailing James Schmidt (the rules author) about this close to four years ago. That was really interesting reading back through those old emails. I looked through my old kindle docs and found a number of books that i will be using for this. Anyway, it gives my mind something to do while I wait to paint again.

Building 10 and the L Shaped Barn

It was a productive weekend despite some setbacks. First the setback, my printer is acting up again. I attempted to print both some windows and some fences over the weekend. What came out was a very thin sheet of resin on the print plate. I think that I will have to take it apart again and see if I can work on it.

I was able to prime and start painting several buildings. The two I bought from TableTop Terrain (the cafe and L shaped Barn) were primed as well as two German Jadgpanzer IVs and a 76mm Armed Sherman tank. Bringing these back inside, I started to paint. I did the roof on the L shaped barn and the roof on the model I am using for Building 10. I caught a bit of motivation and finished both off.

I am really happy with the Barn so far. Building 10 is having some roof issues.

The JadgPanzers have a base coat and some "DunkelGelb" on them. I need to figure out how I want to paint them. I painted the 76mm Sherman but it looks rather plain without some decals. I need to get some for both the Germans and the Shermans. I did not base any further infantry. That is still on my to do list, both Germand and US.

I am reviewing my trees. I am not entirely happy with how they are turning out. I need to figure something else out. The trees look more sugar frosted than snowy at this point. But overall, this is coming together.

Current State:

Singling Update

The town square of Singling is coming along well. There will be 13 buildings on the table for this setup in 15mm. Of the 13, five are completely done. Another five are in a partial state of at least 50% done. Of the remaining 3, I will need to buy 1 and can use existing files for the other two. I made a map previously showing what I have build overlayed on a map of the town. I updated this with the currrent state of the buildings.

The main need is a damaged rowhouse where troops can fire down upon the street below from a hole in the roof. As to the rest, I have some trees as mentioned before for orchards. Those should be done in the next few days. And the fences. I have some low stone walls that I can use for the garden near building 10. I need to print more walls for the ones near building 28. That should be easy. I gave 3d printed the dung pile that sits in the courtyard between buildings 8, 9 and 10. It needs to be primed and painted. I also have some windows to print for the School House as well.

I have ordered the last few LMG teams for the Germans. Both the Germans and Americans need basing. As to armor, this is where I have work to do. I have printed 2 German Jadgpanzer IVs. I would like to have at least 4 of these. I have some already painted Panther tanks. It would be good to have about 2 more. I have files to print them but I am hesitant given the issues I had with the US Tanks. For the American tanks, I need a couple different types. There are 75mm gunned, 76mm gunned and a single 105mm gunned Sherman. I printed two 76mm tanks. The problem here is the tab for the turret is too large for the hole in the hull. I have been sanding one down to attempt to get them to fit. I glued the treads to the hull as well. One of the treads has proven to be quite fragile. Of the 4 sets of treads that I printed, three have broken during cleanup. Disapointing but they do seem fragile.

I should be in position to start playtesting the scenarios fully in the next few weeks. I plan on making these available in both What a Tanker and Chain of Command versions. Honestly, WAT seems to make the most sense given the descriptions of how the battles went.

Reinforcements

I purchased a lot off of eBay of what I thought would be a full winter platoon of Germans. They were based for Flames of War. The painting was very nice and the miniatures looked great. I bought these because I needed to get three additional LMG teams for my Winter Panzer Grenadiers. What I ended up with was five stands of 4 riflemen and a single LMG team with two additional riflemen. Very disapointing. Unsure of what to do next, I reached back out to Gajo Miniatures who I bought my first painted platoon from. Gajo is fantastic. They said they will sell me just the LMG teams. Now I am just waiting on the invoice from Gajo. These I won't have to remove the base from and rebase individually. I should have gone with that to begin with. The miniatures I received are still really nice and I will find a use for them somewhere. Possibly for a mid war regular infantry platoon.

I also received a second eBay purchase that I am 100% happy with. This is a set of Plastruct tiles for the buildings. I can finish building 28 now. Once the roof tiles are complete, I still need to paint the roof and add some water stains/dirt to it. For a very simple 3d model I based off of the measurements on Google Earth, it is not too bad. I also need to make doors as well.

Based on the city description, I have, one of the dominant colors of the houses in Singling was pink. I chose this for the Warbases townhouse that I have built. The building is getting close at thsi point. The roof is fully built. I am currently trying to figure out the windows. I think I need a white technical pen to finish out the window frames. I used a gloss varnish on the windows to try to make the windows look better. I need to add some water stains on the building as well and paint the roof. But it is getting close.

I am still trying to work out a couple of more buildings for the scenario but I am getting close. I need somekind of apartment or rowhouse behind buildings 8 & 10 (Building 9). I have a really nice one from Sarissa that I have started to build. This will probably serve for this. And a ruined one for Building 12. The ruined one really just has roof damage that a bazooka team can use to engage the enemy armor from. I think I found a vendor from the UK that has what I want on eBay. I would have to make the damage sections myself. For Buildings 8 & 10, I have one 3d printed building that I have started work on. I have an old Impudent Mortal L shaped MDF building that I am looking at modifying to be the other building. The way the roof is shaped will take work to get it looking normal. I will need a chimney to add to it as well. I have not started on it yet.

Lastly, I have started to base my German Infantry. Basing is a chore that I don't like but has to be done. I have about 1/3rd of the German Infantry based. None of the Americans are based yet.

The trees that I worked on didn't work out too well. I used some PVA spray on the trees and sprinkled snow flock on them and it didn't look good. I am trying something else to see if that will work.

Over the weekend, I pushed through and finished off two buildings. Building 28 and the pink building that I haven't figured out where it will go.

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.