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.