Singling Buildings 8 and 9

I made some progress on both buildings. The rowhouse, building 9, was base coated and the roof and chimneys are on. I will have to paint the chimney tops black but the brick paper is on. The roof will need to be painted still. The upper floor is painted. I am going with a dark wood for the shutters and white for the sills and window frames while the rest of the house is a dirty white. I think I have at least three more hours of work to finish this with its gardens.

Building 8 is just getting started. I have some of the roof in place. I will be using brick paper for this. I don't think I will put too much effort into this building.

The school is still sitting in its same state of incompleteness. I decided that i will just manually make the windows for the back and the side. I have had nothing but trouble with my 3d printer. I hope to get it fixed but am just not sure what to try next.

I also have some pillboxes that I picked up off of ebay. I am happy with them They match the singling AT bunker and the small machine gun bunker fairly well./ They still need to be painted.

I did manage to get my winter trees finished. I am very happy that these are done. I sould have everything I need for Table 1 of the Singling battle. Table 3 should be mostly ready. I just have Buildings 8, 9, 12 and the school left for table 2.

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.