Little Progress

Little progress has been made on either the Roman/Celt project or on my Singling 1944 project. I am considering to do the campaign in both What a Tanker and for Chain of Command. Given that the principle action was between armor and the occasional artillery barrage, WAT seems to fit well. I should be in a position to start playtesting soon. I am lookig forward to trying out my new battlemat that I got for Christmas.

I did get in a few moments on Thursday and started to plaster the church. I still have one side left to do. My plastering skills are suspect but I think it is workable. I managed to get around the windows and door frame without covering them completely. I have also glued most of the tile on. I have two more small sections to finish on that. I am using masking take to hold the pieces in place while the glue dries.

I need to start thinking about how the buildings will be painted. The reports of the battle list the schoolhouse as a brownstone building. The houses were painted white, red, yellow, blue and pink. Most buildings had red tile roofs. I am not sure how I will paint them up. Building #44 from the historical maps is painted yellow today. However, it was on fire during the battle and is not likely the same structure. The church seems to be a gray or dirty white structure currently. Historical images of the building look like it had a white brick stepple and a very dirty looking main building. This may have been due to the smoke from nearby fires and the damage it took in the fighting. The building #28 on the square is currently a white building. I could not find a historical image of this building. Nor could I find any reference to its color.

This weekend it is camping with the Scouts, so maybe I will get a chance to do some more work on Sunday.

Edit: Here is a picture of where the church stands at this point. No pro0gress for the weekend.

Printer issues Resolved -Singling Church continued.

Finally, I was able to get the magnetic print base to stick. A little super glue went a long way. I got a clean print done of the church steeple. In addition I now have extra church steps and window frames. The first door frame came out wonky so I have a clean print of it as well. I set these out to dry last night and will put them under UV light tonight for curing.

The steeple came out better than I thought it would. I got some help from the Tinkercad facebook group in getting the shape right. I am not 100% sure it is centered correctly but it is close. I plan on using brick paper for the bottom of the steeple.

The church is currently just taped artist mounting board. It is a little rough at the moment but I plan on plastering it and adding the 3d Printed Items to it. I would like to base them but need to order something to base them first. You can see the cut out for the steeple in the picture. I plan on reinforcing everything with some hot glue on the inside. That should make it sturdy.

The other buildings that I have been assembling are the Sarissa Precision terrace block.

The terrace block back gardens (Also Sarissa).

And a stable and a house from Empires at War.

Singling Church Continued...

Attempted to print out the Steeple and other items for the church. The print failed as the new magnetic build plate came unglued and fell into the vat. This time I super glued the magnetic plate on to see if it would hold better. Just kicked the job off again.

I also started to build some of the MDF models that I have. I have built a stable, a bombed out stable, a house (all empires at War) and a Sarissa terrace house. The Sarissa model was wonderful. However, the yards that they have, the walls are made of card and extremely fiddly. The card has to be folded in half and glued. Getting it to line up was problematic. I am waiting on the glue to dry on those. I have a few other building from unknown manufactures that I worked a bit on the roof until I realized, I only dry fit the buildings. Lastly, I built a Sarrisa American Cabin. That was an easy and fun build. I will have to get more of these once the Singling project is finished.

I am looking at winter infantry. I think I will order from Gajo and get painted miniatures. I think this would be the fastest option. We will see.

Singling Church

I started my build of the Singling church over the weekend. I had some left over artist mounting board from a previous project that had enough room left and I mocked up the walls for the church.It took some trial and error but I have the form of the church complete. I will reinforce the building with plenty of hot glue. What I am looking to do is seal the mounting board. Years ago, I had a spray can of sealant that I had. I will look for something similar to try to protect this. I have just sliced the details for the church that I did in Tinkercad. If I can, I will take these to my printer today.

The School house is my next target. I also sliced the doorway that I made. There was not enough room on the print bed to include that with the Singling church items.I purchased the townhouse building in 15mm from Warbases. This should be a good base for the school building. I will need to add another chimney to it. I am undecided as to how to do the windows. I may 3d print them like I have for the church. The school is on a terrain change. The front of the building is at the top of a hill. The back half of the building is on the downhill side of the building. Currently, there is a parking lot behind the building. It is uncertain what would have been behind it during the war. I am assuming some kind of yard for recess. I am uncertain how to model this for the tabletop. The hill plays a significant role in the battle. As in places, the Americans used the hill for a hull down position and the infantry took cover behind it as well. My thought would be to build a separate understructure for the hill to cover with a terrain cloth. Then the building can rest on it and an extension under the building. Still thinking it through.

Other Items...
When I ordered the townhouse, i have also ordered some raven dice for Midgard. I liked the look of the Ragnar raven dice and figured I would get some at somepoint. So in the cart they went.

Things have slowed with my Roman project. I just haven't had time to paint miniatures. Hopefully I can get to it this week. I would love to have at least one fully painted project.

Mansio Troubles

The basing for the mansio proved to be a disaster. The card warped badly and looked horrible. I pulled the building off and didn't ruin too much of the paint on the building. I still want to base it but may wait until I can order some of the base materials from Sarissa Precision.

Before I order those, I need to place an order with Litko for more metal bases for my miniatures. I am still trying to figure out the group basing for the celts. I don't really like what I currently have. Either the washers used have too much zinc or the magnet in the movement tray is too weak. Or a combination of the two.

I started to look at terrain for the Singling scenario. I have laid out the likely buildings from what I already have. I do have some that will do which is nice. I will need to do some modeling for some of the houses for the town square. I think I already have a pretty good start on that. I wish the old blog posts from TooFatLardies were still around. Rich did some excellent tutorials on making buildings that I really liked. The one he did for his Post-Roman British church is one that I wish I could see again.

I started assembling an Empires at War French farmhouse last night. While waiting for the glue to dry, I assembled a Sarissa Cantina that I found that I had forgotten that I ordered a long time ago. I am looking forward to painting it up. I have several other French buildings, including barns and stables. The center of Singling had some agricultural buildings and it is noted that there was a massive manure pile in the middle of the town between some houses. While that was probably OK in the winter, I can't imagine that being a healthy thing in the summer months.

I have started to plan out the church that I want to scratch build. I have the size worked out but I need to determine the material that I will build it from. After the basing disaster for the Mansio, I am hesitant to build it out of card.