Resin Scenery Items, WIP & Stuff

Over the years, I have visited a few shows and demo games, and for me a real part of the pleasure of wargaming is the aesthetics of the thing.  (Yes, I'm talking to you, show-gamers, with your rules and papers, and cans and dice and tape measures.. )

So one of the things I really like is all the nicely done terrain, yes, we aren't all going to game on terra-formed squares depicting every undulation, but you can get a decent mat, and make sure the features have basing that matches, paint them properly and so on. One of the things that can make a layout feel real and have lots of points of visual interest, is the collection of little things, livestock, a haystack, a ditch diggers cart and so on. Scatter terrain is the usual term.

So I am always on the lookout for inexpensive pieces that can be added to a table to create interest or add to the verisimilitude of the scenario, whether that be telegraph poles, a garden shed or a peasant on a bicycle. I came across 'AnyScale Models' on eBay, it appears to be a small company doing resin castings for a variety of scales, plus some wargames items in 20 & 28mm. The prices are very cheap, so I made a small order for a variety of stuff.

Flakvierling, clever use of nails, but good luck with drilling out the barrels 

Storage set - I liked the cable drum

Oil barrels.. anyone know what oil company labels for 1940 France?

Tyres, sold as 'fenders for boats' 

You can see a couple of bubbles in this stowage set

Overall, I was very happy with the Anyscale products, they are very well priced, the service was good, and there's plenty of variety. Their field workshop set for 28mm was very tempting to add to my garage, but I resisted. 

In other stuff, just working up some of the models I picked up at Carronade, both terrain and vehicles.

Just some WIP vehicles, you can spot the PzII & Sherman I got at Carronade

 Plus a random game I managed to get in the other week.. 

A quick Wings of War/Glory game with Jimmy & the nephew last week 

 

Carronade Pictures

Some game pictures from Carronade.

Rorkes Drift - complete with flashing illumination of the Hospital

Kirriemuir Wargames Club - Western Action 

Small scale WW2 The Battle for Crete

Old School, 28mm Ancient Britons vs Romans (Could be Watling Street?) 

10mm Early War Germans attacking Poland

Splendid Last Samurai action by Leuchars

Big game Napolonics in 15mm with pink smoke? 

Breakout from Zara - Italians vs French

Captain Jack's Last Hurrah

Carnevale action

A Trojan Rabbit and Arthurian worthies

Very attractive pod racing game

The Hunt for the White Stag

Fantasy Siege!

Busaco by Dunfermline Wargames

Carronade 2019

Well, that's it for another show. Carronade 2019 in Falkirk. I have a lot of fondness for Carronade, it's a decent size of show by Scottish standards, there are always plenty of traders and always some nice games on display. It was also the first Scottish show I attended when I came back from Oz.

I was there as part of the Kirriemuir Wargames Club, who put on a splendid Wild West 'Wanted' game, though it would have been nice to have a few more volunteers to participate.

Pictures of the games to follow after a bit of editing, crop out stray arms, reduce sizes, that sort of thing.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty good show, it was busy and lots to see. The Flea Market was a bit hit and miss though, as vendors booked tables for fixed time blocks, so you basically needed to head upstairs every hour if you didn't want to miss anything. As usual, there seemed to be a lot of spikey chaos plastic, but there were some pearls among the offerings. Chatting to folks it seemed like there were at least two tables that were mates selling off for a deceased estate. Just remember folks, appoint a wargames executor.

One positive trend was that there were quite a few women helping out on tables, as vendors and as participants, so that was terrific, although it might be my imagination, but there seemed to be fewer children.

Anyway, a good day, and I managed to maintain (fairly) admirable self discipline and focus, despite temptation. Stuff for my Chain of Command games, (for It is a truth universally acknowledged that US infantry not in possession of a good position must be in want of a Sherman), I love Panzer II, so I couldn't walk past that, and WarHQ didn't have the plastic Warlord Char Bis, but offered to send it to me post free, with the show 20% discount. What nice chaps!

I picked up a couple of the very inexpensive MDF shells from TimeLine /Hoka Hey, (who also had a very impressive Old West locomotive and carriages in MDF and resin), and another set of walls to extend my existing set, from Red Vectors. Finally, I love warbases stuff, but didn't really need anything from them this time, so I contented myself with a set of Fleur-de-lys jump-off and patrol markers. The Russian houses can wait till I paint my Russians!

French Armour

My French army for Chain of Command is fairly well rounded out for supports, with mortars, AT rifles, a small (Hotchiss 25mm) AT gun, and a tripod mounted machine gun. But it needed some armour. After all, when you're facing the Blitzkrieg, it's handy to have some armour on your side.

I was very tempted by the Warlord/Italeri Char Bis plastic kit - mainly because it's exactly the kind of thing I love, bizarre, clunky, flawed, and just generally cool. And in plastic, which I prefer to resin. But hey, it's just too good. It could be overly dominant on the table in an environment where infantry anti-tank capability is overall pretty much non-existent, and opposing tanks are likely to be PzII, PzIII at best.

Plus, in Chain of Command terms, the Char Bis will only get deployed very occasionally, as it is a high cost support option. You will only rarely have a scenario where you have enough support points to deploy a Char.

So when Warlord had a recent two for one resin sale, I decided I needed to get some French armour, and selected the Somua S35 (which incidentally, may also be too good to appear very often), but also a Panhard 178 armoured car. I like armoured cars, in Chain of Command, they can activate and move when deployed, unlike tracked vehicles, plus the Panhard was a pretty effective vehicle for its day.

So here they are:

Decals are from the Warlord sheet, except for hand-painted roundels on the S35. Not perfect, but good enough for me. I chose one of the most outrageous French camouflage schemes I could find for the S35, and didn't attempt to go for a historically accurate marking scheme, just one that was 'plausible'.

     
The Panhard decals are very simple as is the colour scheme. Bit disappointed that Warlord chose to use a 'stereotypical' French crewman fro the S35, complete with Gauloise and wine bottle, but at least they supplied crew figures, some other companies could take note.

Paint job was masking with blu-tac on the S35, then an airbrush, and a relatively simple all airbrush on the Panhard. Weathering was a wash with GW Nuln Oil, a very light drybrush with a dusty cream, with light chipping using a sponged black (not visible on these shots).

The Panhard has already proved its worth, and I'm looking forward to getting the S35 on the table too. 

The Mechanic is in

Spotted this on eBay the other day from Mango Terrain, what looked like a decent shell of a garage, that would make a suitable base model.

This was the online picture...

The princely sum of £7 plus  1.50 postage later..  I had a shell which was quickly assembled.All going together easily though for my taste the roof was too snug a fit, and I filed it down slightly where it abutted the front and back of the building.

Mindful of the uses for a building in wargames, I also made sure the windows were positioned to the outside wall. I found the side walls were interchangeable and the lean-to could be attached anywhere, so the model itself was quite flexible.

So here's the shell, after a quick attack with my Dremel to reduce the 'pristine smoothness' of MDF walls, and a coat of sample pot 'Pistchio' & 'Coffee Bean' colours.

As you can see, Mango added end trusses for the roof, a nice touch I thought. They also added in a back for the lean-to, so it could be stand alone. And two nice ladders...  which I will find a use for somewhere I'm sure.

A quick Google of vintage French posters 1938, and I had my art for the building, some pigments and a spare piece of 'rusted corrugated iron' that was given to me as a free sample, et voila...

Simple modifications were sandpaper for the tarpaper roof, handles for the garages doors from MDF offcuts. That was pretty much it.

I still intend to add a stack of spare tyres, and some oil drums on the side, plus I really feel this needs some grotty guttering and drain pipes, so those are yet to be added  - tyres and oil drums courtesy of eBay and Anyscale Models, while the drain pipes are waiting for me to find a source of straws.

[Edit] - just looking at the last pic I realise I also need to fix up the left hand corner where the original shell joins are visible, and that the roof needs seams on the 'tarpaper'. Ok, for later.

Very happy with this one, and a shout out to Mango for a nice base piece.

German Armour for 1940

While I wait (with little hope) for the balance of the BTD order to arrive (and accordingly, a backup plan involving eBay and a seller of BTD figures is in place), I quickly hurled together a Warlord Games plastic Pz IV that I found on eBay at a decent price.

Resisting the temptation to fully remodel the driver and machine gunner positions to make an accurate 'D' version, I just removed the moulding for the 'Rommelkist', draped a flag to disguise the incorrect engine deck, and turned a blind eye to the other minor inaccuracies.

So a quick pic later..

Weathering is a few smears and plenty of dust. It's hot in France in May and June 1940. There's also one of the very nice 1/48 ICM Sdkfz 222 kits assembled in Panzer Grey.

Black Tree Design - Order

Well, this is a post I thought long and hard about before writing. But eventually I felt it was something that should be put out there. It simply relates the tale of my personal experience of ordering from Black Tree Design (UK). Your experience may of course vary.

I have often looked at Black Tree Design (hereafter BTD) figures, as they contain some ranges that are extensive and in some cases unique, they have frequent sales, and at least some of their figures look really quite nice, well animated and with character.

I have seen some of them 'in the flesh' so to speak, and other players whose blogs I follow have used them.

So not long after the release of the TooFatLardies 'Blitzkrieg' supplement, I came across a chap on Lead Adventure Forum eager to dispose of a platoon worth of 1940 French Infantry in 28mm by Crusader, lead and paypal were exchanged and I was proud owner of a French platoon for Chain of Command.

Now it so happens that I seem to be the only member of the local club gaming WW2 in 28mm, so if I want a game, I usually have to supply both sides. Now an Early War German force is appealing, it's the Blitzkrieg, there are no supertanks, they can do double duty for Operation Barbarossa (for which I have PSC Plastic Soviets), etc.

I originally looked at the Crusader and Artizan ranges, but I was keen to try out a different range, and coincidentally, BTD had a sale on their 28mm WW2 range. So on 27 December, 2018, I placed an order. The total excluding shipping was just over £50. Which in hindsight I wish I had spent with another company. After all; full price for something, is better than getting 50% off, and not receiving anything.

On 29 December, I received an email which included the phrase:

Hi Doug, we're getting your order ready to be shipped. We will notify you when it has been sent.

We shall see below, just how accurate this was. {Needless to say, I have never received an email advising my order has been sent).

I knew that BTD had a reputation for slow delivery, so I was not in any great rush to receive my figures, I had the French to paint, after all, and no shortage of other figures in the lead pile.

But a month passed. On the 2nd February I received a generic broadcast email from John Olsen at BTD, which included this statement:

'We are working hard to try and catch up. The casting company we use is raring to go and we have mountain of metal expected in over the next couple of weeks. Please bear with a little longer. I promise that we will get your orders to you very soon.

Not impressed, but hey, we all understand how things can pile up, it was Christmas, there had been illness, they must have been busy with the sale.

It was now getting very close to the point where my option to raise a Paypal dispute would expire, but (stupidly, in hindsight), I gave John and BTD, the benefit of the doubt, and decided to wait it out. After all, he had 'Promised', hadn't he?

Six weeks later, and with no sign of the promise being fulfilled, the Paypal dispute period having expired, and no further word from John or even any generic broadcast 'Promises'.  I decided to pen John and BTD a little note. I was quite polite, considering that they had had my cash for almost three months and had failed to deliver anything except a 'Promise' that clearly hadn't been fulfilled.

[I have since checked and Paypal have extended the period for a dispute to 180 days, so I have now lodged one with them, we shall see.]

I asked when my order would be sent, and said that if I didn't hear anything back from them, I would be quite happy to tell my story about BTD, and let other people judge John's 'Promises'.

Well John, it's a week since I wrote you that note, I have now sent another requesting either figures or a refund, (and frankly, at this stage, I would prefer a refund). So I am keeping my promise to tell the story.

[Update - some of the figures have now arrived..  I am two packs short, and the casting standard is appalling.]