Having a play - building a fort

Quite a while ago I bought a couple of bags of assorted wooden blocks, some of which were painted grey, partially flocked, and have appeared  on this blog before.

Other wargaming efforts having stalled, I came across the blocks and thought 'why not have a play'?

Very rough and ready, crude and lacking all finesse...

I simply started by by glued assorted pieces together to get a rough wall and turrets.

I started with 4 separate walls and put an outward facing of card. The parapets were originally set at 10mm, but I decided this didn't look right.

I increased the height of the parapets to 15mm - much better - and completed the final basic model. This was then covered in the standard dyed sand plaster I use for basing - originally this was a bit too thick, so I thinned it down. Then it was too thin!

The finished model is easy to store - the basic fort fits quite nicely into my standard Weston boxes for storage. I have loads of these - every now and then they sell them off at half price...

So, a crude, very easy fort to make. Don't know if I'll bother with gates on this model - the main idea was to have a play, but the end result was actually quite effective and could easily be dolled up.

Must do some casting...

Steven's Waffen SS figures

 As mentioned, visited Steven a few days ago and looked at his figures. He's now sent me pictures of a few 15mm figures he was working on at the time. Email read:

'Finished the figures you saw partly done when you visited. Plenty more to do  before I base them. Had a go at the the collar marking just as two white stripes rather than as actually saying SS. How does the camo look?' Pretty good I'd say!

Had a few days away

 4 nights in London followed by 4 in Brighton. Included a visit to see Steven and Sarah - yes, his figures do look better than the photos! He has finished some more of his figures and I hope to get them sorted tomorrow.

Meanwhile...

Normally try and pick up something on my travels. This time just got a couple of Airfix poly tanks, a Centurion and Patton. They were part of a batch of toy soldiers for sale at £4.50, I said I didn't want the lot but offered a pound each for the 2 tanks... offer accepted! No idea what I'm going to do with them of course.

Battles with Model Soldiers Game 1

 OK, Finally started doing these (in a way).

Battlefield laid out as best I could - Featherstone set up on an 8x5' table, I laid out a 6x4'. Meanwhile, the actual diagram on page 44 of the book scales out as 6x4...

So anyway, using the book as a 'guide' regarding moves and an actual 1970s rule set...

Infantry move 12' in these rules. So after the first move both sides have covered a lot of ground. Also, move 3 in the book has both regiments going into a single line. You can't set up that way and so I initially lined them up two deep. Being element based my units are also 24 strong rather than 22.

Because of the smaller depth of the battlefield and 12" move rate , it didn't last the 6 moves of the original - it  meant it was over in 3.The Confederates reached the wall first, the Union forces found themselves being shot to pieces... 20 dead with only 1 saving throw working, sadly the unit at that time was already down to 12 figures anyway...

That's where I ended the first attempt. I think I'll reduce movement and firing distances next time and see how that works.

Fun little game, over very quickly and didn't work out like the original. Pity the book didn't have photos of the battle in rather than the photos of random Airfix figures and diaramas.

Apocalypse lizard

 Latest from Steven:

'I have been painting the free figure from Salute 2019 (not 2018 as I mistakenly told Sarah earlier). It is some kind of post-apocalyptic female warrior with her fearsome lizard pet. Decided to do a bit of a pattern on the figures - the lizard is pretty obvious, but the woman also has a camo pattern on her cloak. I tried following the advice I received on your blog last time by reducing the contrast on her face to make her more feminine. 

I am also trying to improve the photos themselves, with an improved setup including the white background, some fiddling with the camera settings and lighting (although I don't have a second suitable light to eliminate the shadow). I also adjusted the colour and light balance slightly on the laptop - although the aim there was to make the photo more closely reflect the real-life appearance of the model rather than to 'cheat'. 

The official paint scheme is here:http://www.salute.co.uk/salute/past-salutes/salute-2019/ The official figure looks crisper and I'm not sure if that is due to differences in photography or in the painting - or a mixture of both.

Next... finally on to the Germans. I have a bunch of SS panzergrenadiers undercoated and ready to start on.'

 

 

Latest purchase

 I mentioned a while back I was expecting my latest 'snipe' to arrive via ebay - actually came a few days ago but I've just gotten round to taking pictures!

17 cavalry, including 14 S Range Persians, and 3 camels.

The S Range cavalry were the ones I wanted, so at £13.55 for 14 cavalry it was less than £1 a figure!

Which means the camels and other 3 cavalry were free!

Couple of other things. A while back Adam Banner, the designer of the Admins Range, sent me some pictures of some Admins figures he had painted - these are on pages.

Secondly, got round to getting my eyes tested - big cataract in my right eye which explains some of the problems I've had painting over the last few months! Referral in to get it fixed, so in a few weeks perhaps my painting might get back to something like normal. Seems that cataracts are a known side effect of all the meds I've been on for the last few years.