Blighty Bound

It's been quite a upper-and-downer of a month so far, and there's more to come. 

We made the move out of our apartment, starting at 6am on the morning of 1st November, and finishing at 1am on the 2nd, with only an hour's break for lunch. I must've traipsed up and down those four flights of stairs over a hundred times. My advice to others - dispose of as much stuff as possible before moving!

Pausing only to take some photos and a video of the empty place - if the rotten landlord claimed we'd damaged it in any way, they'd prove we hadn't - we crammed the last few items in the back of the van and departed at 1.15am, never to return.

My wife and I are effectively homeless. Thankfully friends here have rallied round and we have places to stay most times, but it's still an unsettling situation. So much so, we're staging a strategic withdrawal to the UK to live with my family for the duration. A few other legal matters have to be cleared up, but we should depart these shores on December 4th.

We will be back, but when and under what circumstances only the Fates will decide.

* * *

On to more pleasant matters. Scot from BenchVent kindly invited me to take part in their Show us your workbench competition. I entered, and here's where I used to do my work. 

It looks tidier than normal, somehow! A J out... 

Last Post - for a while

Today I had a few minutes of spare time in between packing stuff away in boxes ready for our move on November 1st. After all the stress and strain of these last few weeks, I thought it would be a rare moment of fun to get my 10mm scenery out and take some photos of it all together for the first time. I had intended to place it all on a green cloth, but it had been packed away - so my poor old stained antique table surface has to do as is.

Eighteen trees seemed adequate to form a small wood, but now I'm not so sure. It's a good thing they're easy to make. I'll need at least the same again to create worthwhile tree cover. In the meantime here are a few shots with some of my Pendraken 10mm models. 

The Rollesby Roughriders escort the Flegg Fencibles' armoured truck Black Shuck as it tows an 

18 pounder field gun to a new position.

The autumn sunlight plays across the clouds above the empty lanes...

 

...but they're not empty for long. A Socialist Militia convoy passes, composed of two trucks bearing supplies, escorted by the Austin armoured car Strike.

 And all's quiet once more.

 
It's nice to see the visitors to this blog passed the 25,000 mark sometime in the last week or so. Our personal situation is in a state of flux, but I hope to resume posting here within a month or so. My wife and I are on course to pay an extended visit to England over the winter months to visit family and friends. I hope to take the Barsetshire Regiment and their foes with me, and link them up with other Colonial period figures I had to leave behind in the UK. I should get a few wargames in at my old club at New Buckenham too. Rest assured, whatever and wherever I game, I'll take plenty of photos for posting here! AJ out...
 

All Stop

Our apartment house nightmare has deepened to the point where I don't think I'll have time to post anything beyond this. Asbestos was found in the building to add to the sewage back-up woes. It's all been abated now, but the dryer units are still going full blast in the basement. The legal shenanigans are developing further. My wife and I are too stressed-out and getting too busy preparing to move to do much else.

As to where we'll go and how quickly we'll get there I have no idea. I'll resume posting on my hobby ideas when we're more settled. A J out...

Ten mil trees - 2

We had a house-hunting session this weekend, and found a couple of promising properties. In between times I was able to finish the N-scale trees for my 10mm gaming...

Horsemen riding by. The Rollesby Roughriders pass a wood during a patrol.

I opted for a wet-brush of acrylic craft paint rather than mess around with spraying them. Varying the amount of dark and light green gives a pleasing variety of shades. Jeff and Jim suggested I use pennies for bases to weigh the trees down, but they proved too small for the job. British 2p pieces would work, but I found thick card and a layer of spackle does the job as well. The green paint I used on the bases looked a bit too bright, but a wash with sepia ink diluted with rubbing alcohol toned them down.

Something I should've mentioned in the how-to post is, these are made from thistle seed heads. Before beginning any work, it's best to put the heads in a bag, close the neck and give them a jolly good shake to dislodge the thin black seeds. Canny modellers can then take these and scatter them in some suitable spot, thus ensuring a supply of raw materials in the future. For those with green inclinations, the flowers attract pollinating insects to the garden too. 
 

Ten mil trees - 1

Modelling therapy was the order of the day yesterday. For a while now I've been looking at using teazels for some kind of scenic modelling project. A blog I read recently showed what could be done using them for sci-fi gaming scenery. Plenty of thistles grow along the course of the trail near us, so supply wasn't going to be a problem. I collected a few - using secateurs as the stalks are spiny.

I already had the image in mind for what I wanted to achieve. As it happened everything went according to plan. The hot-glue gun came in handy at this point. 

I took the teazel, snipped off the spiny stalk and replaced it with a "trunk" cut from a thick twig. A quick trim of some of the longer spines at the top was also done. Applying streaks of hot glue through the spines, I stuck on small offcuts of foam rubber packing material left over from my previous hedgerow project. Once the whole surface of the teazel had been covered and the glue set, I gave it a thick coat of ordinary household paint in a fetching shade of brown and heavily sprinkled it with used green tealeaves.
  

In the space of an hour I made a dozen trees for ten mil gaming. The photos show their current appearance. I intend to give them coats of different shades of green, but I'm debating whether to use rattle cans or use craft acrylics for best effect. The bases are temporary card, which I'll replace with something better and permanent. I'll post more photos of the finished result.
  

Württemberg 10mil figures

Some more 10mm figures here, again from Pendraken. I have permission from the owner of these figures, Sam Scott, to post the pictures he took of his new Württemberg army. Superb work!

The flag is by Warflags. Sorry, no idea who makes the buildings, but they are nice.

* * *

Following on from the sewer disaster last week, I started making some N-scale trees as a means of taking my mind off the stress we're going through right now. They'll go with my new 10mm AVBCW stuff.

Steps are being taken to deal with the problem, and our plans to move are firming-up. We're looking into moving out of St. Louis altogether. It means a lot of packing and sorting stuff, not least of which is dealing with our contaminated belongings in the basement storage area. I'll post here about hobby fun when I can, but there may well be long gaps.    

The Effluent Society

Everything has ground to a halt due to the sewer backing-up in the basement of our four-apartment block to a depth of several inches. There is fecal matter lying on the floor where people, including a young child with special needs, have to pass. Some of our possessions, including washing machine and dryer have been affected. Some items have been utterly ruined. 

The landlord is inept, and will probably follow his established pattern and attempt to clean up human effluent himself without taking proper precautions, let alone hire professionals to do the task. 

Attempts to get the local authorities involved in ensuring the place is properly cleaned have led to a bureaucratic ring-around-the-roses. No one will take responsibility. Our township has apparently fallen into a black hole as far as jurisdiction is concerned. Private landlords around here could literally have fecal matter floating about their basements waist-deep, and no-one in authority will take notice. Our local Alderman has tried his best, but we're still left in limbo. 

Our desire to move has now become an urgent issue.

I know this isn't wargames or modelling related. Sorry to have bored anyone with this, but I really, really need to let off steam.     

Gaming interlude.

Not much in the way of gaming or modelling going on at the moment. I'm working on stuff to show at Archon 36 in a month's time. After that, the prospect of a house move looks more likely. In the scant spare time I have, I'm noodling with making some 1/150th scale trees to suit my 10mm figures. 

In the meantime, I'm being horribly tempted to dabble in Napoleonics. Temptation in the shape of this chap's Little Tin Men blog is not helping matters. Go there to see some very nicely done Austrian and French infantry, some equally nice terrain, and a great little game fought to Sharp Practice rules.

Some AVBCW buildings

Here are a couple of buildings I made for the VBCW in 10mm. First up is a blockhouse, built of corrugated iron and field stone, with a plank and turf roof. It can house up to eight fighters, and a machine gun could set up shop on the roof quite comfortably with a few sandbags for protection. 

Next is a typical British semi-detached council house, of the type built in the hundreds of thousands all over the UK from 1920 onwards as part of the "Homes for Heroes" campaign. The program gave employment to troops returning from WW1, boosted the post-war economy and, indeed, provided inexpensive housing for millions.

The lighting wasn't quite right when I took the photo. It looks a great deal more orange than it does in real life. I'll build another one of these days to use as a master- model and cast a few in resin. A few more houses and cottages, a pub and a church to go...
  

Can you tell what it is yet?

A small GASLIGHT project I've had on the slipway for quite a few months has finally begun to take proper shape. In the immortal words of Rolf Harris, "Can you tell what it is yet?"