Arab-style town house

I have some spare time after finishing a couple of commissions so I turned my hand to a building for the Darkest Africa campaign.

It represents a town house belonging to a fairly prosperous citizen. The carcass is made of foamcore, with cardboard trim and plastic embroidery battening for the window grilles. The archways at the front and the steps and landing at the rear are Hirst Arts pieces cast from plaster. At this stage I've yet to coat the walls and base with spackle. I'll add pieces like plants, wall trellises and so on as I go. The roof has space for six or seven of my gaming figures; the courtyard can hold ten along the walls. For the sake of simplicity I made the house as one unit, so the roof and top floor don't lift off. I'm not a big fan of placing figures inside buildings anyway, and since I fight solo there's no dispute over which figures are inside or not.

It's gone pretty well, and I may make another or something similar. After that I'll build either a barracks or railway station - maybe both.

Ten-mil, or not ten-mil..?

That is the question I've puzzled over since looking at the early war Western Desert CoC lists put out by the Too Fat Lardies. They have a number of vehicles and weapon options for 8th Army and DAK, both for the core force and support units. Given this diversity, I'm beginning to think it'll be easier and cheaper to go the 10mm route as more seems available in this size. 

I think I'll buy the CoC rules set and try a few games using my current VBCW 10mm figures. If they work I'll get a couple of platoons and supports for both sides. 

Local Library Booty

Our local library was holding one of its periodic clear-outs of old books, so my better half and I battled through the snow to see what they had. I picked up three nice little numbers for free...

...which I'll get around to reading as and when.

My WW2 Western Desert project is on the back burner for a while as I've got too much else on at the moment. Once it gets going I plan to build an Allied platoon and either an Italian or DAK opposite number in 15mm. Rich Clarke of Too Fat Lardies stated 15mm is closest to the ground scale for the Chain of Command rules. I see The Plastic Soldier Company produces figures this size. Can anyone comment on their quality?

Post Office problems

Many of you will know I have a business making decorative bookends of various kinds for sale. In the past four weeks two customers have reported goods arriving damaged in the USPS system. This in spite of our efforts to protect the items from such damage. It appears the PO is now in the business of destroying boxes marked Fragile...

Did someone jump on this..?

We will continue to make and sell bookends, but as it now appears parcels and boxes will require armor-plating and extra insurance to survive the not-so-tender mercies of the USPS, mailing prices will rise accordingly.