Wargames Factory 15mm World War Two

I still intend to buy the Too Fat Lardies' Chain of Command rules one of these days. In the meantime I'm mulling over figure options. Does anyone have any experience of Wargames Factory's hard plastic 15mm range?

http://www.wargamesfactory.com/webstore/world-war-2

I have some of their Zulu figures and, although being multi-part they were a bit of a pain to assemble, once done they're pretty good and easy to paint.

The Next Foray

Sometime next week I hope to game the Barsetshire Regiment's (long overdue!) next foray into G'Wundaland. Their mission is along the lines of the British Army's late WW1 "bite and hold" strategy. They will seek to establish an outpost in enemy territory to act as a base for a further advance and hold it against all comers. It'll give me a chance to use my new terrain pieces and possibly the new volunteers section.

Rocks and trees II

The terrain pieces I put together the other day have now been undercoated. I covered the bases with spackle and sand, letting both dry before spraying with Krylon paint. The shade is supposedly 'Avocado' but comes out more a khaki, which suits me well enough. I also gave the treetops a light going over to damp down the rather bright shade of green.

I intend to use spray adhesive to fix dried tealeaves under the trees and around the rocks to simulate vegetation. The rocks will be dry-brushed then inked. Time permitting I'll make a few more such pieces.

Rocks and Trees

I had some spare time today so I set to work making a few more terrain pieces for Darkest Africa. I'm short of trees, so I used some twigs and a cluster of green grass-mat 'blobs' bought at Michael's hobby shop years ago. They didn't really seem suitable for terrain use but I held onto them because there was always a chance to put them to use... 

Basically I hot-glued suitable twigs to the metal lids that come with fruit juice concentrate. Daubing the branching ends of the twigs with white glue I impaled the blobs on them and let them dry. The trunks were then stuck to the bases using hot glue. Since hot glue is fast but not strong, I smeared liquid nails around the "trunks" of the trees and over the bases, sprinkling sand on the flat areas to act as a key for the spackle coat which will form the next stage.

The foliage is a bit too bright so I'll take it down with a few light coats of paint. 

For the two rock outcrops I used another juice lid and an old CD for the larger one. The rock itself is wood chip. Again I attached them using liquid nails and smeared more of the adhesive and sand to act as a key for the spackle. I'll dilute and brush a thin coat of spackle over the rock, with thicker amounts around the bases of the outcrops. Grass and so on will come later.

The Guns of August.

Britain in the Great War,

August 4th, 1914 - November 11th 1918.

When the world as it was ended, 

and the world as it is began.

We remember them.

A blog visit recommendation and a trading post idea

I've just had the pleasure of visiting Major Tom Foolery's blog, where he's displaying his model of the German Colonial-era African Hotel Zur Neu-Moschi, a lovely example of building kit conversion. I recommend paying his blog a visit, as it has a how-to on his work.

It's similar in a way to a building I hope to make one of these days using Hirst Arts blocks and foamcore among other materials. 

The photo is of a former British trading post located at Kuntaur, an up-river port in Gambia. This rather forlorn-looking structure has European-style architecture typical of the Colonial era. Given the ruined state it's not clear if the post had a pitched roof or not. I suspect it once did as it's located in a river valley running directly off the Atlantic, so it would experience heavy rainfall at times. In any case I'll make my version with a pitched roof.

I've no idea when I'll get around to it. I'm busy painting the house and gardening in my off-time. When we bought our house it had been painted throughout in beige, a 'neutral' shade beloved of Realtors and house-flippers, but heartily disliked by my wife and I. We're painting one room at a time, and the house looks far more like a home now.