Northag in 3mm - British Cards

 On the Northag FB Group Ian Garbutt posted a set of ID cards for the British, so I printed this off and laminated them. Will come in handy.

Northag in 3mm - British (de)basing standards and inspiration

 After foolishly looking for 3mm painting tutorials and realising a day late and a dollar short that 6mm painting tutorials work just as damn well......I've got enough set aside inspiration wise to get started. 

The basing standard I have chose for now is:

• Round 25mm for all the vehicles and infantry teams
• Round 25mm and/or 40mm for command team bases
• Rectangular with the top shaped like an arrow 20x20mm for Recce 
• Air support I'll use my 30x30 and 40x40 air combat bases
• Offboard artillery on 30x60 and 60x60

Everything magnetised so it fits easily into the RUB boxes, and I need to make/get inserts so I can stack up inside the basic 4 Liter ones. 

I have a couple ideas for objectives as well, but I need to put that down to paper first.

Inspiration wise I'm going for this (but in my own basing style) 

painted by Little Ninja Painting, not me!

 

Northag in 3mm - cutting, cleaning and testing out bases.

 2nd evening of using my clippers to remove the resin print bases off of the Oddzial Osmy tanks and APC's, and glueing them with water soluable glue to icecream sticks. Using the 2 lists I have printed off I'm working my way through them and marking stuff off.

 Nothing earth shattering, it just takes a a lot of prep time, but I'm not in any rush or anything. Still not decided on the basing format, though nudging towards round bases for the on table assets and squares or rectangles for off board stuff.

 Like testing out a Sovjet 120mm Battery and a Grad battery on 30x60 bases. If I were to build a 122mm support battery I would have to get 60x60 bases to fit the 6 guns of such batteries. A lot, but not impossible. 

Northag in 3mm - doing the paperwork

 After 2 games of Northag in 15mm I found I simply don't have the room for the game I would like to play, but I like the game. After mathing some math, looking at the pro's and cons of 3mm vs 6mm I've decided to give 3mm a go. I painted that before, I can do that quickly with a nice bit of detail, and that just leaves the isuses of the lists, purchasing and basing.

Lists:
I've downloaded a British and a Russian list from the FB Group, noted down the numbers.

Purchasing: 
Made an order with Oddzial Osmy for both, plus some civillian stuff. The way the packs works it means some will  just barely cover it and others I will have way too much, but it is what it is. 

Basing:
Vehicles will be single based, troops per team.

For all vehicles I'm nudging towards 40mm x 20mm  or 30mm x 30mm wide for practicality purposes (standard sizes help with fitting in the box, infantry teams can be on 30mm round, Specialists on 20mm rounds?. Command bases 40mm or square, just like the offboard support markers..... but tbh I can't make my mind up about base sizes. It doesn't really matter for Northag anyway, and every other system seems to have their own special needs. I'll give it a good think as I'll need to paint everything first anyway. 

I'm still keeping 7 days to the Rhine in the back of my head as a backup btw. 

That and I should not be overthinking this, ey?

Battlefield in a Box appartment buildings

 Cleaning these up for Cold War and suddenly thinking, oh surely I can play Stalker in 15mm as well. Then I get drawn back into reality and remind myself it's time to quit sniffing super glue.

It would look good though, with some paint, beech trees on the roof and in front of them....

Don't sniff glue kids.

Time to add more depression, I mean happy people efficiënt dwellings to my table. Clean off the resin snot blobs, weather them, paint in the windows, add seperate water tanks, maybe make a few unfinished floors out of foamboard, or even blown up ones for that Civil War feel.

15mm Car Park?

 Not a dig at Flames of War or anything, but a relaxed afternoon cutting and cleaning bases for the box of 15mm cars I have. Basing these up for AK-47, Nam 68 and Northag. A few of these will be 15mm renditions of earlier 20mm models I made in the past 15 years

Buying the Farm: The last feed bunker

Been having issues with my Vallejo Polyurethane Matte varnish not drying matt and stripey. Long shakes, short shakes, shake and leave for a bit, nothing seems to work. Had to do some searching to find my pot of Daler Rowney Matt varnish, and all is well again. It makes everything dead flat.

3rd (empty) feed bunker done. Will double nicely as cover. It's one freshly cleaned out, so fresh soil and just a few weeds left.

Painting some 6mm testers - Syria, Ukraine, Soviets

Did some testers tonight to get some ideas out of my system. 

Pic 1: L: Ukranian BMP-1 captured by Donbass Seperatists with Ukranian graffiti painted out. M: Ukranian BMP-1 R: Ukranian Militia Buggy 

Pic 2: L: Syrian Dalek (custom conversion) R: Daesh VBIED Pic 

3: My test for Russian Green (which I'm happy with) 

Everything you see is based on photographs, no fantasy here.

Edit: Pictures I copied for Ukraine. Fo course, I immediately found more than the first pic I had to use....just means I will make another one with a proper conversion

Buying the Farm: WIP Farmers house

Lots more things to do, colour to add, varnish, tufts etc. Could be done in the weekend, or not for a few weejk as I actually want a tree or 2 to add to it if at all possible. We will see.

Buying the Farm: Machine shop finished

Repair shop finished. It's the Leven IND16 Joinery shop, but now functions as a tool and repair shed for the farm. Container is from Old Crow, junk in the back is from various bits from the sparesbox, and the barrels (which you can hardly see) are from Heroics and Ross ( I think)

 Still clueless how to do other stuff like a Autobahn or even decent roads, but hey, I'll build that bridge when I get there. 

Buying the Farm: Feed Bunker 2 finished

And number 2 is finished, a bit wider, and covered with plastic and tires. So many tires......they were round bits of a Airfix kit in my spares box, and had to sand them all to get a better tire shape etc. Never again, as it just hurt too damn much after finishing the last. And then 2 wheels from my bits box that came from God knows what. 1/72 tank and aircraft kits make great donors for wheels of various shapes. Anyhow.....done. plasticcard, air drying clay, tisue paper and glue, with some tufts and weathering powder. It looks loose, but trust me, 3 coats of pigment fixer on it, they are not going anywhere (famous last words)

Buying the Farm: Feed bunker 1 finished

 Completely scratchbuilt. (well, 4 bits of plasticcard, a bit of clay and some tissues and glue....not exactly rocket science, is it? ;) )

 

 

Buying the Farm: Vehicle shed finished

 And after 3 coats of varnish, the vehicle shed is done :) I used some Army Painters small bushes I picked up in a sale a while back, they work rather nice, and some Mininatur moss pads.

Yellow 09

6mm Scotia MiG-21 "Yellow 09" fighter bomber ready to drop some FAB's on Capitalist Forces somewhere in Germany (or insurgents in Afghanistan). 

Not a very good model, the wings are superthin, the tail fin looks like it once broke off, was crudely fixed and then used as a casting master, and comes with empty racks. Added bombs that looked half decent FAB-ish, reset the tail, did my best to make the wings appear level. Copied the scheme off of a MiG deployed in Afghanistan...didn't get thye colours exact but she looks the part. Used the always excellent I-94 decals, in this case first by decalling in white, and overlaying them withthe same decal in yellow, else the yellow is just drowned out. The stars should have white borders....but I don't have those, so there :). It was a fun, if exhausiting build to get her where I wanted it to be, and someday she will be joined by a buddy in the Air Defence role.