A Desirable Residential Property!

A home-from-home for Bicca Biccasson,  or any other Viking if you like. This is an addition spanning three generations of our family: Matt picked the Renedra Viking House at Salute earlier this year and gifted it to me; William made and painted it for me; and I did the basing of the finished article. A few pictures now ~

I'm really pleased with how it turned out as a group effort. I might look for another next year, when finances permit - we've just bought a new car you see. It's a good job the Lead Pimple is pretty rammed already in readiness for the winter...

Village church of St Olaf

Four blog posts ago {17 March 2024} I mentioned the Russian church I'd purchased from Ironclad at WMMS. There was no photo of the piece, as I said at the time, because Phil had taken it away to assemble and paint for me. On Tuesday last when we met up here in GHQ for our weekly game he delivered the model back to me, assembled and beautifully painted. I thought you'd like to see it, so without more ado here is the village church of St Olaf ~

You will recall I hope that it's a 20mm model, but it seems to me to fit in just fine with the figures and buildings I have in the Crimean War collection. I have written before of course on the footprint issue of buildings in games, often choosing to go down a size for games in GHQ, so my choice should not come as a surprise to any reader. I will see about a scenic base at some future point as I was rather taken by Dave O'Brien's church on the Gothenburg Gamers display at The Other Partizan, which sadly I omitted to photograph! Fortunately Dave has been able to provide me with just the photos I needed ~

Dave tells me he had to scratch build the various grave crosses as no one appears to make them. Time for Warbases to step up to the plate perhaps? Meanwhile, St Olaf's with some figures to give an idea of the thing in action ~

Now though it's back to painting Crimean War figures for the project! Mustn't disappoint all old Vlad's bots who are deluging my posts with visits!!! Onward I go, the end of the beginning is in sight! Just a small matter of the French then!

Вниз на ферму

Or for those amongst us who don't read Ukrainian all that well, if at all, that's 'Down on the Farm'! At The Other Partizan last October I picked up three MDF building kits from Warbases with a view to adding a small cluster of buildings to suggest a farmstead for use when my forthcoming Crimean War project reaches the tabletop battlefield ~

The kits are: the Animal Pen; the Village Well; and House #3. As with all Warbases' MDF kits they go together with the very minimum of fuss, though I did add a 40x40mm base to the well before painting commenced ~

Of itself MDF has very little texture, making dry brushing very problematic for me. {If these were resin buildings then I'd have painted them grey and washed then with Burnt Umber to suggest weathered timber}. With MDF I've opted for a dark first coat of Foundry Bay Brown, followed by lighter coatings of the mid and light Bay Brown triad. The chimney on the house I painted in a similar fashion using the Foundry Granite triad ~

I'm wasn't over pleased with the look at that stage so I added highlights using the same company's Spearshaft Shade. Perhaps some thatch on the house and animal pen shelter might be the way forward? Either way, there needs to be a good deal of further work on this to bring it up to scratch! I had two Lead Adventure pigs and a trough which would bring the animal pen to life I felt. The well is just fine for me, some texture and a few 'weeds' and perhaps a bucket from the 'Bits Box of Doom' I mentioned in the last post ~

Anyway, I have no thatch available as yet, though the pigs and their trough have definitely lifted the look of the animal pen. The house will pass muster for now at least. Thatch still seems the way forward while a base and some groundwork would definitely help lift the look on the tabletop battlefield. Whatever, it will have to do for now as I'm back to painting figures, Great War Miniatures Roosian Jaegers as it happens. Must get on with them now...

Well,Well,Well.

Or rather just one Well. It's the Grand Manner 'Colonial Village Covered Well' which I must have bought sometime last year in one of Dave's periodic raw resin sales. I do like his pieces and have a number of them as scenic ephemera for various periods but do think them on the steep side of 'ouch!' for pricing. 

As a part of my break from painting SYW figures and given that GHQ is set up for a second F&IW game this week I thought I'd rescue this from its place amongst the Lead Pimple and get it painted. Like all Grand Manner pieces it looks a tad on the large side when you are painting it, but in situ it fits in just fine as I hope you'll see from the photos. So, waffling over, here it is ~

I chose to paint it in a warm sandstone colour, using the Foundry Rich Butternut triad. The woodwork is Spearshaft Shade washed with Brown Leather armour wash.

A couple of in situ pictures follow on now with 28mm Foundry figures dotted about for effect and to give a better sense of 'scale' ~

Firstly, a closer view of the well with two figures in close conversation.

I think the piece fits in quite well with my scratch built and Warbases buildings and scales well with the 28mm figures too. Sadly it seems that Grand Manner may be closing as I have heard that  Dave may be finally retiring. Let's hope they may re-emerge later in the year perhaps...

A F&IW terrain piece

I have need of a break from tricorns, from the SYW, and from Hanoverian figures; in fact from figures of any description. Of course having a second chest infection hot on the heels of the first is not really helping my disposition much. A while back now I took advantage of Grand Manner's periodic sale of raw resin casts to buy a couple of pieces for my North American game settings. I bought a large Colonial covered well and a First Nations' wigwam. 

The latter has been washed, dried and undercoated, languishing amongst the Lead Pimple for what seems like eons. So it was a prime candidate for some brush work on a larger item! I fixed it to a Warbases 100mm x 100mm terrain base, having first painted the inside and the base black. Next I painted the whole thing with Foundry Rawhide Shade. When that was dry I washed the wigwam with Foundry Black Wash. Leaving that to harden off overnight I could then dry brush the wigwam: firstly, with Foundry Rawhide Mid; and secondly, with Foundry Arctic Grey Shade. This is to match the two other Grand Manner pieces I have for my village setting.

The base is textured with my usual mixture of Woodlands Scenics buff railway ballast and washed in Games Workshop's Steel Legion Drab/Graveyard Earth to match my F&IW bases. Static grass and assorted Tufts were added finally to help it all blend together on the tabletop here in GHQ. So, see what you think of it after all the preamble ~

As I have mentioned the Lead Pimple earlier in this post I thought you'd appreciate an up date of sorts. After some reorganisation post Hanoverians it now comprises just two 4L RUBs of figures, mostly undercoated and fixed to MDF bases with whitetack ready to deploy to the painting desk when called. Mind you, that was before WMMS...

I blame the genes!

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I've been playing around with the table top here in GHQ in preparation for a forthcoming Wargames Illustrated photoshoot in support of a piece I've written about my SYW project. One area of terrain enhancement I've been working on is a small German style farm which I think suits the north European theatre more in keeping with local architecture than the venerable Conflix buildings I've used in the past.

The buildings are from Warbases, three of four they offer under the label German rural buildings. These three comprise: the large barn, in the front left; the farm outbuildings, to the right of the barm; and lastly, the farmhouse, to the rear of those two. The resin wooden fence pieces are a set I got from Coritani. 

For fun I've populated the farmyard scene with pretty much everything suitable to the SYW from my terrain bits 'n bobs accumulation! I really like the buildings Warbases produce, indeed I've already assembled three of the four buildings in 15mm for my Cold War Gone Hot collection, whereas these are their 20mm buildings, the 28mm being to my eye too large for anything other than skirmish game buildings ~ see an earlier entry for more on this.

One area of these MDF kit buildings though which does benefit from a little effort is the roofs. Here I've used roofing slates/shingles sheets from Oshiro Games on the Farmhouse and Outbuilding. For the large barn I've used a section of teddy bear fur fabric which Phil trimmed down and fitted for me. When it's firmly stuck down then it's coated in PVA glue and combed flat. That took a day or two to dry I have to say, but when hardened it could be washed in Games Workshop's Agrax Earth wash to give the worn in look I wanted.

A little 'scene dressing' with the haycart and dog kennel, from Warbases again, and figures from Foundry and Front Rank.

Again, chicken coop and chickens from Warbases, figures from Foundry's SYW Civilians range. The water pump is a resin piece I bought one December Wargamer show back in the mists of time, no idea who it's by though now. All far too crowded for a practical wargame if course, but just right for a few characterful photos I'd hope. No doubt you'll have your own views on this.

Now, the title you might like to ask about. Well, I spent a few years early on in my retirement researching my family tree. I found out so much I had not even an inkling about of course, but mostly I discovered that I came from honest, solid peasant stock. Mostly agricultural labourers and miners on both sides of my family, though yeoman farmers aplenty before the post Napoleonic Wars agricultural crash I discovered. So, are farmyard scenes and pastoral idyll in my genes I wonder?

Finally then, the three farm buildings in 15mm scale/size just for interest. I didn't buy the large barn though, so this set is slightly different.

Größerer Bauernhof

A short post, partly in memory of Sue's sister's husband Vic, who sadly passed away last night from MND, the second family member we've lost to the disease inside two years. We spent a very happy visit with them back when Vic was stationed in Celle with the B.A.O.R. The buildings reminded me of happier times...

The three buildings I bought from Warbases which will form a German farm for our SYW games have all had the basic colours applied now. I'm actually in two minds right now about whether or not I'll do any more to them. Spending two hours painting in the individual stones on the farmhouse's ground floor has rather sapped my enthusiasm. Here are the three buildings as is on the table in GHQ ~

The farm scene dressed with some appropriate figures and terrain.

Snouts in the trough, both animal and human?

I think the ladies of the farm do not exactly approve the debauchery going on there!

I think I'll go back to figures for a while now if noone minds. I've started a Warlord Games beggar from the Roman civilians set I bought on my recent Lead Belt Odyssey to ease myself back into small things and take my mind off things in the wider world.

Buildings in wargames

 I sometimes describe myself as a geriatric-in-waiting wargamer and have been knocking around in our wonderful hobby for not long shy of 50 years so it's quite possible that some of what I want to say about buildings in a wargames setting will seem strange to younger readers. A bit of context will help I trust. Back in the mists of time when I first joined Alumwell Wargames Society (1973?) most games were with 25mm figures and buildings were either simple scratch builds, Airfix railway buildings - thatched cottage, country inn, parish church mostly - or Superquick cardboard railway modellers' kits. In most games therefore buildings were representational rather than historic. Though one thing remains true down the years: if you put buildings (or woods) on a tabletop battlefield then wargamers will fill it with troops!

Things move on, they do not remain unchanging, and so firms like Hovels and Grand Manner pop up with buildings in resin, buildings which claim to be depictions of period buildings whatever your chosen period. Then comes MDF kit buildings and now the beginnings of 3D Printer files. All of these riches are available at a price to grace your games but one thing continues to irk me, and that is the vexed question of the size/scale of the buildings we deploy. My early Napoleonic games would feature the Airfix and Superquick buildings, but by the time I ventured into 15mm ACW games I was able to buy some bespoke items sold by Hovels. When I sold my 15mm armies on I kept the buildings for my growing 25mm ACW armies. To me the smaller footprint was what I wanted.

This of course leads directly to the issue of scales/sizes in wargaming. There are four distinct variables, all seemingly accepted without question despite then being mutually contradictory. They are:

Elapsed Real Time v Game Turn Duration

Unit number of figures v Historic unit numbers

Ground scale (both horizontal & vertical) v Figure/Unit scale

Building size v Ground scale.

You only need to look at pictures on this blog to see hills which are lower than buildings for example. Then there is the question of 'When is a building a building or is it representational of a complex of buildings?' - look at any farm or factory and you'll see what I mean. So wargamers will ask of course, 'How many figures can a building hold (see my early point)?' One answer might be to fix buildings onto larger bases and then the number of bases is simply those that physically fit one or more faces. This of course then portrays a single model as a complex of buildings. A simple solution but not very picturesque. Some rulesets accommodate this by restricting the number of shooting dice per face of building.

20mm Warbases German barn with 28mm Casting Rooms Miniatures French Grenadiers.

All of this has surfaced here in GHQ because, as you see just above, I've been building some Warbases' German rural buildings for my SYW games. Like the buildings from rival Charlie Foxtrot the 28mm scale/size buildings look huge to my eye. I would think they were really aimed at the Skirmish Gamer of such iterations as Sharp Practice for example. I want several building options for games but don't want the tabletop battlefield dominated by urban sprawl! My decision was to go with 20mm scale/size options and even the barn I've built and painted looks too large. It will be awhile until all four buildings are on the table in GHQ, even though they are all now built,but it is my hope that they will look more acceptable to the eye in relation to the units and terrain features than their giant brethren. 

Warbases 20mm German farmhouse.

Warbases 20mm German farm outbuilding.

Warbases 20mm German Rural houses.

Of course, this is simply a matter of my taste for the look of games and the size of tabletop battlefield here in GHQ. Over time I have tended towards putting my buildings on a base and calling everything on same as in hard cover, thus alleviating the vexed questions of both the size/number of buildings occupied and the degree of cover benefit. Where I've not done this, then some buildings are merely used for decoration/eye candy and confer no benefits beyond looking nice!

Small 25mm ACW scratch built farm buildings in situ

No doubt I have lost some to boredom by now, so I'll go back to painting the remaining buildings, leaving weathering and such until they are all done, and see what response, if any, this gets.

Die Fabrik

 The final buildings, at least for the foreseeable future, for Groß Bikelberg are the four Sarissa Precision factory/industrial buildings I bought at WMMS, back in 2018 or 2019 I think. I still have to sort out a few issues such as perimeter fencing and some suitable industrial looking detritus, but this is pretty much done otherwise so I thought I'd pop it up here in the meantime.

I might consider a bit of weathering in due course, but right now I've other more pressing concerns on the painting desk. When it's properly finished I'll post some shots of it in situ with the other buildings of the town, but for now this is it. I think if I see another 15mm MDF building I may just scream...Mind, they'd be preferable to the 144 plastic Russians staring balefully at me from atop the paint drawers!

Ticking Over Gently

 The Lead Pimple is still bare of any figures that are cleaned up and spray undercoated, a deliberate decision on my part as I'm trying to work through the accumulation of buildings and terrain bits. This last week though I did squeeze in two figures I found in one of my spares boxes ~

They are a Perry Miniatures' mounted Colonel and an Aly Morrison Sergeant Major from Foundry's War of 1812-15 range. They'll make an additional Command stand for the Anglo-Canadian army in future games. In the meantime they are the only entrants in the 'Awaiting Varnishing Pimple'!

As I mentioned previously my main painting focus, if you can call it that, has been on buildings and other terrain items. In that area over the last week I've been working on three pieces I bought from Grand Manner in their last sale: viz a roadside Icon; an old Olive Press; and lastly, a Bread Oven. They should see service in forthcoming Italian Wars and Wars of the French Revolution games here in GHQ ~

I'm pleased with the way they turned out I must admit. I painted them with Foundry paints, washing the wooden bits with Foundry's Brown Wash. The bits of basing are Country Maple from Crafter's Acrylics. Now, I'm not given to overmuch moaning, at least here on my Blog, but I do find Dave's approach to marketing his resin ranges a bit strange. I do like the things he sells, but then the insistence on usually only offering painted samples puts the already absurdly high prices totally beyond my limits! These three I purchased in his last unpainted resin pieces sale, and were therefore just this side of what I'm prepared to fork out for from my warchest. To balance this though, I will say his service and communication are first rate, the order arriving promptly and so well packed. I'd like to buy more pieces, so I suppose I must await the next sale now...we poor pensioners must count our groats after all.

Alter Martens Bauernhof

A couple of shots of my Warbases' 15mm German Rural Buildings by way of a preview. 

From left to right the buildings are the German Rural house and the two farm outbuildings. I didn't buy the fourth building, the barn, as it was too large for my taste, so I will utilise the barn I featured in an earlier post from Empires At War. I shall have a base cut to size I hope to collect at Partizan in May.

A view from the other side of the table showing the nicely cut timber frame effect for one gable end and upper storey side face of the farmhouse. Perhaps an alternative kit with timber framing for all the upper sides might provide the gamer with a second choice?

As you'd expect from Warbases these are lovely little kits which assemble very easily, although in my kits there were two minor cutting errors. I got around both with a little fix, neither of which shows in the finished buildings. I've alerted Martin to these and no doubt they will be rectified by now.

 

The Old Empty Barn...

 ...was, well, empty. I assembled and painted this 15mm MDF  Empires At War barn last month, but had to wait to get it based as I'd nothing in stock to fit! After I had finished the rebasing of all the cavalry for my Wars of the French Revolution collection this was but a gentle little warm down effort. Not much else I can say about it really ~ 

The firm's kits are new to me and are somewhat different to the ones I'm used to, but after a bit of thought and fiddle I managed without too much cursing. The outer walls are embossed board, cut to fit over an MDF shell, with the exception of the roof . I hope in due course to paint up the livestock I bought from Pendraken at Hammerhead to give some semblance of life to the farms.

My order placed at Hammerhead of three small German buildings from Warbases arrived on Saturday. A big disappointment to me as the kits seemed incomplete and one was missing, the third being a duplicate of the second. Martin got back to me straight away on Saturday, but since then, nowt... Most unlike their usual excellent customer interface. That leaves me at a bit of a loose end as I've no figures in the Lead Pimple cleaned up and prepared for painting...

Bikelheim to Groß Bikelberg

 Well, slightly inconvenienced by Eunice and Franklin, I finally managed to venture out into GHQ and try a simple table layout to see how my newly cut out Modern Roads from Geek Villain (a 6'x4' mat) might look in company with my 15mm buildings from LaserCraftArt. Here are two pictures from opposite sides of the table which I hope will give some sense of what a game might look like ~

Looking across Groß Bikelberg towards Bikelheim.

Looking from Bikelheim towards Groß Bikelberg, with a better idea of how the other buildings might be utilised. 

Of course I need to sort out trees, hedges, fences, walls and suchlike not to mention the factory complex. At least I've ordered the base from Warbases to collect at Hammerhead! I note that Warbases have announced their four German rural buildings now in 15mm, so I've asked to see those at Hammerhead too with a view to purchasing the four if they seem compatible in order to build a larger farm complex for the game. In other CWGH news Phil has painted 3 more Chieftains and 5 more BVMPs, so I should be able to finish them off and base them later in the week. He tells me more vehicles are underway, so I'll have an update no doubt from him tomorrow when we sit down to our weekly game, a VBCW outing!

Terrasse von Haus und Geschäft

 The second of the terraced buildings is completed, and with it the first phase of the 15mm terrain needed for the Cold War Gone Hot project. The piece comprises a third terraced house and an end of terrace shop. As with the first piece I've tried to vary the look of the gardens while keeping the buildings themselves consistent with the first pair. See what you think anyway ~

Front elevation: I've misplaced my German shop signs Phil downloaded for me from the Rapid Fire! website. When I remember where they are I'll fit the name sign!

The side elevation giving a view of these two gardens. I thought the German equivalent of Arkwright might save a few Phenigs by growing his own veg! My poor representation of a vegetable garden will have to suffice.

The rear elevation shows that his neighbour just has lawned the lot! Somewhere for the kinder to play perhaps? Or does he help himself to his neighbour's veg?

Finally a second view of the other side elevation. Along with the misplaced shop signage are some 1980's German advertising I found by web searches. I plan to fit one on this side wall and another on the matching pair of houses in the Gartenterrasse.

In my next post on the project I hope to show the prototype layout for the game table that I mentioned previously. Not sure when that will be, lots going on besides hobby related stuff.

Gartenterrasse

 The first of my terraced houses for the Cold War Gone Hot project in 15mm. From my go-to MDF 15mm buildings company, LaserCraftArt of course. Did German housing in towns and cities include terraces? Truthfully I neither know nor am I concerned as to the answer. They will suit my purpose just as is ~

The terraced houses (and shop) are sold individually and come in two styles. These are the plainer of the two styles of house.

These bases are also sold individually, though a simpler base for a run of three buildings is also available. I used the latter to base the German post war houses, apartments, shops and offices.

The gardens are walled and come with the dividing fence piece.

I opted for two styles of garden layout, one lawned with a simple flower bed and one half lawned with a vegetable garden. They seem to look alright to my aged eye, though the window and door frames won't thank you for close examination. I plead age, hand and eye if anyone is rude enough to mention it! On the table they look just fine!

There is a further terraced house and shop to do now and then as I said in an earlier post the first phase of buildings will be completed! I'll have a layout at that point on the table in GHQ with the modern roads so we can all get an impression of what it might look like as a game.