More Afrika Korps Pzkpfw. IIIs and a Matte Varnish Comparo Test!

I painted a bunch more Batttlefront Pzkpfw. IIIs in a variety of configurations for my upcoming Birthday Game, and thought I would spice things up a bit with a comparison test of matte varnish spray.

This is obviously an important issue for those of us who game with our models, as the paintwork needs to be protected from damage while in use. I know that the best way to do this is to varnish first with tougher gloss finish, then hit with matte, but I am lazy and hate wasting time so the models usually get only a matte varnish. HOWEVER when applying decals I usually hit the spots with brush-on gloss before applying the decal to improve adhesion and avoid silvering.

Since I have five pretty much identical models in this post I varnished each one with a different product. You can read about the results below. Test conditions were 20C, moderate humidity, two coats sprayed in my basement.

Testors Dullcote

What can you say about Testors Dullcote. After a brief and inexplicable market absence the champ is back and he's got no worries. The smell is the smell of victory (it IS pretty pungent) but Dullcote is the best, albeit getting on the expensive side...

 

You can see here how it did on the decal, it looks great (that was high gloss finish there before the spray). It took two coats to really eliminate that gloss but the model is uniformly flat.

Krylon UV-Resistant Matt 

Krylon Matte (or as we used to call it, "Fini-Matt") has a new UV-resistant formula which seemed unnecessary but whatever. What I can tell you is that it isn't as flat as the old one, which was great. But maybe I will have egg on my face when all my models have crumbled into dust from UV exposure. Oh wait, most of them are in cupboards or cases in a windowless room in the basement. So never mind.

Pretty good but not dead-flat. You can see the slight gloss on the storage bin behind the turret.

Mr Hobby Matt Water-Based Topcoat

This was kind of the impetus for the post - I saw a guy on Facebook Marketplace selling a can of this stuff for $10 and thought I'd give it a try. Apparently it's popular in the "gunpla" community (that refers to GUNdam PLAstic models, not something sexual) and the seller's models looked good in photos.

"I've used Testors Dullcote and you, sir, are no Testors Dullcote." Having said that it's not bad, a bit more on the satin side than dead flat but worth a try in a pinch.

Winsor & Newton

I tried the W&N product in a fit of desperation when neither Dullcote nor Krylon Clear Matte was available. It's all right but not great, still leaves a pretty satin finish. It's also pretty pungent.

Citadel Colours Purity Seal

OK I guess I have to cut this can a bit of a break because it's likely 20 years old... but I tried it anyway. And it's terrible. Pretty glossy finish and I wouldn't recommend it, even if you could find 20-year-old Purity Seal.

You'll notice one glaring omission in the test, and that's Army Painter Matt "Anti-Shine". Well I have a can of that at home and I recall it being not-great, but I wanted to retry it. When I popped the top the trigger button wasn't there. I guess it must have gotten clogged or something but that put Army Painter out of the test, sorry.

The contenders on test

I really like spray varnish. It's a time saver and if it's Testors Dullcote, it works great. I have a couple bottles of brush on matte varnish I've used, but only occasionally, as I find it a pain. I just ordered two more cans of Dullcote from a vendor here in Canada so hopefully the Dullcote pipeline will stay open in future. 

And since it was new Afrika Korps tanks in the test... Heia Safari!

Renedra Wattle & Daub Outbuilding

I was down in the States recently and stopped in at an excellent tabletop gaming store - Little Big Wars in Fargo, ND. Among other things acquired there was this impulse terrain purchase - a "Wattle & Daub Outbuilding" from Renedra.

The model consists of very few parts (walls, two roof sides, roof centre) and was pretty inexpensive (like less than $8USD). It assembled "OK" but really needed a base to be stable, which I supplied myself from plasticard. This enabled me to make the roof removable.

Easy paintjob for sure, a combo of Rakarth Flesh and Pallid Witch Flesh with Agrax wash, and Zandri Dust for the thatched roof. You can see my only beef with the model clearly in the photo above - it's that the centre part of the roof is a bit too long. Anyway, for the money it's fine.

Here's a Crusader Miniatures Norman to show the scale of the building. It'll be fine, it's an outbuilding after all, not somebody's house.

Team Yankee 15mm Leopard 2s and BTR-60s + Vallejo Vehicle Paint

One of the things that the pandemic has been good for is ordering stuff over the Internet. What can be hit-and-miss though is the fulfillment of those orders. Back in April I thought to take advantage of some free shipping from Battlefront and ordered some GF9 terrain. I figured I'd add a couple Team Yankee tank sprues just for fun, so I threw in these two Leopard 2s. Well... suffice to say that my order finally arrived in July after having to cancel the first order and re-order the stuff... I guess I should also add that the complete order hasn't even yet arrived, since the two aircraft flight stands I added on were on backorder. I guess it doesn't matter much because there's no sign yet of the two 1/144 SU-25 Frogfoot model kits I ordered off eBay at the start of July... typical.

 

Anyway, the models finally arrived and have duly been built and painted in the same fashion as my other Bundeswehr Leo 2s.

The TY sprues don't come with decals, of course, but I had plenty of Iron Crosses and tactical numbers left over from prior projects. I just had to freehand a license plate for each of the vehicles.

The BTR-60 company came from a local brick and mortar store, so no worries at all about shipping or postage. Super-fast to paint these using the magic spraypaint (Krylon Camouflage Olive) - supposedly it's still in production but I haven't been able to find it anywhere. This lot of five vehicles emptied my last can :-(

 

Anyway, another thing I really like about the Battlefront Team Yankee vehicles is that they come with crew figures as well (are you listening, 1/72 aircraft makers???) I just love the cool character that a crew figure adds to the vehicle.

Cool looking crew eh!

Of course, one good use for these BTR-60s will be to transport the heavy weapons platoon of the Motor Rifle Regiment!

Just such cool little models. All injection-molded plastic and a snap to assemble, while retaining good detail.

I also have to give a shout-out to Vallejo for this paint set, which was a very generous gift from Conscript Perry (thanks Perry!)

I used the Panzer Colours "Dark Rubber" on the tires of the BTR-60s and it really worked a treat - I love the effect. It'll certyainly be my go-to paint for vehicle tires and likely also for Bundeswehr "teerschwartz" (tar black) as used in their three-colour camo pattern.

Anyway, that's it for now... until we can (finally) get gaming together again, stay healthy everyone!
 

MDF Power Stations from Sarissa and Wargame-Model-Mods

You know how it's so easy to let hobby projects languish when something new and shiny comes along? Well, I'm here to tell you that sometimes it comes back around... when it turns out that new and shiny thing is actually related to an old hobby project, and this creates some incentive to drag out the old project and finish it off!

In this case, Conscript Mike had given me an MDF building he'd acquired that was surplus to his requirements. This is the "Blasted Power Station" from Wargame-Model-Mods (sic). It was a pretty straightforward model to assemble and covers a reasonably large area of table. Unfortunately, though, the roof is not removable so that limits playability in a wargame.

As the "new shiny" I referred to earlier was my current obsession with Judge Dredd and Warlord's eponymous wargame, I'll be putting on a Dredd game this week, and wanted to get this model cranked out, so I put the world's fastest paintjob on this one over the weekend.

After assembly, I sprayed the model with flat black primer, then followed this with a mist of grey primer. Normally my next step would be to Nuln Oil the sh!t out of it, but unfortunately the magic Oil just beaded up and rolled off the primer like water off a duck's back! So I had to do the weathering old-school with drybrushed craft black and sponge chipping.

It turned out "OK" but not amazing, and I might do some further work in putting some graffitti on the walss - that might look cool, and the Dredd game came with a sheet of decals for that purpose. One thing I really liked, though, was that the roof vents and radiator stack are separate, so they can be positioned in different spots on the roof, or left off altogether.

The Blasted Power Station retails for 14.99GBP.

OVERALL RATING: 7.5/10

Along with the Dredd order, I picked up the "Factory Power Room" from Sarissa Precision. I also put it together last weekend and slapped on a pretty basic paintjob, ready for this week's game.

The latticed windows and detailed door are "greyboard" attached to the back of the wall. The models I've used for scale are from Wargames Foundry's "Street Violence" range - SVO14 Mercenary Fire Team. The roof is removable, giving some playability to the interior of the building, which I like. However the tolerances are so fine with the way the roof goes on, the MDF is easily broken... which I did.

The model went up very easily and in only a few pieces, which is great. Again I did a pretty basic paintjob which I'll likely revisit... that ladder is looking particularly clean and that should be addressed.

The model will pretty much work in any setting from WW1 to sci-fi - I just love the flexibility. As noted, the roof attachment is a bit fragile and might have been designed a bit better. It was super-easy to assemble, although a narrow file is a useful tool to have on hand. I reckon I'll go over the railings in dark grey and weather up the ladder a bit as well, and that should do it.

The Factory Power Room retails for 12.50GBP.

OVERALL RATING: 8.5/10

Star Wars Battle (System Sci-Fi Terrain) Report

So, last Thursday I hosted an evening of our old favourite brain-free skirmish game, Star Wars Miniatures. I love SWM because the system is simple, we love the setting, I have tons of figures for it, and I have a handy scenario book that I grabbed up when I saw a second-hand copy (it's now long out of print).
 

The other reason to roll out this game was that a Kickstarter I'd backed in 2016 finally arrived - this was the Battle Systems Sci-Fi II project.

I put together a bunch of the card scatter terrain and some of the walls, and set up a scenario from the Ultimate Missions: Rebel Storm book - Escape from Hoth.

In this mission, the Rebels have two squads of soldiers and Leia, Han, Chewie and 3PO. They must escape the Echo Base command centre and get to the Millennium Falcon before they are "defeated" by the Imperials - two large squads of snowtroopers led by General Veers. The Imperials get 2-4 snowtroopers as reinforcements every turn, as well.

Here's one Rebel squad in position. Leia can be seen in the command centre at top. We used the game mat supplied in the Kickstarter for Echo Base, it seemed to work well. The mat is a high-quality piece made out of a thin mouse-mat type material.

Here come the snowtroopers! The Echo Base walls are all card, held together with plastic connectors. The walls all go together fine but do take time to assemble. The buttresses just hang off the walls and are a nice touch.

One room in the floorplan is a medical centre. The chairs, consoles and beds are all card from the Kickstarter as well.

In the scenario, Leia starts off placed in the central command room, with Han and Chewie in the medbay. Leia may not leave the command room until Han is placed next to her - she's too worried about the troop evacuation to be concerned with her own safety. In the pics above and below she's just been convinced by Han to beat it and is headed for the ship.

Rebel soldiers desperately hold back the Imperials as Han blasts a snowtrooper.

Han was reduced to only 10 hit points by the time he decided to flee. Fortunately Chewie could absorb some damage from the approaching snowtroopers. The rules have an interesting mechanic where most models may only shoot at a model in cover if there isn't a closer target in the open. The Rebel players used this to advantage by moving Han and Chewie together - being screened by another model counts as "cover" so they had to shoot at Chewie instead of Han.

Blood bath in Echo Base as the Imperials flood in. Where's Lord Vader when you need him?!?

Leia and 3PO make it aboard the Falcon...

...with Han and Chewie right behind.

It was quite a fun game, with the result coming down to the wire. Han and Leia were quite seriously wounded with both being only one hit away from "defeat" - however the Rebels pulled it off and the heroes escaped to continue the Rebellion another day.

No word on what happened to the Rebel soldiers who were left defending Echo Base!

Some final thoughts on the Battle Systems terrain - I really like it. There's a ton of scatter terrain to put together but there are lots of videos on how to do this - thankfully (it's not exactly intuitive in some cases). The stuff seems well designed and fits together well, mostly. As far as the walls, they're awesome and it's not up to me to try and design some games that utilize the "third dimension" of multi-storey structures that this set encourages. Looking forward to more games with the tiles, I could really see having some great games of 30K or Necromunda with them.