A couple of things I've been working on...

So things are starting to settle down and weather is slowly warming up.  This has meant I've finally been able to set up my 3D Printer for the first time in almost 2 years.  Turns out the hardest thing was deciding what to make to test out the printer.  I was wondering whether it was still working after all that time, inaction, storage and a sea voyage.  I choose to reprint a couple of Canadian Lynx's, as I need 4 for my new recon project.  Here they are:

Very happy with how these turned out.  I just need to replace the barrel of the .50 Cal to something a little more in scale and they will be ready for stowage.  I might also drill out the rear hatch on the one with the open cupola, so I can show it crewed there as well.  I also have to find some .30 Cals I bought for this purpose ages ago, so they are properly armed.

Next up is this Faller farm/house set I built back in Australia.  I'm pretty sure it has appeared in some of my AARs as well:

I really love this set, but I always felt like it was incomplete.  So I decided to build a walled garden for the back of the house:

It's not painted yet, and I had originally planned on using pantiles to match the walls at the front.  Unfortunately, my Wills pantiles were massive compared to those used in the model, so I decided the farm owners had chosen a cheaper option for the walls at the rear of the house.  Primarily made of foam board, some thin plastic sheeting of bricks, spakfilla and breakfast cereal box cardboard of the tiles on the top of the wall.  Even unpainted, I'm pretty happy with how this has all worked out.

That's it for now

Richard

New Faller VDV Objective - Part 1

Another Part 1...


Just a quick update this morning.  Back in August (here) I showed off an International Hobby Corp small airfield terminal - which when built was drastically underscale and much more useful in 15mm than it could be in 20mm.  Fortunately it only cost $15 so I was happy to give it away to a mate who is collecting a lot of 15mm Cold War kit.


So I remained on the look out for a better scale (at least a larger) airfield set up.  Eventually I stumbled across the Faller 130580 Premium Model or  Sport Airfield - on ebay.  It was pretty expensive - just outside what I would consider a reasonable purchase.


Then the other day I discovered that my local hobby store (not game store) was having a little pre-Christmas sale and all Faller stuff was 20% off.  And it just so happened that they had 2 of these sets.  So for a somewhat more decent price, I picked up one.


And here it is on my office floor:

It comes with a large control tower, a hangar, a diecast Cessna, a truck towing a folded up glider, a couple of other gliders, all the crap in the hangar, cyclone fencing, bins, pallets - all sorts of good stuff.


It's pretty big - so it may take a while to clear some space on my work bench - before it takes a while for me to make it!


I hope to show you more pics soon.


Thanks


Richard

Scenes from the Cold War - The Village

A while back I completed a fair amount of terrain peices for our campaign weekend.  Unfortunately, in the long run not all of it was really needed on the day - so only a few bits and peices made it onto the second table.

So I decided to spend a bit of time laying out a sample village table to get an idea of what I still needed to do to fill a decent sized table, and more importantly, to make it look realistic.  Here's what I came up with starting with a table walk-around...

Obviously if you start throwing terrain down on a table top you also have to throw down a few figures and vehicles for a bit of perspective!  So I decided to add some West German and US vehicles, plus for West German police and US infantry to the scene.

Just a bit of fooling around to be honest - but now I know I need to do some front & backyards, driveways, garages etc - all to help with getting the right look.

As always - loads to do.

Richard

More Campaign Prep

Well the campaign games are going to happen this weekend - so over the last week or so I've been building and painting things for the games.

I've also been mildly chastised for not posting up more content - so here goes with a few more things to keep you going (Andy!)

These are a some Faller buildings I've been collecting and recently built for the game (and all other games set in Germany in the 1980s - although some will also do fine for WWII).  They are pre-coloured and so far, apart from the church, I have done nothing to them.  Once I have more time I'll put some thought into weathering them a bit.

When the AARs come up (next week) hopefully you'll see all these in a better setting...

Anyway - First up is a large Farm complex:

Now the church:

I repainted the tower roof and the stone pavement stones (which you can't see in the photos...) and also added grass.  One of the things I love about this kit was it comes with 2 optional tower toppers (technical term).

Needs to be painted... and...

Kind of cool eh.

Next up a couple of duplex homes:

Now a home with a garage:

And finally a couple of standard suburban homes:

Slightly dodgy construction there - didn't take enough care leaning the peice against the house for the photo...

One more farm to build - but it won't make it to the game on the weekend sadly - ran out of time...

So - on with the show

Have fun

Richard

AVLB Bridge Ramps

In the recent AAR I knew I was going to use my MTU-55 AVLB bridge as one of the major objectives.  Now the S&S MTU-55 model comes with 2 bridges - the folded bridge to be carried by the tank:

and the folded out bride - ready to cross a small river or obstacle:

As you can see in the above photo, the bridge sits nice and flat (as it should).  However, this is a little problem as my rivers (from Battlefront) also sit flat on the table:

So I needed some simple ramp to allow the bridge to cross the river, without resting on the river sides or leaving one side of the bridge up in the air.

The solution was pretty simple and obvious - small ramps to raise the bridge:

And here in action prior to the game:

And in game:

So very happy with that and worth a post!

Thanks

Richard

Scenes from the Cold War - Harrier Hide

I've been meaning to try and do this for years, after I wrote the Harrier Hunt mission for the Force on Force sourcebook - Cold War Gone Hot.  Right now the Guild is finishing a Terrain build so I thought this was a good excuse as any to finish off these things.  Obviously I need a lot more trees to make the table a bit more decent.

First few shots - trying to show all the hides/shelters as they might be on a table (just imagine a lot more trees!):

Now some close ups to get a better idea of how a sample one might look in context:

 

So that's it.  Another finished project.  Really?  Is any thing really ever finished?  Good questions... I'll go ponder that for a while.

The weekends AAR coming soon.

Thanks and take care

Richard

What the.....? Part 3 - An attempt at a Work-In-Progress

Quick update as I managed to progress things a bit more today - so just some quick photos.

The hangar/shelters have dried and today had some tea leaves and chopped up coriander (dried) leaves added.  Here they are drying in the sun:

On a roll I added the grass to the bases:

Next up is painting the shelters and adding the final touches to the bases.

That's all for now

Richard