digging a hole

Sometimes you just need a hole to hide in. Ever since machine guns were a thing (and before, probably) infantry have dug trenches, foxholes and other earthwork defenses.

Adding the option for a few of these on the table will be very handy for many attacker-defender scenarios in Bolt Action, and likely other games.

Some armies even come with the option of always being able to deploy with trenches or other defenses. Both the Italians (which I don’t have, yet) and the German/Hungarian Budapest Pocket Defenders have this option.

I kept painting simple with a few layers of dry-brushing with a limited palette. Detail is minimal, which made painting fast and means they will work on any battlefield from the US Civil War and into the Grim Dark Future. Which is fine with me.

These models are all resin from Anyscale Models. They are worth checking out, especially for vehicles you might find hard to find elsewhere.

hobby, sure

Two weeks leave and high hopes for getting a bunch of hobby done. Yeah, sure. Nah.

I did turn these crafty ball things into hedges, so I guess that is hobby.

It was nice to be off work for a while though.

Here’s to getting some hobby done sometime soon.

build a wall between us

No, not the southern end of the USA. I’m thinking about the lovely Crowded House song that includes a line about building a wall. This week I completed one of those projects that has been in the cupboard for a long time. Which is odd, because assembling and painting these Rubicon walls was pretty quick once I started.

A brave member of the resistance moves between the two kits: city and industrial walls

Like most of Rubicon’s work they are lovely to build and look great. Perhaps a wee bit expensive to build a whole table, but I think they will do a cracking job to add some cover and line-of-sight blocking.

I don’t know about your town, but in Melbourne it is just about a law to paint ironwork green

Nearly all of my urban terrain was collected for a grim dark future. So I am (slowly) adding some buildings more suitable for a WW2 battle. These walls look central or western european to me, but bricks and ironwork are pretty universal, so think they will be fine.

I feel the green-brown wash captures that slightly moldy way concrete seems to go

I used the biggest brush I own and slapped a layer of some sort of GW camo-green on the top. I reckon they came up OK.

I can’t find my comrades because this wall is so high

These two kits both pre-date the pandemic, so they qualify for Ann’s Neglected But Not Forgotten challenge.

See you over a table sometime soon.

D.

Mad Doctor Lab

Cleaning out the shed and I found some random bits from a long gone kitchen appliance and old garden fittings. Some hot glue and cheap paint later, I have some mad doctor machines for pulp games like 7tv or Konflikt ’47.

So, some hobby got done. Huzzah!

I’ve been hiding in my bunker

Been spending a lot of time in my bunker, so I thought it was time to get some paint on it.

It’s a Warlord Games bunker, for 28mm. It was nice to pick up a brush again, even if it was the largest one I own.

I hold out some hope to get it on the table soon.

D.

Betting on hedges

I love it when a plan comes together.  I had the pleasure of attending Bolt Action Melbourne in August, and playing three fun games on three of the many fine looking tables on the day.  I rarely think to take photos on the day, I’m generally too busy generalling to remember.  Buy the terrain was great. Trust me.

This made me think that my own tables have, after years of playing little else, a very 40K look.  Great for the grim dark future but not so useful for defeating nazis. Time for some new terrain, because we always have time for a new project.

Another happy accident took me to this blog and a tutorial on how to build hedges.

My efforts are not so smick as Gimgamgoo’s but his instructions are clear and easy to follow. My observation is that orange dish scourers work surprisingly well but blue ones not so much. Pretty much green is the go, for reasons that are obvious now but not so obvious when I grabbed the packet in my local $2 shop.  I’ve seen hedges done with single fat scourers, which seems labour saving, but the shop didn’t stock any.

Anyway, craft sticks, scourers, some hot glue and cheap $2 shop paint.  I’m happy.

D.

Warhammer Terrain

While the 4Ground barn I assembled the other day is very nice, nothing says 40K at the Republic of Northcote like a painted cardboard box!

Purple, rather than black, for a bit of change

Big enough to hide behind for even relatively large models, I thought it could represent a lab or factory. It could even be a central objective.

I also took the opportunity to paint the comm towers and guns that came with the bastions I made recently. These had been sitting with undercoat and gathering dust. Now they can gather dust in their final state.

A few bits and pieces like this scattered around, and on, the lab makes it look like it is open for business.

D.

Something worth fighting for

I’m very impressed just at this moment.  I spent the afternoon assembling the rather fine barn from the 4Ground Terrain La Haye Sainte series.  This kit is amazing and came to me courtesy of the fine folk from War and Peace Games who were one of the sponsors at the Opening Skirmish tournament.

This is straight from the box as it were, already painted, ready to go pre-cut mdf!

The assembly was straight forward given the amount of detail and number of parts; it made me feel like a pro. I was a bit daunted on opening the box, but the instructions are (mostly) clear and the engineering is rather clever so only the most dedicated klutzes will assemble parts in the wrong order. Except maybe the roof trusses, but by then you’ve had a bit of practice so all should be well.

Both roof sections come off so the fight can continue inside where the detail is just as impressive as the outside.

It will make a fine centre piece for a european themed table and will likely appear in other theatres (at least in the near term) just because I like the look of it.
cheers,
D.

The Two Towers

I enjoy planet strike. It is guaranteed carnage which is no bad thing in the Grim Dark Future(tm). One of the aspects I like about planet strike is that there is a clear attacker and defender. This makes sense to me. The days of arranging to meet in a field and bash the crap out of each other like civilized people are long gone, and most modern situations involve a clear attacker and defender even if this may change during the course of an engagement (allowing for counter attacks, etc.)

To have a decent planet strike board doesn’t take a lot of terrain, but you do need some decent fortifications. My collection only had a single bastion, which I painted to be consistent with my Word Bearers.

One bastion just isn’t enough so I was pleased to obtain two more at second hand Sunday at Arcanacon. Like most projects they sat in the cupboard until inspiration struck.

The last couple of weekends have seen a construction frenzy. One I did with a chaos vibe – skulls are so 39th millenium!

 

The skulls are resin; I picked them up at the same time as the bastions, so I’m not sure of the manufacturer. I removed the more obvious imperial eagles and the skulls were a simple additon that give the tower a slightly different look that I’m happy with.

The other is slightly more generic so will work for Imperial or Chaos and is inspired by the jazz camoflage that the British navy experimented with in the first world war. With a bit of added bling I think it came out OK.

So that is a total of three towers
But hey,Lord of the Rings has at least three towers in it too!