Some Warlords, a Medic and a Shaman

Over the last couple of days, I have painted up some figures for Sharp Practice and SAGA. They look quite good on the tabletop, but the close-ups are a little rough. They have yet to be varnished which does smooth things out a bit.

A Bronze Age Miniature female Viking who will be Freydís Eriksdóttir, a Hero of the Viking Age in my SAGA Adventures. She costs one point and is good at getting her followers to extend themselves. 

Skraeling Chief from Footsore Miniatures, very close in style to the original Gripping Beast figures

A Medic for Sharp Practice from Westfalia Miniatures

A Skraeling Female Shaman (that should be obvious) from Paizo Pathfinder Fantasy line

Tarting up some Roads

Slowly working through a backlog of terrain projects. I bought some flexible roads from Novus Design about 6 months ago, they are prepainted but really in the most rudimentary fashion. I have planned to dry brush them to improve their look and finally got to it today. Took less then an hour and i used juste 3 colours.

As you can see from the top piece the only prep done by the company was to paint some free patches  and to put a dark wash around the stones. My first step was to dry brush the whole piece Mocha trying to avoid the green patches only.

The next step was to dry brush the green with a very bright yellow and the stones with a unbleached titanium

This is about half of what I did in an hour

Some closeups

I think they came out OK and are a definite improvement. I could have gone with a dark and light grey on the larger stones and may do so some day but they are good for now. I have maybe 20ft of road that is good for my usual 6x4 tabletop. I have seen a lot of roads and have bought a few these are the best I have come across so far.

Winter is Coming.............Finally

I know, very trite. But it is coming, and it is my favourite time of year. I got these models painted by Gunner in the spring of 2015 but have just got around to basing them recently. There is not much doubt that they are the highlight of my WWII collection. They are from the superb TQD line of CP Models. They are just brilliant.

When I got these painted I envisioned them as opponents for my Soviets in some Stalingrad gaming. Since then I have decided that they would also be handy for some late war winter wargaming, aka Battle of the Bulge. All I need now is to get some Americans painted, unfortunately there are a not a lot of models of winter uniformed GI's miniatures out there in 1/72. But I am looking.

Overview

1942 Panzergrenadier Organization: 1 SL and 3 LMG teams, each with a JL, two 2 man LMG teams, one with 3 riflemen and 1 with 2 riflemen. Regular Force Rating +1.

Senior Leader with MP40

Two man LMG team

Rifleman with K98

Armed with MP 40's and StG 44's

Pak 40 for the Ardennes

Pak 38 for Stalingrad

Tripod mounted MMG Team

8cm Mortar with FO

Sniper Team

Panzerschreck Teams

Pioneers, a pioneer squad would be made up of 6 men and a JL

Flamethrower Team

Panzerjäger Team

I was also able to juggle the figures to come up with 2 different Volksgrenadier squads for Chain of Command. This was the typical German organization for the Ardennes offensive post November 1944. Each Volksgrenadier company was made up of 2 Assault platoons and 1 Rifle platoon.

1944 Volksgrenadier Assault Platoon, made up of a 4 man HQ team with 2 assault squads armed with MP40 and StG44 and LMG Squad. The HQ team has an Senior Leader and 3 riflemen armed with grenade launchers. The assault squads have a JL and 7 men with MP40's or StG44's. Thus armed, a regular squad would be +1 force rating (I have substituted 6 riflemen in because of lack of correct figures and this would be a 0 Force rating in CoC). The LMG squad has two  MG 42 LMG's as well as a JL and 3 men armed with machine pistols or assault rifles. Each squad has 2 panzerfausts.

1944 Volksgrenadier Rifle Platoon. Like the Assault Platoon there is a 4 man HQ team with a SL and 3 riflemen.  Each of the 3 squads has a MG42 LMG, 4 riflemen, 1 man armed with a MP40 and 2 panzerfausts. This platoon if regular would be rated as -1 for CoC.

Plast Craft Games WWII Buildings Modification

One of the great challenges of WWII skirmish wargaming is the number of buildings one needs. Many of the scenarios we have played have required up to 15-20 buildings. I started with the plastic Italeri which are quite nice but are a little big and also there are only 3-4 different models. I next went to 4-Ground MDF WWII buildings again quite nice and are almost as big as Italeri but again they really have only have one set in 1/72. They are also quite expensive. Both these manufacturers' building are more rural then urban. So the search was on for some inexpensive town buildings I could use. There are some resin buildings out there but they are a bit expensive and a lot of them do not have removable roofs.

A couple of years ago I came across some PVC buildings from Plast Craft Games in their EWAR line. These are very inexpensive 15/20mm buildings that come flat packed and unlike MDF have some degree of relief. They are about €10 each and take about an hour to assemble using superglue. You then paint them and they look pretty good but I found the paint rubbed off easily and they were a little  flimsy.

I had painted up 3 of them and had 4 left to assemble and paint and I decided to take a slightly different approach. My aim was to make them a little more sturdy and varied. Also as you can see there were little strips that had to be used on the corners that I found a bit of a pain. I felt the best approach was to apply a textured paint and/or filler. I experimented a bit and the result was certainly I believe an improvement but it did take a bit of experimentation to get it right. Here is the last building I put together.

A lot of pieces but once you put a couple together you can get through the assembly within an hour. I have never bothered with the windows. I like having the rifles sticking out.

The dormer roof is a little tricky

Floor and slide in roof to the right

I used wood filler, I find this much more sturdy then drywall compound

The chimney assembly illustrated the gaps that exist in the model.

Once the wood filler was applied it was painted white again and then the sand was sprinkled on the wet paint

Once dry painted white a second time.

Roof painted and then varnished with Army Painter then matt varnish. This was the best approach as you can see below. 

There was mis-steps along the way though as you can see below. I am a pretty rough modeler, a lot of the dry brushing is quite rough and at times over-applied. I certainly could have done a better job keeping the sand off the doors and scrapped out the openings a little better. But pristine looking building never have sat well with me, the buildings are in a battle zone, they should look a little tired and rough. So I am good with it.

All slightly different

This was my first approach, sand mixed with paint, as you can see it clumped and the walls ended up a little too textured.

This worked better, paint then when still wet sprinkle on fine sand, then when dry paint again with white. 

Some clumping around doors but came out OK

I am quite happy with the result as you can see they are very useful for skirmish wargaming as troops can be easily place inside. The building are certainly now much more durable.

This building actually has a ground 1st and second level

Roof removed as well as ground floor

Interestingly enough they now seem to have the same buildings that are pre-coloured, I will have to order some more.