[15mm IABSM]¶
North of Caen¶

The British are ready based. Had I paid more attention to the pictures of the Bren pack composition, I would have noticed that you only get three Brens per pack, the rest being ammo carriers/loaders... Therefore I am now some Brens short and have to many rifle men... this are the empty washers in the picture. Measures have already been taken to remedy this situation.


[15mm IABSM]¶
South of Cherbourgh¶

I painted the base of the German models in the basic brown colour I use on all my models. Usually I paint the base last, but I often smear paint on the boots of the minis, so I thought I would try out the reverse way; first paint the base, then carefully paint the boots. You can also see the models here on the mdf board covered with magnetic basing material which the washers adhere to. This board will then be glued into a cut down copy paper card box like the rest of my miniatures are stored in.

The models' unifroms were then drybrushed. Considering the fact that German uniform manufacturing was suffering more and more from shortages which resulted in quite different batches of uniforms towards the end of the war both in cloth and colour, I tried to replicate this with my models. I used three different colour mixes for drybrushing:

  1. 1/2 Vallejo 70.830 German Fieldgrey WWII + 1/2 Vallejo 70.885 Pastel Green
  2. 2/5 Vallejo 70.830 German Fieldgrey WWII + 2/5 Vallejo 70.920 German Uniform + 1/5 Vallejo 70.815 Basic Skintone
  3. 1/2 Vallejo 70.830 German Fieldgrey WWII + 1/2 Vallejo 70.919 Iraqui Sand

Well, I could have saved the effort. While the colours looked different in my painting pallette, the models in the end look all the same, especially when seen from a tabletop distance. Can you spot any differences?

I probably should have used different base colours with the same drybrush instead of the other way round.

Next, I started to work on the models wearing Zeltbahnen, so far only the base colour (Vallejo 70.885 Pastel Green) has been applied. I hope I will get the camouflage scheme to look right...


[15mm IABSM]¶
South of Cherbourgh¶

I started with the Splinter pattern, by painting brown continuous shapes with as much edges as opposed to rounded with Vallejo 70.846 Managing.


[6mm]¶
A gaming board in a weekend¶

I painted these models quite some time ago, but so far never used them in a game.

Now a new colleague who learnt about my hobby asked for a game during lunch break, so I thought again of these small models, which would need a smaller game board.

Only problem: I neither have a board nor any terrain...

The above models I painted according to the scenario description of Ork Hill. So it will be this scenario I have time to build terrain for this weekend... You grow with your challenges...

Here you can see my interpretation of the terrain description from the scenario:

So I need two hills, four buildings and the board. The woods will be brown felt areas with aquarium plants I already have (probably too large, but ready) and for the river/marsh I will use blue felt. So I hope the building and painting can be accomplished this weekend.

First, the board. It is 50751.2cm MDF. It got coated with PVA and sprinkled with bird cage sand. I then painted it in orange brown.

The buildings I designed on the computer, printed them and glued the prints to corrugated card board. I the cut the windows before cutting the walls. For gluing, I used Lego blocks to get nice 90° corners. There is a floor, inner walls that close the windows from the inside and serve as pillars for the roof and finally the roof. As I don't like 'unlogical' terrain, I needed an access to the roof. So I cut squares from card board, cut away the edges and glued them onto the roof as hatches. When dry, I covered the buildings in ready made wall spackle.


[6mm]¶
A gaming board in a weekend¶

The board received a wash of dark brown, then green in patches.

The hill the Marines need to defend is occupied by 4 buildings the Squats need to blow up. I placed them in a way, that the engineers can move from building to building by using two actions, so one whole turn. They can also chance however, making a combat move (rolling 2D4) and hope to cover the distance in one action, leaving them one action to start preparing the charges.

The hills all consist of three layers of cork floor tiles glued together. I then used pliers to break of the edges, thus creating a rough and uneven cliff face.

Finally, the hills got some areas coverd in sand as well. On the large hill, the sand forms right angles around at least one corner of each building, so that I know exactly where to place them for each game.


[6mm]¶
A gaming board in a weekend¶

The buildings were base coated in grey, then the lower half was sprayed white in preparation of the yellow coat that followed. After the yellow was dry, I placed a 1mm tape strip around the building, and then sprayed a dark brown coat over it. This was then covered by a 2mm tape strip, placed (theoretically) centrally on the 1mm strip. Then the building was sprayed in a sand colour, and received two drybrushs.

Then it was time to remove the tape strips... drumroll...

Well, the two buildings on the left turned out as intended, with the two buildings on the left I did not place the strips correctly... :-(

The board was drybrushed in the base colour, then in sand and finally in white.

The hills were painted in anthracite grey, then drybrushed in a brown grey and finally in white. The sand areas were painted the same way as the board.


[6mm]¶
A gaming board in a weekend¶

I cut the felt and placed it on the board together with the other pieces. The island in the river was cut out of a whim.

I still need to add some static grass and paint the windows, doors and hatches of the buildings.

The smaller hill is too big, it does not allow the Orks to advance on the Imperial position from behind it too much - and over it puts them in the line of fire. I think I will cut it in half, allowing more manoevering space behind it.

I am also not sure yet if I will leave the river with the island... at the moment, having to cross two arms is slowing them Orks down further... Either I will cut the left one away or I need to paint more items on the Orks red... because Woz red wunz go fasta!


[6mm]¶
A gaming board in a weekend¶

The buildings were finished by painting the windows Extra Dark Green and the doors and hatches in German Grey.

The smaller hill I cut into two:

I also removed one arm from the river:

To finish the hills, I added static grass:

It is now 11:43 pm and the board is ready for gaming (well, except the varnish drying on the hills and buildings):

Mission accomplished :-)

One gaming board done in one weekend, and that although we played BattleTech yesterday and had visitors with us today.


[15mm IABSM]¶
South of Cherbourgh¶

After some while another update. It is not that I did not continue on the models, it is just the fact, that with the Wehrmacht models every piece of equipment has another color... which is time consuming.

Here you can see the finished Zeltbahnen.

For all the leather straps and pouches, I first tried a dark grey (model on the right), but this is hardly discernible this close, there is no difference to the uniform from further away. So I went with black (left model).

This is the current status of all models: bread bag, canteen, gas mask/blanket canister, Zeltbahn, grenades, spades and mess kit painted, including all the straps. The wooden part of the Stielhandgranaten and spades are still missing.


[15mm IABSM]¶
South of Cherbourgh¶

I painted the boots and the gaiters on all the models. For the boots I went roughly 50/50 with 70.994 Dark Grey and 70.879 Green Brown. The gaiters were also Field Grey according to the Osprey book I use as a reference, but that was not really visible on the models, so I went for 70.821 German Camo Beige.