[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¶

The Wehrmacht troops were first given a basecoat with Vallejo Primer Black Acrylic-Polyurethane, then given a spray from ~40°+ with Valejo German Fieldgrey WWII. The angle also created the first shading, by leavig the downward areas black.


[Airbrush]¶
Figure holder device¶

When airbrushing (especially base coating) my models, this is usually done in two steps.

  1. Take the miniature by the base and airbrush from the waist to the head. Let dry.
  2. Take the miniature by the head and airbrush from the waist down to the base.

So I need to touch every mini twice, and my hand usually is also black (or grey, or whatever) afterwards.

With my current 15mm WWII project, I have quite a lot of miniatures to base coat, so I thought of a better solution. Here is my clever contraption:

I bought a square wooden rod, some screws, and two metallic plates (whatever the technical term might be) as well as a couple of different sized magnets. I cut the rod to have 14cm either side of the 14cm wide plate, rounded the edges outside the width of the plate first with a rasp, then with two different grains of sanding paper, and screwed the plate in place.

Now I can place magnets on the plate fitting the size of washer a miniature is based on, grip the device on the sides and spray the miniatures without getting paint on my hands. I can also turn the miniature every which way to reach every undercut with the airbrush.


[15mm IABSM]¶
North of Caen¶

When I placed my order for South of Cherbourg, I also had a look at the Peter Pig buildings, but decided to first look around, as there must be a lot of suppliers for those. After some googleing, I didn't find many I liked, so another order with Peter Pig was needed. Along with the buildings, I also gave their hedges, low walls and hay stacks a go.

To enliven my terrain I added some sheep, pigs and dead cows - well, the latter ones don't actually enliven the terrain... Also, some street signs, furniture, petrol station pieces and an urinal was added to the order.

The models I ordered before (US Army and Wehrmacht) are for the second scenario from the rulebook. So I thought, the Lardies certainly had their reason for putting scenario one first... and I would not need anymore Germans, all covered already by the second scenario. Just some British soldiers...

Again, only one week from ordering to delivery, great service!


[15mm IABSM]¶
South of Cherbourgh¶

All the single based Americans are ready based, the other models glued for painting.


[15mm IABSM]¶
South of Cherbourgh¶

I added plaster to all the bases to hide the cast on bases of the models.

I then started to remove the flash on the Americans, and noticed the quite long machine gunners. Fitting them to the washer size I put the Wehrmacht support teams on, they were to long. So I needed bigger ones.

On these, the lying models fit. Bigger diameter on a washer also means bigger height, they are 2-3 times as thick as the washers the other models are based on. When the bases are painted and have static grass added, this is hopefully not optically disturbing.

As I want all my support teams on the same size of base across the nations (makes it visually more pleasing in my mind, and helps in quickly identifying the type of model during a game), the German teams needed to be re-based. Good that I thought of that before applying the plaster... But plaster and PVA glue are easily removed with a knife from the metal washers.

The bigger washer size also allows me to put all the five crew models on the same base. This is more consistent concerning casualty removal as well. With the smaller size base I would have had two models on the base and three on individual bases; the first three casualties would have been removed with the single based models, the second to last with a marker on the base... With all models on the base, all casualties are shown with a marker on the base. For this I plan to put a frame on the base, where a micro dice fits in. Also, all models on one base is visually more pleasing and allows me to create small mini dioramas. Need some ammo crates...

While reading more of the rules in detail, I read the section on Big Men again. Then I wondered, how to mark the individual Big Men on the table, and how to easily distinguish the Levels during a game. So far I also just based the models individually on the same size of washer as all the common men. Could be difficult to spot during game play... So I removed some more models from their plastered bases (really should have thought of that before), now the plan is to base each Big Man with an additional number of men to get a number of models equal to his Level on a larger sized washer. The larger sized washer makes them more easily discriminable from the ordinary troopers, the number of models shows the Level quite easily. The following pictures show a Big Men with the maximum Level of IV the rules allow, a bit cramped but still works. As most Big Men are Level II or III the space is more than enough.

To distinguish the different Big Men and to allocate them to a distinct card in the Game Deck, I will glue small stones to the bases and paint on them a letter which can be seen from the rear (so normally for the owning player) and make cards which say "Allied Big Man A".

Here is the whole Kampfgruppe grouped by squad, the models in the upper right are spares. The Big Men models (I am short some, need to order some more riflemen after having decided to have the Level represented by the number of models on the base) and the support teams (again, I need some more models to get all the crews up to five) are glued to the wood strips for ease of painting, five models on base around a mortar would have made some areas on the models unreachable with a brush. The pile of plaster in the front is from the bases where I dismounted the gun crews and Big Men models.

Ready to be rinsed in warm soapy water and then base coated.


[Warfork 40.000 - Rogue Rules]¶
Imperial Flush Space Marines¶

After quite some time I finished the second fire team. With this group of models I made up my mind of where to put the blue/white checker pattern I planned from the start.

I updated the first fire team accordingly. I also removed the fire team marking on the helmets, which absolutely did not look good. Need to think of something else...


[15mm IABSM]¶
South of Cherbourgh¶

All the Wehrmacht models are freed of flash and glued to their bases. For the bases I used washers; on one side for the extra heft, on the other to allow magnetic storing. All models are based individually, with the exception of the radio operators that come cast as pairs, and with the exceptions of the mortars and tripod mounted MG 42s, which are based as two man teams on a larger washer. The rest of the crews is singly based to be placed alongside.


[15mm]¶
Corporate Marines¶

The landing gear is done, extended to allow ground contact even with a passenger cabin attached. In the pictures you can see the Green Stuff I used to fix the wood sticks in place and give a base on which I added Miliput after it dried to sculpted the final form. Still needs sanding.

This project is now on hold until I finished the design of the cabin and have it 3d printed.


[15mm IABSM]¶
South of Cherbourgh¶

Having seen a WWII movie recently, my interest in that period got revitalized - what a surprise... shouldn't watch any movie that gives you wargaming ideas...

After watching the movie I browsed the web a bit, you know just for fun, not looking for any specific stuff I might buy... seriously. I came across a very positive review of I Ain't Been Shot Mum version 3, and thought (after verifying what was said there with other online reviews), well, just buying a PDF rule book is not bad, one can never have enough rules... What I read I liked... And Scenario number two (South of Cherbourgh) didn't need much figures also... Peter Pig has nice ones I always wanted to have, right? Oh look, it isn't even that expensive all in all... I ordered last Monday, and yesterday the parcel arrived - great service!

As this is just meant as a small side project, I am sure it will not take long to complete... you know...