Tuesday 16 May 2017

Update, schmupdate

As everyone else is doing this, I thought I might as well get in on the act.

Priorities at present are sorting out the base boards for winter warfare.  I have luckily fallen upon the ideal material (interlocking flooring material)at the ideal price (free).  The Karate School around the corner was moving out on Saturday and I noticed a stack of these (1m2) outside his unit.

A quick conversation and a handshake later, 20 of these bad boys were mine. They are around 2cm thick and so have a degree of solidity.

The only problem is cutting them into 2' x 3' sections as this creates a lot of wastage - but as you can see there is the possibility of joining two offcuts together to form another base board.


These are then 'painted' with Artex (or at least a lower cost version of Artex).  This not only seals the board but also provides a ready made texture.  Rather than covering in PVA and putting talus over the top, for the winter environment (i.e. snow) it just requires stippling with a sponge to create a texture.  When dry, just a couple of coats of white emulsion creates a very nice snowy effect (clearly not the original pinky tones above!).

Four boards have been completed, leaving just 16 to knock out.  The production line is set up though - cut 4 boards, Artex 4 boards, cut 4 more boards, paint first 4 boards, artex 2nd 4 boards, cut next 4 boards, paint second 4 boards...you get the idea.

Once painted white, a quick dusting with grey primer just breaks up the monotony and gives a bit of depth.  Then I need to knock out some hills using the same format as above so they should fit seamlessly into the base board.  Winter trees are already done although given the scale of the operational game I was fortunate to have bought another 200 trees last year which will be converted into winter trees.  The roads I'm now doing in thin strips of grey felt with a dusting of white and the bases for the trees will be patches of white felt which actually work really well as they cling onto the base boards and so don't shift.

 All Russian and German units are now ready (I'm toying with the idea of doing a limited number of German Eastern Front allies - Romanian, Italian, Hungarian - using German equipment where appropriate) to add some more dimensions to the period.  I have added a couple of bits to the Russian forces - including mainly AA quads in trucks and some SPG's.

I also (on Sunday) bought two rolls of material which are great for fields.  I got about 10 meters all told so enough to create tons of different fields.  Maybe not to the quality of the felt fields Russ has got but with a bit of flocking etc. you never know....


On the near horizon is finishing off the Austro-Hungarian army (mainly artillery and cavalry to do) - together with a couple of funky colour scheme aircraft from their German friends.

And then wrapping up the Renaissance Spanish (mainly just producing some tercios for the 'back end' of the renaissance period) as its time they got onto the table with their hidey / shooty / stabby tactics of the early reniassance followed by their shooty / pikey tactics of later renaissance.

I will then look at doing an American WW2 winter based army at some stage...



5 comments:

mark said...

looking forward to winter war

Broeders said...

Not if you're Germans. Variable movement, air cover not guaranteed, +1 on orders, -1 on shooty. All power to the Soviet War Machine with its +1 on movement rolls, brave airmen who are prepared to fly in any conditions....The gameski is up for you, fascist pigs!

Broeders said...

Actually we decided not to penalise the Germans for shooting (I checked the blog post again) so ignore shooty comment (although happy to revisit this one - all reports of war in the Russian winter suggested that German guns seized due to the grease they used freezing while Russian guns were fine - your views welcome). Remember that wooded areas are no-go zones for wheeled vehicles in winter (off-road variable movement plus trees = forget it!) so only defensive artillery can be employed in wooded areas. Attacking artillery is going to be in the open and probably on the flat (hills without roads can become virtually impassable for wheeled vehicles as 50% of variable movement rolled can mean trucks could be down to 2" a turn). Roads become vital for 'rapid' movement in winter conditions - not ideal for broad front attacks as trucks pretty much must use the roads to move and tracked vehicles can get bogged down (remember Russ' Tigers didn't get into the battle at all). Variable weather rolls can mean no air cover for either side (although the Russian doctrine will mean it more likely that Russian aircraft will take the risk) and spotting becomes much harder in fog / heavy snow showers. Its all going to be very different....

Ian said...

Don't forget that if you got the flooring from Karate Club you will need to clean it; wax on, wax off!

Broeders said...

:) Terrible!