Terrain Progress

American Engineer Platoon (4) painted, based, need id - bocage in background

Great progress in the last few days. The captions speak for themselves. Getting closer to being able to set up the table again...probably Friday night... I think, must check calendar.

Made bocage because I already had the hot glue gun heated up for my attempt at the smoke. I'm sure there will be a need for it in the future.

Smoke, bocage truck and engineers

Bocage: hot glued Woodland Scenics clump foliage to small popsicle sticks. Follow up with 50/50 or so glue/water mixture spread over them and sprinkle some woodland scenics flocking. Will paint the bases brown and maybe glue some sand to them.

Smoke: hot glue cotton balls, after a gentle shredding/tearing apart. Then sprayed them with matt rust-o-leum black paint - spray - very light dusting - that stuff comes out quick.

Engineers near new smoke and fire

The paper terrain is great, however, I'm having a tough time fiddling with the tiny folds and gluing them together. The buildings are tough, but the gun pits - crazy. I want more buildings for the con game coming up in November in St Louis. I probably won't mess with any more of the earthworks for now. I cut the ones you see out of the blue home siding insulation, painted brown, and flocked. More detail work is needed, but it'll do pig...it'll do.

Bridges are JR Miniatures. The gray ones are fine. The brown one is not so fine, but again, will do.

Sorry about the pics, iPhone 3G. I want to get these taken and posted quickly. So, the compromise is made. I took some test photos with coworkers iphone 4S. Wow! close ups will be great.

Bridges near complete

First attempt at trench and gun pits next to paper terrain

Progress - terrain and models

Just a small update on progress. Last weekend was crazy and nothing happened on the con game. This weekend has been more productive on this front.

I updated the task list page reflecting the progress made - feeling ok. The pic is of the forest floors I made, following loosely the ideas shared on WWPD.net

Actually, I just went back to get the link and a photo from his page (see left - his wife demonstrating the great forest). I really followed it extremely close. I was going from memory. The biggest differences on mine: I kept the edges brown for an easy border. In truth, the grass should've been on the edge and thinned out in the middle as real woods do. In addition, I used matte spray from Hobby Lobby to seal it and not hair spray.  Thank you Steve and Lydia for the helpful tutorial.

I also matte coated the armies and forests. However, I couldn't do the hills or railroad embankment becuase the matte spray went straight to the stryrofoam and began eating it away. I knew it would do this, which is why I painted the hills and embankments. However, I must not have put enough because it started eating away at the foam.

Another major thing completed, the German units and their unit designations. Photos and post forthcoming.

Good idea and a Good Plan

Found this reference on the Tiny Terrain blog about painting a bridge, just what I need. As I have 4 bridges to paint. He says to use the following:

Heavy Drybrush GW Khenri Brown,
Heavy Drybrush Codex Grey
Vallejo US Field Drab stone detail
Vallejo Khaki stone detail
Drybrush GW Kommando Khaki

While I don't have the GWs I do have some of the other Vallejos and should be able to give this a shot.

Thank you to Tiny Terrain for the idea.

Now, the good plan part: I've heard of modellers using recipe cards to write down the colors and combos so they don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. But I've struggled a bit to do this. Frankly, I don't know what I would do with the cards, etc. I know it's not a big deal.

But I like the plan of typing it up on your blog, putting the right tags and then you can just search them and find them. And, others in the community benefit from it.

So, again, thank you Tiny Terrain for the new plan.

109 based stands

109 stands based tonight. Oh yeah, painted the flesh on 40+ infantry stands. All that in 2.5 hours. Man, it's late.  Paint, label, and matte varnish and I'm complete with those.

Next, I'm just going to make a couple touch up US stands and that will be done. The biggest chunk of these had been started and I just wanted to get them off the table. Though I may use some of them for the upcoming Con game.

Which appears to be all I'm doing for the hobby - which is true.

My biggest goal out of all this: come away with 3-4 potential regular players. I'm tempted to buy a few of the rule books so that people can get them right away, if they're interested. Sometimes finding rule books can be a challenge and the easier it is to get, the more likely someone will get into it.

I'm also considering putting together a 750 point each army battle on Sunday as a demo game. Easy terrain, hodge podge army. Another chance to rope people in. I was thinking of a FWC battle, but that would be a lot more work. Maybe a samurai game using some rule set and paper...too much to learn by then.

Any ideas?

Markers complete

Markers finished and think they look decent. Not a huge fan of markers but I think they're ok, especially for a learning con game. Oh yeah, YEA!!! ON 50 posts!

Nordwind Minis Progress

Was unable to do any work this weekend, so now, I'm having to work like crazy during the week.
Tonight:
Painted camo on Panther Company
and depleted assault gun battalion (5 hetzers, 2 stugs, and 2 Jagdpanthers)
Also painted olive drab shirts on Engineer Battalion (such thing?)
and volksgrenadier/late war Battalion
and 6 gun crew
and 3 spare HQs
and 2 stands of PanzerShreks
3 stands of COs (one engineer, one panzer faust, and one generic)
3 stands of observers
3 HMGs
4 L/MMGs

Also painted tracks on 76mm Sherman company.

The details on this set of tanks is incredible.

Will also update my spreadsheet.

Blitzkrieg Commander II Playaid and Markers

The markers didn't take too long, but the play-aid took some time working out. However, I'm open to suggestions and can provide the excel files if you want them.

I just needed a few little hints for the games, especially for the upcoming con game.

Let me know if these help and what could be changed.



Markers for Blitzkrieg Commander II or BKCII
and
Play-Aid for Blitzkrieg Commander II or BKCII