Adventures on the Wargames Table

I thought I'd posted this a while back, but clearly not, lol! Anyway, minefields were a popular feature of the desert war so I've chopped up a piece of MDF, probably from an old chest of drawers!  I should point out that Charlie Foxtrot does a lovely minefield set too. I began by chamfering the edges of the MDF squares (6" x 6") then glued on some posts to which I would later be attaching some barbed wire. The posts are simply bits of matchstick.  For variety I've modelled some in a collapsed state.  Also, I've used a counter-sink to make the holes for a couple of craters.  The edges will be raised using some putty or filler. However, I forgot to pre-stress the MDF to avoid 'curling' when the sand is applied... So I raided my bookcase!  Each piece has a matchstick under the middle to help bend the edges.  Leave for 48 hours. I added some rocks along with a few items from my bits box. The discs (to represent the actual mines) were m...

I wanted to add a few more scenic items to my tabletop so I had a look at the very reasonably priced  Hovels range of accessories.  I’ve already got a few things from this range so I knew they were good... so I thought I’d do a mini product review.  First is the European Haystack. Raw resin & nicely painted version (not by me 😉) I’m not 100% sure if haystacks actually looked like this in Normandy ‘44 but it does look good on the table.  They’ll also be handy for the Eastern Front.  NB - if you have a PhD in European Haystacks then feel free to not email me. Next are some crates and sacks along with a wooden water trough and pump.  The resin has very few bubbles or imperfections, plus will need very little trimming or cleaning. Finally, barrels of fruit (potatoes for Ostfront!) and heaps of grain sacks Customer service is great too.

I’ve been investing a little time in sprucing up some of my scenery items and I felt it was high time that my chateau got a new paint job!  I never particularly liked the original finish on it (NB – it wasn’t painted by me, lol!) as it was (a) quite untidy in places, and (b) the colours were too ‘pink’ and didn’t really go well together, especially when placed in the grounds I’d built for it. The original looked like this The original chateau (not painted by me) Yeah, it’s “o-k-a-y” but it sort of looks a bit like custard, which is a trifle annoying 🙄  Anyway... I think it could be improved quite a bit. The first step was to re-paint the ground floor brickwork to actually look like bricks.  A solid base coat of Foundry Conker shade was a good start, then I picked out a few bricks in darker brown tones and one or two in a much lighter red (go steady with these tho!).  Next, I applied a wash of GW Agrax Earthshade to pick out the brick edges.  Then I...