Adventures on the Wargames Table

Now that I have some reasonable desert scenery I can make my "photo shoots" look a little more authentic!  Here's another squad ready to throw Monty's men out of North Africa. That's ten veterans to beef up my basic platoon (or should I say "Zug") of regulars.  I've a second squad well under way too. I've included just the one MG34 (that will please Dave and Mike) but I have given them a few extra MP40s.  I'm intending to use them as a kind of "fire brigade" ... screaming across the desert in their Opel Blitz trucks to bring maximum firepower right in to the Allied lines!  Well, that's the theory anyhow! :-D

Every battlefield needs a bit of interesting scatter terrain so, inspired by George's (of Musings on Wargames and Life fame) recent work, I've made some signs for the desert.  Couldn't resist jazzing up the bases with some items from the bits box.  Need to get some written in German too! But it's no use having terrain if I ain't got a battlefield to put it on is it?...  So I had a rummage in the garage and turned up a pot of sandy coloured textured masonry paint (used to paint a shed years back!).  I decided to paint one side of my pair of 3 foot by 4 foot boards. The result is fairly good I think, especially as it effectively cost almost nothing!  I also have some cheap tester pots of lighter sandy cream colours that I'll use to sponge on some highlights later. What's a desert without a few dunes eh?  These are a set of very reasonably priced vac-formed moulded plastic 'hills' from Kallistra.  A couple of coats of the masonry paint is a...

In between troops for the squads I've slopped a bit of paint on to these chaps -- a Forward Observer team and a Sniper team. Need to find where I put the fine guitar string so that I can add an aerial.  The 'rocks' for the sniper are simply bits of blue styrofoam with some filler for texture. All painted and based using the same recipes as described for my earlier DAK.

The new Bolt Action Western Desert book has a splendid additional squad selection for the DAK, i.e. Schutzen, and these fine fellows get an option for a second MG34 plus the first one is a freebie.  Orange Dave was delighted when he read this so naturally I've decided to add a bit more firepower to my squads and (now I've had a chance to skim through the book) have a bit of a re-organisation at the same time.  Here they are! All painted and based using the same recipes as described for my earlier DAK.  I'm looking to field 3 squads of schutzen with 2 LMGs each.  In attack or defence, the extra punch of the second LMG will be very handy! I really do need to sort out a nicer photo shoot scene! :-D I've a few more veterans on the go plus I may top up my regular squads to full strength (i.e. 10 men) then I can move on to supports such as the 81mm mortar and perhaps a light howitzer, then it'll be the vehicles: trucks and AFVs.  So it's all coming a...

I'm a big fan of 'atmospheric' scatter terrain.  It's perfect for setting the theme of the battlefield, be it World War 2, Peninsular or Dark Ages.  So, for our ongoing WW2 Western Desert project I've knocked up some fuel and ammo/supply caches. The oil drums and fuel cans are mostly 1/48th Tamiya with a few 1/56th resin items I picked up at Bovington earlier this year. They're painted VMC Russian Green, washed with Agrax then given a quick highlight of the base colour. The crates and barrels are mostly resin items that I've had for quite a while, so probably a mix of manufacturers.  Certainly some Coritani/Magnetic Displays, perhaps some Hovels too?  Plenty of companies are knocking this sort of stuff out now - my current fave is Debris of War .  They are painted in a range of light to mid browns, washed, then highlighted with the base plus one or two suitable lighter colours, e.g. VMC Dark Sand and Foundry Boneyard Light.

This post is all about the splendid work of good chum Orange Dave. As you know we're on the cusp of launching our North Africa campaign so as well as busily adding new figures we've also been hard at it making some suitable terrain.  Dave chose to make some rather nice adobe style buildings to complement a 4Ground kit he already had. The main construction is pretty much all balsa - and possibly a few coffee stirring sticks too?  Since the outer will be covered in a layer of plaster any 'wood' texture will be disguised.  In the pics below you can see the texture has been applied and then the models were given a dusting of a suitable base colour, ready for painting. And here they are ready for the table...  Bloomin' marvellous I reckon! It's not just buildings... Dave's knocked up these lovely market stalls too. Looking forward to getting all these on the table for our first game!

Good mate Dave at The Miniature Company has just released the first pics of some forthcoming figures for his Dark Ages Welsh range.  I think they're so good that I just had to do a little blog article on them. They're 28mm - obviously there'll be shields and spears too.  I've no idea if Dave will be selling these items with the figures although I guess at least the shields will be included. I think these are so characterful and full of detail that will be a joy to paint.  Just look at the faces and that splendidly hirsute moustache!  Really looking forward to seeing this range expand.  Oh and please do check TMC out on Facebook and perhaps like his page :o)