Kristoff Designs Airfield Set

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I was pootering about on EBay the other day when I came across a WW2 pre-painted Wargame Airfield Scenery terrain set from Kristoff Designs.

I have several scenarios involving airfields that I play, and this looked like a good opportunity to get some specific terrain to use for them…and at only £20 for the lot seemed like a good bargain as well.

The pack arrived quickly, so I set to work and began the build, starting with the hanger building with the big sliding doors.

There are instructions for this build, and the hanger went together easily once I’d worked out that the black side of the internal struts faces into the hanger rather than outwards (it would have been useful to have that fact noted on the instructions). Even the roof went on well: the curve is fairly slight, so it’s easy to get the heavy paper/light card provided to sit on the joists, if that’s the right term to use. The sliding doors do indeed slide: well, one of mine does. The other lurches about a bit but can be positioned so it looks okay once the model is on the tabletop.

Actually, my only criticism of this building is its size. It’s supposed to be a hanger of some kind, but the only thing that would fit into it is a very small plane indeed. I’m actually wondering whether the set is designed for the mini-FOW planes (an abomination in my opinion: 15mm planes should be 15mm not 1/144 or whatever) but, as you can see from the photo below, not even my humble i-16 can get through the doors and there’s no chance for the Stuka!

The four Nissan huts were next. I love the front and the backs of these: the little green shutters and doors and plank effects work really well. My only problem was the fact that I couldn’t get the roofs to fit properly. Now I’m sure this is down to my lack of modelling skill, but I’m not really happy with the job I did on any of the four: the RSM would have the lot torn down and start again! Note also that these Nissan huts come without any instructions, which I am sure is fine for the intuitive modeller, but wasn’t for me!

Even worse, the Control Tower also comes with no instructions, or at least the set I had didn’t have any. This is actually a great little model, but it was quite challenging to put together without a step-by-step guide.

The outside staircase is a particular case in point: I wouldn’t risk climbing up the one I built! If you are building one of these, then the stairs themselves are pretty tough to do: I did mine by gluing the frame together then poking the steps through the bannisters and twisting them into position: very fiddly and not much fun! The illustration also shows doors: I think I’m supposed to build some out of the bits that punch out of the door spaces, but that seems very hard to do!

The two radar towers also require intuition to put together but, fortunately, aren’t very difficult to do. The runways are useful as well, but are very narrow: see my comments above about the hanger building.

Overall, I am pleased that I have these kits, but proper instructions would have made building them easier, and although they are very good value at only £20, I would have preferred to have paid a bit more and got a proper sized hanger. As it is, it is more of a tall storage shed!

All the kit together does, however, look suitably like some run down airfield in the desert or Malaya or the like, so will suit what I want it for. Not “recommended” but more of a “not bad for what you pay for it” rating.

Just A Quick Eastern Church...Promise!

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Not one I built, but another for the collection.

This church comes from E-Bay seller babyphez and is described as a “Fully Painted 15mm East European style Wooden Church for Napoleonics - WW1/WW2” and will cost you about £30 once P&P is added.

It arrived in five parts which glue together easily if you prefer your buildings as one solid object and does “exactly what it says on the tin”. I’ve actually painted the two mini cupolas with bronze paint but otherwise needed to do nothing in order to pop it onto the tabletop.

It’s an unusual shape, so makes a change from all the other 15mm eastern-style churches I have. I rather like it, so it gets a “recommended” from me.

Eastern Orthodox Church Update

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Whilst finishing off eastern orthodox church number twelve, I was again pondering why I was collecting them, so I thought I’d better look back over the many After Action Reports posted on this site and see how many of them had actually seen the tabletop.

An interesting exercise:

All I’ve done is find one picture of the church in question in action, so some of the above that have seen action have seen action multiple times. And two of the above are so new that I haven’t had a chance to get them into action yet.

So, in summary, five out of the twelve haven’t yet seen the tabletop, and I’m now wondering how that compares to my collection in general.

And how does it compare to yours?

How many units or terrain pieces have you spent your precious money, time and effort getting ready for battle only to see them languishing gathering dust somewhere in your storage area? My churches are a bit of an extreme, niche example, but I’ve got quite a few WW2 AFV platoons (especially tank hunters) that have never seen the tabletop…

Yet Another 15mm Eastern Orthodox Church

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Last week I posted that I had bought another two 15mm eastern orthodox churches, and here’s the first of them, from E-Bay seller WarFayre.

This is a lovely model, and well worth the £19.95 I paid for it.

It’s 3D printed in hard plastic, so surprisingly light for a model this size. It actually comes in three pieces (one per floor) but I glued it all together before painting…but you could use it as an open-up building if you wanted too: the interior would hold quite a few figures!

I painted it in two short sessions: three colours of Contrast paint for the main body, then the dome, doors and windows in acrylics. Note that I used GoreGrunter Fur for the main body and trim: I like the warm look you get if you use that colour for wood. The rooves are all in Wyldwood.

Those of you who have been keeping count will know that this is eastern orthodox church number twelve for me: here’s the full gallery so that you can see how this one scales.

One more to go!

Another Eastern Orthodox Church?

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It’s happened: I’ve finally cracked!

There am I saving up to buy Museum Miniatures’ excellent, CAD-designed Z Range 15mm Normans when I come across another 15mm Orthodox church.

Borodino Church from Monday Knight Productions

Now for those of you who have not been keeping up with the story so far, I seem to have developed an unhealthy obsession with making sure I have every 15mm Orthodox church available, Most people might have one, or possibly two: I now have eleven!

What could I possibly need with eleven 15mm Orthodox churches? Even I do not know the answer to this. Worse, I have another two on order!

This latest one is from Monday Knight Productions as part of their Borodino range of 15mm scenery. Excellent service from them sorted any potential problems with the fact that they are in the States. The church has actually been sitting on my painting table since the beginning of the year, and it was really the purchase of the other two that spurred me to complete it.

Here’s the full gallery of churches so far in size order, smallest to largest:

A Quick Three Huts

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A recent purchase left me in possession of three resin huts from the Wargamer Company, so I thought I’d better get some paint on them before they even got to the lead mountain.

These are painted with Contrast paints…and here I’ll tell you a little secret to getting the thatch and wood looking like it does: paint them upside down. No, not standing on your head, but paint the thatch upside down so that a down stroke takes the paint towards the top of the roof. It doesn’t change much, but it just makes sure that the paint runs into all the horizontal crevices without you having to go back and check them all again.

The Aggaros Dunes colour I used for the thatch is too light, I know, but provides a contrast with the Wyldwood used for the walls. The walls of the hut in the middle I did by stippling i.e. getting some Bleached Bone on an old brush and just jabbing it up and down. You can’t really see it in the pic, above, but it works really well at giving an uneven finish.

New East European Village Set

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I was browsing EBay the other day when I came across a listing for a 15mm east European village set in MDF that I hadn’t seen before. Four houses, some carts and some fencing for only £32.99 including free delivery.

This seemed like good value, and one can always do with a few more village huts, so I ordered a set…which duly arrived within the allotted time.

As with many shiny things, the kits immediately jumped to the front of the painting queue and, within a day, I had built them all:

The buildings went together very easily, even for someone as cack-handed as I am. Only the dascha shown in the first picture, above, caused me any trouble, and I managed to break the chimney meant for the second house as I wasn’t careful enough when extracting the individual parts from the sprue (so my fault is what I mean!). Better modellers than I (i.e. most of you) will have no problems.

The carts were a surprise: six of the them were in my pack. Really good battlefield scatter, and I found that the best way to build them was to do all six at a time, waiting for the PVA glue to dry at each stage before continuing. Don’t try fitting the wheels until the axle is firmly glued in place: you’ll just collapse the whole thing in your hand and have to start again! The fencing was easily put together, and looks reasonable sturdy in terms of how it will sit on the tabletop.

So all in all I’m very happy with the set and would highly recommend a look if you’re interested. With the sad news that 4Ground (where most of my existing huts originate) are closing their doors, these people could be a partial replacement.

You can find the set here.

Druids...and did anyone order a Chinese?

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I’ve been playing quite a lot of To The Strongest over Zoom lately, using my new-ish Marian Romans against the Celts. One thing my opponent likes fielding that I had never done are the Druids available as an army standard equivalent.

We’ve been using memory or a marker of some kind to represent said religious types, but I think it’s always better to get the proper figures onto the table so have been looking out from some suitable minis.

Something else led me to the Stonewall Figures website and their range of Ancients figures by Capitan. These include Gauls, and a quick browse revealed some rather nice Druids which I purchased immediately. Only a couple of days later these popped through the letterbox and were immediately accelerated to the front of the painting queue:

The rather fanciful obelisk is home made: some modelling clay stolen from Daughter #2 and roughly shaped into a monolithic shape. I then added some very rough horizontal-type ogham-style writing with a sharp edge. The obelisk was painted in GW Contrast Basilicum Grey with some green mossy details added. It still didn’t look quite right, so I very crudely filled the ogham writing with some acrylic dark gold paint, wiping off any excess.

I quite like the result, although it is a very large obelisk…which means that at least I shouldn’t forget to apply the re-play attack card bonus on the tabletop!

Anyway, the figures are lovely and highly recommended. The whole Capitan range is worth a look: they are quite large 15mm figures, but very nicely sculpted.

A Chinese Anyone?

Whilst waiting for the clay to set, my eye happened to fall onto a pack of MDF buildings sent to me as samples by Frank, the chap who runs MiniWarfare out of China. These were forming a small hillock on the edge of the lead mountain, so I thought I’d excavate and build them.

Regular readers will know that MiniWarfare produce some spectacularly good far eastern buildings for Burma/Malaya/Vietnam etc:

The burlap in the windows and door is mine.

The samples that Frank sent me were of Chinese buildings: two identical houses and a restaurant.

It’s the photography that’s crooked, not the models!

As with the Vietnamese huts, these kits are hyper-easy to build - much easier than 4Ground or Sarissa - and are therefore highly recommended for that reason alone.

Unlike normal, I decided to paint them using GW Contrast paints. The roofs on the houses are actually much darker than they appear in the pic above (obelisk coloured to be exact!) and please forgive the slightly brash colouring on the restaurant!

And now for the bad news: the MiniWar website is currently under construction, so you can’t buy anything at the moment. I do hope Frank hasn’t gone out of business due to COVID, so please join me in checking back every now and then.

I really must get my far eastern huts back on the tabletop soon: time for some Liongate or Bloody Burma!

Filling the Gaps

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Whilst it’s nice to have a project to work on, it’s also nice to paint a whole load of itty-bitty things just to fill the gaps in a collection, or to take advantage of a new release…and that’s what this post covers.

First up, we have yet another Russian Orthodox church. Yes, after my last post, someone (kindly!) pointed out that I didn’t have the Hovels version in my collection. One quick order later, a couple of weeks wait and, low and behold, here’s my tenth Russian Orthodox church, and very nice it is too.

So now I’m fairly confidently stating that I have every single 15mm Russian Orthodox church available but, on the off-chance you know of any others, do feel free to let me know.

Oh, the others I have can be found here.

Next up is another command stand for my ECW armies. These chaps are from Matchlock Miniatures, available via the Caliver Books-run Minifigs website. I was ordering some of their 15mm ECW personalities for my Rabble bases (preaching puritan, ratcatcher, lady with long gun etc) when I suddenly remembered that I was short a Colonel command stand. These are two of their Generals, and very nice figures they are too, and perfectly compatible with my existing Peter Pig, Hallmark and Khurasan troops.

Although it’s quite hard to see in the picture, the chap behind (with the hat) is actually holding a dog! Anyway, highly recommended as a source of character figures if nothing else.

Finally in today’s random selection of bits and bobs from the painting table are more Ursids from Khurasan. For those of you unfamiliar with the range, these are giant 15mm sci-fi bears, seven feet tall, wearing sunglasses, smoking cigars and armed with bear-portable fusion guns or BPFGs!

The original release was four different infantry types, but now Jon has added a Big Man equivalent and an “Ur-Cannon” weapons team to the range. Loving these bears, and added to Stan Johansen’s Blareds (smaller bears) they make a great fun sci-fi force. My painting doesn’t really do these justice!

So all in all a bit of fun from the painting table. Next up are some more Romans and some Druid types to work their opponents up into a frenzy!

A Glut of Eastern Churches Redux

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Added to the collection today!

Added to the collection today!

This is a reprise or updated version of a post from January 2019, in celebration of the latest additions to my collection of eastern European churches…

It’s one thing to collect figures - you need all sorts of different sorts to represent different armies, units etc - but to collect models of eastern European churches as well?

That’s what I seem to gave done over the last few years, in that I seem incapable of not buying any model that could vaguely be described as a “religious building, eastern”!

I once joked that I would like to have enough churches to have a different one for each of the maps in my Bashnya of Bust! scenario pack for I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum! That would take seven, eight or nine, dependent on whether you assumed one of the buildings in some of the smaller villages were houses of worship or not. Whichever it is, I seem to have achieved if not exceeded my target. Below is a gallery (in ascending order of size) of my church collection so far:

I’m pretty sure I don’t actually need any more eastern churches now, but if anyone should know of any others that are available…just add their details as a Comment and you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be spending my bottom dollar on another house of God!

Boontown Delivers!

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I mentioned in my last post that as we are all facing another lockdown month without wargaming, I had consoled myself by buying a new 15mm army to paint along with a general re-stocking of materials. I made purchases from about eight different manufacturers/suppliers in all, and thought it would be interesting to see who’s package arrived first.

Well the clear winner is Boon Town Metals: basing materials ordered Sunday afternoon, box arrived today, Wednesday morning.

20201104_171440.jpg

Boon Town Metals offer a range of 15mm sci-fi figures (I have their sci-fi Dwarf Clansmen) and a range of basing materials, including the “tufts” you can see above, which I what I had ordered.

The tufts are excellent quality, and there is currently free delivery available as well. I have, by the way, found the best way to use them is combined with flock i.e. to cover the area to be flocked with glue, then put your tufts down on top of the glue, then put your flock on. That stops accidentally gluing flock onto the tufts.

Anyhow, visit the site: a wide selection of good quality basing materials is on offer.

More Romans

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Just a couple of pieces today. First up is the Legatus Legionis or commander of the Legion: just a simple command base for my TTS Marian Romans. Figures are Baueda 15mm sourced from Magister Militum.

What is slightly odd is that with the Baueda Marian Roman cohort command, the chap holding the standard (the Aquilifer) is dressed in a lion skin and the signaller (the cornicen) is wearing a wolf skin, whereas here, for the legion command, it’s the other way around.

Next up is a Baueda Semi-Permanent Legionary Marching Fort that I will use as a TTS camp. Now this model was quite complicated to put together well, and I have a horrible feeling that the Primus Pilus would take one look and order the thing taken down and put up again.

The gates are particularly wonky, mainly because after I’d built it I realised that I had stuck the gates on upside down! This gave me a huge gap at the bottom of the gates (plenty of room for a barbarian to crawl through) which I then had to fill with Hama Beads!

But it is a lovely model, and I’m going to get the somewhat smaller Marching Camp as well.

New Daily Deals from Battlefront and a Grave Situation!

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I lied: I did look. All the above for £259: 31% off and free shipping.

In between painting up newly bought figures, I am trying to take advantage of the lockdown (and resultant lack of time spent commuting) by eating into the lead mountain.

Getting through it completely is, of course, a ridiculous idea: particularly with the current Battlefront Daily Deals promotion.

Every day Battlefront are putting a selection of different units at 40% off and free shipping for a 24 hour period only. Yesterday was Day One, and I picked up a company of T-62 tanks for £36; nothing I fancied today, however, but I can foresee a lot of expenditure over the coming weeks!

They are also discounting a lot of their pre-painted Battlefield in a Box buildings, but I haven’t dared look at the offers there yet!

Anyhow, more tanks and buildings aside, one thing that has been sitting on the painting table for ages is a 15mm walled graveyard that I built out of things from the bits box and a gravestone set.

I’m actually rather pleased with it, even if the walls and gates have little gaps in between each section!

Everything is painted with GW Contrast paints: a dark grey for the walls and main cenotaph, a lighter grey for most of the gravestones themselves, Snakebite Leather for the newly-turned piles of earth, and a darker brown for the shed and gates. Here’s a shot with, randomly, some archers standing inside.

A Bit of Painting & Building

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Here’s everyone busy playing IABSM left right and centre, and all I can find the time for is to paint and build a little bit of terrain!

As regular visitors will know, I’m currently putting together English Civil War forces to use with For King & Parliament. I’ve already finished enough standard troops to play one side of the sample scenario in the rulebook, the Battle of Montgomery, but hadn’t had the chance to complete any command figures. Until now, that is, so here is the first command stand: Colonel-level, so two figures.

These are 15mm Essex figures. I’m using Peter Pig for the troops, Essex for the command stands, and mostly GW Contrast paints to, er, paint them with.

Nice figures, although I couldn’t quite work out what the thing the Colonel himself was wearing on his chest. I’ve painted it as a sort of yellow/gold braid effect on top of a red waistcoat, but now I note that the painted version on the Essex site has it as a sort of chainmail vest. No matter: at three foot away, what’s the difference!

I also needed some buildings to represent a village in the second scenario I want to play, so found these rather spectacular “Timber-Framed Houses” from 4ground Publishing.

These come in the usual flat-pack format, but are relatively easy to build: I did all four in a single evening. They are also very tolerant of idiots: you can’t see it, but I completely mucked up one build and, as I idiotically use Superglue when putting things like this together, trying to fix any mistakes can be…testing, shall we say. Despite my cackhandedness, I think you have to agree how good they look, and that’s straight from the packet: I’m sure that better modellers than I can customize them to look even better.

Anyway, that’s four lovely houses done and dusted. Price for all four was £47 plus postage: which I think is a fair price considering I now have all the buildings I need for a 2-4 square FK&P town.

Here’s a close-up of one of the timber-framed cottages:

New 15mm Middle-East MDF Building Range

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If you’ve visited this site before, you’ll know I’m quite a fan of Frank Wang’s mdf buildings, made and shipped from China via www.miniwarfare.com.

Frank has now expanded the range into the middle-east, and is running a 25% off sale to kick start the new releases.

They look pretty good to me:

The houses are $4-$7, dependent on size. The mosque is $21, with the minaret tower $5. Postage is a flat $15.

I’ll definitely be getting some of these to add to my collection.

40% off Sale from Mini Warfare

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Some of you may remember that back in April I mentioned a company called Mini Warfare, based in China, who do some great 15mm mdf Vietnam style huts. The post was at:

https://www.vislardica.com/blog/2019/4/9/15mm-bamboo-houses-from-miniwarfare

Good news for all: as Frank is busy preparing to launch his new range, he’s running a 40%-off clearance sale on his old range. Well worth taking advantage if you need some far eastern huts.

Website is here: Mini Warfare

Kudos to 4D Model Shop!

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Regular visitors will know of my woes in trying to find some Citadel or GF9 Grass flock: a right pain in the posterior as I have models to base!

I suddenly thought of widening my search to the general modelling retail community and came across the 4D ModelShop.

Rather impressively, they have the url modelshop.co.uk, so must have got into this Internet thing pretty early on.

They have flock for sale: lots of flock, and some of it grass. They have lots of other things for sale as well, as you can see by their home page, promise that items ordered by 2pm will be posted that day:

Well I did, and I did, and they did, and, for once, the Royal mail did their bit, and lo and behold, the very next day I had a packet of Grass flock in my hands. I was happy as Larry!

So kudos to 4D Model Shop from a very satisfied customer!

Like Magic: Citadel Contrast Paints

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I might be a bit late coming to this, but these new Contrast paints from Citadel are absolutely fantastic!

For those of you who haven’t heard of them before (especially those who would normally eschew anything to do with Games Workshop), let me explain why.

Imagine you are painting a hundred 15mm figures who are largely one colour: skeletons, naked warbands, chaps in khaki, robots. Once prepped for painting (including undercoat), my usual method would be to paint in a base colour, wash with Agrax Earthshade, then highlight once, maybe twice. That’s three or four stages.

These new Citadel paints allow you to do those three or four stages in just one go.

Yes: just one go.

It’s like magic…like one of those cartoons where the paint brush paints in multiple colours at the same time.

Let me give you an example, and one involving one of the hardest colour to paint: yellow.

On the painting table I had 18 Phase-Shifter RAL robots for my new Praesentia sci-fi army. I decided to paint them yellow. I then had 48 normal RAL robots that I decided to try and paint what I would call technology-white i.e. a bit like a white iMac.

I undercoated both sets in the recommended (and expensive) Citadel undercoat, let it dry and then opened the yellow Contrast paint. In went the brush and onto the model: low and behold a fully base-coated, washed and highlighted model in one coat. It was incredible. Once the yellow had dried, all I had to do was add some metallic claws and red scanner-eye and that was that.

Virtually the same for the others: one coat of the white Contrast paint and I had an effect like some of these genius painters achieve with their white trousers for French infantry but that I never have. Incredible!

Now I know you all want to see some pictures - the proof being in the pudding - but until my flock arrives (see yesterday’s post) I haven’t got any of the finished models. There are, however, many examples of how these paints can be used on the web: just Google and you’ll see what I mean.

What I am doing, however, is posting a colour chart nicked from someone who had nicked it from the person who originally produced it. When you look at it, just remember that the effect was achieved with JUST ONE COAT OF PAINT!

And there are a lot of colours available!

Oh, a couple of downsides: the Contrast paints are expensive (almost £5 a pot), and I understand (from other posts that I’ve read) that you must deffo varnish your figures, as they are not as hardy as a pure, single-colour acrylic…but then I varnish my figures anyway.

Right: off to start my new Sumerian ancients army: six blocks of 48 spearmen figures means 288 spearmen to paint. Luckily that’s now one coat for the cloak, one coat for the skirt, and one coat for the flesh!

POSTSCRIPT

I’ve now had a chance to flock my first lot of Praesentia:

As mentioned above, this is just one coat of Iyanden Yellow!

Where the Flock?

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Missing!

Is it me, or is it impossible to get Citadel/Games Workshop grass flock any more?

None of the three GW shops I’ve been into have any (“we don’t stock it any more: people only want to buy tufts”); the GW online store has none; my order from Element Games is on back order…where the flock has all the flock gone?

I can’t even buy the Gale Force 9 stuff from their store, as the speed checkout that the link to the Battlefront shopping cart sends you to is faulty.

Why does this matter?

Well, I’ve been using the stuff for thirty years or so. I have literally thousands of figures based with the stuff, and would rather like any new ones I get to match!

Meanwhile the painted and partly-based minis mount up on my painting table!

Q13: Salute Bargain Finally Finished

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Some of you may recall that at Salute I splashed out on a laser cut mdf industrial set up on special offer from Troll Trader. This was a huge layout for the bargain price of only £100 including p&p. I’ve been gradually building it over the last six weeks and have finally finished it.

This is a legendary set up, meant for 28mm troops, but absolutely ideal for sci-fi “15mm” figures which, as we all know, tend to be more 18-20mm.

I’ve always wanted to play an industrial hive battle kind of game, and now I can. In total, I now have the sixteen base boards (that alone used up about a can and a half of spray paint); a couple of small platforms connected by a walkway; the huge platform that looks like the outside of an oil well; a powerplant piece; a couple of big, cylindrical tanks connected by a top walkway; a landing pad; two staircases; two sets of corridor connectors; twenty-four individual bits that join together to form the “iron labyrinth”; and a pile of spare ladders.

The build was arduous: not just because of the sheer volume of things to be built, but also because some of the components were, simply, difficult to build. I’m not really a terrain-building person, so often don’t take the proper time and trouble to prepare and get everything just right: so checking and sanding every slot to make sure its component slides in smoothly just isn’t my cup of tea. Smash the two bits together and use a bit of strength to pop the slots into place doesn’t work with every bit of this complex, especially not the industrial labyrinth sections that caused me more grief than anything else.

Having built the thing, I was going to leave it as plain mdf, but a simple spray of grey paint does make it look more, well, industrial, and will make a beautiful backdrop to my brightly coloured sci-fi figures. I suppose I should take the trouble to dry-brush it all now, to give it some variety and depth but, tbh, that seems like a lot of hard work for something that already looks very acceptable. I might have a game, take some piccies, see how they turn out, and then decide on the dry-brushing then. Or wash then dry-brush if I really want to go to town.

Here’s a gallery of the entire thing: very good value for £100, so Troll Trader (from whom I’ve always had good, if not incredible, bargains at Salute) go straight to the top of my Christmas card list.

Next step is to dress the table with the rest of my sci-fi terrain, buildings etc