It's the Little Things

One thing that I have noticed with getting into war-gaming is the addition of different types of terrain. I see things on Facebook and other websites and I think of some things that I'd like to see on my playing surface.

On YouTube I have watched a lot of the Terrain Tutor. He has some great stuff on how to make cheap and easy terrain for your war-gaming tables

I took some the the videos and used the techniques to make some of my own terrain pieces for the table.


One of the first items I worked on was a plowed field. I figured this would be a nice piece of terrain to slow down tanks and the like. I ended up expanding on it and used it to slow down that pesky infantry. The basic part of the field is a cheap door mat from the Dollar Tree. Its a charcoal black/grey and is pretty thin. I picked up two of these to make various fields. I plan on doing a cornfield in the future, along with a harvested one.

I first started off with cutting some MDF board with about a half inch on the sides. I then hot glued it to the MDF. I painted the plowed part of the field with craft paint and dusted the tops. I let it dry for about a day. 

Field painted with regular craft paint, topped off with a dusting of rattle can.

 I then started building the fence to go around the field. This was a bit tedious but turned out ok in the end. Finished it off by painting the fence brown. In the coming weeks I plan to put a wash over the wood to ad a weathered effect

Fence made with match sticks and coffee stirrers. 

 Next I took some of the DAS clay and began using the technique I saw on the Terrain Tutor. I rolled the clay out into a 5mm sausage roll. I then pressed on it lightly to make a 8mm sausage adn began cutting the sandbag at 1cm increments. I did not cut all the way, you could but this would be very time consuming. I cut just enough so that way I could lay the sandbags in one line, as opposed to each bag.

I made 2 sandbag barriers and a bunker. Took about 30-45min to make. It was very fun to build. Went a little quicker than building the actual real life sandbag bunkers!

Small sandbag barrier I made.

Larger sandbag bunker. This can be used as a fire position or an objective marker.

 Once the clay dried, took about a day. I painted the sandbags using Tamiya Khaki. A littel dark so I am thinking I may use a lighter color next time. Once I added the wash for the used look, turned out pretty good. I also based the bunker with something different. I was using some baking soda for objective markers I just made, but I wanted to try a method I picked up with model railroading. I used some watered down white glue, or PVA as you call it over the pond, and applied it with a brush. While it was still wet I added some expresso colored tile grout to the wet surface. Worked great and it looks awesome! I have to try it with my figures.

Finished with basing material and sandbags washed adn painted.

Sandbag bunker w/ Dragons Teeth in the background.

Finished sandbag barrier.

Hope you enjoyed the update! Keep on gaming!

Bargain Shopping

Hey guys. Wanted to change things up a bit and get some info out there about getting some materials for terrain building or models in general for war-gaming. Some of this may be old news to some of you vets, but this is here to help the new comers who have found this blog.

Supplies:

So I wanted to share about getting some supplies a great prices. The holiday season provided a plether a of coupons for local craft/hobby stores and lucky for me I have 3 near eachother (AC Moore, Jo Ann Fabric and Michael's). Michael's had a 60% off One Item Coupon and AC Moore had a 50% off One Item Coupon. I took advantage of this to pick up som DAS air dry modeling clay. This has many uses, but my main goal is to make sand bags for MG nests, bunkers and the like. I also want to make some sandbags for the Sherman tanks as well as defensive positions around builds. I am hoping to get this started int eh next day or 2. 

The craft stores run specials every week and it's usually for a percentage off one item, or another percentage off your entire purchase (I have never seen an entire purchase coupon go above 30%...yet). This is great to get some of the more expensive items at a lower price. My buddy uses it to get resin for casting parts.  

Pack of clay I picked up for 60% off!

1:72 Focke-Wulf I was able to pick up at AC Moore

MODELS/FIGURES:

Sometimes you can get great deals on models and figure sets. Warlord Games had a flash sale on resin vehicles, plus free shipping on order of $16.00! I was able to order a Panzer Luchs tank for a recon element I'm building and 2 figure sets (one Partisan squad and one FJ HQ Unit). This was  great deal, especially for the tank. The $16.00 order for free shipping is still going on.

Speaking of sales, Black Tree Designs has a sale going on where infantry is 50% Off! I picked up some partisan figures, US and German casualty sets, and two German infantry units to build up my Wehrmacht. Shipping was reasonable and it arrived on my door step in 2 days! Heck, it even shipped same day I ordered. The figures are nice and provide some variety mixed in with the Warlord figures I have.  

Another place to look out for is NWS gaming as the owner usually runs the same specials as Warlord does, but his prices are already discounted so its a heck of a deal as well. 

For modelers on a budget deals like this are worth saving up for and you can make out good. So keep an eye out and happy modeling!

Rubicon Opel Truck Review SdKfz 305

The other day I ordered a Rubicon kit off eBay. I was looking for a truck to transport some of my German units around the battle field and figured this was a good option. I have the Warlord Games kit but that is resin and metal. The kit is ok, but when I opened up this kit I was blown away. The amount of detail of these Rubicon kits are amazing.

The kit comes with 2 plastic sprues, a set of building instructions and a sheet of water slide decals.

Once completed I plan on doing a post about the build and pictures of the finished product.