Desert Fort Ruin Painting Progress

I've base coated and dry brushed the Supreme Littleness Designs desert fort ruin, ready for it to be washed, highlighted and detailed tomorrow. It's now a bit easier to see how the design really captures the look of a ancient and desolate Near or Middle Eastern fortress. I'll finish it off tomorrow after I've given it an overall wash in diluted GW Agrax Earthshade, with a drybrush and some arid desert tufts, so that it's ready to use for the Sandbox Skirmish project amongst other interesting things.

Pig's Breakfast

I got round to assembling the QRF Humber Pigs this afternoon, once I'd cleared the decks of work and had time to sit down and sort them out. They are typical QRF, a bit rough round the edges but the only deal in town as far as mid 1960's British Army Cold War kit is concerned, so I had to bite the bullet and just get on with it. The castings are pretty rough with one having a miscast wheel arch to make matters even more enjoyable but underneath all the seams and flash there's definitely a Humber Pig or two in there, oinking to come out.

I replaced the white metal axles with steel rod and pre-drilled the wheels so that they stayed attached. I also left off the riot bars, as these are battle taxis not internal security vehicles, although having said that they really should have the flashy blue lights removed and a pintle mounted Bren gun added instead. The end result isn't too bad but, after my recent experiences with less than fantastic QRF quality control, I'll be sticking to Peter Pig and Command Decision from now on.

A case in point is the Ferret scout car that I ordered along with the Humber Pigs, which I realised had a miscast engine deck after I had cleaned up all the other components. I was about to bin it, when I remembered seeing photos of more than one mined Ferret armoured car in the Radfan, which not infrequently had their front wheels blown off by IED's or Soviet anti-tank mines. This was a pretty common hazard and would be a good hook for a scenario, perhaps involving an ambush, a medevac or a vehicle recovery under fire?

To save the model and make use of it, I chopped the back axle into bits and glued it back in place so that it looked a bit like the photo, only in reverse if that makes sense. I added a floor to the crew compartment and glued the whole thing onto a circular base. This will be modelled with a blast crater and possibly some more scattered vehicle bits, so that it looks the part of a wounded, if not deceased Ferret. I'm quite pleased with the end result but not with QRF for supplying a wonky model in the first place.

Working at Wings at War

2019?

I've got several Wings at War projects in various stages of completion and in the pipeline, so have been doing a bit of rationalisation today in order to prioritise and plan ahead. The checklist is now looking like this and there's plenty of things to do, some involving a bit of finishing off and others starting out from scratch:

MiG Alley 

This project is virtually complete with nearly all of the aircraft for both the UN and Communist forces painted and ready to go. I have made a shedload of DIY flight stands for this but they need texturing and painting. I've decided to go for a winter scheme, so that I can use my 6' x 4' winter terrain cloth. I will also need to make some hills, some river and coastal sections and some ground targets. I really would like to see this project to completion as it's taken ages to do but has been a lot of fun in the making.

Desert Spitfires

I have magnet based and undercoated all of the aircraft for this project. I also made a start on painting the RAF aircraft for this but stopped half way when I realised that I couldn't get any Egyptian insignia, so it made no sense to carry on. I now have the decals so can fire this one up again, although I will also need to make some ground targets and desert flight stands as well. I have some lovely Brigade Models buildings to use for the terrain, so that's a good start.

Corsairs and Cavaliers

The aircraft for this project are now on the workbench, with the Hondurans being painted first. The terrain and ground targets have been completed and I also have all of the flight stands done as well. I've even written the rules, so this project will be good to go once the painting has been completed, which I'm hoping to get done by the end of the month, so that I can playtest the rules properly to see if they stand up.

Fighters over the Forest

This is my adaptation of the Wings at War rule for the Alto Cenepa war of 1995. The rules have yet to be written but all of the aircraft have been painted and the terrain and ground targets can be pinched from the Football War project, so I just need to sort out the rules and I could wrap this project up. I have to admit that my interest in this has fizzled a bit but it would be worth completing, if only to use the aircraft models for a game.

Khalkhin Gol / Nonomhan 1939

This is possibly my next rules adaptation and may even get ahead of the Alto Cenapa project, as I have some more focussed ideas in my head. The plan is to adapt elements from the Battle of Britain and First World War rules to recreate the clash between the Japanese and Soviets over Mongolia in 1939. I think this has great potential but I have yet to do the background research and reading to make it work, so that's my plan for the holidays in a few weeks time. This would probably only be a rules re-writing exercise rather than a full on modelling and painting project.

Supreme Littleness Designs Ruined Fort Review

This is the scaled down Supreme Littleness Designs ruined fort from the Middle East range in 28mm, this version being the 20/15mm equivalent. It's a very atmospheric looking model and really captures both the characteristic features of an ancient Near or Middle Eastern fortress but also the realistic elements of a ruined castle, with the exposed rubble core of the wall and the archway being particularly well thought out. I really like it, even though I had difficulty assembling the upper floor to the tower due to the slightly misaligned holes in the tower walls, which meant that the beams were not all at the same level. As this is a pre-release model kit, this is just the sort of minor snag that you'd expect, so it will be fixed and won't be an issue when the kit is made available.

If you look closely, you'll see that the tower sides with two beams are slightly higher than those with three. The card floor is laser cut with card prongs to fit into these holes, with the end result being mashed cardboard due primarily to my lack of care and attention to the instructions, but also as a result of the misplaced holes. Anyway, I fixed this minor problem by feeding steel wire beams cut from spears into one hole and out of the matching hole on the other side, so that the floor piece could rest on top of them. It also meant that the beams were still visible on the outside of the tower, which is a nice design feature that I wanted to keep. This minor surgery won't be necessary when the kit is actually released for sale.

I added some small bits of rubble into the wall spaces on the curtain wall and between the gate layers, as suggested in the instructions, which I think looks really good and is a cracking bit of clever thinking on the part of the part of the designer. It really helps to give that tumbledown effect and reminds me very much of all the medieval castles that I've clambered over. I also really like the parapets with their Arabian style crenellations. The designer has clearly done his homework to capture the look of a ruined fortress in Syria, Iraq or even the NW Frontier. He was worried that the 20mm scaling of the model would make it too big for 15mm but I think it's pretty much spot on, as you can see from the photos.

If you ignore the slight issue with the tower floor the model went together very easily and, assuming you follow the instructions provided as a pdf, you can't really go wrong. I haven't painted mine yet but have textured it with acrylic paste and undercoated it with Halfords Matt Khaki spray paint, so that you can see what the assembled model looks like. The price for this model kit is £9.50, although it's not yet available for sale on the Supreme Littleness Designs website. I think it's well worth the money and will make a neat little terrain feature or scenario objective for all sorts of periods, mine being destined for colonial skirmish games. I'd love it if some more ruined wall sections were available so that a whole ruined fortress could be constructed for just this sort of thing?

Wadi Wrapped Up

I've finished off the wadi sections for the Sandbox Skirmish project and also given the dirt tracks a final drybrush to wrap them up at the same time. The wadi pieces have had some tufts added but I decided not to add any reeds or clutter, so that they store without getting damaged and are useable with 15mm, 20mm and 28mm figures. I now need to make some 'pie wedge' corners so that he wadi can be made to bend a bit, as it looks a bit too linear, together with the road junctions, crossroads and a few short pieces to bridge any gaps. I'm a bit tired of terrain, however, so will be taking a break to concentrate on the 1/600th scale planes for the Football War project instead.

Wadis, Tracks and Towers

 

I've been really busy today, driving my daughter to a gymnastics competition followed by a pantomime, leaving me to then do the weekly shop and sort some DIY but, to cut a long story short, I have dry brushed and washed the wadi and dirt track sections as well. I used a similar approach to all the other desert terrain but for some reason it took far longer than I expected.

It was a bit of a saga, as I wasn't happy with them after I had done the wet and dry brushing so decided to wash them afterwards in a GW Agrax Earthshade solution to add some definition. I will leave them to dry overnight, then do a bit of light dry brushing over the top to finish them off, followed by some desert tufts to add some variety.

It's not much for a weekend's work but I should wrap them up quite quickly now, leaving me free to paint the 1/600th scale Football War aircraft as a bit of light relief. I've also assembled and textured the Supreme Littleness Designs desert fort ruin, which went together well despite the tower roof section not matching up with the holes in the walls. 

In the end, I cut off the cardboard prongs and replaced them with sections of metal spears, cut to size and fed through the tower from one side to the other, so that the roof piece dropped in and was supported by the metal beams rather than the cardboard prongs. The ruin is now drying out but will get another skim of filler to cover up the locating lugs and joints before I paint it.

Cruel Seas

I too have been suckered into buying a copy of the latest edition of Wargames llustrated by the free sprue of S Boats on the cover. This has to be the oldest marketing trick in the book but it works. The models are really nice, however, so it's probably  worth the  £4.50 if you factor in the magazine content too.

I'm not convinced by the scale and already have an extensive collection of 1/600 scale boats for coastal warfare,  so I'm not intending to take the plunge into Cruel Seas. I will stick it on the Xmas list though, as the starter set would be a nice present to open and my boys would probably really enjoy playing it.

What's Up the Wadi?

I have undercoated the wadi sections with a couple of layers of the old Homebase emulsion paint that I've used for all the desert terrain, so they are looking a bit like I've dunked them in custard but should be ready to drybrush and weather tomorrow. After I've done that, I'm going to add some clumps of dried up reeds and weeds, along with some other detritus like old rusty barrels, so that they look a bit more interesting. I'm really busy tomorrow, however, so I don't know how much of this I will get done by the end of the weekend?

15mm Sci Fi Flatbed

 

I was in town this afternoon for the inevitable Christmas shopping but ended up with a couple of these Jurassic World armoured trucks that were down to half price in the Entertainer toy shop. They have a clunky looking cage thing on the back which looks way overscale but, once you pop it off, the vehicle underneath is ideal for 15mm sci-fi, as you can see by the GZG figure that I've scaled it to. I think these would be great as transports for a convoy ambush scenario, especially if you added some sci-fi style containers on the back.  Not bad for £1.50 too!

Wadis

I've started on scratch building some wadi sections for the Sandbox Skirmish project, using some river templates from East Riding Miniatures which are in convenient 8'' lengths, making it a spot on fit for my 32'' square desert terrain board. I have included two 4'' lengths as well, one of which will be modelled as a road crossing or ford. The idea for these wadi sections came from some ready made 'off the shelf' terrain that I've seen on The Last Valley stand at numerous shows. I am now waiting for the cheapo super glue to dry, then I'll be able to build up the bank with a filler and PVA mix, before texturing the bed of the wadi with acrylic paste and a sprinkle of sand.