Work in Progress - Adobe Buildings.

I picked up a trio of MDF adobe style buildings from a gent called John on eBay for £9.00 including free postage.

You couldn't buy the materials to make them yourself for that!

Quickly bashed the basic buildings together - you get a 'small', 'medium' and 'large' selection, the large one coming with a side element and a walled garden.

Not added the side structure yet but glued the walled area to a separate base. So far very pleased, the buildings fit together well and are very simple to construct. All come with separate doors and roof hatches. There is clearly plenty of scope for additions and modifications but I will probably keep mine fairly simple so I can use for different periods and settings from Wild West games to Pulp Alley.

Picture below from the eBay listing by John.

Find him (JBMDF Wargames) on Facebook and eBay.

Work in Progress - New Terrain and Scenery Bits.

I've not had a lot of progress with hobby stuff of late, especially painting and larger terrain pieces such as buildings etc. This is mainly due to lack of space and a proper work area / painting desk but hopefully this situation will improve in the near future as some work on the house finally gets under way. This will give me more room to set up a new painting station and get to work on some of the things that have been hanging around for an age...

In the meantime I have had to make do with a temporary spot at the dining table when I can!

Recently picked up a few smaller pieces of scatter terrain and other bits as below....

First up is a batch of resin pieces from TT Combat and their rather nice 'City Scenics' range. The sets include a nice mix of modern flotsam and jetsam such as rubbish bins, mattresses, armchairs, a sofa and large fridge. Casting is pretty good with very little flash etc and the sculpts are a nice addition to any modern city setting. 

Next up are a huge stack of mdf crates and boxes from Gary at Figurebitz via the Book of Face. These are excellent and fabulously cheap to boot! Gary will burn any logo (within reason) into three 'sides' of each box. Of course you can just use the three sides from another set to have the logo on every side. I of course opted for '7TV'.

He currently has two styles of boxes - general cube shaped and a long box. Here we have Frank showing us around the warehouse, albeit none too pleased at the current working conditions...

The mdf forklift is another nice bit of kit from Figurebitz. Picked up a few other things from the range including some rather tasty 'Computer Blocks' that Crooked Dice will soon be stocking.

Next up is some very versatile fencing, this time again from TT Combat.

Last up is a few more sections of 'Mill Wall' from Warbases. I bought a load of this a couple of years back, with a couple of 'Mill Gates' and immediately bought some more but never got around to putting it together. Its pretty plain and basic but potentially really useful.

Frank is from Hasslefree Miniatures.

Warbases Timber Stable Block.

I am a little bit obsessed with the host of mdf buildings available these days but I picked up one of the 'Timber Stable Blocks' from Warbases a couple of Salute shows back and never got around to making it. Not having a lot of free time at the moment and wanting something simple and distracting to do, I dug it out and spent a couple of evenings building it.

Above is the first shot after basic construction. Lots of glue and a couple of elastic bands recommended! Initially I was going to try to make the roof removable but to be honest it seemed like more work than it was worth so I just glued the roof in place.

I then took some good card and created the slate roof - it took me ages as I wanted it to look as ramshackle as possible which basically involved hundreds of little scissor cuts! In the end I was fairly pleased with the look and it definitely adds to the building.

I used two coats, one a dry-brush, of Foundry 'Charcoal / Charcoal light' for the roof and I think it was the ideal colour for slate.

I used Foundry 'Musket Stock Brown' for the woodwork and in retrospect this was probably way too dark and 'red'. The etching of the 'woodwork' still shows but the dark colour does nothing to emphasise it.

I used a mix of sand, filler and pva glue for the ground surface and then painted / dry-brushed it using Foundry 'Base Sand' colours and a light dry-brush of white to finish.

The finished building with a mix of flock and a few extra bits of 'wood' (coffee stirrers) attached around the place to give it that 'rickety' look.

I am pleased with the overall result for a couple of evenings work but that reddish brown will probably annoy me. I decided to gift this to Rob for his western town over at Streets of Inconsequence as he needs a few more secondary buildings!

Not a bad bit of kit for £6 - I am sure a better modeller than I could do much more with this...

Sarissa Warehouse

Though I seem to have trouble focusing on one project most of the time I have been recently concentrating on building up my 7TV / DWMG collection. One thing with this is that a good bit of terrain really helps with the feel of the game, whereas you can get away with a green matt and a couple of trees for a dark ages setup. I am currently trying to get a bit of 'modern' scenery together so decided to look at a few centre pieces for this.

A few months back I picked up the Sarissa Precision CityBlock Warehouse as I had seen this on a couple of other blogs and thought it looked great. I ordered and finally have got around to making it and thought I would add a few photos.

Warehouse in mid build.

Above is the warehouse in mid construction. After arranging all the component parts and figuring out what was what, I began by painting these before construction, as advised by Matt on his blog. I initially tried to spray undercoat the windows in white but overdid it a little and made the board a bit soggy. Leaving this to dry I began on the other parts, selecting a mix of greys for the 'concrete' parts and mixing up a near enough version of 'London Brick Yellow' for the walls. I painted the wooden steps, pillars and loading doors with burnt umber and the rails in black. Internal dividing walls and window were in white and the front door red. I also used a variety of reds with a wash of Baal Red to create a dirty brick look on the loading bay.

Completed warehouse with some foliage for effect.

Construction itself was relatively simple, just have some big rubber bands and some good glue handy! Follow the instructions and you can't really go wrong. Painting the thing took the bulk of my time. The etched detail can take quite a few thin layers of paint so don't be afraid to splash it on.

Rear view showing the loading bay doors.

The roof is tightly held on with small notches around the edge of the walls and lifts off to reveal the internal detail. This has clearly been designed for 'play' as the mezz level also lifts out to show the rooms beneath.

Inside showing the mezz office level.

The wooden stairs are also removable, as are the loading bay doors. There are small stands for these if you want to add them but I decided on them as they are. I also left the grey steps (back and front) to be removable.

Plenty of space inside!

You are also provided with four large box crates but I hadn't glued these when I took the pics. I also bought some plastic pallets by Siku from eBay to create some cover inside.

The Doctor wonders why there appears to be broccoli in the front garden.

The pic above hopefully gives some idea of the scale of this building - it is a bit of a beast! As I said before, it is really designed to be 'play' usable rather than being an accurate model of a warehouse. Having said that, check out what Headnhalf has done with his one - very effective!

I can't wait to get this on the table and in use. It will be an excellent centre-piece and I can highly recommend it despite it being a tad pricey at £50.

Now all I need are a few more buildings from the CityBlock range and a couple of metres of wire fencing!

The Doctor is 'Tweedy Mattison' from Crooked Dice (as if you didn't know)

4Ground Detached House.

Just built the lovely pre-painted 'Detached House' from 4Ground.

I also picked up the ruined version but have yet to tackle it. As this was the first attempt at a 4Ground building I really had no idea but following the instructions proved to be pretty simple even for me. One thing I would say is that a couple of the pictures on the instructions are not overly clear and I am sure at least one was in reverse! Having said that, it is all fairly instinctive and everything fitted together perfectly. I would recommend a good strong PVA glue (unlike the cheapo stuff I was using) as I ended up using a dab of super glue to fix the outer walls of the roof section.

A few quick pics, with a couple of Artizan British Paras I am working on for scale -

The completed house.

Loft space - plenty of storage.

Upper floor.

Lower floor.

Some Paras investigate...

I opted for the 'no damage' look as I intend to use this for various periods, including WW2 and some zombie fun and may well buy another to mix and match with the destroyed version.

The layers come apart simply and sit on little tabs at the corner of each floor. It all fits nice and snug and is quite sturdy on the two lower levels as the walls are effectively double thickness.

There is loads of room inside the buildings but I did find that my 2p based models are not able to stand in the doorways or stairwell. Anything up to about 25mm base size will fit perfectly well though. Good job most of my WW2 stuff is on 1p bases then!

Hopefully it will get to see some tabletop action soon as we are planning to have a first game of Troops, Weapons & Tactics in the near future!

Scenery...

Got home today to find a wonderful diorama set up by my brother in law and it got me thinking that I have been so concerned with painting miniatures I forgot they need something reasonable to act out in...

"Stargate's really gone downhill..."

I really need to start working on my terrain and scenery.

The Streets of Inconsequence.

Check out my mate Robs slowly growing 'Wild West' town - can't wait to play on it!

An early view of one the towns in the County of Inconsequence.

Follow his work in progress at his blog - "On the Streets of Inconsequence".

Wattle Fencing.

Being a lazy modeller I have been after some reasonable looking wattle fencing and wanted to take the strain out of making it myself. I do have some 'home-made' fences but I wanted to check out a few of the companies that made some.

Renedra wattle fencing. 

Above we have Renedra, who seem the obvious first choice, with their nice straightforward looking plastic offering, reasonably priced at £6 a frame. Each frame consists of 5 sections each 124mm long and 2 sections of 60mm long plus a gate. I thinks its also available from Gripping Beast for £4.50! Having seen this 'in the flesh' I have to say it looks pretty good painted, if a tad small in height. 

Hovels Celtic farmastead.

Next is the 'hurdle fencing' from Hovels Ltd. Can't really comment as I have not actually seen this but it looks reasonable in the pictures.

Irregular Miniatures.

Above we have the wattle fence offering from Irregular Miniatures. This looks fairly good painted and is very cheap at £3.50 for 5x1" pieces.

Products for Wargamers.

Next is the WTFE01 Wattle Fence from Products for Wargamers. This is a very reasonable £1.50 for a ready to use approximately 6" strip. Not quite as detailed as some but I am sure the two Vikings hiding behind it don't really care too much.

Grand Manner.

At the other end of the scale we have the wonderful work of the folk over at Grand Manner. The large wattle pen above comes in at £12.70 for the unpainted and a whopping £25.40 for the painted version. Having said that, like all their products, its pretty sweet...

Brother Thomas admires the new pig enclosure. Dreamholme wattle fence.

Finally and by pure fluke, I came across Dreamholme Scenics (see what they did there) who provide a nice 6 piece set of fencing,  for £6 unpainted or £11 painted. I ordered some of the painted fencing right off the bat as I like the look of a few of their other items so thought I would test them out with this. I must say I am very pleased - quick delivery, well packaged and a nice paint job, perfect for a lazy chap like me!

Also in the picture above is a set of crates from p.m.c. games, again pre-painted and nice and cheap from their ebay shop.

Any other suggestions??

Buildings.

I am always on the lookout for affordable buildings and have been quite impressed with the recent  trend for mdf 'flat-pack' buildings such as those by 4Ground, Battle Flag, Sarissa Precision and Warbases etc.

Warbases Stable.

Sarissa Precision Citiblock Warehouse.

4Ground Rorkes Drift.

The higher end of the market, using resin and the like, companies such as CJ's Models, Total Battle Minaitures, Architects of War and Grand Manner make amazing models but are just a little too expensive for me. Check out the awesome Dark Ages village below!

Grand Manner Dark Age Village.

Architects of War Jungle Village.

Somewhere in between you can find pmc. games - they have no online store other than ebay so the stock tends to be a little random and there is always the risk of being outbid. Having said that, most items come around again pretty quickly. The buildings are resin, sometimes based on hardboard and best of all they are pre-painted, flocked and textured!

pmc.games Walled Farmhouse.

I picked up the above 'Walled Farmhouse' the other day for about £20.00. The main entrance doors are removable, as are the three cottages and each roof also comes off. This particular building could fit into a variety of genres - I have seen them used in everthing from medieval fantasy to VBCW and WWII.

pmc.games Medieval Village set.

There is a nice selection and you can even pick up a good medieval village mix like the above for £65.00. Of particular interest at the moment, with the Dark Ages (SAGA etc) being flavour of the moment, are their range of thatched cottages, church and roundhouse. At the time of writing they are selling a selection with three varied cottages and the church for £29.99. They also have a growing range of VBCW buildings and some WWII bunkers.

pmc.games large WWII Bunker.

There is now also a new-ish company by the name of Fantascene who make a small range of reasonably priced fantasy / historical buildings that you can even get painted for you! More on them in a previous post.

Fantascene Gothic Mausoleum.

Total System Scenic also do a few bits and pieces for constructing your own buildings.

Total System Scenic 'Low House'.

This post wouldn't be complete without a quick plug for another source for cheap buildings - Dark House Games. They provide a UK source for the 'Plasticville' models. I have already mentioned them before but they are a good source for cheaper plastic modern 'Americana' style buildings.

A selection of Dark House Games 'Plasticville' buildings.

There are of course many other companies who provide building and terrain (Hovels and Monolith spring to mind) but I thought I would compile a few of the more recent ones such as those above.

Monolith Great Hall.

Warlord Games have just released a nice looking 'Ruined Hamlet' so heres hoping they continue with this range.

Warlord / Bolt Action Ruined Hamlet.

Lastly, Gripping Beast do a nice range of Dark Age longhouses and outbuildings, again reasonably priced.

Gripping Beast longhouse.