Current priorities

28mm Irish War of Independence for FUBAR rules

All finished apart from varnishing. That's waiting for a warm dry day but there's little sign of that.

15mm Crossfire 'Stalingrad'

I'm now planning to create some new cork terrain boards incorporating roads and to add separate pavements to the buildings. This will hopefully improve the aesthetics and make the 'Stalingrad' cityscape a little more convincing.

15mm Armies for Maurice rules

These rules have recently captured my interest. I'm looking at doing the the Jacobite Rising of 1745 and the Irish Rebellion of 1798 in 15mm and maybe the American War of Independence in 15mm or 10mm. The Seven Years War (Austrians vs Prussians) also appeals.

I've been drooling over the look of 28mm figures, but they would take a long time to paint, would be bulky to carry and require a big table. I think 6mm could be rather fiddly with each unit consisting of four separate square bases. So 15mm, or maybe 10mm, seems a better idea.

In any event, painting up even two new armies in 10 or 15mm is time-consuming. I get there in the end, but by then my interest in the period and/or rules has usually passed on to something else. It's a no-no in some clubs but I'm seriously wondering if putting unpainted figures on the table is the only answer. I could then be using one pair of armies whilst painting another. Alternatively I could make up some counters like the birds-eye-view counters used in the rulebook diagrams.

10mm Nine Years War armies for Rules of Battle

Here are my Jacobite and Williamite armies for the war in Ireland that formed a part of the Nine Years War. These are based for use with the DBx-style Rules of Battle rules.

Jacobite foot

10mm WW1 Western Front 1918 Armies for Square Bashing

Here are some pictures of my 1918 Western Front armies. All models are 10mm Pendraken mounted for Peter Pig's Square Bashing rules.

British machine-gunners and riflemen.

Work in Progress

My interests have come to settle not only on simple rules but also on small armies, at least with regard to any I intend to paint in the near future. I hope this will make my projects easier to complete and easier to get onto the table. I'm currently focusing on the following:

15mm HOTT
I've always had a strong bias towards historical wargaming, but HOTT is good fun and I've ordered some figures to create an Undead army (Chariot Miniatures) and a Pirate one (Peter Pig).

6mm and 15mm DBA
A recent reintroduction to DBA has inspired me to dig out my old 15mm DBM armies for DBA. The figures are all painted but I will need to add some camps/BUAs.

28mm FUBAR IWI
This project is very close to completion. I just need to varnish the figures and finish the vehicles and buildings.

15mm Crossfire 'Stalingrad'
This project is already operational, but to capture more of a Stalingrad feel I'm reverting to green baseboards with black felt roads and am adding pavements to the buildings.

Making cork terrain boards

I prefer to make buildings from foamboard as I find it cuts more cleanly, but I have used cork 'bathroom tiles' to make terrain boards.They are cheap, light, compact, conveniently sized (12" x 12" - approx 30 cms x 30 cms) and don't need to be cut. I've had no significant problems with warping but they are relatively brittle and need to be handled with care.

It's important to note that the tiles I have are coated/smooth on one side and uncoated/rough on the other. I always paint the coated side. This coating is probably key in preventing warping.

Country tiles

The tile is coated with undiluted PVA (Elmers) wood glue.

28mm Irish War of Independence 1919-1921

I've recently taken an interest in simple 1 or 2 page rules, especially FUBAR and this has prompted me to extract my stalled 28mm Irish War of Independence project from the lead mountain. It's a pleasure to be painting fewer, larger figures but I'm going for the same 'magic dip' approach I use on 15mm ones rather than three-coat shading and super detailing. The figures are mainly Musketeer and Cannon Fodder. I'm using overscale diecasts for vehicles and my figures are on high bases to compensate. Controversial, but the fudge works for me.

For scenery I've made some buildings from 5mm foamboard and some dry stone walls from cat litter and PVA. I also bought some JRM dirt roads, some Tiger Terrain craggy hills in polyurethane resin (company regretfully no longer operating), and a box of K&M hedges. Here are some of the buildings. I've also made a Victorian-era terrace with back yards. They are all based on photos I found on the Web.

Thatched cottage. Walls are faced  with  Natural Stone styrofoam sheeting from Antenocitis Workshop with bits of card stuck on to represent the larger corner stones. Thatch is teddy bear fur from a haberdashery so no teddy bears were harmed in the production of this model. 

15mm Stalingrad armies for Crossfire

A Soviet company (top) and a German company (bottom): all you need for a good game of Crossfire. The infantry are by Peter Pig. The Soviet A/T guns are 45mm obr 1943 and the German A/T guns are 75mm Pak 97/38, and are all from Battlefront Miniatures.

The Soviet T-34s (left) are the STZ (Stalingrad factory) variant. The German  assault guns (right) are the monster StuIG33B. The T-34s are finished in a burnt orange colour representing red lead primer. Legend has it that T-34s were rushed to the front from the factory unpainted.  The colour coincidentally blends in with the crushed brick terrain. All AFVs are by Battlefront Miniatures.

15mm Crossfire - Stalingrad games

May 2011 game

These shots are of a Crossfire 'Stalingrad' game played at my local club in May 2011. The home-made foamboard buildings have undergone some trauma and need patching up in places. If I was making these again I'd make them slightly smaller (3" x 3" modules) and add some rubble on the outsides. If I did this now the 4" x 4" structures wouldn't fit in the Really Useful Boxes in which I store and transport them.

The Soviet left flank. Note the T34 (Stalingrad variant) straight from the factory! The colour represents red lead primer and is coincidentally good camouflage against the red brick rubble. 

15mm Crossfire - foamboard buildings for Stalingrad

I used foamboard (foamcore) to produce some 15mm buildings for my Stalingrad project. Many wargames use templates for built-up areas. The buildings are purely aesthetic and are moved around or even removed when the areas are occupied by troops. For Crossfire I wanted some multi-storey structures with individual footprints of about 4"/100mm into which elements (representing squads) could actually be placed. I bought some readymades but I also decided to make some ruined and semi-ruined buildings from foamboard. There are lots of good articles on the Web to which I am indebted. This is just an account of my personal approach. Foamboard has a layer of foam sandwiched between two layers of card and can be bought in 3mm and 5mm thicknesses from art shops for as little as £2 for an A3 sheet. After some experiment, I developed the following procedure.

Design the buildings on a computer. I use CorelDraw and allow a basic height of 30mm per storey for 15mm scale. Print out the designs and trim to size with scissors. Stick the print-outs to the foamboard using Spraymount. The model illustrated is actually a double unit (4" x 8").