VBCW Buildings (1)

While at Salute this year, I collected my pre-order from Warbases which included their VBCW Starter Pack - 3 VBCW buildings for £40

I chose 2 Red Brick Terraces:

and the General Store:

The pics are from Warbases' site and must be old versions of the buildings as the windows & doorways are now completely cut out. The large shop window of the store isn't though, which, to be honest, I'm not happy with, so I think I'm going to try cutting it out myself.

I've undercoated the exterior with Halfords matt red primer, and the interiors with Wilkinsons' white primer - the worst spray paint I've ever used! shame I've got 2 tins of it ...

For the interiors, I'm adding 2 things. First. a floor texture from Dave Graffam Models' Low Ruins to give a bit of colour and second, I'll add a ledge behind the first floor windows so figures can be placed there,

I've also got some of Warbases' Pavements to go around the buildings:

All photos in this post are from Warbases' website and used without permission

Officially ceased posting ...

It's been nearly a year since I last posted on this blog, or, to be honest, had the desire to do so.

However, I have started going to the Wessex Wargamers Winchester club and have a new blog for this new beginning.

The new blog is here: Colin's Gaming blog

Back of Beyond - White Russians (1)

I've been putting together a White Russian force for Back of Beyond, using the lucky coincidence of the 20% off sale by Copplestone Castings when they joined North Star and my employer paying my annual bonus (which is based on the company's performance not mine!).

I've made good progress painting them and have got them all to the dip stage - where, having painted them, I apply Army Painter Quickshade (strong tone), which leaves a very glossy finish on the mini's.

Next stage is to 'decorate' the base, spray with some kind of sealant (not sure what to use at the moment) and then spray with a matt varnish.

Anyway, here are some pics of some of what I've done so far

Command Group in sabot base & Staff Officer

Field Gun with crew

Number 1 HMG

Number 2 HMG

How To - Sabot Base

Since starting going to Winchester wargames club, I've started a  new project - a force of White Russians for the Contemptible Little Armies rules from the Back of Beyond army lists.

Whilst at the club on Tuesday watching Jim's game against Andy, I was telling them about the White Russian command group and the sabot base I had created for it. I'm not sure I explained it very well, so I promised Jim that I'd do a post - with pic's - expanding on what I had been trying to explain. Here it is.

For my command group I'd got Pulp Figures' pack PHP 17 - Count Casamir's Trans-Siberian Renegades from North Star. As I also have the Pulp Alley rules I didn't want to create a permanent command group. I already had the bits I needed to create a sabot base for the group:

In the pic you can see 3 'Single Figure Circular Tray - (2mm Top Layer Only)' with a 2p piece in the centre one, demonstrating its fit, along with a 65mm diameter circular base, all of which I got from Warbases.

On the 'Single Figure Circular Tray - (2mm Top Layer Only)' page there are 3 dropdown menus that you have to select from- I chose: circular shape, 30mm diameter tray & 2p slot size.

A 65mm diameter base for the top layers is really the smallest you can get away with for 3 figures, as this pic shows:

I glued the 'top layers' to the base with ordinary PVA and once dry used polyfilla to disguise the step from the base to the top of the ring and painted it all with a sand colour:

I haven't got any further with the base as yet - I'm going to add some sand & a couple of tufts, etc, as you would with any other base

Here is the group itself in the sabot base

Hope this explains it somewhat better Jim!

A New Start ...

I did write a blog previously, but after almost a year of not posting decided to give that up and start afresh.

I have recently started going to the Wessex Wargamers Winchester club and, as a result, have one completely new project and made progress on another two that I had recently begun, so I have decided to start this new blog to record my progress on those projects and the others that are languishing without attention.

I've added a page dubbed 'Current Projects' which I will update as new projects are added, and maybe one day I'll add a page 'Completed Projects', if any are ever actually finished ...

A large part of the inspiration for this new blog is Jim's Wargames Workbench, an excellent blog by one of the club's members and I intend to shamelessly steal Jim's excellent idea of numbered blog posts for each project.

The first proper project post should be up soon, once I have some pictures for it.