Finished: German 15cm Heer Nebelwerfers and 10.5cm leFH 18's + Terrain

Hi folks,

I've had a busy week or so, between training at work, being really ill for two days and rushing last weekend to get an entry into the AHPC themed round when I thought I have a whole week before the deadline...

Still, I managed to get a few things done for bother the themed round on Saturday and my regular entry on Wednesday. As mentioned, the Saturday entry was rushed. As such, while I got the unit submitted, I really wasn't happy with the job I had done on the basing. Over the last couple of days, whilst not being well, I've just gone ahead and re-based the whole unit so that it's up to scratch.

These three launchers give me a full unit of 6 for my Heer forces. The actual unit would be one of the two regiments in 7. Werfer Brigade, which was a German Corps level asset supporting Panzergroup West. These launchers would be from either Werfer-Regiment 83 or 84.

I've another 3 of these to do, which are being painted up as SS battery from SS-Werferbataillon 12. Unfortunately it looks like the SS Werferbataillon was made up of 3 batteries of 4 15cm Nebelwerfers - so I'll be one short. As these come in packs of 3... I think I'll just have to live with that (for now)! Although I think I might know someone who has some spare crew! So far, as Battlefront don't do any SS Werfer crews, I've greenstuffed the helmets to give them the camo covers, and have started making an attempt at camo clothing. Time will tell how these guys look!

For Wednesday's entry I finished a battery of 10.5cm leFH 18's, which will be from 89. Infanterie-Division.

These guns made up the bulk of German divisional artillery throughout the war. I'm quite happy with how these turned out, although I did end up 'double grassing' the bases. Not sure whats going on with my Static Grass just now but I am just not getting the coverage I need.

Lastly, for Wednesday's entry, I also finished up some terrain. Additional walls for round my Church from Tiger Terrain, some little 'outbuildings' also from Tiger Terrain and some wooden fencing from Blotz.

I was pleased to be able to replicate the colour of the walls with those I finished last year. I am planning on basing the wall sections to make them more sturdy on the table and build in some foliage around them. The fencing was sprayed a dark green and then drybrushed up with some lighter shades, then buff.

While 'Gunuary' might be over, I'm still in that mode so will aim to get the 88's finished this month. Really pleased with my progress this year artillery wise - for the Germans it leaves me to focus on vehicles and infantry for the next little while. I'm still aiming to try and get the 10mm ACW limbers and stuff done before the challenge ends in March, which will be my other artillery related project done.

Vapnartak was last weekend, and I picked up a few odds and ends. Including a pack of PSC 25 Pounders... mistakes were made. I want the Quads to pull some 17 Pounders (the British infantry divisions seem to have used Quads for this, while the armoured divisions used half tracks - the Canadians used Ram Tanks...). But mainly I bought hobby supplies and terrain bits, including some more hedging. Other purchases included some spray paint, tufts, magnetic sheeting, carts/village scatter terrain, a book on ww2 transport vehicles (for £1), the new White Dwarf (Necromunda interest), an old White Dwarf (for £1, making me want to paint some BFG ships), Vallejo paints...  Not as much interesting stuff spotted at the bring and buy this year, which was a shame.

15mm Terrain progress

Hi folks,

This week has consisted of trying to make more progress on my infantry, but I've been getting distracted a bit by terrain!

Thankfully I did get a big chunk of the infantry blocking it done last night, so I'm still on track. But I also managed to 'finish off' a couple of the buildings I got at Partizan.

First up, a small railway station and a barn from Ironclad Miniatures. These are resin kits and come in a couple of parts (building and roof for the barn, and roof, building and platform for the railway station).

Scale wise, I'm pretty happy although the barn might be a bit small compared to some of the other buildings. The doors seem to be the same height, so will have to see how it looks once all set up.

And for scale with one of my vehicles - perhaps it's being used as a first aid post!

Ironclad Miniatures 'Eastern Front' railway station - if I had the station on a base board it would sit a bit higher against the Battlefront railway track. 

The station with the roof off! The building itself is very stylistically similar to the Battlefront signals box I have. 

Ironclad Miniatures 'Normandy Barn' - I added some ivy using some leaf flock I have. 

For scale with some of my recently finished infantry. 

The barn was very easy to paint. I just sprayed both models and roofs with a dark yellow primer, painted the stonework on the barn beige brown and washed with AP soft tone, then drybrushed up with Desert Yellow. I did the door and window sills with straight Desert Yellow and the doors a random green. The windows I just painted in black as I didn't think there would be glass used in this outbuilding. The ivy was an afterthought but I think it came out ok.

The station was similar, but I tried to use the same tones as the other buildings I have for the render, and a bit more reddy brown for the stonework/brickwork. I decided it would have a lead roof, as went for a drybrushed up grey (again, keeping to the same rough roof colour as my other buildings).

For FoW, both buildings will fit in one medium and one small FoW base - so not as big as the FoW train station (which can hold 4 mediums, I think) but the model was only £7.50 and another £2 for the platform. The barn was also £7.50.

Ironclad do have a range of other scenery options - I really really liked the look of their 15mm resin fencing.

I also used the time today with my background setup to get some pictures of my church with the other items I have been working on. Namely the Tiger Terrain walls and Blotz MDF gravestones. The surface was a bit bumpy, as my green cloth was folded up due to the space (I really need to get a different matt as well, one with static grass or a nicer effect rather than just felt).

These Tiger Terrain walls are excellent - and seeing them with the church has actually made me reconsider painting the church. It's not as dark as I remember it being and to be honest the whole setup worked well. I may need to order a few more wall sections and possibly more gravestones just to fill up the space a bit better. But some shrubbery and the likes would not go amiss here either.

The whole setup - plus some extra gates and corners - cost me £20.05 including postage. That was for 29 well made, detailed resin wall sections (including corners, gate posts and gates). There is no web store on the page, but I emailed the owner with the details of what I wanted and he sent a 'proper'  Paypal invoice that left me with no concerns. The items were delivered pretty quickly and communications with Stephan were excellent. I highly recommend checking out his site, as he has a range of other buildings and walls - and I'll be getting some more stuff soon, I suspect!

The gravestones are by Blotz and were the cheaper option than paying a silly amount for 4Ground ones. You get 29 15mm grave stones, which I put on FoW bases and used a little of my basing material to blend in. Then I just covered in static grass. The effect is basic, but just helps fill in the space.

I've also been experimenting with options for making the space look a bit busier.

The shrubs here are made from different shades of 'clump' stuck onto one of my old painting lolipop sticks. I'm thinking that with the sticks cut to relevant lengths they could sit along the gable ends of buildings and the likes. While not terribly realistic looking, they do look pretty good from a distance, and seem to help the buildings sit a bit better in the space.

I've still the Warbases MDF Barn to paint, just having built it today. And some buildings to finish off (those I bought from Lee).

This week I also received a load of trees - mainly Busch trees bought from Amazon. Poplars (must have Poplars for Normandy, right?!), varying sizes normal trees and from Ebay (via China) some 15mm scale 'apple' trees. The chinese trees were really cheap - less than £5 for 20 I think, but a couple of them are in poor shape. Still, the rest will help me populate some Normandy orchards! I just need to get them all based up at some point. I also got the mixed bag of Lichen as it will help fill gaps and add greenery where it's needed on the table.

The smaller sized trees will do for scattering around my town/gardens, while the larger once will do for woods and the likes. I also got some 'poplars' from a cheap site online, but they are such poor quality as to be useless. I may attempt to save them at some point with PVA and clump...

I also finished off all my outstanding wheat fields (doormat) sections - although I'm concerned that I didn't put enough thought into the cutting up of this - time and a chance to set up all the terrain - will tell!

So, still needed seems to be:

More dividing walls for inside the town
base boards for the buildings
items for gardens
pathways/lanes
more outbuildings
possibly more gravestones
more hedgeline - with some farm gate and breached hedge solution