Cheap Wood Houses

I picked this up this past Saturday when checking out Michaels for craft projects for my daughter.

It is a Creatology Ranch House Wooden Puzzle.  It cost me $1.00 US.

It looks like it's scaled OK for 1/72.  It took about 10 minutes to assemble; no glue required.

The pieces come on two wooden sheets.  You simple punch them out and slide the tabs together.  They may make a nice framework from which to create your own house.  The shingles, windows and doors are printed on in black.  There isn't a whole lot of detail.

The chimney is the worst part.  Not bad for $1, but is it worth the effort to detail up and repaint?  We'll see one day...

Sneak Peek- Flying Lead WWII Scenario

Todd and I playtested my WWII Flying Lead scenario last night.  I won't give a whole lot of detail, but I thought I'd share some pictures of the action.

The farmhouses and truck are from Pegasus Hobbies.  They have a very excellent range of terrain, vehicles and accessories at a good price.

German sentries watch the perimeter of the farm.  The scenario takes place on a moonless night.

Partisans prepare to sneak through the woods.

Partisans move in from three sides, hoping to catch the German off guard.

Sentries alert their brothers in arms of the attack!

An MG 34 is deployed to slow the attack from the north.

A French assassin sneaks around the woods, unseen by the Wermacht soldier.

The Partisans detonate explosives inside the Opel truck.

A damsel in distress!

A bird's eye view of the assault on the farmhouse.

"Little kraut, little kraut, let me in!"

Looking for a nice spot to lay down some flaming fuel.

The games were an absolute blast!  Thanks to Todd for helping me with some very valuable playtesting! 

1/72 WWII Germans

Here are some shots of the Germans that will be used in my Ganesha Games Flying Lead game at Con of the North in February.  I've done a lot more than this, but I will just be using a basic squad for the con game.

These are from an Esci set I picked up for a few dollars at a local hobby shop.  They are now available from Italeri as German Infantry.

MG 34 and assistant.  The assistant was a prone rifleman.  I removed the rifle, and created an ammo can and ammo belt from some green stuff and plasticard.

Commanders.  The "Sergeant" was holding a mine, but I clipped it off.

Standard riflemen.

These models are painted up in early war colors.  The paintjob is pretty basic.  No insignia were painted on this first go through.  Though one day if I feel ambitious enough I will do the helmets and jackets.

1/72 WWII French

In preparation for Con of the North I've snapped some rough pictures of my 1/72 French partisans.  I absolutely love the soft plastic 1/72 figures for one main reason:  Price. 

These things are cheap. Boxes usually contain around 50 models and can range anywhere from $5.00- $20.00.  It's more figures than you'd even need.  If there's an army or period you'd like to try out but don't want to dump a bunch of money on lead, try out 1/72 first.  The low cost makes you feel better for not spending more time on cleaning, assembling and painting the models.  I don't even bother with mold lines and just give them a base coat and a wash.

The downside is they are soft.  Gun barrels are easily bent, which means paint can chip.  Plus you can't file and trim the mold lines and flash as easily as you can a regular plastic or metal model.  Some people coat them in glue to stiffen them, and use heat and steel wool to clean them, but I don't bother. 

Another downside is a lack of variety.  Some infantry is hard to get in 1/72.  Fortunately every piece of armor and aircraft variant ever made is produced in 1/72 scale.

Here are some pictures of the Caesar 1/72 French partisans I've painted:

An assassin and a demolitions expert.

Guys armed with the MAS 36.

A prisoner and a sailor type with a Sten.

Another sailor and a wounded man in an argyle vest.

A couple of "hoods" with MP 40's.

A hunter/ tracker and French soldier.

A man in fatigues and a farm girl.

Another lovely lady and a man with a Molotov.

Three more Molotov throwers, because you can't have enough.

Most of my 1/72 are based on 1" fender washers.  The first batch I picked up had very large holes and I had to glue discarded tokens and such over the holes to have somewhere to glue the figures to.  My later batches have had very small holes and are thinner to make mounting easier.

I like using the washers because they add needed weight and stability to the figures, plus I can put magnetic sheets in the bottom of my transport boxes for easy, secure storage.

All of these figures were simply primed white, basecoated and given a wash of Citadel Devlen Mud.

The bases were painted black and a layer of tea from bags was glued down.  A flock mix was applied over that.

Somua S35

And again...

And another

The Somua S35 is a Heller 1/72 kit.  I assembled the kit in a normal fashion, cleaning mold lines, flash, etc.  The hull was actually filled with sand and superglue to add some weight to the model. 

Painting is pretty standard stuff, and then another Citadel Mud wash was applied.  A little drybrushed highlight was applied, then some heavy application of weathering pigments were used.  MiG is a prominant brand, but I use something else. 

1/72 Crates

I'm just finishing up posting everything from my old website and found these pictures of some stowage.  I sold these on Ebay years ago.  The manufacturer is unknown, but they are cast in a hydrostone.  Painting is pretty straightforward base coats, washes and drybrushed highlights. 

The patches of ground cover are my typical mix.

I sure wish I still had these as they would be great objective markers now that I have started collecting 1/72 figures.