You are Cleared for Landing (part 1 - Halt! - a Review)

 A quick last terrain post before the end of Dave Stone's Summer of Scenery challenge and a bit of a cheating affair as it's not strictly "Finished", but I'll throw it in there regardless as any hobby progress on my end is better than none at all.

I recently started work on yet another project that brewed up in my addled head all of a sudden and I went on a deep dive into the internets to get the pieces to make it happen. (One day I will finish a project... promise.) Currently, I only have one terrain setup for my 28mm WW2 games and as my regular reader will know, that's my Winter table. I now have (I think) enough terrain completed to set up a nice looking, modular and relatively full setup for my games of Bolt Action (and Chain of Command whenever Luke and I eventually try to learning that rules set). But that's it, just Winter theme and I really wanted another option to play on, something more suited to a Spring or Summer theme, but something you don't see too often - a German airfield!

Airfield Barracks. Nice little buildings and I have two more to construct along with an air-traffic control building, radar installations and another small building from their airfield set.

So enter Father and Son Gaming, an affordable MDF terrain store that is stateside (Wisconsin I think?), meaning postage rates aren't atrocious (Free S&H for orders over $75). I'd heard of these guys from the SNAFU Bolt Action Wargaming podcast and they seemed pleased with what they'd gotten so I took the plunge and ordered a number of kits. My order arrived swiftly considering Father and Son say they cut each order as they receive them, and in nicely shrink-wrapped parcels within the postage box. Communication from the vendor was great as well, with quick responses to my emailed queries.

In glorious black and white, a photo of a WW2 German sentry hut. Those stripes are actually red, black & white and applying that pattern to the side of my own sentry hut is going to be a right pig I bet.

So far I've put together four of their kits using white glue which has been just fine to stick them together. Their quality has been decent with sharp simple detailing and the finished models seem robust enough for regular gaming and also for transport to and from gaming venues. Instructions are provided through their website via links showing step-by-step construction processes for the more complex kits or short videos via their Youtube channel. Construction went smoothly for the most part on the kits I've put together so far with only a little trimming down to make pieces fit better here and there (As I've found with other mdf kit makers), but otherwise I found little trouble making these models which is great for this medium-skilled hobbyist.

This Crossing Barrier kit was simple to put together and came with three signs with "Stop" in German (As above), Russian or English - pretty cool. Here the barrier has it's base coat on and attending Sentry Hut in the rear, primed and ready for crazy zigzag pattern. The smoking German Guard fig is a kind donation from best gaming pal, Luke, who applied the basic colours of a Luftwaffe trooper for the project - I'll be basing and detailing him up a little more as time allows.
(Please ignore the intrusion of Ninja Turtles, Conan O'Brian and Charmander - there's definitely too much crap on my hobby workspace.)

I have always liked mdf terrain models, having constructed multiple from different manufacturers during my years as a gamer (4Ground, Sarissa Precision, etc). Father and Son Gaming kits so far seem more hardy than others that I've encountered, but more simple in design and lacking in detail of pricier alternatives. This is fine by me as these kits look good regardless of their lack of complexity and will be fine for tabletop wargaming whilst still looking great on the table. I still have to apply paint to the ones I've put together and will post pics once done. 

Hope all enjoyed this little review/preview post of my new terrain project for my games. I also have more of their range to construct and I'll post my experiences with those kits here at a later date along with my other planned terrain features for my Airfield project.

- Dai

選択してください

( For those not versed in reading Japanese Kanji, like me, the title translates as "Please make your selection" - thank you Google Translate.)

These are another entry for Dave Stone's Summer of Scenery Challenge. Four scifi/near future vending machines from the now discontinued Antenocitis Workshop cyberpunk-esque range. Simple resin sculpts, they depict snack and soda vending machines of a style commonly found in Japan. 

Comrade Yeltsin and a creepy.... "thing" for scale. Looks like these sculpts are more in line with 32mm or 1/48 sized figs than 28mm?

Online searches for examples of vending machines like these in existence on the streets of Tokyo and other large Japanese cities show that they typically are white in colour so I went with the clinical look from real life rather than branch out and get all silly and neon about it. 

So many choices!

Old lady about to break her diet

The printed details are just cut from thin card sheets provided with the set. They were a pain to cut to size properly, but I'm glad I put in the effort as they look great glued on. 

Sodas and snacks and I think even a row of cigarettes?

Side adds are repeated on the other side. Fun anime-esque stuff.

The rear sides also have adds - futuristic cars, fights and cyber arms. 

Whilst I haven't played any scifi games in a long while, these will find use eventually (Maybe once the weather returns back to "Not Depths-of-Hell-like"?) in a planned solo scifi scrap I have brewing in my head.

This creature must choose wisely, tho I wonder how it'll open a can or bottle of soda with that point spike hand?

Still more on the hobby desk to add to my tally for this Summer of Scenery, so hopefully I'll have at least another two posts to put up before the end of the month. 

Thanks for stopping by and for commenting, if indeed you do!

- Dai

Amelia Pond - that was a great name!

 Now I have your attention, you'll swiftly realise that this post has nothing to do with Dr Who** as the title might have otherwise lead you to believe and is infact just a post about a pond. Yup, that's it, a piece of terrain that represents .a. .pond. A frozen pond at that.

This particular sculpt is a lovely resin cast designed and sculpted by Dave Stone over at the Wargamesculptors Blog and purchased directly from his webstore. If you've been following my blog for a bit, you'll know I have a snowy Winter terrain set up for my WW2 games and I felt the little farm/settlement I've already put together was direly in need of a natural water source. Knowing Dave puts out a quality product through his blog posts I decided to click "purchase" and this lovely thing arrived in swift order from across the pond shortly thereafter. 

The sculpt was poured in opaque green resin and the details very crisp. Dave suggested I paint the underside in dark colours (Which I did - prussian blue then black and sealed in with Modge Podge) to show depth beneath the ice. I then liberally slapped on a grey wash over the ice areas and once dried a very watered-down white wash to fill in the cracks and show the definition in the piece (This part didn't work exactly as planned, but it'll do.). The surrounding areas got a quick light grey base coat then successive lighter grey and white drybrush to look like snow. Once dry I glued on a few frosty grass clumps and called it a day. This weekend I'll give it a blast with some Dulcoat to seal the paint job.

Not sure how or if this piece will affect gameplay, but I'm very happy with the result and my table has a little more interest added to it.

Dave is also running a Season of Scenery challenge and I'm trying to get at least a couple more entries before the challenge is over at the end of this month so hopefully I'll have a post or two more for August to share before the challenge is over.

Hope all are well out there,

- Dai

** Amelia Pond is actually my all time fav Doctor's Companion from Doctor Who (And Ms Gillan is rather easy on the eye - obviously!), even more so than Ace, Sylvester McCoy's fun companion from when I was a lad.