Terrain - Ploughed Fields with Sprouting Crops

 

As you can guess, as I was finishing up my ploughed fields piece of terrain I had the idea to add sprouting crops using herbs.

All you do is apply glue to the raised rows and sprinkle with your choice of herbs and voila! all done.

Vitor

Terrain - Ploughed Fields

While I have been trying to figure out what to do about my 'Open Fire' armies I decided to have a go at making some terrain that will go with my WW2 games, to come in the future, as well as can be used in Warhammer Fantasy and 40k as well if your battle is set on an earth-like planet.

One of my general rules I follow for terrain on my blog is that it must be easy and cheap to make, everyone's time and pockets are pretty stretched already. I think expensive complicated stuff is not worth it because you can probably buy something that will be better unless you are a great terrain builder or just want custom made.

Now ploughed fields are pretty darn easy to make.

Take a suitable base, in my case hardboard, that's what we call it here, cut to desired shape.

Next take a hot glue gun and apply strips of glue in parallel lines across the board.

Here is a hot tip, if you get your wife, girlfriend or partner involved then she cant complain to you for spending so much time with your hobby because she is doing it as well!

 Apply white glue and cover with sand.

Prime or base in chosen colour.

After my brown base colour I applied a wash of black.

Followed by drybrushing of various shades of browns.

Easy, cheap and it looks very good!

Vitor.

Flames of War - 5 Gebirgsjagerkompanie - My Army

Thanks to those that helped with information on my previous post. Based on this information and the digging around by myself I have decided to go with the 5 Gebirgsjager as my first army. While they are my second choice to Fallschrimjager, I can live with it as they fought alongside each other in Italy and in the FOW army list they can be included as a supporting unit, so I still get to play with them or collect and paint them up as unit.

The next reason is that with minimal greenstuff conversion, just backpacks, I can get away with using the 'Open Fire' starter set German models.

Here are the justifications. Examples from 'Osprey Publications'

Picture below shows soldier wearing steel helmet and carrying gas mask, albeit in mid-war. I know the Gebirgsjager preferred their Caps but in battle common sense prevailed and probably most wore helmets.

Picture below shows soldiers carrying gas masks in early-war and second picture steel helmet as well.

So not so far fetched that some would still carry gas masks in late war 'just in case'.

Now onto the painting scheme. Here are some examples from 'Osprey Publications' showing three variations.

The first is the classic uniform everyone seems to think of first,

the second and third is still valid but looks almost identical to a normal 'Heer' soldier except for the boots and backpack.

This is how I am going to paint up my soldiers, the guys with helmets will be painted up as example two with machine gun and the guys with caps will be painted up, some as example one and some as example three.

Glad I got this decided as I have just started painting the crew of my Pak40, they will be painted up as example two with the officer as example one since he has a jacket that looks similar the Gebirgjager jacket.

Vitor

Flames of War - Help Requested!!

I am busy painting up my Pak 40 and I have run into a problem with the crew.

I have not given the soldiers any thought until now because painting up the tanks did not require knowledge of the units they belong to as the camouflage of the vehicles could be pretty much any unit to the best of my knowledge.

This brings me to the problem, I now need to decide on an army list / unit choice. Since childhood the Fallschrimjager have appealed to me as well as the Gebirgsjager a close second. The 'Open Fire' set models cant really be painted as Fallschrimjager, can they???

The picture below shows a soldier in a 'jacket' only and so could be painted on the models and maybe I could get away with it on such a small scale 15mm??

Will the helmets present a problem though??

This picture below shows the 'jacket and pants overall type thing' they wore which would be difficult to get away with an the models.

If I wanted a FallschrimjagerKompanie army list which is the best book,

Earth and Steel

 

or Grey Wolf?

From my no knowledge perspective I like the Grey Wolf as it seems to have more options available?

I think the 'Open Fire' soldiers could be painted as Gebirgjager easily enough.

As for the Gebirgjager army list where would I go for that?

Lots of questions, your help appreciated.

Vitor

Flames of War - Bases with Plastic Card and Herbs

When I was almost onto the painting stage of my paper card bases I saw, sitting on my desk, a file with a hard plastic cover. I had a second look and discovered it might be perfect, it was sturdy and very thin.

I cut out two sections and followed the same procedure as with the paper bases, namely paint white glue on both sides allow to dry then apply sand on one side. I painted up my sand with a base of Scorched Brown, drybrush with Bestial Brown followed by a drybrush of Bubonic Brown and finally Bleached Bone.

When you compare the two bases side by side you can see that the plastic card base with the sand is as high as the official base without any sand added, that makes the base about 1.5mm lower overall, a big difference in 15mm scale miniatures.

As Flames of War is historical I wanted to make the base look realistic so I decided to experiment with adding herbs to the base. I used a mix of Oregano and Thyme with some Scenic Grass.

I think the end result came out very well and I will be using this method for the rest of my army.

Vitor

Flames of War - Infantry Bases too High for Models?

When Flames of War first came out I was initially put off by the bases of the infantry, in particular the height in relation to the model standing on it (picture above courtesy of Battlefront). The base is a few millimeters high and in 15mm scale it seems too high when placed next to a tank or vehicle.

However when the Open Fire starter set came out (all plastic) I could no longer resist and bought my box set. Now that I am finally getting around to painting the models up, tanks have no base so were no problem, I am faced with my initial problem, the base height. I thought about a solution and decided that card was the thinnest material that could be sturdy enough to do the job and set about making a card base for my infantry.

I took a base, drew an outline on card and cut it out.

It was pretty flimsy so I painted white glue on one side, let it dry, then did the same on the other side. Once both sides had a layer of white glue on it the bases were more sturdy. I then glued the sand onto the base and the end result was remarkably sturdy.

Just before I was going to prime and paint my bases I discovered something a lot better.....see next post.

Vitor

Warhammer Fantasy - Goblin Shaman - Blast from the Past

I found this guy alongside my Empire Standard Bearer that prompted my post on trying out free hand painting and how it can lead to improving your ability even if you fluff it up.

I painted the model around the same time as the Empire model and the results were not bad. Nothing special really to say about him other than to just show you a couple of pictures.

Vitor