A series of small walls

...and Tony Robinson nowhere in sight. 

I was over at Capability Savage's recently and saw him working on some new terrain pieces that were really quite clever.  

These are small lengths of wood, cut and glued to a thin wooden base.  They were then covered with a thin coat of textured spray paint. 

 By being careful with his cuts and ensuring that his angles lined up correctly, CS managed to ensure that these walls can be used in any Middle Eastern or African set up in almost any configuration.  A very quick and efficient way of generating a mass of line of sight blocking terrain for modern games like Force on Force. 

Some of Capability Savages blue clad commandos sneaking by 

I suspect poor old Capability Savage was somewhat overcome by paint fumes.  It seems that his usual diet of opiates, Stilton and gin had not prepared him for the poisonous exhalations of the textured spray can he used to make these little beauties.  But I reckon that if one were not to actually inhale the fumes on purpose to "...clear the tubes..." and were to lets say, spray outside in a well ventilated area, one could assemble something very similar in jig time without any ill effect. 

I left shortly after CS called one of his artistic patrons on the telephone to inform them that international finance was a conspiracy run by talking badgers. 

Still, a very clever and speedy means of generating terrain. 

Bunkers by Conflix

And not a golf ball in sight. 

I've been playing Second World War games for years now, but curiously I've never really had much call for bunkers. I have one or two, but I recently found myself needing a couple for a Very British Civil War game. There are bags of great terrain pieces out there and I probably could have run something up myself, but I usually find that my home made terrain is a bit flimsy.

These two pieces are from the Conflix range of terrain pieces.  For less than a tenner, you get a small grey pillpox and a small camouflaged field bunker/fighting position. They come prepainted, though there's nothing stopping you dollying them up if you wish.  

And a view from the side. 

I'm a big believer in keeping the footprint of ones terrain pieces small as it allows you more room to manuevre on the table. These have the footprint of your average cup of tea and do very nicely.

The material is a sort of resin. I wouldn't bounce them off the ground, but they do very well chucked in a box and I haven't had similar terrain pieces chip or shatter despite some pretty rough handling. The resin itself is quite light and I wouldn't say either piece is more than a few ounces. 

Note the hard white resin composition. 

So for less than twenty quid, I have four fortifications for Second World War games that are playable straight out of the box with no additional work required.

Can't say fairer than that.

Buddha

Capability Savage sent me a picture recently. 

I think he's on holiday...

Crimean Vineyards

A work in progress

One of the eternal joys of young Du Gourmands friendship is that he regularly tells you that such and such a thing cannot be done.  This is usually followed by a ridiculous bet.  Considering the trouble he's gotten me into in the past, I should be more careful, but this one is one of the more innocuous examples of the breed. 

We are hoping to play some Crimean games shortly, specifically the Alma.  The village of Bourliouk was to the front of the Allied advance and there were a number of vineyards there that gave some cover to the infantry as they crossed the river.  I was using the Memoir '44 hedgerow rules for them and Du Gourmand told me that I should use the hedgerow terrain pieces that I had already made up.  

I responded I would do nothing of the sort, to which he countered that there was no practical way of representing a vineyard in 1/72 on a wargames table. The result was a bet that I could not produce eight hexes worth of vineyards. Which is why I have been gluing matchsticks to lollypop sticks this evening using a very simple tutorial put out by the Flames of Wars chaps. 

A portrait of Kinch shortly after

The bet in question is for a bottle of wine, as befits the subject matter,  but I had to put some extra conditions on the wager.  You see in the past, young Du Gourmand has arrived at my home bearing a bottle of "Cream of Cork: Anglo-Irish Fortified Wine". 

The British are a fine people blessed with many gifts, wine making is not one of them.  Ireland has many a peculiar genius, but ours are more suited to the consumption rather than to the production. To say that this bottle was the most evil thing that has ever crossed my lips is an understatement.  I don't think I actually managed to finish my glass, nor to be fair, did Du Gourmand.  I keep the remainder in the drinks cabinet as a monument to man's hubris. 

This wine was so bad, I can not actually find a single image of it on the Internet.  It has been struck from the record.  

With that in mind, I've put the following conditions on the bet. It must be red. It must come from France and come in a bottle with a cork in it. 

Even so, I fear that I have only challenged Du Gourmand's ingenuity. 

A make and mend sort of a day

A collection of Christmas decorations fresh out of the mould

For a variety of reasons, things have not been great of late. The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. 

Casting away

So the obvious solution was to disregard all the things that I should be doing and set down to a spot of casting.  Prince August do a range of Christmas decorations and they have become something a small tradition in the Kinch household.  I make a set each year for the children of friends. 

I never do seem to have enough clamps

Each year I pick up a new mould and add another two baubles to the set. There is a pleasure that cannot be expressed in making things with your own hands.  I know that they are simple enough, but I always enjoy the process of breaking in a new mould. I even ran up a couple of traditional toy soldiers for myself while I was at it.  They shall have to go marching through the library. 

Father Christmas & Reindeer

Every year there's something of a rush to get them all finished, so getting started early meant that hopefully that will be avoided, but I doubt it. But casting always puts me in a good mood, so it took two birds with one stone. 

I shall have to lay in some more metal. 

More Egyptians

A nice simple figure

My Egyptian Turks needed some chaps in the supernumerary ranks, so I added these fellas. This is an Egyptian artilleryman.  He was very easy to paint and I'm using him as a sergeant or corporal or something until such time as I have a few more Egyptians to spare.  

Clean lines

When that happens he will probably be transfered to duty manning a gatling gun or something similar.  Strictly speaking both Turkish and Egyptian artillerymen wore blue, but in both cases they also made use of infantrymen drafted in to assist the gunners, so this will do for the time being. 

This way!

Now that I have some troops, I needed some officer types to lead them into battle. This is a very simple paint job.  I could probably have added more detail in terms of piping, etc, but keeping things simple made him a little more versatile. 

Nope, that way!

As we all know the key skills of leadership are shouting and pointing.  Mustapha here has clearly mastered both and will be leading some poor Fellahin to their doom relatively shortly.  

Versatile Fellas

Foot slogging it for Kinch Pasha

Painting time is pretty thin on the ground at present, but I've actually managed to get some paint on some chaps and in jig time if I say so myself. These are Egyptian infantry that I got from Old John of Vintage 20mil. 

Now as it happens, I got a copy of this from my good pal Steve for my birthday and there are some pictures of Turkish summer uniforms.  I can't quite put my hand to it now, it's probably somewhere in the War Room. Be that as it may, those summer uniforms were a very good match the figures above. 

By the way, excellent book - more information than you will ever need to field Ottoman forces in the Crimea. Exhaustive stuff, laid out and well illustrated in the classic Partizan Press style. 

There's lots more where these came from. 

With that in mind, I've managed to paint up sixty of these lads in about four evenings. They just need a quick blast of varnish and they'll be ready to take the field in the Crimea. I'll add a picture of the whole lot later. 

The Night Charge at Kassassin 1882

But of course, this year has been the year of Colonials, so while doing for the Crimea, these lads will also do very well for Egyptian Infantry for the Egyptian campaign in 1882 and later on in the Sudan.  Thereby killing three birds with one stone. I'm feeling pretty brainy as a result. 

Now of course to do so, I will have to recruit a Madhist army, add cavalry to my 1870s British forces and further Egyptian cavalry and artillery, but that is a mere detail... 

These were painted with a quick spray of white undercoat.  I gave them two coats, just to make sure the coverage was good and even. The rifle was then painted Vallejo Mahogany and Gun Metal. The shoes, belt, hair and moutache were all painted black. Red fez and then paint the tassel black. Do the sling white and use that step to neaten any little slips along the way. The base is khaki highlighted with British tanker highlight from Vallejo's Armour range. 

And the job is OXO. 

New 1/300 Second World War figures from Krisztian

Fighters with flight stands

One of the problems of maintaining a blog is that one meets people from around the world and some of them are dashed talented fellas.  Now I'm sure I've mentioned how much talented fellas fill me with a burning sense of inadequacy and envy - well sadly, Krisztian has just decided to do it again.  My very talented pal, Kriszitan Takacs of Budapest, has just started producing a small range of 1/300 scale figures for wargaming with his son.  

The emphasis is on aircraft at present, because those are the games that they are playing, but who  knows where the mood will take him. All I can say is that young Master Takacs is a very, very lucky boy indeed that and I am green from stem to stern. 

Kris has some extras and is selling them, both painted and unpainted, at extremely reasonable prices.  I believe the painted planes come in at something less than a fiver, which is very good value. 

If you'd be interested in picking some up, contact Kris at takacs.krisztian AT gmail.com

I'd write more, but I think we can let the pictures do the talking. 

Bofors gun 

Ack Ack Ack Ack ! 

FW 109 

Not 100% what this is.  

Royal Tiger 

Royal Tiger  

Me 109 

Me 109 

P-51  

P-51 

The humble Panzer IV

T-34/85 

On to Berlin!