A Sandbox

Andy T made the trip over the passes from the Palatine County to South Yorkshire. We had a game of Maurice planned and used the scenario from the last issue of Wargames Soldiers and Strategy magazine of the Battle of Hubbardton - part of the Saratoga campaign.  We fudged the forces to suit our favoured ruleset of Maurice. I was the Americans, with a force of 6 Regular line battalions and 3 Irregular skirmishers (1 of which was represented by some Woodland Native Americans). Andrew brought a force of Brunswick grenadiers, British regulars, some light Highlander infantry and skirmishers plus a cannon. We added some Notables to represent the traits of the various forces. More details of his own account of the ection will be found on his  blog Lavrenti accompanied one of the skirmisher units who had a range of 6 BW's, which was to prove incredibly useful.  The Earl of Bragge was somewhat incongruously attached to a unit of American regulars. Who knows ...

This weekend was the annual CWC game hosted at The Unit by the inestimable Richard Phillips. The set up was the proposed invasion of Denmark by various Soviet and East German NVA forces.  The area of operations was a bathtubbed area around the splendidly named Middelfart and it's bridge linking the island of Funen/Fyn and the city of Odense to mainland Denmark. My battle was to involve naval infantry and VDV forces on the eastern end of the bridge seeking to sweep aside Danish forces defending the bridge approach. The main table was the Western area with a combined force of motor rifle and tank regiments taking on scratch NATO forces of West Germans, US Airborne and British.  The view looking west along the E20 highway. NATO to the right of me, WarPac to the left, here I am stuck in Middelfart with you...  Myself and Simon landed with the best part of 5 battalions of Naval Infantry plus tank support of T55AMs and mighty PT76s. We had one round of s...

Finished the plane and as well as doing some 1:1 terrain construction (some railway sleepers in the front garden) I have finished the transfers. I was hoping that the transfers would have included an active squadron but instead it gives you the markings for a 1950's reserve training unit in Florida. (You can guess where by looking at the wing...)  They went on very easily though. Still, it looks handsome enough and the little blue pot that came with it is another addition to the paint supply. The Anthracite colour is rather good too and will be used on vehicle tyres.  The thing with aircraft is how to finish them, would dry brushing be too much? I limited a wash to the area around the engine. Anyway, that scratched the itch of 'a change from 6mm.' Although I did also find some random transfers that allowed me to 90% finish a Vichy Dewoitine 520 for my side side side project of Syria 1941. Nice colour scheme and the Vichy certainly seemed to want to know who was ...

The summer holidays this year have been a whirlwind of trips away: Northumberland one week, Norfolk the next. So no hobby work has taken place. I did, however, managed to find a few moments to wander into  Hunstanton Models  , a well appointed shop with friendly owner and I picked up a summer diversion project, a Revell F4U- 4 Corsair. A plane I've always liked- the gull wings, the daft proportions of the set back cockpit, like some pre war racing plane and it's fearsome reputation. I'm going to paint it as is- a US Navy fighter.  The multi coloured cliffs of Hunstanton. 

Some initial pictures, a write up to follow. 

I realised last weekend, during the Crisis Point games of Maurice, that I had no areas of marsh or rocky ground. These can feature in the set up or can suddenly appear on the battlefield if a player uses one of the Event cards to stymie an opponents movement plans. So this week I have been trialling some techniques to make marshes. I settled on a simple one of painting an MDF base in brown then adding sand round the edges for the solid ground areas. I used a mix of French Mirage Blue, some black and a little bit of a brighter blue to take away some of the grey shade for the water. A wash of Agrax Earthshade followed. A gloss varnish was then applied. The tufts are from Army Painter. I think maybe a more brown shade for standing water in future, but they'll do for now. The rocks are cork, painted and dry brushed. More terrain and finishing off a unit of 7YW British for Maurice will be my plan for the Easter weekend.