Early Church WiP (4)

The Church has progressed.
I have added the side door (from Warbases) and then I “rendered” the walls with a mix of fine play sand, PVA and filler, watered down and painted on.
After a prolonged drying I undercoated the whole thing in grey primer. This was mainly because that was what I had to hand, but it may have been a tactical error as it showed through for some time, especially on the toweling on the roof.
Once the undercoat was dry I pulled out the trusty Wilkinson’s testers and gave the walls and thatch a good couple of coats:

Next stop, finishing. Possibly

A Warbases Dark Age Building

I bought this from Warbases at a show quite a while ago, possibly Triples 2012.
However I finally finished it off last week.
Its billed as a Grub Hut, although my understanding of that is the kind of building with no side walls - just a roof on the ground used (probably) for storage rather than habitation. Regardless, painted up and thatched it looks suitably "generic dark Age" for my purposes.

 A Musketeer late Roman for scale

Roof lifted off

The kit went together very easily and as you can see the roof and structure are separate so you can put figures inside if you are so inclined. A nice piece of kit and the price (£3.50 at present) means it's almost cheaper (and certainly quicker) than building your own. The roof is strips of face flannel soaked in PVA.

I considered putting some timber framing on the model but in the end just "rendered" it with pollyfilla, PVA and some fine sand. It was painted with cheap Wilko's Own Brand emulsion testers then the walls had a coat of Gryphonne Sepia (insert "most expensive bit of the whole project" anti-GW joke here) and then everything had some drybrushing. Quick, easy and cheap and I'm happy with the result: It's already seen action in games of SAGA and Dux Brit.

I love the smell of burning MDF in the morning...

Look what the postie bought for me today.
A package from Warbases containing the door I need for the church project, some movement trays for Dux Brit and a Viking Longhouse just because I was ordering some stuff so I thought I'd have one (though it'll be some sort of Saxon dwelling for most of my games I'll warrant)

I was so excited by the arrival I stuck the building together immediately and glued the door to the church ready for rendering tomorrow.

Great service from Warbases I ordered very late on Sunday (or possibly very early on Monday morning) and they were with me today, so two working days door to door. Good price too and the kit went together very easily. The move trays look just the ticket for Dux Brit as well, so I'll be slapping sand on them shortly.

Warhammer (slight return)

I've not played a game of WFB for what seems like ages (actually probably only a couple of months). I was starting to feel that if I didn't play soon I might never play again.
Anyway, a couple of posts on the Warhammer forum reminded me that 8th edition is a great fun version of the game. So I asked myself which army I'd had the most fun with under this edition.
The Dwarfs are a bit boring - though the step up has done their infantry plenty of favours, the Ogres have gone from being not at all good to being a bit auto-win since their new book, the Daemons have a new book out and I couldn't motivate myself to re-write army lists and the like and the Chaos Warriors just don't quite tickle me the right way. So I was left with the Orcs and Goblins. Although the army isn't finished - and I gave up on it about six months ago as I just couldn't work up the enthusiasm for painting the Arrer Boys- it is the one I've had most fun with in 8th edition. There's just the right amount of random in it for me together with some good fighty stuff and some great models. And it looks like an Army with some big old units with plenty of models in. So out they came.

I was to be playing against Warriors of Chaos and we rolled up the diagonal deployment scenario.

Turns out i'd forgotten the few lessons I had learned about the army (like always make your Orc Boys Big 'Uns) and as a result I lost quite heavily. It also turns out that when playing Chaos warriors you need something to deal with 1+ armour saves.
But I did have fun and I feel somewhat inspired to start work on the army again.

Here's a few pictures:

 Dawn breaks over the Arch of Chaos and dark shapes emerge from the haze

 A scary bloke on a scary flying thing appears

 Trolls start work on opening some tin cans

 The squig herd blunts its teeth on some well armoured dinner

 The not so big 'uns pile into the knights

 The horde de-hordes itself and awaits the arrival of the manticore

 The manticore, having munched through fifty Night goblins, crests the hill

 The Orc Boys dispatched, the knights turn on (even) easier pickings

And finally go toe to toe with Gruzzkup himself

Early Church WiP (3)

So last night I got out some toweling and a sharp knife and set to work thatching my church.
I did consider using pantiles for a more Roman look but decided against for two reasons. Firstly this is supposed to be a small rural church in an out of the way part of the country - prime raiding territory. So in my  mind its more likely to be rustic and basic and not tiled a la mode. Secondly (and probably more importantly thatching seemed like a far easier way of covering my apse (and I do like to cover my apse!) than using platicard pantiles.
So here are the results.
The basic technique is to cut inch wide strips of toweling (from a cheap ASDA face cloth), glue them down with PVA, then soak them in watered down PVA which you can then brush to flow in the correct direction and loosely resemble thatch.
The thatch probably needs some more PVA soaking in to it before its ready to paint - but it takes an age to dry so I'll probably give it another coat over the weekend.

What I'm really waiting on now is the side door, so John if you read this try and pop round soon with it.
Then I can render the walls and paint it.

Early Church WiP (2)

Many moons ago (last March) I started work on a Late Roman church for games of Age of Arthur and the like. Then I forgot about it.
However inspired by the fab work going on over at Mitch's Wargaming and Modelmaking I have dug out the slightly battered shell and done some more work.
Actually that's not entirely true I added the apse (I do love a big apse, fnarrr!) at some point last year.
However I was still stuck over what to do about windows until I assembled the Warbases models I picked up at Salute and discovered I had several small windows left over, together with a big door that would be just right for the front of the church. So I glued them all in place.
Then I saw what Mitch was up to and managed to get the roof on and take some photos.

So here we are - a little blurry and very much rough and ready:

As you can see I'm still waiting for a side door, but my chum picked a pack up from Partizan at the weekend. Next step is some towelling for the roof for a thatched effect. I did consider pan tiling but couldn't work out how on earth to get it to work on the curved roof of my enormous apse.

Warhammer Fantasy Arch

Been making some scenery recently and fashioned this from the GW Arcane Ruins set.
Simple to put together, though the join lines need some filling to get it smooth. The front and back are nicely detailed but the casting limitations of plastic are shown up on the very smooth sides.
I sprayed the whole thing with grey primer and then drybrushed up to white. The base is the usual set of Wilko tester pot colours with some added slate and plenty of static grass.
Makes a nice sturdy piece of terrain.

This is what it looks like without the white balance switched on under my energy saving bulbs!

Dipped Bolt Action Americans (3)

Blimey has it been a month since I last posted?!
A combination of crazy homelife, busy worklife and a much needed holiday is my excuse for not posting anything recently.
Anyway here's another bunch of US infantry models for my expanding Bolt Action force.
I actually bought and painted these way back before Salute and they've seen action in my (so far) one and only Bolt Action game
They're all Crusader models supplied by the excellent Mr Nick over at Northstar. They're lovely characterful models, nice and chunky and easy to paint. they fit pretty well with the Warlord plastics (though I much prefer them) and were painted the same way as the others in basecoats and dip.
They really don't look as shiny in real life as the pictures make them appear - though maybe I need to go back over everything with the varnish.

  

I also used some of the Warlord plastics to create a medic model

The remaining Warlord models have also been assembled and painted - pictures later this week if I get chance.
As for the game - well it followed my usual gaming pattern and I came a distant second. Good to see that choice of rules makes no real difference to my playing ability.