Amera Plastics Church

A few blog posts ago I mentioned while at a model shop in Wales I had bought a church from the excellent  Amera Plastics . After finishing my airbourne force for bolt action I have started to build the church.

The church was simple to put together requiring a bit of cutting but nothing major and stuck together great with poly cement

The assembled church (the green stuff is down to my poor cutting than the product lol)

Next i wanted a base so I could have a small church yard for models.  In a massive bag of bits I found several grave stones so they will be added for extra effect. I stuck the church down and put a layer of filler down as the ground.

Base now has grave stones sunk into the filler

The whole lot was under coated and the first layers of paint went on to the church. My first attempt was rushed and ended up a disaster!

Yep it looked horrible in real life as well

A re paint was in order!

Much better!

Next up was stone walking arrround the church. Using under floor insulation and a YouTube tutorial ( mentioned in a blog post here  ) I cut and carved out some stone walls to surround the church

Carved with a pen

Now undercoated the walls are stuck to the base

Last up dry brushing the stone walls and adding flock.

The finished article. I have to say I'm quite proud of this ☺

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Bits and bobs

While I've been doing my Regular British bolt action troops I have also been working on a church from Amera plastics (blog incoming when it's finished), bought an MDF house (see blog here  ) and thanks to some ebay sales I also purchased another building as these are great value. This time round I bought a shop

The Windows are little squares cut out but I might cut these away with a craft knife to have a fully open window. I also got a little out building which was a nice bonus. I am just waiting on another eBay payment and I aim to get a bridge and possibly one more building. With that I should have enough buildings for a small village.
For the MDF buildings I really just want simple terrain so gonna look at printing pictures of brick off and sticking them to building just to see what they look like. Also had a reccomendation at some stick on sheets of roof tiles .
To go with the church and houses I have used the terrain tutors video about making stone walls which can be found here . For this I ordered some under floor insulation. It's like polystyrene but strong, less mess when cutting and you can paint on it quite well. Found some on eBay for £3 I didn't check how big it was!

Almost 5ft!!

So now I  am making a load of walls

Cut and then carved using a biro

A selection of different walls I've done

And yes still a load of insulation left ☺. I'll keep  ya posted on how it all goes !

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MDF House

I spotted in eBay a few weeks back after a search for laser cut MDF houses I found what appeared to be some quite cheap ones (£7.50 for a semi detached house where as all other houses I could see were around £12 - £15) . I thought I would try one just to see what the quality was like. I also wanted to see if potentially I could keep the house flat packed and control slot it together at game time. The purchase also had free delivery on and the seller also has a Facebook page which is  JBWDFWargames. It looks like a one man operation.
The product arrived really quickly  and securely wrapped.
The MDF was nicely cut I had to pop out some little cubes of wood for the  windows but that was it.
Didn't come with instructions but I had it assembled in 5 or so minutes as it was relatively simple.

Each floor can be separated to allow models on both floors

The assembled semi detached house!

In the pic of the assembled house I have not used anything to stick it together as it slots together nicely so this is great news for my flat pack idea! The side walls were the only real loose bits so I reckon come game time a bit of blue tac will hold it all togther!! (My wife is exceptionally happy about the flat pack idea )
Now just to give it a basic paint and it's ready for the battlefield.

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Bolt Action

Been making some good progress on my late war British bolt action force. All my airbourne troops have been painted.

First Group of paras

Airbourne MMG team

Another batch done!

Another group! (Airfix tank bought from Aldi in the background)

Airbourne PIAT team

Last few Airbourne plus the 6 pdr Anti Tank gun

All the Airbourne forces done!

That's the Airbourne contigent of my force done. Been so long since I painted an army (mainly played lots of skirmish games) I forgot what an under taking  painting models the same  scheme was.
Next I thought I would reward my self by making up the tanks I had for Christmas before starting the next lot of soldiers.

Sherman resin tank from warlord. Loved these only 3 or 4 pieces to put together!!

Assembled Sherman

Assembled Cromwell. This one was a model kit so a bit more effort required on this one!!

The tanks were ok to put together as I mentioned the Sherman was the easiest but both have the common theme of missing little headlights etc as my fingers are to big to fit them as I and up just gluing them to my finger!!

Completed tanks

Sherman

Cromwell

Cromwell Tank Commamder

If I'm feeling brave I may add decals later and the tank commander needs a few touch ups. My aim is for the Sherman to be with my regular troops and the Cromwell with my airbourne troops as after a bit of digging I found the Airbourne forces had 6 Cromwells as part of their recce force. For big games I will just have to have both ha ha ha ha

New Rules!

On a sort of Bolt Action related note,  after reading a review in Wargaming Illustrated I decided to buy Konflict 47. This is a wired world war 2 set of rules based around bolt action rules (V1 rules I believe but several people on various Facebook groups seemed to indcate V2 rules can be used with very little trouble). Being based around Bolt Action means all my British troops can be used in this rule set to which is a bonus!
The world in Konflict 47 is set in 1947 and the time line differs in that the US drop an atom bomb on Dresden in Germany as well as testing an atom bomb in the desert in the US. These explosions resulted in a rift opening to another dimension. Strange mesaages come through leading the US and Germany to develop new technologies and soon after their allies also. Konflict 47 allows you to field armoured walker units, power armoured soldiers, genetically engineered soldiers and different types of tanks such as the Tesla tank. Can't wait to add a walker and maybe another couple of units to my overall force.
Habe a great day!

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Christmas

Been a lack of blogs as work and getting ready for Christmas has took over everything ☺ now all done kids asleep feet up now. Hope you all had a great Christmas.
Amongst the gifts I got more bolt action stuff (confusing family members with random links to models I want)

Bolt action gifts

So I got a Cromwell tank and a Sherman tank along with a 6 pounder anti tank gun.  Should give me a bit of punch to take on my regular opponents tanks. Also thrown in there are some order dice in Airbourne colours ☺
Next up is

Some scenery from  Amera Plastics . There is a sandbag position and various hills and a ruined building. Once all painted up should add some nice depth to put battle fields.
Have a great me year folks!

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The week that was!

Over the last week or so I've started painting my Bolt Action British Airbourne soldiers. I found another blog with a painting guide in so I used for tips you can find that here.  I didn't follow it completely as I'm not that good at painting but the guide for camo and the rough colours helped so my airbourne are a tiny bit accurate. I tried to start with painting all 30 odd models doing trousers then jackets I got so bored I realised I needed to break it down into groups of around 5 otherwise I'd go insane ☺.

First group completed

The second broil

The second group includes all the weapons team I have for airbourne. So there is a PIAT,  light mortar and medium Machine gun. The MMG I added what hopefully look like logs just to add a little something to the base.

Close up of MMG team

Hopefully they look like wood!
Also I found in Aldi an airfix model Cromwell tank starter set in the middle asle. The scale is to small really for bolt action but it will make a nice proxy until I get actual tanks as my regular opponent is stocking up on armour! !

Assembled tank

The model was really easy to put together the problem I had was some of the tiny details like head lamps were so small my giant fingers could not get them into place!! The turret had stoppers on so the turret pointed in one direction. Well I couldn't have this so I chopped the stoppers of so the turret can traverse and come off easily in case it's destroyed. (Hopefully not needed!!!)

Painted tank

Tank with my earlier made destroyed vehicle markers

As you can see from pics above the effect of destroyed vehicle marker looks brilliant. My blog about the vehicle markers is here .
I've started painting the tank with paints provided but they are really thin (bonus I got a nice new brush though!) So after a few coats still not fully covered. I probably should of undercoated it first but I just wanted it built d'oh!! Couple more coats needed then I might add a few dry brushes or highlights while I'm painting something else.
Have a great day!

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Few odds and Ends

A quiet week or so. Been the wife's birthday had a poorly 1 year old and was ill myself so not to much time free. After making up all the late war British infantry (mentioned in last blog) I set about painting my airbourne troops. I've played skirmish games for so long I forgot what it was like to paint an army! Slow start as I want to take my time and do my best with these.  So only started on the base colours at moment.

Next up once work shifts are done will be the green on the jackets.
I've also under coated all the regular British infantry so they will be next up.
On the horizon (christmas) I will have a tank to make up and my friend who is my main adversary in war games has a few tanks he is making up so I thought I would try my hand at making a destroyed vehicle marker. I have seen these used in various battle reports and they add to the battle field I believe. I scavenged some flickering battery powered tea lights and raided the baby supplies for cotton wool. I found a few different videos with techniques on so used those.
I stuck a lollipop stick to one side of the tea light and then stuck cotton wool around tea light and up the stick to hopefully maaaje what appears to be a smoke plume.

I think the lighting effect looks great but white smoke won't do for burning vehicles!  So I blasted it with black spray paint!

I think these will look great and took very little effort to make. Hopefully I will be placing them on my opponets tanks and not mine!
Lastly I reciveved my war bear and rider from the Dead Earth games Shattered Crown Kick starter. Lovely looking model. I've had to order a new base as I wanna try something a bit different with this one. It did come with a base but that was more a cavalry rectangular base so the bear can be used is a unit.  It will be a while till I get a unit of bear riders.

Have a good week folks!

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