Pulpit Fiction

I admit it’s not quite finished, but aside from about another 30 minutes of effort it’s as good as – plus I had the camera to hand so that’s enough for me to bother you with these massive photos of yet another Anglican League prototype; the Mobile Pulpit. Designed to bring salvation to the ignorant brutes of the BUF, and words of comfort to right minded and god fearing folk this vehicle is capable of evangelising at up to 34 miles per hour!

The basis for this conversion, hack, mod or whatever you choose to call it is a Lledo “Days Gone By” 1933 Austin Taxi off that Ebay for under a fiver. This was taken apart and painted, the only “mechanical” alterations being a little bit of corrugated iron on the radiator and the lower windscreen, plus some barbed wire wrapped around the bumpers. The pulpit was scratchbuilt from plasticard, glued into place. Jewellers silk was stained with ink and used for the rope, and stiffened with liquid superglue.

The figure atop is a double for the St Johns (Margate) Choir Master piece I already had, but wanted to be able to mount/dismount the chap. The idea is the choir of nine can fit in the back. The driver and navigator are both those marvelous Bolt Action/Warlord plastic WW2 Brits which are ripe for such conversion. I’m very happy with the driver, who took a fair while to complete and place, but not so with the navigator who doesn’t look quite right to me.

Expect to see this morale boosting vehicle on a table near me soon. Onward Christian Drivers!

War Criminal

During the fight for the Thanet Way the bully boy BUF blatantly attacked a harmless group of Choir Boys from Margate resulting in the murder of one of them. Only the intervention of a nearby G.O.D. saved them from further mindless slaughter. Anglican League brigades are requested to print and circulate the above poster in the hope of tracking down the evil man who ordered such a cowardly attack and bringing him to the justice of both mankind and divine being.

Note: This post is humour, Tony is neither a fascist nor a child killer, no one was killed, and hopefully you’re smart enough to understand this without a disclaimer.

Poster Boy

Every now and again you stumble across an image which is screaming out to be used in a gaming context, so imagine my hearty whooping when I tripped over the one above which, with the addition of a little text makes an excellent recruitment poster, either for WWI or the ever wonderful VBCW. To use simply save the image above and for 28mm use print it out at around 10% size for a suitably high resolution version to plaster your model building walls with, or even print them out larger and wallpaper your favourite room in the house with them.

Oh my G.O.D.

If you go down to the woods today you’re in for a big surprise, you’ll find some Anglican League hiding in a shed with some bizarre weapons. These little beauties are Warlord/Bolt Action Brits, but the plastic ones combined with various bits – some hacked off those free Daleks everyone’s got tons of. When I first heard about these Bolt Action plastics over at the Gentleman’s Wargaming Parlour I must plead guilty to allowing an innate white metal snobbery to take over my thoughts. Then one of the wiser denizens pointed out how neat they’d be for conversions and hacks – and he was right.

The last conversion I did was a BUF standard bearer, which being metal was more of a chore than great hobby fun. These are much more like it and very quick to get to a finished object, which can be half the battle with any small project. I started on these Friday night and now on Sunday I have something which only needs varnishing and base detailing – simple finishing flourishes.

“But what the bleeding hell are they?” I hear you think. These are Gas Ordnance Detachments, they consist of a gas lancer and a pump man. Basically pumping the lance produces an ejaculation of odious substances to drive the enemy from the field – what could possibly go wrong? If two detachments are combined you have a god squad.

The only minor niggle in this otherwise delight packed project was after putting the metal gas masked heads on the figures became uselessly top heavy, but that’s really generating a whinge for the sake of it. This weekend proved incredibly productive including another more recognisable Daleky modification, a building and some fields – when finished they’ll all feature on here.

At last my Anglican League Forces can truly claim G.O.D is on their side, and even aetheists can’t doubt it. Tally Ho!

One to make tracks for

The other weekend I was lucky enough to get away to the mid-west, which sounds very Yankocentric but I mean the English mid-west which is Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset and very beautiful it is too. Even more fortunate was how purely by coincidence this is also where the Tank Museum is… in the heart of Bovington Camp.

It’s a most incredible place as even Captain Stinky above will say – but I’ll not tarnish either the experience nor the museum with a pile of my cheap words, so I’ll let the photos tell their own tale.

Sheddy steady go!

The drive towards using one thousand coffee stirrers in scratchbuilding continues with this farm hut/woodland shack made as part of an ever expanding farm set. Yes I did use even more Army Painter Ivy leaves which have become a regular addition to my rural buildings.

The roof is plasticard, cut in scale correct sizes and quite heavily weather, with a mix of rusty tones of paint and oil pastels, with a lot of smudging and plenty of slightly different coats. On one side of the roof there’s a small repair as well as a missing sheet.

The timbers were coated with mock plaster which is allowed to dry for about 30 seconds and then brushed in the direction of the grain. This not only fills most gaps in the planking but also gives it a very aged look.

I painted almost the whole thing in this delightful green, which you see in a similar shade all around the countryside, especially on corrugated iron. The corrugation on this model is plasticard.

As per bleeding usual, the roof comes off to allow the full doll’s house experience. The interior has beensprayed, washed, gloss varnished and then matt varnished. I have left one corner for a stove or boiler, if I can source one – does anyone know of such a thing? If so please leave a comment.

A relatively simple build except for the roof, but I always have troubles upstairs – but with each one it is getting better.

Exterminate! Extermin-whoops!

There’s been no small excitement amongst British sci-fi gamers from the cover mounted joy of a Dalek army on the front of children’s magazine Dr Who Adventures. Many fully grown men, myself included, rushed to the newsagent to buy several copies and thereby upsetting legions of children who can’t understand why the big mean bearded men have bought six copies of their favourite comic leaving the shelves bare.

Nano seconds later threads started appearing on forums with examples of paintjobs, so it’s only fair to share my Work in Progress with the very same models. Can you tell what it is yet?

 

Fenris Mightier than the Sword

One of the things I have truly enjoyed in having the Boy Slug corrupt me from uniquely gaming in 6mm is how you find small 28mm manufacturers all over the place and by sheer weight of numbers some of those are in your area. Having bought a few pieces from Fenris Game via their Ebay shop, then discovered they’re in the historic Chatham Dockyard (where Nelson’s Victory was built) I thought it might be time to impose upon both their hospitality and ears by visiting them. They kindly agreed to this imposition on their working day, and it also gave me a chance to buy a few bits and not have to pay postage! Having negotiated security we soon found their workshop, set behind the bright red doors of doom above.

Here’s Ian in his creative suite which at first he apologised for being messy, of course anyone into the hobby generates a mess and more often than not one man’s mess is another man’s fascinating pile of treasure – especially when it’s someone who runs a cottage industry. Fenris make a pile of goodies including bases, game props, movement trays, vehicles and most recently figures, the latter quite exciting because they’re good sculpts but only cast in resin. They’re not the cheapest figures cash can deliver but they’re special.

On the workbench was the wotk in progress which as you might expect makes just about everyone else’s work in progress look feeble. This is one of many pieces for a dragon. Given it’s 28mm the finished beast will be massive and very likely a must-have for fantasy players. Luckily in my spare time I’m a spy for Games Workshop so the two hundred photos I took of this piece earned me a pretty penny and expect to see it in GW shops by the end of the week but not so well cast. Seriously though this is the much awaited Heresy dragon and it’s quite stunning in scale as well as detail.

Talking of casting here’s the casting area, very interesting stuff which I really like to know more about. I did think of asking but the chaps were working and I didn’t want to bite into their valuable time. Even you, a mere reader, can see they’re busy, see how every available surface has something on it? I had a terrible urge to prod, touch, pick up, peek at from a very short distance just about every thing in here – I managed to repress such nosey drives with a cup of tea, and a good one at that, and picking out a few choice pieces as well as a set of their Investigators figures – mainly because they’re good generic figures but also because Slug wasn’t interested in anything but the figures. Ian did also show me some of his architectural work as well as one of the world’s best toys ever – his laser cutter. I’m still wrapping my brain around the possibilities of such a device – so Fenris may well have to put up with another visit in the near future.

Here’s the boy Slug, smiling now he has some more figures under his belt, with Rob and Ian. They’re a proper pair of gents, a credit to the industry, make really neat stuff and I hope I didn’t eat into their time too harshly. Thanks Fenris!

Barn Again

Aye it’s the other barn I’ve been working on which is now finished – Hurrah! It has around the same foot print as the earlier one but has a proper hayloft with front access, and a lean to section, so the barn is smaller. It has a similar finish but is meant to be newer so has no dry rot nor rust on the hinges.

I couldn’t resist a touch of the ivy though, this time along the foundation wall and up a post. I find the ivy a bit flat in colour, so I do give it a gentle brush of another green and then a green ink wash. This not only brings it to life but also gives you a way to cover the dried superglue which holds it all in place. I use superglue gel to place it, and when finished cover it with superglue liquid – when dried it hardens off and the whole thing becomes a solid object and gives it half a chance to survive games.

The foundation wall is made from cork strips cut to an agreeable sized brick, laid with glue and then rendered with mock-plaster which is also what I used on the roof. It gives a great finish and makes a material, which is identical to the wooden walls, look quite different. Mock-plaster is simply filler mixed with a little water to whatever consistency needed, typical just runny enough to apply with a brush.

The roof comes off, which I insist on with a 28mm building, and as you can see a car can just fit inside. I’ve used the same vehicle and figure for scale reference as I did in the other barn post so you might get an idea of scale – although I doubt anyones really paying that ridiculous level of attention.

Get your Clock out

Dug out this delightful little model which I picked up during our visit to Hornby Hobbies just after Christmas. Obviously it’s a Clocktower, which Hornby sell as a Jubilee Clock Tower. As you can see it’s slightly small for 28mm but will do very nicely, would fit 20mm rather perfectly but will be fine the the local campaign for VBCW.

Here’s a picture of the original, which is in 1/1 scale, in 1938. It was built to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, although which one I haven’t a clue.

Some of the details are wrong, rather surprising given it’s source, but we’re still very happy with it and I’m tempted to fix machine guns into those portholes.