Versa Tile

A big thanks to my Dad-in-law Bob for spotting these and many other Wilko own-brand floor tiles. There’s a fair few which are suitable for the wargames table, follow the Wilko link to see them, including various flagstones in both grey and sandstone. The pack I got will be used for roads, and just in time because I need plenty of them  for an upcoming game, one pack cut in half will give me over twelve foot of roads, even more if I was using a s cale smaller than 28mm. Just £5 a pack.

I’ve gone and taken photos of all of the ones which I thought were useful. The lightings not very good but you’ll get an idea. The texture is more printed than actual but there is a slight texture to them. Each photo is approximately six inches wide.

A rugged stone effect.

Mixed flagstone or crazy paving.

Sandstone flagstones.

Granite flagstones.

A sandy texture, roads perhaps?

My Old China

These two china buildings turned up at a boot fair for a whopping quid a piece.

And although simple, perfect for a quick hack with some paint and flock.

Not much had to be done , I liked most of the paintwork and it fits with the colours I use on our table.

Yhe thatch came up well.

and after some flock looked finished.

They fit neatly with figures too.

Get a grip

It’s been a fair while since I found any real goodies at bargain prices so think of my delight at finding a couple during the mundane task of buying low calorie sandwiches for lunch with my loved one. The first I found on Tuesday in the shape of the vice above, which not only grips things really tightly but can also be angled plus it’s got a vacuum base will means you can secure it on any level surface and it’s not going to go anywhere. If I’d found this for around £15 I’d have been happy, so it’s an absolute snip at the £5.99 which it cost.

Secondly I found this box packed with dremel compatible goodies, which if they’d borne the Dremel logo would have cost an arm and a leg, but this set came in at just £3.99.

Both these bargains came from Aldi, and Mrs. Me informs me they tend to keep such offers for a week so if you’re interested it may well be time for you to visit your local branch.

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?

 

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.

Jeep Beats

Blurred but still beautiful, one of a few “technicals” I’ve been working on and one of the best. This started off as a Chinese made budget toy from Tesco, which I’ve taken apart and modded before putting back together. One thing deffo worth remembering is to remove the “windows” and leave them out. On one of the others I’ve put the front and back windscreen back in and it’s proved to be a right pain in the arse.

This one has had the window removed and thrown away, and it simplifies the whole rebuild. I’ve been a bit flash on this one, the dents are applied greenstuff but carved to look like dents, the driver, gunner and passengers are all from Stan Johansen’s rather nifty Jihadi range and work really well. I know some folk do damn Stan’s range ever so slightly by saying they’re not the best miniatures, and fair play to them, but I prefer to think they are rather special because a lot of what he makes other folk simply don’t do. Female civilians in Burqas? Armed Civilians? Drivers? Gunners? He has them all, and not without a little humour – in the cafe/market set there’s a small table, nothing unusual about that of course, until you turn it over to reveal a hidden AK.

Car Trouble

A lovely little vehicle which started life off as a cheapo toy on the shelves of the local Tesco. Having been taken apart, daubed in part with paint stripper, spray painted on others and a liberal whallop of rust coloured paint and a Tamiya weathering kit and you have a very third-world looking pickup suitable for a lot of roles.

The lack of a driver is deliberate as I think it gives the model a lot more possibility in games from post apocalyptic, through zombies and back to ultra modern, and looking as if it might be a doubtful starter. Some of the rust is real, but that proved to be too complex a technique to use for the whole thing, but was quite zen as well as offering a perfect colour guide. There’s little more rust coloured than rust after all.

Knowing the naturally inquisitive nature of my readers I will share the technique though, but try not to drive yourself mad with it. Typically it involves owning something which is rusting or rusts easily, to which you then add a fair amount of water and in a way where the added water becomes tainted with said rust. Drain off rusty water and then carefully add it to your model, allow to dry and then varnish the deposited rust into place. How simple is that?

Every Little Helps

In 28mm scale vehicles are varied and plenty, but typically quite pricey and often more wished for than a regular buy so it’s worth keeping an eye out for toys which fit the scale and this week I spotted a trio of boxsets well worth considering at my local Tesco for £5 a set. First is the Emergency set above, featuring a police car, an ambulance and a vehicle tow lorry. They’re a mix of plastic and metal, ready for gaming or ripe for conversion or wrecking. They lack opening doors, etc, the paint jobs are a bit hit and miss, plus the steering wheels are on the wrong side, but balancing the price against all that they’re a bargain at under £2 a piece. I’m especially looking forward to using the tow truck in game to inhibit vehicular movement by players returning to their getaway vehicle.

The second set are lorries with various loads, one a recycling centre, the other two more pieces of recycling street furniture, and the third a skip. The green recycling lorry, with a little work would make a great decontamination or hazardous load vehicle, but basically they’re all the same vehicle.

Delightfully the loads are all detachable and can be used as street props, which alone would cost a good few quid. They’d benefit from a bit of filth as they’re unrealistically clean as they come out of the box, I mean I’m not even sure I’ve ever seen a shiny skip, usually they’re a perfect example of the kind of rust you’d like to be able to paint. The large recycling centre opens at one end, suggesting an interesting form of transport for a squad wanting to get in or out of somewhere in secret.

The third set were all yellow, rather boring and I didn’t buy them. I’ll not start taking photos in the toy department of Tesco if you don’t mind, I imagine it’s a prisonable offence. If you’re interested hurry along and have a look, they didn’t have many when I bought these, and my local branch in Westwood is one of those massive ones.

Mini Zedtro

I’ve always got an eye out for a cheap option for gaming and 28mm Zombies have proved no exception. Here’s a toy I found in a local pound shop which proved to be almost perfect out of the box, but I’ve done a little work on it to make it fit in better, and the end result is a jolly piece.

The first thing I did was to take it apart, which was easy because it all holds together with a single screw. separated the main components and painted them, created a small scene of carnage in the back seats featuring some parts from Wargames Factory plastic zombies, dulled down all the silver chrome, and blood splattered the windows on the inside, then matt varnished the lot except for the windows. This model is slightly too large, but I managed to shave 3 to 4mm off the height by resetting the axles so the wheels sat further into the wheel arches.

All in all a very quick bash to make a very usable model and costing less than £2 in total. Magic!

Dicing with Death

Dice can be incredibly dangerous as most seasoned gamers will tell you, more so if you game in 6mm. Picture the scene as your massed tanks with infantry crouched behind them get ready to cross the fields  into the enemy held village when suddenly from above tumble half a dozen regular sized dice, as they land they twist barrels, scratch paint and mangle figures, and regardless of the numbers your attack is halted as you sob without shame and refuse to come back out from under the table.

The answer is smaller dice, and I’ve got a few however over the years I’ve slowly lost most of them so it was time to track down some more which proved more difficult than it ever should. The nearby games shop had none, the local example of the power of deodourant (Games Workshop to most) shrugged, and at one Sci-Fi emporium I spotted how a pair of suitable dice were included in a Star Wars product and asked if they could get the dice alone only to be advised by some batty woman how they couldn’t but I could always buy the packs for the dice because at £2.99 a pair it’d be about the price I should expect to pay for the dice alone…

The answer proved to be on Ebay, packs of fifty for £3.25- so I splashed out on a nifty green for Allied usage, grey for Axis and Red for everything else. The whole lot coming in for around a tenner. The seller can be found here.