On The Workbench: Terrain, WW2 Land and Sea

Normally I try and have one or at most two projects on my table at any given time. But on this occasion I have got slightly carried away!

So to the first:

On the left is a partially built marsh for the forthcoming ACW battle 'Big Bethel'. The 2 other pieces will be sand dunes/hills for North Africa.  

Continued.....

Progress being made on the hills and mountains for WW2 North Africa and Colonial games. The two pieces on the bottom right are the sand dunes in the first photo. I am experimenting with colours and not happy yet. I have some spray cans on order and tester pots.

The almost complete marsh/swamp. There are just a couple more coats of Woodland Scenics 'water' to add and then complete. Now I am happy with that I am about to start a production line for several more. I know that the water should ordinarily be a muddy brown but I prefer the blue which stands out more on the wargame table. My explanation is that it is sunny and the sky is being reflected off the surface!

I have tried several paint jobs on the Irregular Miniatures 6mm railway track before finally arriving at the completed one in the foreground. These have been sitting in one of my boxes for several years and decided it was about time I started painting them. They will be used in my ACW and WW2 projects.

Left to right top row: Citroen Truck, Opel Maultier, Sdkfz 232 (20mm), Sdkfz 250/9, Sdkfz 250/9 'neu'
Bottom row: 88mm Flak 37 towed, 88mm Flak 37, 75mm Pak 40, Sdkfz 251/17, Opel Blitz Bus

Heroics & Ros 6mm German vehicles and artillery primed for the 'Battle in the Woods' game. The German infantry I purchased were the old sculpts and although they look fine they are not up to the standard of the new H&R British Paras. I will paint these vehicles and complete all the necessary terrain for the scenario but will then have to wait until the new German sculpts are released. 

HMS Troubridge

And finally I have a collection of dozens of WW2 1/1200 ships I purchased and painted in the 1970's. They have languished in boxes ever since but for sentimental reasons I never disposed of them. Most are white metal and I believe they may have been Navwar models. A handful are plastic Airfix kits when they briefly produced a few waterline models in this scale, and some I made myself out of balsa wood.

Although I rarely play naval wargames I do have a soft spot for ships. Writing up my history for the blog reminded me of this collection and I am curious as to how they would look repainted and based. I therefore dug this one out at random. It is HMS Troubridge, a 'T' - Class destroyer commissioned in 1943. The paint job is from the 70's and all Humbrol enamels were used. I was not troubled by mould lines or flash in those days so I had a little filing and scraping to perform. Although not as detailed as modern sculpts it is nicely proportioned.

It will be painted in slow time and the results will be posted on the blog. The intention would be to paint up a handful and play a game, possibly using the original rules from the following book:

They may need a little tweaking but I will deal with that when the time comes.