May roundup

It all seems to have been a bit quiet in Sheffield blogland this month - I blame the warm weather making people go outside! No good can come of it you know...

Anyway, since I've been shocking on the posting front myself, it's easy for you to go back and see that I changed this month's target to the weaselly "as much Flashbang terrain as possible".

Here's a tour through my results:

As we approach the bank building we spot two stone seats outside. These were Antenociti's Workshop sofas, but they just seemed the wrong shape for sofas to me, so they became street furniture.

Once inside the lobby, you see an information desk and counter, (from Ainsty Castings) and some corporate red seating (again from Antenociti's Workshop) in case you need to wait...

 

Moving up to the first floor there are offices, so there's some desks, filing cabinets, (all Ainsty) and more seating (Antenociti's).

There's also the water cooler I bought from the Ainsty stand at Triples! I love that model, it was only £1.50 but there's something genius about the use of clear resin for the bottle...

Going upstairs again we come to a store room.

Then, if we sneak up onto the roof, we can hide amongst the (Antenociti's) air con units.

So there you have it. Not a bad bit of work, and I think I've now got enough furniture done for a decent raid on the bank building, which is what I'm planning for a test game between JP and Craig in a week and a half. I have other bits I'd like to prepare for that too, including some stairs - how do you actually get between the floors otherwise?

Anyway, I always like to do a wildcard to go with my monthly targets and this month was no exception. I had a VBCW game planned against Kieron, so I quickly boshed together a few more freedom fighters (including a boys anti tank rifle which I converted to have a historically appropriate monopod rather than the bipod it came with, and which was in no way a response to Kieron having a tank).

I also made the partner to the High Altitude Marksman's Mount for Extended Range (H.A.M.M.E.R), the Siege Insertion Carrier with Knight's Lance Entry (S.I.C.K.L.E., geddit?). Despite being a barely armoured open topped vehicle, this was pretty useful in our game.

Targets for next month? Well, there's still more to do Flashbang terrain wise, so I'll aim to sort out the interior of the other Sarissa Precision building, get the Warbases warehouse I got at Triples ready for the table, and paint the rest of my Ainsty bits and pieces.

Office Rocker

The wargamer's butterfly effect strikes again!

I've had very little time for painting so far this month, having been away for a week already. As I was away I was contemplating Flashbang, and when I got back I found I wasn't so keen to keep painting Normans. Since I still have a fair amount of furniture to paint, and I want to get some games going at the club, I've returned to the office furniture I started work on way back in 2011.

The Ainsty Castings chap loves me

What with Triples coming up at the weekend, I feel I have to get these painted before I can go back to the Ainsty Castings stand, too...

I've been trying to keep them as a fairly well matched set, so that they make sense together - I've been doing this with a base coat of Vallejo Brown Sand, followed by a drybrush of Iraqui Sand. I apply the drybrush in a single direction, the idea being to simulate that fake laminate woodgrain effect that you see in dreary offices the world over.

To guarantee a low score this month, I'm changing my target to "as much Flashbang terrain as possible". That's so vague (and in fact I could easily claim to have already done it) that I doubt I'll get any points. Still, if it gets it done, that's good enough for me!

Normans and Buildings

I tried to come up with a pun or something for the title of this post, but nothing would come to me...

Anyway. A bit of progress to report on. First off, I've finished (more or less) the exterior of my buildings, so I've started on the inside. I'm working on the "bank" first (I keep thinking of it as a bank even though it'll probably start off as nondescript offices). I bought some tester pots of matt emulsion from Wilkinsons, reasoning that the best way to get the colours of interior wall paint would be to use interior wall paint. I needed two coats to get the right level of coverage, just like painting a real wall, and the end effect is pretty much exactly the bland office interior that i was after.


Then, moving on to the floors - for the upper floors, which I imagine will be the offices of the bank, I wanted carpet so I went to Hobbycraft and bought some doll's house carpet. This was self adhesive, so it was a simple matter to cut it to size and stick it in.

On the ground floor I want a tiled floor, so I'm using some textured plasticard. I think I'm going to try to get a wood effect there, but I'm not sure yet, I might still change my mind. We'll see.

Having worked on the buildings for a while I fancied doing something else, so I've assembled some plastic Norman knights. These are the Conquest models which I think have been very popular.

Notice that there are 15 complete knights here, from a box that supposedly makes 12! A fine bit of Cheaphammering if I do say so myself. Basically the pack comes with 3 spare knights to make command figures, but there are only 12 horses, and 12 kite shields in the box. There are round shields as well, but that just doesn't say "Norman" to me, so I've raided the bits left over from my Anglo Danes and found enough shields and arms to give everyone the kite shield. To provide the horses I did a bit of begging and Aneurin kindly gave me four Lord of the Rings horses which are basically the right size.

So now I have 15 knights ready... 16 would make two units of warriors for Saga, and 17 would allow me to use a model as a warlord too. I still have the metal models I won to put together as well, and I've got a set of Norman dice for the playtesting we did before the game was released. Which means that, if I can find a couple of spare knights from someone else's Conquest pack (I have two more spare horses), I can field a complete Saga force which has cost me £2 - for the two packs of bases the knights will stand on. Not bad that! I do want to get some crossbowmen for these too, so I'll be keeping an eye out for anything appropriate.