Posts Tagged ‘Buildings’
12 December 2011
My Warlord Games “Rorke’s Drift” box set arrived today… It’s an impressive beast- it was part of their pre-order special on the new Anglo-Zulu War range that’s the premier of their new strategic partnership with Empress Miniatures. At the time I resisted the urge to get the full “Horns of the Buffalo – Rorke’s Drift Collectors Set” which is an absolutely huge collection of toys! This set is the first of their collaborations planned with Empress Miniatures – so you get a swag of Warlord Games plastic figures and terrain pieces, some Empress Miniatures speciality metal figs, and a pair of “4Ground“ laser-cut plywood building kitsetsthe of the storehouse and hospital. There is also a mixture of biscuit box and mealie-bags barricades reported to be historically accurate renditions from the battlefield as well as the barricaded wagons and the stone wall from the Kraal. Add to that 40 plastic Married Zulus & 20 plastic British Redcoats plus 7 assorted metal “Character Figures” (including Chard, Bromhead, Bourne and Hook – the historical version of the chaps – and a mounted InDuna to command the Zulus as well as a Zulu Rifleman in looted red jacket)!
18 October 2011
Tony Won's Château d'Hougoumont in 28mm
I’ve recently been talking to Tony Won (a wargamer & historian in Belgium) about various things Dutch-Belgian and Hundred Days related – Tony is a bit of a Hundred Days expert with 30 years effort on the subject, but is also a wargamer who obviously has some very nice models in his collection. Tony (with the help of a friend) has constructed a full 28mm model of Hougoumont and it’s surrounds (using the relatively newly released 3-4 years ago range of buildings from Hovels Ltd) and it can be seen in all its glory in a 27-image slide show at the Hovels’ website – it’s truly a magnificent sight and a must see if you haven’t seen it previously!
Posted in 28mm Figures & Models, Grognard Chatter, The Hundred Days 1815 | 
Tags: 1815, Belgian, British, Buildings, French, Historical, Hougoumont, Modelling, Napoleonic, Netherlands, Terrain, Waterloo | 
No Comments »
5 October 2011
Najewitz Modellbau Building Kitsets - these are the parts for 3 separate buildings...
Over the past 18 months I’ve regularly looked at the models buildings and wagons (and the Berlin Tram) by Najewitz Modellbau in Germany – they look fantastic in the photos and I’ve always been keen to take the plunge – however the description of the material has always had me a bit wary – the wagons & tram and some of the smaller scale buildings being laser cut Finnpappe which they describe as “…no word for it in English dictionary is a product made of ground wood pulp. To say it is cardboard is the wrong title for it. It´s more similar to MDF, quasi ‘MDF-light’.” However the larger 1/72nd and 28mm buildings are kitsets of a resin material, the type isn’t clearly specified on the website – but I took the plunge recently and ended up ordering a selection of the 1/72nd scale buildings…
Posted in 20mm Figures & Models, 28mm Figures & Models, Buildings & Fortifications, Europe 1944-45, Grognard Chatter, Round The Bazaars | Tags: 1/72, 20mm, 28mm, Boats & Ships, Buildings, Café, Colonial, Crossfire, European, Gunboat, Manufacturer, Napoleonic, Paddle Steamer, WW1, WW2 | No Comments »
2 October 2011
Area 9 Farm House with Corrugated Iron Roof, Veranda, & Lift-Off Roof; and Corner-Less Fencing!
Following on from my order from Lancer Miniatures I previously posted about, as mentioned I had ordered buildings from several other manufacturers as well, and my order from Area 9 arrived a couple of days after the Lancer one. Area 9 is a comparatively new manufacturer that’s started up in 2010 – in fact I only stumbled over them a couple of months ago thanks to a post on the Crisis In Alcovia blog earlier this year! They have some very nice looking stuff, and in the 20mm range I couldn’t resist ordering one each of their three buildings, and an assortment of wooden paling fences…
Posted in Buildings & Fortifications, Eastern Front 1941-45, Europe 1944-45 | Tags: 1/72, 20mm, Buildings, Crossfire, Eastern Front, Manufacturer, Russian, Soviet Union, WW1, WW2 | 3 Comments »
17 September 2011
Lancer Miniatures 20mm Russian Railway Station
Right now my 20mm WW2 & Modern era buildings are rather bare on the ground – I have a couple of very nice larger 15mm TimeCast buildings (a Belgian Townhouse and a Petrol Station), and a 20mm bombed out German HQ Building from ESLO. Otherwise I have some plastic kits awaiting completion (Airfix Jungle Outpost & the 2 Italeri Farmhouse & Manor kits) and a 20mm resin Jungle Building from Frontline. So my existing Western Europe and new Eastern Europe theatre troops desperately need buildings for their games – not to mention long-term Mediterranean/North African and more Pacific/Burma stuff! Consequently I have been purchasing several new Western & Eastern European buildings from about 5 different manufacturers (i.e. Lancer, Area 9, Hovels, TST, Sentry) – and where possible have chosen to purchase them pre-painted to save time, and get some terrain (especially Eastern Front) usable as promptly as possible. The first of these to arrive are from Lancer Miniatures in the UK, which arrived promptly in NZ just 1 week after ordering.
Posted in Buildings & Fortifications, Eastern Front 1941-45, Europe 1944-45 | Tags: 1/72, 20mm, Buildings, Crossfire, Eastern Front, Manufacturer, Russian, Soviet Union, Trains, WW1, WW2 | 1 Comment »
5 August 2011
A friend just pointed out the following Model Distributor who offers a nice service casting custom models for people who supply an original master. They say “Send us your scratchbuilt master model and we will make an RTV (Room Temperature Vulcanizing) rubber mold of your model. We can then make approximately 75-100 copies of the master before the mold begins to deteriorate.” With a cost of as little as US$8 for each subsequent resin casting of the mould this could well be a fine option for those people wanting to churn out several dozen copies of an original figure or model – although the initial mould creation does cost around US$175. Check it out at the Fidelis Models Website…
Posted in 20mm Figures & Models, 28mm Figures & Models, Buildings & Fortifications, Tools | Tags: 15mm, 20mm, 28mm, Buildings, Figures, Manufacturer, Model Vehicles, Modelling | No Comments »
27 July 2011
Prepare to defend the bridge!
A friend of mine recently sent me some pics of some of his WW2 Wargaming terrain – we used to wargame together in the 1980’s and early 1990’s and his stuff has been mainly in storage for the last 15 years – but he’s been cracking it out recently as well as starting to work on some new pieces.
Posted in Europe 1944-45, In The K-Rations | Tags: 1944-1945, 20mm, Airfix, Altaya, Bridge, Buildings, Café, Charles Grant, Classic Wargaming, Diecast, European, German, Italeri, Old School, Terrain, Walls, Workshop, WW2 | 2 Comments »
5 May 2011
Is that a photo of a real building or a model?
Got pointed to the Country Gate (the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway in 009 scale) site today – or rather specifically the Making Buildings From Foamboard page featuring some absolutely fantastic model buildings and a great tutorial by Emmanuel Nouaillier; it’s all part of the site’s general tutorial on Realistic Model Buildings. There’s some great stuff here and well worth a look!
(County Gate is a narrow gauge model in 009 of a fictitious extension of the 2 foot narrow gauge Lynton and Barnstable Railway through the East Lyn Valley to Minehead in the UK).
Posted in Buildings & Fortifications | Tags: Buildings, Inspiration, Modelling, Terrain, Trains | No Comments »
27 April 2011
Gazing down the thoroughfare of "Joe Town"...
“That theer’s a town ‘in a half yer varmmits!” And there is nothing more I need to say – just check it out yourself at Roly’s Dressing The Lines blog.
Posted in American Old West | Tags: 28mm, Buildings, Cowboys, Inspiration, Modelling, Terrain, Wild West | No Comments »
23 January 2011
Warlord Games' Windmill
When I recently ordered a reasonable order of Warlord Games ECW figures (See Return to the English Civil War) to maximise on the postage I couldn’t resist grabbing a unique little ready-made model of theirs – the very limited edition Warlord Games Windmill. It’s a great model because it’s a typical small basic type probably seen all though much of North-Western (& parts of Eastern?) Europe, rather than a more substantial structure. This is great because it makes it probably usable from the Middle Ages right through to the 1960’s or so. What’s more, although it’s nominally for 28mm figures it looks like it’ll likely sneak in with my 20mm World War II and Modern stuff, albeit slightly on the large side!
The model is a Pillar Windmill – (from eHow) “The pillar is the most ancient type of windmill, dating back to the 13th century…
29 May 2010
Crossfire British Rifle Squads - AB Figures
Close Combat in Buildings and Building Structures can sometimes be a little perplexing for players new to Crossfire. This page attempts to outline the process in clear logical steps to help walk the new player though the mechanics. While it may appear complex at first it is in fact relatively simple and will become second nature after a few combats.
General Concepts
In Crossfire, an individual building is generally intended to represent a single small to medium size dwelling or similar. It might also occasionally represent a small complex of 2-3 small buildings (like a small Eastern-European farmhouse with attached barn). As a rough guide, the playing area occupied is roughly about the same as what 4-6 squads would occupy.
Occasionally there will be exceptionally large buildings (such as the tractor factory in Stalingrad, or a row of adjoining terraced houses) – these are known as building complexes, and are treated as multiple ‘buildings’ with some special considerations (see page 6, Section 4.4.1a of the rulebook).
27 April 2010
Amera Plastics Nissen Hut
Some recent discussions on the Crossfire Yahoo Group brought up the old Bellona range of vac-u-form moulded plastic terrain. Many of you will remember these old classics from the days of Charles Grant, Donald Featherstone, and Terrence Wise, the terrain featuring extensively in their books, and later books by other authors such as “Operation Warboard”. For those like me, in countries like New Zealand, this was something you marvelled at in photos and wished you could get hold of… Bellona has long since gone out for production decades ago, although there was some suggestion the moulds had been purchased by someone in recent years to resume production – but to the best of my knowledge this is not the case. However the discussion led to Amera Plastic Mouldings, a company very much in the tradition of Bellona, and producing many very similar terrain pieces to the original Bellona range.
Posted in Buildings & Fortifications | Tags: 20mm, 28mm, Buildings, Fortifications, Terrain | 7 Comments »
14 May 2012, 10:04 pm UTC Rorkes Drift Arrives! Hi Mike - I got them from WG in the 'pre-release' special promo direct from the UK pre-Christmas. As John has commented on in this thread they usua...
14 May 2012, 10:02 pm UTC The Hundred Days Continues... Thanks James - appreciate your kind comments. I tried to be fairly smart and cunning about labelling while also getting the maximum info on and cle...
14 May 2012, 10:01 pm UTC Hundred Days British Thanks Glenn. :-)
14 May 2012, 9:58 pm UTC WSS Here I Come - Well Almost! Hi Jim, As I understand it the WF one however isn't the common type, but in fact closest to the "Grenadiers à Cheval de la Maison du Roi" ...
5 May 2012, 4:38 am UTC I take a foray into Vac-U-Form Plastics Great review of our products, thanks so much! We really value all the feedback and take note. Lots of new products on way, do have a look at our we...
18 Apr 2012, 2:40 pm UTC Rorkes Drift Arrives! Also, happy to participate in the enormous multi-player you are planning for when they are painted!