Valdemar Miniatures

I was recently contacted by Valdemar Miniatures – and looking at their website they look to have a pretty stunning series of products. Including 3D Printed ships suitable for Viking Longships and small Medieval Cogs. They describe their figures as 25mm (1/72nd) so they may or may not be a tad smaller than other 28mm manufacturers like the Perrys, Foundry, Artizan, etc. However they produce two ranges of medieval figures, one which is their premium range, what they call “Museum Quality”. Continue reading “Valdemar Miniatures”

Italeri Church

Following on from my last post (Italeri Country House With Porch) the other model I picked up from Kieran’s cancelled commission project was the Church (Italeri Kit 6129). This includes an attached (custom made) cemetery and is an outstanding model (if somewhat large). Ther design makes this primarily suited to Northern Mediterranean areas (and Southern Europe), such as Spain, Italy, and Southern France, as well as possibly Croatia, Northern Bosnia, etc, and possibly Southern Austria and the like… Continue reading “Italeri Church”

Italeri Country House With Porch

Back at the start of 2013 I posted about my gaming buddy Kieran building some Italeri Kitsets for his WW2 Normandy Games – and that as he did such a great job I might need to get him to build the kits I have in my stockpile for me as well! Well he ended up building some on commission for another AWC member, who then subsequently decided to discontinue WW2 gaming in 20mm scale – and so those completed custom models have ended up in my collection – alleviating the onerous need for me to assemble my existing kits of them! Brilliant outcome if you ask me! The first of them is the Country House with Porch (Italeri Kit 6075). Continue reading “Italeri Country House With Porch”

Modelling New Zealand Bush

I was searching for information on scenic material (scatter and flock and such) and stumbled across this (NZ ‘TT’ 1:120 scale) New Zealand model railroad blog. It features some photos of Grant Morrell’s Kerosine Creek layout (in ‘S’ 3:16 Scale) from the Masterton Model Railway show in August 2011 – it absolutely creates the feel of NZ bush and minus the railway and vintage car would pretty much look how things were in the mid-late 19th Century in the areas of New Zealand that had been colonised and where bush had been cleared for grazing or early farmland.

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Miniature Addiction!

Roundie, from my local gaming group (the Auckland Wargaming Club), has recently launched his own website & blog of his wargaming & modelling work – he’s one of our area’s most prolific modellers & painters and has built some amazing terrain boards and scratch-built buildings & terrain… He’s also running a local SDS (Song of Drums & Shakos) Napoleonic Skirmish Campaign at the AWC. Continue reading “Miniature Addiction!”

An Aquarium of Thorn Thickets

Dervish Jihadiyya fight from an 'Aquarium Thorn Thicket'!
Dervish Jihadiyya fight from an 'Aquarium Thorn Thicket'!

When BattleCry 2011 in Auckland was looming earlier this year I had promised Gerry from Castaway Arts to help with some Colonial TSATF demo & participation games (and provide the troops & terrain to save Gerry bringing it over from Cairns, Australia), and as part of that I wanted to try and have some new troops and terrain on table to add something fresh to the appearance. The troops were covered by the presence of the first of my Gunboats (which had just been completed for me by Kieran of 6mm Wargaming) and the inaugural outing of my British Infantry in Grey Uniforms (See the report of our third BattleCry 2011 TSATF Game). However terrain was a different story – as always I was leeching off Kieran for his Palm Trees – I do have my own, around 400 of them actually (and about 10 different types and sizes), but getting to basing and finishing them is a different story – but anyway, it otherwise was pretty much all standard stuff (well illustrated on this blog over the past few years). I needed something quick, easy, and cheap, to churn out a piece of quick new terrain…

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Straw Doormat Wheat & Barley Fields

Union Zouaves passing through a wheat field
Union Zouaves in a wheat field

One of the terrain features both Kieran Mahony (6mm Wargaming) and I have in our collections are assorted fields, and one type is made from a straw mat. The following are some photos of the straw fields I have, these are part of a large batch Kieran made for he and I and a couple of other AWC Members. I’ve been asked a couple of times now about them in some of the photos so I thought I’d provide some clear photos of them and a basic outline of how Kieran constructed them. These are simple static fields and not the type designed to have sections removed to allow troops to be placed in them. Kieran designed them as partially harvested to leave enough room in most cases for troops to be placed in them without needing to bother with removable sections.

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