Woodland Scenics Flock and 35 Years of Gaming

I started using Woodland Scenics flock around 1987 to bring a little more spark to my modular game terrain for 6mm micro armor.  About half of that first batch of terrain is still in use (some of it was damaged in a move in 1995), as is a large amount of terrain that I made in 1989 with 15mm gaming in mind.

I've added terrain almost every year since 1987 and now have modular terrain for eight settings, both multi-scale and scale specific pieces, for use with 6 to 28mm figs.  Over 700 square feet of it in all, sits on and under my table, and on shelves all over the basement.  And, all of it is covered with Woodland Scenics flock.  

Over the years, I've used just a couple of bags/bottles of flock from other manufacturers, when colors not made by WS were needed.  The primary reason that I stayed with WS was availability and ability to match new terrain to old. 

In recent years, you may have noticed some variation in the color of terrain tiles depicted on my blog.  The first time I really noticed the variation in WS color batches was in the mid 1990s, just subtle variations then, though more dramatic in recent years.

I use a custom mix for my primary yellow terrain, and for my jungle terrain.  The primary color for my green terrain is the WS Grass Blend.    When applying flock, I first apply other shades to contrast high and low spots and to just create some variation in general.  The last step is to apply the primary color, which covers the overwhelming majority of the completed tile.

More recently, a shift in the WS Grass Blend has been more of an issue, and will lead to my re-flocking somewhere around 250 square feet of green terrain.  The start of this process took place a few weeks back, when I made a point to consolidate containers of flock, and make sure that everything was dated or labelled to make matching new batches as easy as possible in the future.  

During that process, I took a few pics of the flock from various WS batches over the years to compare.

First up is the WS Light Yellow fine flock:

The bottle on the left dates to 2019, the middle to some time prior to 2017, and the bottle on the right is from a bag that dates to the mid 1990s.  As time progresssed, the light yellow got darker, more brown, then lightened up a little.

Next is the Earth Blend:

The leftmost bottle dates to January 2019, the second was purchased in 2017, and third is from somewhere between 2016 and 2010, and the one on the right is from a bag dating to 1998.  particularly noticeable on the finished tiles is that the newer blend has a more dramatic contrast between the lightest and darkest particles, which is most obvious between the second and last bottles above.

The Grass Blend has seen the most notable change:

In recent years the green Grass Blend has shifted to being darker and greener, less yellow than in years past.  I don't have any older grass blend on hand but can show the difference in the tiles.  The top left tile dates to 2022, the top right to 1989 and the bottom to roughly 1997.

Some other colors have changed over the years as well.  Last year, I contacted Woodland Scenics to try to figure out what the fine light green grass that I had used for decades might have been, as I could not find an equivalent on the WS site.  I had finally used up my container of light green that dated to 1988 or earlier.  The material had originally come in bags, which had been loaded into the old round "scenic spreaders" decades ago.

As it turned out, they informed me that they never offered a fine light green, and as the material was definitely a WS product (I was unfamiliar with any other brand until some time in the 1990s), I concluded that it was most probably a light batch of Burnt Grass that I had used all of these years.

This lead to a search for a new light green, which ended up coming in the form of Scenic Express Fine Light Green flock.  It had a more coarse texture than the WS product, so I sifted it out and used the really fine particles in making my "West German" terrain last year.  It worked out okay, though is a little brighter than I'd like, particularly in contrast to the now darker WS Grass Blend.

In any event, I figured that I'd share my observations on the chance that they might be useful some how.

A Small Vietnam Game (20mm)

I recently did some tweaking to my Vietnam rules, playing a bit with the details of covering fire and leadership.  It has been quite some time, since I played anything set in Vietnam, and as I can't get my African game on the table yet (still need to build some buildings), I decided to test out the tweaks that I recently made for Vietnam.

My 20mm Vietnam games are skirmish oriented, though games with up to a company can be fielded on my table,  They feature individually mounted figures, use a ground scale of either 2, 5, or 10 meters per inch depending on scope of the game and table size, and can include details such as tracking ammo and wounds.

Since the game was just to test the tweaks, I ran a completely fictional one-off scenario, with one US squad bumping into one PAVN squad near some abandoned hootches.  A few pics and description follow below.  

Note that usually I take pics with both my camera and my phone, as either can act up or have trouble with the lighting in various situations.  In this case, I only used my iphone, which, given the opportunity, let me down by taking mostly soft, fuzzy pictures.  Nothing on the lense, no change to settings, it is just evil (what else can I atribute it to) and does this from time to time.   Sorry that the photos aren't better. As always, click on the pics for pigger versions.

The table from the US side...

...and from the North Vietnamese side.

And just a couple more pics that happened to come out clearly...

After this, it was all a blur.

There was a trail to the clearing from each end, offering the point of entry for each side.  Both forces moved slowly and quietly, with the Vietnamese coming to the clearing slightly ahead of the Americans.

By this point, there is a PAVN soldier in the house, several sighting 

roles have been made (and missed), with nothing noted, and the squad advances into

 the clearing.

Originally, I was going to use two PAVN squads, but in the end opted for one; but added a fig from the PHQ to be in charge.  Once they got to the clearing, he stayed to the rear, holding the RPG gunner to cover the advancing troops.

The North Vietnamese section leader, continuing to look for any 

trouble, advanced past the house; the soldier inside reporting 

that it held nothing of interest.

By this point three vietnamese soldiers had come into view of the 

Americans, and the US squad leader wasn't sure how much longer they 

would remain unseen, so he initiated fire.

Several US soldiers fired M16s and an M79, with most shots missing.  

The unfortunate Vietnmemse section leader was hit twice and died

 instantly.

The Vietnamese continued to advance, trying to gain view of the 

Americans, but only the soldiers in and behind the house 

(to the left above), could see them.

Many shots were exchanged, with the soldier in the house manageing 

to hit the lead American at the head of the trail first, and then the 

American squad leader was hit by the PAVN soldier behind the house

with the RPD.

The American squad leader, attended to by the soldier to 

his left was now stable, and was going to need to be carried out.

The Vietnamese soldier behind the house was hit twice, fatally, and 

the soldier in the house was hit with an incapacitating wound. 

The Vietnamese tried to get to their wounded, unsuccessfully 

trying to suppress the Americans.  Now with three casualties, 

two most likely dead, they decided to withdraw.

The fire died down, and the Americans prepared to move 

their casualties, with one man dead, and two seriously 

wounded.

________________________________________

I probably should have run a couple of platoons against each other, to better test the rules, which seemed to work fine in a very limited battle.

Despite the limited nature of the game, I still found myself completely immersed in it.  

I pulled the center section of my table and ran this on a 6'x4' table at 5 meters/inch for range and movement.  While the jungle looked sparse from overhead, visability on the table top was very limited, with only three of the Vietnamese soldiers ever in view of the Amercans, and US fire drawing the aim of the Vietnamese.  

My wound system allows five points of damage for the typical soldier, 1 point of damage takes a fig out of combat for one turn while he (or someone else) tends to his wound, two takes him out of combat until treated, after which he can defend himself, and he may require help to move.  Three or four points is incapacitating, and requires treatment from a medic or another soldier, or he will eventually blead out.  Five points is dead, though there is a small chance of being resuscitated by a medic with immediate attention.

The assault rifes do a base two points of damage, which can be modified up or down with a die role (1-4 potential).  The RPD (3 pts of damage, with 1-5 potential)  hit the US squad leader, causing a 3 point wound, and taking the squad leader out of action.  The Vietnamese soldier in the house, took a three point wound from an M16 and died, because he was not treated.

The figures are from Britannia, except for a couple of the Vietnamese casualty figs, which were either old FAA or RAFM figs.

More 6mm Buildings for WWIII:1958

I completed the recently discovered box of 6mm buildings from Levin Miniatures, plus a couple of my own creations for my WWIII games.  I added 24 buildings in all, nearly doubling the number available for populating my towns and cities of WWIII.

Here are some pics; the first four show the buildings from Levin:

The next pic shows the two the I made and cast:

And a few pics of them on city tiles:

All 24 buildings are included in this last shot.

 

So, one project down, 237 to go.  Next up will be the 15mm buildings for my Arfican imagi-nation game.  

Hope to see you soon with new pics!

Keeping Busy, But Not A Lot To Show Yet

About three weeks back, I bumped into a box of 6mm buildings that my wife got me for Christmas, two years back, and figured that I'd finish them off, as I'll need them for upcoming WWIII battles.  Figuring that they'd take me a week to paint, I'm now three weeks into them, and have a part of my game table tied up with the process.

The occupation of my game table is holding up playing anything at the moment, and given that the next game is Uwanda-Mugabia War battle, I've now discovered an additional delay.  The next battle, between ULF and Soviet forces, takes place in a city and requires the use of 15mm buildings more or less matching the 6mm buildings that I made just before Covid.  Turns out, that I never finished them, and completely forgot.

Some of the 6mm buildings before paint.

So, expecting that I'll have the 6mm buildings done this weekend (they are over 3/4 done at this point), I figure that there will be another delay of 1-2 weeks, finishing the 15mm African buildings, before getting on to my game.

This will sort of cause me to deviate from my "game plan" regarding focusing on no more than ten projects, as building stuff for 15mm African imagi-nations isn't on the current list, but my campaign is dead in the water otherwise, and thus, staying on mission would stop me from playing games, which is the opposite of the purpose of the mission.  Life is so complex.

When I haven't been working on the 6mm buildings, I've been researching campaigns for both 1940 France and Operation Barbarossa.  

The 1940 campaign is farther along in development, with work revolving around creating a  general list of of scenarios along three or four lines of advance to be played out, rather than trying to play out the entire invasion of France and Belgium.  The campaign will start out being historical, though will deviate from the historical path and loose plan of scenarios as dictated by results on the tabletop. 

Barbarossa is a little less far along, as I am still developing the scope of the campaign, though expect that it will be similar to the 1940 campaign.

While buildings have been drying and whatnot, I've also made a little progress on the WWIII aircraft that are slowly coming along, and completed some 15mm field fortifications that can be used for various WWII and Cold War era games.

Despite the upcoming deviation from my "game plan", three months into the it, the plan has been somewhat successful, narrowing the scope of what I've been working on, and allowing me to better use my available time.

Once the African buildings are done, I will wrap up the WWIII 1958 aircraft, and the France 1940 aircraft (several still need decals), which will wrap up work on the 6mm versions of both of those periods.  The 15mm versions of these periods still requiring the addition of some buildings for the tabletop, prior to calling them "done".

I'll post a few pics of the 6mm Buildings, after the weekend.  

Be safe out there.

15mm Decals from Miscmini.com

This past week I received 15mm decals for British, French, and Soviet aircraft from Miscellaneous Miniatures.  The British decals are of the Type "D" roundel.  Here's a quick pic:

Sorry for the crappy photo, the decals look great.

Check them out on their site.

The sheets are $5.00 US each, look great, and service was fantastic.  I believe that I ordered them on Sunday and had them on Tuesday.

This filled in a void that I was finding, when it came to options for Cold War era aircraft.  The sizes will work particularly well for several of the early Cold war jets that I'm working on.

I've got a number of models in process and will share some pics, once I get them finished.

Reactions in Mugabia (Cold War imagi-nations)

Initially, the Soviets considered trying a low profile response to the unfortunate event in Mugabia, but with the story plastered on the the front page of newspapers around the world the next morning, low profile was no longer an option.

Despite the statements by the surviving Presidential Guardsman, the story was severely misrepresented, and spun in several directions.  "Soviet Attack Fails" seemed to be the favorite in the American news.  The Soviets offered a more truthful explanation, exaggerating their good will towards the ULF a bit, but admitting betrayal by the group.  This was utterly rejected by the western media.

This precipitated the expected heavy handed response.  The Soviets moved quickly, mobilizing air and ground assets for the move to Mugabia, even before notifying the Mugabian president of their intent.  As the Soviets informed the president of what was going to happen, he tried to remember that how he received the "intervention" was the most important thing.

The Soviets already had a presence in Mugabia, so it was mostly a matter of just expanding the footprint.  A dozen Mig-23s to start,  began operating out of the capital airbase, and another dozen Mig-21s were supplied to the Mugabian Air Force.  A brigade of Soviet motor infantry were moved into the country with armor and various support elements, and two more would quickly follow.

Almost immediately, known ULF outposts were bombed and rocketed into rubble by both Migs and SU-7 aircraft, and helicopter gunships also hunted rebels. Most of these were long abandoned, but it sounded good to men in charge.  With the ULF decapitated after their senior leadership was captured at the airport, the ULF was now fragmented and headed by a small number of warlords.  The Soviets moved to track down these warlords and subdue any problem that they might cause.

After letting things settle out in Mugabia for a short time, the Soviets addressed the Uwandan situation, which started with a demand for immediate withdrawal of Uwanda's forces, and then the institution of a no-fly zone over western Mugabia by the Soviets. 

Both the UK and US moved to reinforce Uwanda's depleted military, but things were happening fast, and a supply of Milans and Stingers would do little to stop the Soviets in the near term.   The US also supplied more of the improved Sidewinder missiles that had been used to great effect thus far, and promised more F-5 fighters soon.

Uwanda had no intention of giving up the Mugabian territory, not unless the regime in Mugabia was removed, and replaced by a more favorable one.  Something that was far less likely to happen now, given the current Soviet presence.  The problem was that neither Uwanda, nor her "friends" had any idea as to how to succed against the Soviets.  Time would tell.

Uwanda's air force continued to fly over western Mugabia, but at a very reduced frequency, and it took nearly a week, before the first encounter by Soviet and Mugabian aircraft took place with conflicting reports being released by the respective participants.  The Soviets' were somewhat truthful in claiming that they had only lost one aircraft, while damaging or destroying the entire Uwandan force.

For the time being, the Soviets were dealing with remnants of the ULF, so Uwanda had a little time to plan.

AAR-38 The Next Dance

As the result of an utterly unforeseeable event, Uwanda found itself in a head on confrontation with the Soviet Union. They now faced a powerful new enemy in the middle of a war, in which they had already expended much of their resources.

And... it was only a matter of time before before the first confrontation occurred, maybe taking a little longer than most expected.

As Uwanda's leadership stood its ground, the first dance occurred in the air.   With the Soviets reminding them of how the US abandoned its ally, South Vietnam, not too many years earlier, the Soviets began to apply pressure.

First indication of the presence of the Soviet jets occurred when the radar warning receivers in a pair of F-5Es sounded their alarm.  The Uwandans couldn't see their enemy, didn't even know they were Russian at this point, but they did know that the enemy was out there.

Soviet Mig-23s hunting the enemy.

The Soviet Force consisted of three Mig-23s flying at roughly the same speed and altitude as their targets, Two Uwandan F-5E Tiger IIs.  The "Mugabian" ground controllers vectored the Migs toward their target and informed the Migs when to activate their radars.  The F-5s were right were they should have been; the Migs continued on their path for a moment, then locked onto targets and fired their radar guided R-23 missiles.  One of the missiles failed to lock onto a target and did not leave the rail.  

Missiles represented by counters on the table,

 my miniature missiles have gone into hiding.

The F-5s got the signal that they were being tracked, could not find the enemy, and decided to turn away from the general direction of the Migs.  

All of the aircraft accelerated as the missiles closed on their targets; the third Mig got a lock on and fired its R23.  The Migs had fired too early and the F-5s out-ranged the R23 missiles.  

SARH R-23R missiles chase the F-5s, represented by counters 

on the table top.  I seem to have misplaced my missiles.

The two F-5s now turned into the Migs, seeing the attackers.  As the aircraft closed, all fired missiles, again with one of the Migs having a problem with lock-on.  The Migs fired their IR guided R23s, and the F-5s fired AIM9-L Sidewinders.  

Missiles in the air (well, sort of).

The missiles reached their targets quickly, with the first sidewinder destroying the the lead Mig-23, and an instant later, another Mig and both F-5s were hit.  All of the pilots tried to evade the incoming missiles, but failed.

The pilot of the second Mig was wounded, and he turned away from the fight; while the lead F-5 uploaded into a ball of fire and smoke.  The Second F-5 received damage, but as also able to turn away from the fight.

Explosions and smoking jets.

The remaining Mig-23 fired one of its shorter ranged IR missiles, but the F-5 had enough speed and distance to outrun the missile.  The battle had been fast and lethal.   And the Soviets could afford to do this day in and day out.  The Uwandans could not.

The rules used were Missile Threat modified to mesh with my campaign.

Plans, Plans, Everywhere There's Plans

In 2022, my plan was no plan.  More or less a carryover from what happened in 2021.  And it worked okay, despite some interruptions, except that it almost kept me from gaming.  I got so involved in completing projects for gaming, that I could never afford time to game.  

With all that I had completed in 2021, I couldn't help but believe that 2022 would be a big gaming year.  How could it not, with the Cold War hitting the table, and France 1940 more or less ready to go. Then there is Vietnam, Arab-Isreali, the Soviet Afghan war and my other campaigns already on the table, how could it not be a big gaming year?

Well, it wasn't.  I played 4 times, even with the launch of a WWIII campaign.  In 2022, like 2021 I got a lot of stuff finished, 59 projects off of my to-do list.  That's about two years worth of work, given my productivity over the last twenty or so years.  In 2022 my project or to-do list gained 14 projects, reaching a peak of 255 projects.  With 59 completed, that starts my list at 196 for 2023.  At the start of 2021, that list was 321, so I'm pretty happy with my progress over the last couple of years, but still, only 4 games played in 2022. Sad. 

There were interruptions some interruptions of my hobby.  My WWIII campaign got derailed for awhile by real world events, and then there was the work on my house that  took every available minute for four months, and a lot of time for the two months prior to that.

Outside interruptions impacted figure painting as well, with only 600 miniatures painted this year.  It had been twice that or more for the four years prior.  Most of the painted miniatures were either 15mm infantry or micro-armor, and none of it was painted particularly well, just minimum table ready work.  Purchases and aquisitions (purchased and gifts) came in at 985, fairly consistent with recent years, much of it build-up for the Cold War, 1940 France, and East front WWII camapaigns.

This past September I abandoned the no-plan plan, and posted "Looking to the Future", which outlined an approach to limit my work to ten periods/campaigns at any one time (down from 30 or 40 or whatever, and henceforth known as "The 10 plan").  During the second week of November, I got back to the hobby, instituted "The 10 Plan", and have completed various bits for seven of those 10 since, including all but completing work on both my 6mm and 15mm WWIII 1958 settings.

I recent days, I actually played a game in imagi-Africa, worked out details for the next game, and have painted a bunch of 6mm vehicles for 6mm Barbarossa for later in 2023.  I've got the next two scenarios for WWII:1958 ready to go, and having recently finished the 6mm railroad tracks, can now get those Cod War games on the table.  Opportunity to game on the table is looking decent at the moment, and is my biggest hope for 2023 (where have I heard that before?).

In addition to actully playing games in 2023, I hope to do the following (The 10 Plan):

1/3788 StarTrek/Star Fleet Battles - Paint Federation and Klingon ships, and either jumpstart the old SFB campaign or start a new one, solo if need be.  I'll get to work on Romulan ships after Feds ad Klingons are done. Proabably won't be able to establish the fate of the old SFB campaign until late spring.

6mm 1950s Cold War - I still have some work to do on 6 jets, and over time will probably add more buildings, but the overwhelming majority of the work is done, just need to play games.

6mm WWII east Front Barbarossa - Work has started, mainly painting Soviet vehicles.  An order for additional Soviet infantry will be placed this week; then, it is just a matterr of painting the figs and aircraft.  I may need to re-flock some old terrain, but will cross that road if and when needed.

15mm WWII East Front Barbarossa - For now, this will mostly consist of ordering models, as my Soviet forces in this scale are still a little thin.  As I get closer to getting the 6mm version of this period on the table, I expect to complete 15mm counterparts for games where infantry will play a bigger part.

15mm France 1940 -  I expect to add a few buildings, and paint some unfinished models as needed.  there are a few aircraft that need some touch-up, mostly reparing some decals.  I expect the Germans to invade in the very near future.

15mm Cold War 1958 - The only thing left is to complete a few aircraft (painting a Venom at the moment), and maybe add some buildings.  Oh yeah, and play some games.

15mm 1970s Cold War - This is the most involved of the ten active projects.  I'm still collecting miniatures for this, and have a bunch of American stuff to cast.  Later in the year, I'll pick one of the NATO forces to get table ready, but for the time being, will just work on filling in the gaps in equipment. 

The Soviet-Afghan War - There are three basic steps for this; making some walls/gardens/wells/clutter for villages, adding and detailling some helicopters, and building a modular hill systems more reflective of Afghan terrain.  This last step will be  kind of large in scope, and will wait until later in the year, but the walls and gardens thing will probably happen very soon.

20mm Vietnam - I got another platoon of PAVN troops to paint (Christmas present from wife) and hope to add some buildings through the year.  Otherwise, you know,  get games on the table.

28mm Post Apocalypse - Once I get some games in on other stuff, I need to clear my table and get Mama's Farm done which will facilitate several scenarios that I've had cooking for some time.

So that's the plan for 2023.  We all know that a year from now, it will have happened very differently, but ya' can't say I don't have a plan this year.

I hope everyone has a wonderful 2023 and stay well out there!