On Track with Levin Miniatures (part 2)

Back to work on the railroad track sections; next, I stippled some acrylic putty along the upper portion of the track bed, nearest the ties to give a hint of ballast.  Not sure that it did much to help the cause, but it is there.

The tracks were then primed and painted, and some flock was added along the lower edges of the track sections.  Here are some pics of the finished sections.

I started working on a crossing, but wasn't happy with size of its footprint, so will try again at a later point.  Additionally, I have some unused track sections left to add bits as needed in the future.

The end result will do the job, but I think they look a little "flat".  Some weathering will probably fix that, but they ended up taking a week's more free time than I had anticipated, and I'm not sure of the method for weatheing yet.  For now, I'll move on to some other things.

I should also mention that service from Levin Miniatures in getting the track was quite good, and as with their buildings, I am very happy with their castings.   Quality is good, price is very reasonable, and service has been excellent.

On Track With Levin Miniatures (part 1)

I received an order from Levin Miniatures a couple of months back to help me get "on track" again.  The order consisted of 15 packs of train tracks for my 6mm World War III games set in Germany.  

Originally, I was going to scratchbiuld all of the track, but decided to speed things along given how much time I spent away from hobby projects this summer.  The order came almost as an accident, as I was looking at the location for my next WWIII-1958 battle, and remembered that I had never resolved the need for railroad track, so I sent off the order to Levin.

Nine packs of straight track will give me about 15 feet of track for the table top, plus two packs each of turns, switches, "y"s and "X"s.

I decided to mount these on strips of .03" thick styrene and build up a little track bed around them.  

Styrene strips scored to bend and snap off of the sheet for 

straight sections of track.  

Close up of the three different lengths of straight track after 

mounting.

The track sections are about 2.5 inches long, and about 7/16" wide.  I added 3/16" to each side for track bed. the track sections were glued to the styrene with superglue, and I applied a bead of glue along each edge of the track section to quickly build up the slope to the track bed, then applied a coat of glazing putty on each side and sanded the slopes smooth.

This is the current state of the track sections.  I expect to finish them this weekend and will then post "On Track" part 2.

A Few Odds and Ends for 6mm WWIII, 1958

Back in February, while setting up for my first battles of WWIII, I discovered that I was short a few items, so ordered a few models from H&R and Scotia to fill in the gaps in my Soviet and British forces. 

Over the holiday weekend I managed to paint nearly 50 assorted 6mm miniatures, including some recce, softskins, engineering and bridgng vehicles, and some 122mm guns.  Here are a few pics:

Gap fillers for World War III Soviets and British.

A couple of H&R Centaur Dozers.

An H&R Churchill ARK (top), and a Churchill AEV with girder bridge.  

H&R Soviet GSP Ferry.

It has been a productive weekend and with any luck, I'll have some more stuff to share by mid-week.

Some 15mm Progress for 1958 World WW III

Over the last few days, I've gotten back into the swing of things, completing some of the QRF 15mm Cold War vehicles that I received a few weeks back.  Paint jobs are basic solid green, grey tracks and some dirt and dust, but they are table ready.

The models are cleanly cast, and fit together nicely.  They have a rather clean look, but at the same time are nicely detailed.  Here are a few pics:

British Conqueror heavy tanks

Soviet T-10 heavy tanks.

Soviet BRDM-1 recce cars.

The BRDM1s, are cleanly cast and easy to assemble with nice detailing, though I am a little suspect at the proportions.   I haven't checked the dimensions, but they look a little stretched in length to me.  One of the machineguns was damaged during shipping and was unusable, another has vanished somewhere on my basement floor, so only the platoon leader has the external machinegun mounted.  

I also painted a single Bedford RL truck.  The cab took a little extra clean-up, but is not bad by any means, the window pillars just need to be positioned just right, and mine were bent a little from transit.   Again, I think it makes for a rather nice model. Unfortunately, the individual pic was blurry, so here it is in a group shot with all of the models from this batch.

I probably can use Bedford trucks more than heavy tanks, but I just couldn't resist the lure of the heavies.   

After nearly five months , I can finally check something off the to-do list.

With the Change of Seasons...

 ... my four month long, 400 hour house painting expedition is done, at least for this year.  I now find myself  struggling to get back into the swing of the hobby.  Time is still short with the holidays in close pursuit and a seemingy endless list of long neglected tasks at hand (put off by the painting expedition), but there are windows of opportunity.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've managed to put a little paint on a number of 15mm Cold War vehicles, and while the paint is flowing, the process is not.  I just can't seem to get into a rhythm.  Applying a single color sceme with a little dust has been more like giving one's self a root canal.

It's strange in that I have a ton of enthusiam and am bursting with ideas for things to build, figures to paint, and games to play, but have exhibitied the attention span of a two year old thus far.  I'm hoping that the upcoming holiday weekend will help settle me down, allow me to take a tick mark off of my to-do list, and with any luck, play my first game since February.

Stay well out there.

The Grey Guys Never Won

When I was a kid and my miniatures were plastic army men, there were green army men, Americans, and there were grey army men, Nazis.  In all the battles over all of the years that I played with them as a child, the grey army men never won.  Not one single battle.  

They were almost always outnumbered, except maybe in those first few months after receiving the Marx Battleground playset.  Not too long after Christmas that year, I started adding to my toy soldiers, and the Germans almost never got anything.  So as time went on, they became more and more outnumbered.

A a kid, I never saw any plastic army men representing other countries, there were a few diecast toys, like the Saladin armored car that fought with my American forces, but no British troops, no Russians, No Japanese, etc.

The Americans benefitted from the advance of technology also.  Their first tanks were M26s, later receiving M48s ; they also got things like a CH53, and lots of troops with M16 rifles.  The Germans never advanced past the Panther, their additions being restricted to the technology of the war years.  In time they received a Sdkfz7, and a single Panzer IV, but not much else.

All things considered, the grey guys never had a chance.  They fought hard, but still, never had a chance.  

Surprisingly, I never considered any of this before.

Now, sometimes the Germans win, and given that I've played a lot of 1940 battles, they've often won. They also never had to face M48s with their Panthers, and American infantry don't benefit from M16s (well, not until Vietnam anyway).

These days, I suspect that I'd get bored with the green guy always winning, but I do miss other aspects of the simplicity of the old days.  Just buy the stuff and play, consumer wargaming at its best.  No assembly, no painting required (though I did tend to paint them).  Scale not overly important (within reason), no research, no historical maps, no pulling teeth and jumping through hoops for historical accuracy or realism.

It was a lot of fun without too much work.  In reflection, I wonder if I've lost my way to some extent.  The grey guys probably wouldn't think so.

Cold War Help from QRF

I received an order from QRF with some 15mm odds and ends primarily for the British and Soviets in 1958.  

First, the cool stuff; for the Brits, a platoon of Conqueror heavy tanks, and for the Soviets, a couple platoons of T10s.  

There is also, a platoon of Soviet BRDM1 scout cars and a couple of Bedford RL trucks for the British.

My first 15mm 1958 games will likely center around a small group of British infantry that were overrun in my 6mm WWIII battles back in February.  My current thinking is to run a sort of mini-campaign of scenarios as they try to make their way back to friendly forces in the the early days of WWIII, 1958.  More on that later.

I originally intended to place an order for a bunch of French VABs back in March, right around the time that QRF had stopped taking orders.  So when they added their post war lines back to the catolog,  I added a few a few more things and placed my order.  The ordering process went smoothly with shipping time being a touch over three weeks. 

I ordered ten of the VABs to fill out a French infantry company (adding them to what I already had).  Here's a pic of one of them right out of the bag.

The VBLs may end up on the shelf for a while, but I hope to have the other stuff done by the end of November.  I 'm not gaming yet, but it can't hurt to add to the lead (/resin/plastic) mountain.