6mm MG nests - for either side.

 

I have been looking at what I would need to create a Westwall battle. It turns out I need bunkers. I have found some online that I might buy, but I also went to Facebook to see if there were some other ideas for scratch building them. A few examples were given. One was for MG nests built using cocktail sticks - something I had already contemplated. For the past two evenings I have sat down and given these a go. All of them are based on a 2p coin. 

In Battlegroup you can pay points for an MG emplacement as a defender and I wanted to actually be able to give these a go. Playing in 6mm leaves a few things sort of abstracted. These MG nests won't actually have a miniature in them, but I prefer it that way. I might go the same sort of direction for ATGs in emplacements, unless that is better represented by an extra base that I can slip under the original base. Unclear.

Step one was to chop up some cocktail sticks. My first attempt had them glued to a piece of card and would then later be attached to the base. Chose not to go that way. Second idea was the example on the left. NO base texture yet. Third idea was to just attach the cocktail sticks that represent walls into the base texture to hold it fast. That worked a treat. I then heavily lathered the roof cocktail sticks with glue and left it to dry over night. 

I then primed them white and painted the ground a light sand colour. 

Then I painted the cocktail sticks Vallejo Beige Brown. I gave the build up earth a bit of Vallejo German Camo Brown, then washed the whole thing heavily with Citadel Agrax Earthshade.

Once dried I gave it a drybrush with Vallejo Desert Yellow, then applied various flock and foliage. I am super pleased with how they have come out. 

These just open up my possibilities in terms of what I can field as a defensive force. Next stop: bunkers. I am also looking to getting some British and US paras for some Market Garden games...even though I have sort of missed that boat this year. 

Battlegroup Stat Cards - Homemade

 So I made a PowerPoint where each slide is a stat card for a vehicle, ATG or man-portable AT weapon. Printed them out in colour, four slides per page, then laminated them in groups of eight, and finally chopped them up. All while watching a YouTube video about how no-one makes disaster movies anymore. 

I chose to laminate them so I can write on them with a whiteboard pen for keeping track of ammo and casualties in gun crews. Although in my experience a gun crew rarely survives taking any casualties.

I went to The Tank Museum

 I saw neither David Fletcher nor David Willey. I also didn't see any of the younger guys making YouTube content. It was a shame. I did, however, see a bunch of cool tanks, some of my favourites, and see 50 students aged 13/14 enjoy themselves looking at tanks. Some of them got scared about there being a tiger and a panther there... not sure if they were serious or not. As part of being there on a school trip they allow you to sit in a small group inside a Mark IV male tank. The guy gave a really engaging talk about what conditions were like inside. It was awesome. 

Here is a bit of a photo dump.

 First two photos are the view from walking up to the cafe and school group area.

Action shot of another WW1 tank.

I love the Matilda 1. Such an awful vehicle, but a good example of what an early tank was supposed to do - a moving bunker. 

I had forgotten that they have a land battleship there. The Independant - such an utterly insane idea. Looks amazing though.

I think I prefer an A10 cruiser, but an A9 will do with its stupid extra turrets. I have an old Airfix guide about British tanks of WW2 and the pictures of A10s excited me. Something about the shape and suspension just spoke to me. I love them.

My personal favourate. When I rounded the corner and saw it, I had to snap a photo. I loved seeing this vehicle. I love it so much. The shape, the gun, the story. 

FT17s are just cool. End of discussion. 

I feel like we were just awful at designing tanks between wars. What a dreadful looking machine. 

First tank model I ever built. Matchbox Panzer II, along with a Wespe. I remember handing over £10 pocket money - each kit was £2.75 or something. Those were the days. 

One of the last 20mm kits I made. Such a cool shape - dreadful though as a tank.

I always wanted the Matchbox/Revell double set of this tank and a smaller one. 

Tiger 131 - most famous tank in the world. I couldn't not take a photo of it. 

Saving Private Ryan.

Panzer III is probably my favourite actual tank of the war. I like the size and shape. 

Beautiful. 

I built a Fujimi Valentine and I messed up the road wheels, meaning they stick out a little. Still, a cool tank to be fair. 

I have a few Cromwells knocking around. In the early days I always wanted to have one as they had pretty solid stats for a British tank. But I couldn't find a kit of one to save my life. Now - Airfix do a decent one. Armourfast also used to make a pair that were servicable. 

All in all, a good day out. I highly recomment. I didn't get to see even close to everything I wanted. 

Flooring from table dressing.

 Ten years ago I bought two red, square place mats to protect your table from hot plates. They had the texture of sci-fi flooring. I have used them only on a couple of pieces of terrain so far and they have travelled with me through three house moves.

Below you can see the two different textures on the landing pads. I prefer the top one. However, with them being bright red, paitning them was a pain and there are times where I think you can see it sticking through. 

This summer I found some grey place mats in Aldi probably. Picked them up for maybe £1 each. I genuinely feel like they need a dry brush and that is all? They will do as is. I am loathe to even cut them up. Pictured below with some 6mm figures, a 28mm(ish) Star Wars Miniature, and some mech from some 3d printed prototype game. 

 

Bulking out the ranks - Soviet LMGs and ATGs and British support weapons.

 A while back I bought some assorted figures and vehicles that were missing. Notably Soviet LMG teams and British platoon support weapons - Bren teams, 2 inch mortars and Vickers HMG teams. They have been sitting for a few months partly painted. This weekend I decided to smash them out. 

The British are painted a different colour to the rest of my brits, but I don't mind too much. I am pleased with how they have all come out.

I wanted 3 45mm cannons I needed more LMG teams so painted up like 12 of them.

I actually think I prefer these British. They are nice and light so don't look like brown blobs. 

6mm WW2 USA infantry painting guide - Keeping it simple

Painting US infantry is pretty simple as it is, but at 6mm I really wanted to do it as easy as I could. Warning - I painted these guys in strips so the basing isn't as good as it could have been (you might see some bare coin in places), and for some reason when I clip them from the strip paint scratches off them. I really can't be bothered to go back and touch up any scratches. I would honestly much rather just buy and paint new figures!

Step 1: This is the basing that I should have done first. Glue to coins, or small metal disk. Spray the whole lot white. Paint the base a sandy craft colour. 

Steps 2-6 in one sitting.

Step 2: Flesh - just be messy don't be careful. No point.

Step 3: I painted their boots Vallejo Flat Brown (leather colour). It is pretty light.

Step 4: Painted guns black.

Step 5: I painted their trousers a Vallejo light green colour. Not sure what it was.

Step 6: I painted their tops Vallejo khaki. 

Step 7: Washed the lot with Agrax Earthshade.

Step 8: Painted their helmets and canteens Vallejo US Dark Green.

Step 9: Paint the base rim dark grey.

Step 10: Flock the entire base.

Step 11: Seal with a matt spray.

These guys look fine to be honest. I actually wonder if they would benefit from wooden stocks but that is an extra unwanted step. I like their light boots for some reason. I way prefer them to black boots. The command stand with the bush was my old method, which had more steps. You can clearly see the wooden stocks, and textured base.

Mémorial du Linge - Alsace

 My wife's family hails from the Alsace region. We visited there back in 2015 and only just managed to return this year. As a speaker of both German and French, and as a lover of history I find this area especially interesting. For added context, my history learning journey through school led to me learning about the rise and fall of the Weimar Republic, then the rise of Nazism - ending just before the outbreak of WW2. That was my GCSE. In 6th form I ended up learning about the rise of Fascism in Italy; the failure of the rise of Fascism in Britain - Mosley and his failure; the birth of the KKK in America; and an even more in-depth look at the rise of Nazism. I had no choice in any of this, excepting for the part where I opted to learn History. Thus: my interest in the Alsace region comes from many places. 

This holiday I was given advice regarding various historical sites to visit in the area. One of them was the Mémorial du Linge - a mountaintop set of well preserved WW1 trenches. At this point, this region was technically part of the new Germany. With the outbreak of war, the French pushed in and then they sat in a stalemate at this place for the rest of the war. Thus the trench system (German) is incredibly well fortified and well preserved. 

Here are a few snaps from the museum. A high recommend from me. The museum itself is open in the morning and then closed for 2 hours, then opens again in the afternoon. They play a film about the history on a cycle switching between French, German, English. The trench system is actually free to look at, which we hadn't realised at first until no-one came to kick us out once the museum closed for lunch. It was so big we are pretty sure we didn't see it all, and we were wondering around it for a good couple of hours.