Tag Archives: 28mm

Historicals, Links

Russian Civil War Aviation

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Rummaging around our local hobby store, I found the Testors Classics line of 1/48 scale aircraft. They’re cheap (under $10 Cdn per kit) and basic little kits, just right (I hope) for wargaming purposes. I got the shop to order a SPAD Type 13 and a Nieuport Type 17 for me, and finally picked them up earlier in the week.

The Spad 13 apparently never made it to Russia (it was only just entering French service when the Russian Revolution occurred) but the very similar, earlier Spad 7 was in Imperial Russian Air Service use, so close enough for wargaming purposes.

The Nieuport 17 was in pre-Revolutionary Russian service, so I don’t have to fudge at all to include it in my RCW forces.

I’ve decided the Bolsheviks will get the Nieuport and the Whites the Spad. I’ll rig both with a screw or something similar out of the belly to attach to a flying stand, and probably use large washers and steel wire for the flying stand, with an alligator clip at the top so the planes are positionable and removable.

For painting, the classic colour for a Nieuport is dull silver, that being the basic dope the French used on them. The Russian website Wings Palette has a huge collection of colour plates of aircraft from all over, and their page on Red Russian Nieuports includes some nice examples, as does Modelling the VVS: Nieuport 17. I’ll probably go with silver doped body and wings, a white vertical tail, red stars on the tail and as many other places as I can stand to freehand a red star… (actually, I should head back to the hobby shop and rummage through their bins of spare and orphaned decals in search of some basic red stars!)

The Modelling the VVS article on the Nieuport 24 also has some great Red schemes. Red tail, red fuselage stripes, red nose and about twelve red stars plastered everywhere? Apparently a real RCW scheme!

The White Russian Spad will likely be either tan or dark green, for contrast to the Nieuport, with Russian roundels (simlar to RAF or French roundels, except with thin rings of red and blue around a much larger central white circle). Again the Wings Palette page on the Spad 7 in Imperial Russian service has some inspiration, as does White Falcons: Anti-Bolshevik Air Forces. I’m torn between a bold Russian tricolour on the tail, and the awesome skull-and-crossbones on a few of the Wings Palette examples!

A Russian Spad VII, with death’s head tail. Image via Wings Palette.

The Wings Palette Nieuport 17 in White Guard service also has some interesting paint schemes — the diagonal tricolour tail is striking.

Anyway, before I tackle airplanes I have whole platoons of 28mm infantry to finish, but I thought I’d share some links and research first!

Historicals, Terrain

Small Russian Church WiP

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A quick pair of photos of the small Russian church I’m building for Russian Civil War gaming in 28mm. Earlier in January I discussed some planning and thoughts I had for a wargame-scale small church, and while it isn’t going as fast as I had hoped progress is being made!

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My work-in-progress Russian church, alongside the two earlier Russian huts.

As with the huts, the basic structure is mattboard with coffee stirsticks providing the woodwork.

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A slightly more recent work-in-progress shot. Shingle roofs are slow going…

The roofs of the church are going to be shingled rather than thatched, and while doing shingles with built-up strips looks good, it is frankly tedious… The smaller roof is done except for trim, though, and the main roof is about half done, then it’s on to the domes to provide that very Russian look that’s so distinctive.

Historicals, Inspiration, Terrain

The Next Building Project

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I don’t usually like to talk about plans and ideas before there’s at least some progress to show off, but while I was away over the New Year I had time to do some quick sketching and thinking about a building that would be at the centre of any Russian village or hamlet during the Russian Civil War, and which really is iconic when you want to remind players the game is, in fact, set in Russia.

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Some pages from my notebook – possible plans for a feature building for my RCW table!

Google Image Search is really indispensable when looking for prototypes and inspiration, although it’s very easy to get a building that’s just too big for the table. The church at top left would have been over 8″ long and 4 wide, far too big for a scenery piece that is basically just a Line of Sight blocker. The design shrank from there (top right page) then grew slightly on the bottom page and I’m fairly confident the finished result will be something like the two-part double-dome design on those pages, with a footprint roughly 5″x3″ and an overall height somewhere around 6″.

I saved this image from the web but forgot to write down where I found it or any details of the actual building, but it’s become my main reference. I also can’t currently find this picture again via GIS…anyway, it’s a perfect-sized building for my purposes and should help me get a lot of details right.

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Russian Church found via Google Image Search, except I didn’t save any info on where I found the image… sorry.
Historicals, Terrain

Second Russian House WiP

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Started another Russian farmhouse on Boxing Day evening, this one slightly bigger than the first at 4″x2″.

I mentioned in the previous article that I used coffee stir sticks for the wood siding. The workbench photo below should explain some of how I’ve been doing these buildings.

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Two WiP photos of Russian huts. See text for details, click for full size.

Basically, I split stir sticks lengthwise, then glue them along mattboard walls I’ve already cut the doors and windows out of. It’s easier to go back afterward and cut the stir sticks out of the openings than it is to premeasure! You can see one long side already trimmed above, and the other three sides waiting for trimming.

Incidentally, for this kind of trimming, I highly recommend an X-Acto #17 chisel blade instead of the classic scalpel blade (the #11 blade). Being able to cut straight down makes clean cuts in the windows easier, and it’s an easy way to trim thin wood and other strip materials.

The second photo of the pair above shows the new house with the walls assembled but no trim addded yet, and the first hut finished, except for the roof which is drying off-camera.

I’ve already assembled the thatch roof for the new building, and didn’t get any WiP photos of that, but I”ll try to get some progress photos of the next thatch roof I make, I promise. It is kind of difficult to smear glue everywhere and handle a camera, though…

Off for a week tomorrow, so see you all next year!

Pulp

Pack Up Your Dinosaurs

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“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.”

― Ray Bradbury

Should you wish to have more dinosaurs to pack up, I note with pleasure that HLBS has apparently re-started regular production of some of their 28mm dinosaurs. The velociraptors are especially nice models, lots of character, and a swarm of toothy little compsognathus can improve nearly any game.

My collection of HLBS dinosaurs are amongst the figures I’ve never actually gotten any good photos of, except for the Styracosaur. I shall have to correct that sometime this winter.

Historicals, Painting

Minimal Maxim Basing

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I’ve long been a fan of putting figures on the smallest bases they’ll fit on and that’ll keep them upright, when you’re doing individual bases for skirmish gaming.

Almost all of my 28mm pulp and historical figures are based on Canadian pennies, which are about 18mm across. You can’t beat the cost, they’re big enough for nearly any human-sized figure provided you don’t mind the occasional toe or heel sticking over the edge a few millimetres, and the small size makes it far, far easier to get your figures into scenery, especially buildings and larger vehicles like ships.

But what of guns, and larger-than-human figures?

Pennies and Milliput epoxy putty again there too. Why change what works? I’ve used that method before for monsters (werewolves and Yeti, just for two examples) and decided to stick with it when basing up the Bolshevik Maxim HMG from Copplestone. With the gunner prone behind the weapon, the whole thing would have required a base of about 60mm diameter to get him to fit — see above about wanting minimal footprint bases!

Pictures being worth a thousand words and such, see below for the Bolshevik and White Russian Maxim guns.

Minimal Maxim bases – pennies and Milliput.

The Copplestone Bolshie Maxim (on the left) has the gunner and gun on three pennies in line; the prone loader takes up two and is arranged on one edge of his base so he can reach the gun. On the right, the Brigade Games White Russian Maxim with seated gunner only needs two pennies; the kneeling loader is on one, again arranged to one side so he can reach his gun. Having the loaders and other crew on separate bases also makes casualty marking dead simple, as a bonus.

Incidentally, Copplestone and Brigade Games RCW figures work perfectly together, no size mismatch at all. I have a longer post comparing the two lines in the works — stay tuned.

Pulp

Hairy Apemen!

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Missing Links? Yeti? Sasquatch? Some other sort of yet-undiscovered ape-man? The result of Mad Science? Any or all of the above?

Sasquatch/Yeti/Etc!
Hairy Apemen from Pulp Figures & Uncle Mike

The two big guys are from Pulp Figures, PLT-7 Hairy Hominids, the two smaller figures are from Uncle Mike’s Strange Aeons line, the Missing Links. They’re all on bases I constructed of pennies and milliput, as usual.

Left to right, we have Momma (holding a skull), Pops, Junior (in the background, mugging for the camera) and finally Uncle Fred. I might yet do one last round of highlighting on their hair, and the bases do need a bit more work, but they’re playable as is. Not sure when they’ll get their first outing to terrify explorers or hapless cavemen, but hopefully soon!

Historicals, Painting

The Reds Are Coming!

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There’s 43 Bolsheviks off my painting table and ready for action, finally! One Maxim MG crew, some officers and NCOs and a whole lot of ragged, barely uniformed riflemen. Almost entirely Copplestone figures, and I mixed freely from the regular rifles, greatcoated rifles and the partisan packs to get a suitable ragged look. I had just started painting (and thinking about organization) when this marvelous Lead Adventure thread opened, with all sorts of great contemporary photographs of both Red and White uniforms.

Red Horde!
A Russian Civil War Bolshevik infantry force, finally marching off the painting table

24 more Bolshies to finish basing and then paint, at which point it’s on to the 60-some White Russians that are in the mail to me as I write this. All that painting will give me the core of two good-sized RCW infantry forces, nominally configured as platoon-sized forces for Through the Mud and the Blood but obviously configurable for other games as needed.

The Russian Civil War has well and truly taken over my painting schedule, and starting in November I should even be able to get some games in again, as a screwy work schedule settles somewhat and once again frees up my Sundays for gaming, which is of course the best possible use of that day. I’ll probably try to push hard to get enough Whites finished for a first Mud & Blood RCW outing by the last Sunday in November… we shall see!

(More photos of the Reds in the next few days, as daylight and weather allows…)

English Civil War/Thirty Years War, Historicals, Pulp, Terrain

Half-Timber Barn WiP Part II: Thatched Roof

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Picked up a cheap towel to use as thatching. Here it is in a quickie late-night photograph, glue still wet on the roof of the half-timber barn.

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Towel strips as thatch on the half-timber barn. As usual, click for full size.


The roof has a base of sheet styrene. I used white glue to stick the towel strips down, then more thinned white glue to soak the towel, which (when it eventually dries!) should solidify it nicely.

The barn has also been given a base of mattboard and mostly primed. My usual scenery primer is a 1:1 mix of white glue and black paint, mixed right on the model. It seals and protects the scenery surface nicely, even fairly fragile stuff like styrofoam toughens up a bit!

The main arched doors are also in progress, but I forgot to get a photo of them.

Still to-do for the roof, trim the edges and glue them under the eves for a more finished look, then paint and more paint. I also need to do basswood rafters under the roof, both for looks and for actual structural support, as the roof will still be removable when this building is finished.

The roof still looks a bit too towel-like right now, hopefully finishing the edges and painting will sort that!

English Civil War/Thirty Years War, Historicals, Pulp, Terrain

Half-Timber Barn WiP

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Something for the English Civil War/Thirty Years War table, as well as for pulp games set in the quainter parts of the UK or Europe! All those crops gathered from my fields have to be stored somewhere, after all.

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A stone-and-halftimber barn, work in progress. Click, as usual, for larger.

The whole thing is highly inspired by Warlord Game’s rather nice 16th Century Barn. Actually, scrub “highly inspired”, I’m outright copying the building, as a learning piece! Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, isn’t it?

The basic structure is foamcore. The stonework is soft foam salvaged from a takeout food container; I’m going to have to swing by our local (awesome) plastic supplier to see if they have something similar in sheets, as one takeout container at a time is a rather slow way to accumulate building materials! I scribed/carved the stones with a sharp pencil, and quite like how they’ve turned out.

The timbering is 1/8th x 1/16th inch balsa strip from the Stockpile’o’Doom. I have about six lengths of it, and it is entirely possible it’s leftovers from our family model railroading setup in the early/mid-1990s when I was in junior high. I think I’ve carried that balsa around long enough — time to put it to use, right?

Doors, additional timbering at the corners of the building, and a base are still to do. The inside will get a bit of plastering just for texture, and probably a lot of straw strewn around and such — details to add interest without getting much in the way, ideally.

The roof will be towel thatching over a styrene base.

I’ve heard the suggestion that you try one new-to-you technique per project; I’m afraid this simple-looking building breaks that “rule” good and proper! Foam stonework is new to me; likewise half-timbered building construction, and I’ve never actually used the towel-as-thatch technique before either! Wish me luck!