Month: September 2018

Tiger Terrain Country Walls

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 2 Comments

A very quick update on the other walls I bought from Tiger Terrain

You can buy this set to complete a walled paddock, including an open gate. I just glued them onto some MDF and added fine sand. Then just flocked and static grassed everything. I used the excellent rubbing a balloon trick to get the static grass to stand up once I had sprinkled it onto diluted PVA glue. I have all the eBay bits to make my own static grass applicator but have not got around to it quite yet.

The walls are great, very finely cast with great detail. I will be getting more of these for sure from Stephan at Tiger Terrain. I am hoping he expands his 20mm range to do some more stuff. I still have a small ruined cottage to paint from him, but it would be good to see some more buildings in this scale.

Armourfast Hanomag Halftracks in 1/72 scale

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 5 Comments

I finished up a couple more halftracks from Armourfast. These come two in a box and are really reasonably priced. But they do lack detail, especially in the one piece track and wheel area. But if you want some good value vehicles to bulk up the numbers then look no further. They go together in minutes and you can always dress them up with extras and crew.

So that’s what I did with these two. I had a spare Pak 36 gun from somewhere which I added to the top of one vehicle (I think it was a Plastic Soldier Company spare I had). This was teamed up with some Zvezda crew men from their 88mm gun kit. On reflection I would change the position of the crew as it looks a bit like they are doing a loading conga in the back of the half track. For the other vehicle I used my favourite AB figures for the crew, including a machine gunner and a couple of seated guys. Spent way too long doing the camo schemes again but it’s a fun past time.

I tried something new with my camouflage on the half tracks by first painting the green pattern in dark green with a brush, but then giving them a fine respray with my dunkelb spray can. It fades the camo quite nicely. Since I refuse to think about an airbrush this is as far as I will go without breaking my own strict modelling rules of engagement!

 

Ready To Roll German Vehicles in 1/72 scale

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 4 Comments

I wanted to buy some more alternative German vehicles that I could not find in plastic model kit form anywhere. One of the companies who make a few of these rarer vehicles is the Rapid Fire Ready to Roll Vehicles you can find here Rapid Fire. These were two Hotchkiss German SPGS, one 75mm and one 105mm. Also a halftrack with a Pak 40 75mm gun. Rapid Fire is a ruleset I have, but have not yet tried out yet. Their website is a great source for all sorts of things and worth a look.

Their vehicles come in resin and metal, with the tank barrels usually being in metal. They are pretty inexpensive and have a decent range of British, German and American vehicles. I haven’t seen so many other resin castings to compare them to, but i was pretty happy with the detail. They come on bases already moulded. All i had to do was file down a view bits here and there and then superglue the barrels onto the main chassis. Hey presto the vehicle is finished.

The open top SPGs and halftrack were crying out for some AB figures crew and so I happily obliged with a few guys in camp and black jackets. It took me about two weeks to finish off painting all the camp on the crew men due to the camo pattern i did on all their pants. Then of course, once they are in place in their vehicles you cannot see so much of all my painstaking spotty came schemes……… Plenty of photos below!