Normandy

Normandy Village Board Project

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 5 Comments

Well, Covid has finally grabbed a foothold in our fortress of a house, putting me out of action for a week. Although really only the first day felt like anything other than a crappy cold-type situation. Anyway, this was a great opportunity to sweep up some odds and ends that have been laying around for years. I had some resin castings that I picked up from eBay plus a Sarissa MDF house or two and a nice Hovels bridge. I decided to make a centre piece for a town with a proper river section sunken down into the board. I had a nice piece of 3mm MDF to mount it all on, and used lots of polystyrene to build up a few layers. Cobble streets were made with modelling clay and my cobble textured roller. There are two more houses to go at one end of the town which are 100% scratch built and not quite completed. I dressed up the MDF houses with new roof tiles, floorboards and chimney pots. A little bit of work goes a long way. Realistically i think this will be the town centre for a much bigger layout (maybe a battle for Caen or something), as i can surround this with more houses, rivers and roads to cover a whole 5 x 8 foot table. Next up will be finishing the last two houses and then can texture the open ground with glue and sand before painting. I have also started making bricks and rubble as I am going to need quite a bit of it to decorate the place, considering all the ruins!!

AB Figures WW2 German Infantry

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 5 Comments

My plan for 2023 is to get all my German infantry painted up. There are 150 or so of them knocking around and most are already based and primed ready to go! Most of my British are completed so its about time I have some opposition to actually get a game set up and even played. This group consist of nine infantry including a standing machine gunner, seven rifle men mostly walking and one officer with an MP40. I also snuck in a senior officer from CP models. For my paint job I used paints from a German Uniform Field Grey paint set I recently purchased, with the jackets and pants being interesting different shades. Reading around about German uniforms it seems that there were many different shades throughout the war, so any inaccuracies are totally accurate. Makes it easy to do whatever shades you like. I love the poses and stances of these AB figures, and the detail makes it so much easier to paint. It still takes me days just to paint a few…….and that’s not even doing camo…….

Plastic Soldier Company Chevrolet Truck in 1/72 scale

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 9 Comments

Another cool truck this time from The Plastic Soldier Company. I bought just one sprue of this little truck as they had some sale on over there in the UK. Very simple one sprue of soft grey plastic. Nice chunky detail as always from these guys. It is a super quick build, although I did pre paint the two crew that come supplied before constructing the cabin. A few additions also add value to the vehicle. I found a pair of spare wing mirrors in my bits box that were added, you have to have wing mirrors for effective combat driving don’t you? I also added clear plastic windows as things do not quite look right without a working windscreen. You do not get decals with any of these PSC kits so I raided my well stocked decals folder for some random bits and pieces. Oh yes and I really did not like the handling of the canvas rear cover, it looked way too unnatural at the back. So I chopped out the back section and replaced it with a rolled up bit of foil and string to represent a canvas roll down door thing. Much better.

Paint scheme i did an overall olive drab for the cab and chassis, and a khaki for the canvas back. Then did a mickey mouse black camo scheme over the top. He is a groovy little truck. Lined up next to him are the Airfix bedford and Tilly from one of their diorama boxes.

AB Figures British Vickers MGs in 1/72 Scale

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 7 Comments

Nearly finished all my British troops for Normandy, just finishing up some support weapons and then should be able to field a battalion or full company depending what system I use. This is AB figures British vickers MG teams, you get two MGs and gunners plus three loaders and a sighting seated figure. I already used the sighting figure some other time. So i had a spare MG and gunner from another bunch of metal figures no idea who. This made up three MG teams. Not much to say about AB figures apart from they are the best! Painted in my usual British uniform plus tiny arm decals from Company B. Based on hardwood bases covered in clay and sand. Lots of tufts and grass finishing them off. I have four infantry mortar teams to go and that is it for the British! Finally!

AB Figures British Sniper

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 4 Comments

A quick post of a prone British sniper from AB figures. He has some scrim camo covering his helmet and rifle and has found an excellent firing position in some shrubby vegetation. Mounted on 2mm wooden base I added plenty of cover for him to wait patiently in! Have some more AB machine gunners nearly done just taking me ages to finish anything………

ICM Sd.Kfz. 222 IN 1/72 Scale

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 13 Comments

I picked up a couple of these excellent ICM armoured car kits. It ended up being an accidental double up with my over zealous shopping forgetting what I had in various shopping carts. But this was a Bob Ross happy little accident type thing. The first ever kit I have built from ICM and what a nice one it was. Armoured cars are my favourite and this was a fun build. It was a nice easy kit with plenty of detail. I particularly like the PE roof hatch, which although tricky to fold comes out very nicely and so much more realistic than a solid plastic version. I added a wire aerial for strength and drilled a hole for that. Also some extra stowage including bed rolls and a bucket. My paint job was just a brown camo scheme on dark yellow with a brown wash. Plenty of dirt and dust as usual and an MDF base to finish him off. I have been slightly distracted lately with a side project which will post some photos next time!

German Mortar Teams Pegasus and Zvezda in 1/72

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 8 Comments

I had a box of Pegasus German Mortars and another of Zvezda German 81mm mortar teams. You get a whole heap of figures and mortars in the Pegasus box and two identical mortar teams in the Zvezda box. I decided to mix it all up and make five mortar teams, trying to make unique looking bases.

The Pegasus box has lots of different poses from people loading rounds, dragging boxes and putting their hands over their ears. Great stuff. Also some radio operators, who ended up missing out. The Zvezda men are either dropping a round or holding a new one. I used three figures on each base. I also had a heap of shell boxes from my AB figures mortar teams which I added to some of the bases for interest. All of them were painted german field grey with grey helmets. I am trying to paint epaulettes and collars with some detail but find it quite tricky.

For these i used 25mm plywood bases which are nice and thin. Plenty of flock and tufts to finish them up! I will not need any more mortars for any German forces now, this will do it.

AB Figures and SHQ German SS Mortar Teams

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 7 Comments

I have finished a few mortars teams. Two sets from AB fIgures and another trio from SHQ. All painted with field grey pants and peadot camo smocks. The AB teams come in identical groups of three so I mixed them around on the base for variety. You also get some spare rounds and boxes which I used on the bases. The SHQ group are also excellent figures and fit nicely with the AB soldiers. They are not quite as refined or delicate in detail but adding some variety is not a bad thing. I think I bought the hardwood bases from Warbases and they are a perfect size for this kind of weapons team. I now have 5 groups of mortar teams a mix of Zvezda and Pegasus plastic figures to finish. That will be enough mortars for any German force I ever play with!

Airfix Tilly Car in 1/72 scale

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 5 Comments

I totally forgot that I had already built one of the cool vehicles from the Airfix Diorama Kit. This is the Tilly car I made a few weeks back. Awesome little car for your officers to cruise around in. It must be a new AIrfix mould as it comes in the same nice grey plastic that makes building a breeze. Loved it. The windshield and doors are all transparent plastic so need care when painting. It is a tiny little car but simple to build. I added an AB driver and left the doors open so you can actually see some insides.

Here is Colonel Mustard emptying his trusty pipe while Corporal Smith keeps a keen watch out for any hostiles on the horizon. Or maybe he is seeing if the next village has a good cafe where they can grab a baguette and a coffee.

Superquick Railway Hotel in 1/72 scale

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 6 Comments

I had a change of direction this week and built one of the Superquick card models i had lounging around. It makes a nice change to build something not out of plastic and also a switch to some scenery. These kits maybe old but their design really stands the test of time. I guess they are older than me and pre 1970 even!

This one is the Railway Hotel and seemed to me like it would fit into any European town. So now it is called the Hotel Du Canard Mort and will be sitting pretty in my Normandy towns and villages. When building these card kits I make sure I use some foam board bits to reinforce the whole thing rather than just rely on the card supports supplied. Makes the whole thing much straighter and stronger. Rather than use the flimsy base supplied I used 3mm MDF covered with paving slabs glued on individually. I also added some foil flashing superglued on as box gutters in suitable places. Its a good finishing touch to paint all the exposed cardboard edges with matching paint colour. This definitely makes a big difference. I added some weathering powders to rough it up a bit too as cardboard tends to look to clean. The street lights are little kits from Langley Models in the UK and added a nice detail I thought! Oh I also added black drain pipes using painted wire glued straight onto the card and also metal chimney pots from Langley Models again. These little additions take the card kits up a notch. Bit like MDF kits when you make that extra effort!