Air War Support

I have been busy with work for the new year. Recently I have focused on completing
my 1/600 WW2 and 1/300 Vietnam air collection.

The base stands has Dave's (from I94 miniatures) round magnetics to simulate any
attitude of flight. This really adds to the look of the planes "in flight". I like using
the C21 Air War rules but have looked at and like Dave's Phantom rules.

My Vietnam era will have these target hexes. They are 1.5" hexes from Litko with Marty's
MSDGames target terrain hexes. I plan on making city, jungle and mountain hexes but
more 2D so flight stands can easily balance upon them.

2015 Plans

Last year was a bust for gaming, only twice. This month I played a Chain
of Command game! My "plan" is to have ALL my 1/600 ships based and
painted and ALL my 1/300 Vietnam air planes done by June. Notice the
word "all". I have narrowed my interests to:

28mm: Normandy and Pacific (Bolt Action/Chain of Command)
            Modern Skirmish (Force on Force)
            Japan Skirmish (Ronin)
10mm: Normandy (my new 6mm, not sure on operational rules yet)
6mm:  WW2 Air (Luftwaffe 1946 series)
            Modern Air (C21 Air War, toying with Phantoms)
Naval: 1/600 coastal (Flaklighter II, Action Stations II)
            1/700 modern (Bulldogs Away)
            1/2400 (not sure on rules)

Project: 1/300 Ploesti (Tom Sparhawks game I played years ago, loved it)

Since I only have the weekends, I had to scale down.

Laser cut Terrain

I received my 4ground tree bases.



The pic below shows 2 sets of tree bases. Each small tree stand is about $1.40.
Large is about $1.90.

 The tree bases can accommodate a nice sized tree:

 

Shipping is a flat $16, from ordering 1 to 10+. These tree stands would be nice in
the middle of the table so you can easily remove trees to place miniature stands.

 

Speaking of more laser cut terrain, my Sarissa Prec farm house:

 

Around the entire interior I place a line of PVA glue between the wall and floor to
strengthen it. Between 4ground and Sarissa, the buildings are nice enough for me.

Laser Cut Buildings

I posted a pic of the Sarissa Prec farmhouse I purchased for $23. The assembly was
easy using wood glue. I did use toothpicks at the inside corners to reinforce the
structure. I wonder in a club environment how durable are these buildings? In my
Normandy related scenarios, I feel on a 4x8 ft table, I will only need about 4 buildings
max. I still want to scratch build some buildings. Cost would be lower, time higher
yet I have time...

Jungle Work

Slowly working on the jungle scenery:

Nice bamboo trees, came about 50 per bag. Mounted them on a Litko 2" circle base.

Tree stands built so far

Sarissa Precision Farm house, easy to put together. Cheaper than the 4Ground buildings.

More Jungle Stuff

Little work this weekend, I have a flight to CA tomorrow. Here are pics of updates:

 

 

Once I figured (or stumbled) upon a jungle floor cover look, it was easy to continue

the process.

 

I experimented on adding leaves to the jungle tree tops. I don't like this look. oh well....
I plan my terrain goals in 3 months periods. By year's end I will have all my jungle tree
3 and single stands done, as well as the fields.

The next adventure is making a terrain cloth. Found great ideas via the web.

Next is switching gears to do Normandy. I have a lot of tree stands there to do. A lot of
K&M trees as well as Woodland Scenics.

Jungle ground cover

I decided upon a 'format' for my jungle ground clutter. Within the areas near the base of
either the palm or jungle trees I lay a thick floor of kitchen seasoning. Surrounding this
plainly a mixing of whatever terrain flock I have. This ranges from static grass to Spanish moss.

I think for a lot of terrain building, once you have a certain assembly line technique, you
can produce a lot. Once I get all my palm and jungle tree stands done, next is painting
the synthetic fur for fields.