Blitz Freeze - Battle of Moscow game

While looking for inspiration on the web for my Blitz Freeze project I found a link to this board game by Frank Chadwick, The Battle for Moscow. A great game with all the information, rules, map and counters required.

With any of my projects I always try to approach them from as wide an angle as possible, for example with my British/Italian ww2 project, Battle Front release a Tobruk based board game, which I will use as a basis to build a campaign on. I have also sourced a set of simple Naval rules which I can use to game the Navel aspect's of the campaign.

The Prison

A small prison based on one of the free Wargames Illustrated Vietnam building plans from the February issue. Corrugated iron roof from the ever useful G.F.Smith colour flute ribbed card range. I painted the roof olive green, and to add some interest decided to give the roof a hole, so some tarpaulin and some planks and a rock to stop the rain getting in. Also painted PVA glue onto the walls and then in a very controlled way scattered sand on, to give a rough texture to the walls. I think it worked out quite well. It also helped when I dry brushed the paint onto the walls. I have skillfully managed not to photograph the side of the building with the window, but a quick and easy way to put some bars in the window is to push a cocktail stick through the foam core board and trim it of flush to the top of the wall. I just need to do some research on some signs and posters to go on the walls.

And finally a big Hello to Doc Simian my 50th follower.

Blitz Freeze Update

Just a quick update on the Blitz Freeze project. I've been some what preoccupied with my North African city building project for most of this year to date. With the heavy snow this winter also having a strange disincentive to do any real work on this project.

However last weekend was my annual day pass out to the WMMS show in Alumwell, Wolverhampton. A great local show in a good venue. Some nice games on show and lots of temptation from the traders, Mr Pig got his usual wedge from me in exchange for some great little light tanks, a type 92 for my Japanese and a Mk IV for the brits, also the rest of my Japanese naval infantry, Home Guard and Nuns. Also from QRF some civilian cars and a Fiat van.

But more to the point Pendraken where there with there ever expanding stand. So I got some Russian BT7's and German Marder II's. I'm planning on adding on lots of extra detailing to the models like jerry cans, rope, boxes and general bits and bobs. The idea is to base all the vehicles, so the next thought was I need to select some colours for the terrain which I can then also use on the vehicle bases. So a quick trip to Wilkinson's has resulted in three match pots to experiment with. will post some pictures when I some test terrain done. Also bought some matt White spray paint, just the trick for a light dusting of snow.

Light industrial unit

Finally got round to painting the small nissan hut type industrial work shop, went for blue in the end. With lots of rust on the dented and corroded bits of the corrugated metal front of the work shop. The only thing left it do is to make up a sign to go over the front door, I was thinking along the line off "A.Tupper & sons." Harking back to my 1960's boyhood.

Hospital and Barracks in 15mm

Generic hospital and barrack buildings based up and painted with PVA, sand and small pebbles glued onto the art board bases. The windows have also been re-painted, the are nine pains of glass in each window, the two top rows of three pains each were painted light blue, the middle row mid-blue and the bottom row dark blue. The top two rows then had, a very light blue hi-light across the top and down the right hand side, My wife has just requested that she be include in my life, so hallo to all of you out there in Blog land from Mrs Airhead. Now back to the business in hand. The hospital has had a red cross painted on the roof, interrupted by an air raid, resulting in a mishap with a pot of white paint, I think I got the idea from a model railway layout I saw once. Still to make the ladder which was left on the roof. The stones leading to the doors of each hut have been painted white, to keep the top brass happy. Still need to add some flock and small bushes to the bases, but other wise very happy with these have turned out. So a big thanks to Mr Ebob for some great buildings, see the previous post for the link to download the pdf of these buildings.

eBob barracks

The ebob miniatures barracks. I printed out the pdf at 50% size, with a peter pig Italian tank in the foreground for scale, working out quite well so fare, I'll base them up on my usual art board base with sand - pva - granite chippings and same small bits of scrub. I'll also dry brush around the base of the walls. I think the key thing to do, to get them to fit in with the rest of the buildings will be to re-paint the windows. At the moment they are black, I'm looking to paint the windows of all my Asmara buildings to go with my coast watch station and Flying boat station.

Having a real problem with photographing stuff at the moment, dark mornings & evenings, when I mostly have time, is making it really difficult. Things are looking up however. Got home on Friday and It was still day light , just.