Charlie Foxtrot Pantile Church

I’ve been intending to add one of these splendid kits to my collection for some time. Good mate Colin and I were watching the Sharpe series after a busy weekend of gaming when he said he fancied making a kit based on the chapel in the little town of Torrecastro where Sharpe and his men raise the gonfalon of Santiago. He began furiously sketching out plans and designs whilst I supplied tea and biscuits and, if I recall correctly, got on with some ironing! Anyway, here it is.

My earlier efforts with a CFM church painted for a friend can can be found here, including the painting recipe. Only slight changes were giving the entire church a coat of textured masonry paint (for better texture) and swapping Foundry Boneyard light for Americana Bleached Sand.

For extra interest I’ve added a little “shrine” using a small piece of resin from Hovels. I may add some clump foliage to represent a creeper growing up the stonework.

One feature of the kit that Colin was keen to include was being able to put figures, based on 2p’s, on to the roof. Looks like the chapel is still under French control…

… not any more! Bonaparte will not be pleased!

Buildings for North Africa

The only significant items missing from my North African scenery collection were some buildings so when I saw the Middle Eastern range produced by Simon at Blotz (very nice chap), I knew they’d be ideal. They’re good value and neatly designed too. I’ve bought and built three so far but will definitely add a few more, particularly the buildings with enclosed yards.

Here, some DAK troops are clearing the village.

This building has been built exactly as per the kit instructions.

This building has an added dome roof (not part of the kit). I made this from a polystyrene ball from which I sliced a “spherical cap”. Glue it to the roof and use some wet polyfilla to blend it in and hide the polystyrene texture.

The largest of the three kits, again with added dome. The flat roofs lift out to allow models to be placed inside and for this kit the upper storey lifts off too.

Highly recommended! Before painting I used a little all purpose filler to smooth over any joins. Painting was very easy: two or three layers of a masonry paint labelled as “cinnamon” followed by highlights of VMC Dark Sand and Foundry Boneyard light. The wooden beams were simply a dark brown with some sand coloured highlights.

British Desert Transport

A very quick post to show the latest painting for my Desert War collection.

Both resin vehicles from Warlord. Needed quite a bit of cleaning but nice models. Simple paint scheme: VMC Iraqi Sand, GW Agrax wash, then highlights of VMC Iraqi Sand, VMC Dark Sand and Foundry Boneyard light. Tyres painted in VMC German Grey followed by sand highlights. The canvas cover is Foundry British Canvas mid/light.

Orks and Grots

More Games Workshop Warhammer 40K Orks and Grots are ready to conquer the galaxy. I'm planning to use these for the excellent Xenos Rampant rules recently published by Osprey.

Here's a unit of "Berserk Infantry", which is a category that nicely suits the regular Orks in this force. The rules allow a variety of up/down-grades for each unit so you can tailor them to meet your own particular view of the force under your command. This, IMHO, is one of the really clever things about XR.

These figures have some resin mechanical legs which I picked up from Kromlech / Bits of War. In XR these could serve as a visual reminder of a unit upgrade to that makes the unit more mobile.

Da Boss!

More Dakka! This fellow has plenty of ammo for his big shooter. Again, this figure could represent a unit upgrade that confers more or better firepower.

Orks need Grots to do all the things they can't be bothered to do, so here they are. In XR they'll count as "Militia Rabble", pretty useless but quite entertaining.

More about XR soon.

Mediterranean Garden

Walled garden for my Mediterranean collection made using some spare Charlie Foxtrot movement tray bases and some Hovels resin walls.

The only “work in progress” picture I took was this, which shows the basing recipe.

I’ve found that giving the areas intended for flock/grass a coat of mid brown first seems to give a richer grass colour plus also provides a contrast from the lighter areas that get grass. The capping tiles were painted in Americana Terracotta, then washed with Agrax, followed by highlights of the base then the base plus VMC Dark Sand.

I’ve also used some small offcuts of mdf and plastic to represent brick scatter as I wanted to enhance the tumble-down look of the walls. The walls include some modelled-on bushes which I initially painted a range of greens but I couldn’t get it quite right, so covered them in some of the Luke APS scatter mix.

The walls are great value http://www.hovelsltd.co.uk/accessories25mm.htm see 2A, 3A and 4A.