Stalingrad Buildings- continued

Been a bit busy the past week or so but got a wee bit more done on the buildings. I've just found some suitable images for flooring and printed them out. 

I've to add a second storey to them as well- I will only have 2 stories for ease of play. I'm not going to bother putting any rubble on the floors again mainly from a playability point of view.

 

 Battlefront have also been having a sale so I picked up a few bits and pieces- including 2 of the desert wrecks sets and some desert sandbags (5 sets) to use as dug in markers. I also picked up some more landing craft and really should get my A into G and get them painted up and do a D-Day  landing game at some point. Too many project son the go I'm afraid.

 

Craig 

Stalingrad Table

 A busy time of year with holidays and plenty of work to do renovating and general maintenance jobs  and I've just started a major renovation project on a rental so although on holiday I'm flat out trying to get it done before I go back to work.   So haven't had much time for gaming related stuff. I have managed however to paint the last three Commission Figurine buildings. These, along with some JR Miniature buildings, will be used for the urban Stalingrad table at Day of Days. I need to make some railyards and other terrain to finish it off. Although people typically think of the city as major close quarters fighting, there ere actually plenty of more open spaces in and around the city- the book Death of the Leaping Horsemen (about the 24th Panzer Div during the battle) for instance has lots of fantastic photos of the more open areas of the city so this table will be a bit more open than some city tables.

 I'm tempted to make new roofs for the JR building from their Arnhem range but will see how motivated I am in the next few weeks.

 The only figures I've done in the past week are these late war Winter mortar teams- like the LW US infantry in greatcoats these are some of the nicest BF figures I've purchased in a long, long time.

Craig

Commission Figurine Buildings

I've managed to paint up three of the 6 Commission Figurine Buildings I purchased for one of the Day of Days: Stalingrad tables, I will do the rest in the new year. The buildings are very, very nice.

I just added a bit of card underneath for extra support.

Other projects completed are the US paras (3 platoons, 4x 57mmm at guns and 3x glider 105s) which I'll get pictures of up sometime soon but things are a bit busy with holidays and visitors at present. 

Rubble & Hedges

Tonight I finished off some hedges I started the other night- to add a bit of colour to the table.

I also made a couple of large piles of rubble- it just wouldn't be Cassino without rubble piles! These were easy. I simply poured plaster over some chunks of polystyrene- then sprinkled it with cat litter and sand while it was still wet. I added a few bits of balsa for wooden beams etc and then once the plaster had dried I sealed it with watered down PVA before painting it.
















Craig

Cassino Table + TBM Buildings

My order of Total Battlefield Miniatures buildings arrived the other day so I've been able to complete (well, nearly) my Cassino table.

I love the quality of the casts and detail of the TBM buildings and can't recommend them highly enough- free shipping via Maelstrom was an added bonus and meant the price was pretty reasonable for what you get. I will definitely be adding more to my collection!









I've also been working on some m0re stone walls- made from balsa and cat litter.


Cassino Table
I decided to use scatter terrain rather than terrain boards but may make some boards in future. I also have to make rubble bases that the TBM buildings will fit into but think they look okay as they are. Buildings are mainly JR Miniatures and the four new TBM ones and a couple of old scratch built ruins I had lying around.

















The table itself.
It will be used for a NR at Conquest next weekend so I've tried to make it have cover at each end and plenty of linear terrain to break up LoS. It should make for a brutal game!





Craig

Last night I made some stone walls.


And a couple of stonewalled fields


Ideas for vineyards.
These are some scouring pads that I converted into hedges for my NW Europe terrain but I think they could also work for vineyards. By having them free standing means that I can simply move them out of the way when needing to move infantry or gun teams.




The Cassino table taking shape.


The pen denotes half way.

There is a low hill and cornfield in the attackers deployment zone to offer some concealment/ protection for the attackers artillery (if any)

As you can see the attacker has several potential avenues of attack. They can:
1) advance up the far left road using the orchard as cover
2) advance infantry up the centre through the shellholes
3) advance to the right of the main road using the cornfield and then stone walled fields as cover.
4) advance up the far right flank, using vineyards as cover and onto the hill, potentially outflanking the town- however the hill will be very difficult going so won't be an easy option for armour.

At this stage all the buildings on on the defenders half (assuming a defender uses there brain!). I may swap the location of the shellholes/rubble and vineyard yet to offer more cover in the centre and possibly add a second area of orchards.

However, there is plenty of LoS blocking terrain that prevents the defender having wide open fields of fire- the hill being the obvious exception, but the attacker should be able to advance on the hill protected from LoS.

I'm sure it will need some fine tuning but this is the general idea.

A reverse angle shot from the defenders end of the table. I think I'll make a slightly smaller hill and move the entire village across to get some buildings on the far right (in the shot below) side of the road.

Cassino Table Update

Here is the terrain so far.

Today I experimented with a new way to make the rubble/buildings- each building can lift out of the rubble area to make transport/packing easier. All the buildings are JR miniatures.














The CassinoTable WIP
Thew table will be used for a No Retreat.
I want the monastery to dominate the city but also be placed so that it will be a focal point of any games- or potentially so.












Still a lot to be done- another road and more ruins/ rubble for the vacant left section, some walls and hedges, shellholes and smaller rubble piles.

Ideally there will be three main avenues of approach, all somewhat protected so that infantry have a decent crack at the defences- or armour too for that matter.

Craig