Well, it’s the end of July and another month of painting Flames of War figures for the Pityak Midwinter Madness Competition has passed. Fortunately I’ve managed to get everything in this month’s plan painted despite various distractions. An amusing game of FOW last week really helped to inspire me.

I’m particularly happy with the way the 6pdr Portees turned out. Their guns are only pinned to the gun team bases and can be moved to/from the Portee trucks during game play. It was Aaron’s idea and seems like a nice way to represent the unit limbered/unlimbered.

Along with the various Infantry teams I painted I also finished the last Stuart ‘Honey’ tank to complete this light tank unit. I’ve found they’re great for ambushing and harassing enemy Infantry.

Finally we have the first 25pdr gun team I’ve finished. I’m not entirely happy with it though as the base feels a little bare. In the future I may add some neighbourhood lichen on to represent North African thorny bushes.

In August I’m also planning to paint the following:

To complete the Portee anti-tank unit:

– 1 6pdr Portee and gun team.

More of the 25pdr Artillery unit:

– 25pdr Artillery command and staff bases.
– 1 Artillery observers base.
– 2 cwt Trucks.
– 2 Quad gun tractors.

More of the second Rifle platoon:

– 4 Infantry bases which will fill out the second rifle platoon.

I saw this movie several years ago on DVD but only recently picked up a copy of the book by journalist Mark Bowden. It’s a startling read that’s for sure and very hard to put down. Worth checking out if you’re interested in the actual events that inspired the movie.

Picked up two 260 x 60 x 3cm sheets of high density foam from Forman Group out in Mt Wellington yesterday for a total of $50. The gentleman that served me told me they get a lot of modellers and hobbyists buying small runs of the extruded polystyrene product. So obviously they’re happy to sell small cash lots out of the Trade and Retail store there.

This blue foam will form the basis of a 4′ x 6′ modular North African Flames of War table – which is why I only went for the 30mm thickness. That is easily thick enough to represent 15mm trenches and other terrain features. However in the interim it’ll probably just lurk in the garage roof-space gathering dust while I try and finish the Mordhem table first.

The Mordheim table is actually making progress amoungst all this Flames of War painting. Two of the three tiles have had gravel detail applied and are in various stages of drybrushing. I really should post some more progress pictures!

Swannys Models is an interesting site that reviews WWII model aircraft kits. There’s some nice work up there as well as some interesting tips.

I’ve been looking for a supplier of high density extruded foam in New Zealand for a while now. This is the blue or pink insulation foam you see US game tables built with all the time and the Forman Group in Auckland sell the DOW ‘Extruded Polystyrene‘ product for around $40NZ for a 260cm x 60cm x 5cm sheet. See the comments for pricing!

Here’s a good tutorial for making snow detail on 28mm figure bases.

Ahh thanks to Nuplex’s customer support we’ve now been collectively enlightened about their product range.

Polyplex 3008 with its gel time of up to 100 minutes and reduced shrinkage would be superb for water effects particularly since it can be poured up to 3 litres at a time! Alas Nuplex only sell Polyplex 3008 in a 20 litre tin for $220 NZ. Ack! Twenty litres of resin would allow me to produce several tabletop oceans…

Polyplex 3089 is less desirable because it has a much shorter gel time of up to 50 minutes (with only 0.5% of hardener) and can’t be poured in more than a 5mm layer but it is sold in 1 litre tins for $27NZ. Layering is a hassle and suggests that the resin shrinks as it cures. However I guess the upside is you can apply different coloured layers with embedded items for some more interesting effects…