I’ve wanted a piece of terrain to add to the 15mm trench kits I already have on my gaming table so thought a simple little resin forward observation post over the trench would look nice. I sculpted and molded it a while ago now and have finally got around to painting up a resin cast.

The OP drops into a trench set and is just large enough to hold a single small Flames of War base. This is because observers in FOW are usually three figures on the smallest base.

The roof has been crudely sandbagged with a few lengths of lumber chucked on there to hold everything down. A forward OP would be under fire regularly so it’s meant to represent fairly hasty construction. For additional detailing camo netting would be most appropriate. I left that off because of course it obscures the terrain piece. Here’s a couple more photos with roof on/off - as always click them for a larger image.

I also finally got around to fully painting a 15mm resin guard tower. These have been available on the site for a while now but I discovered after fully assembling a cast set that they’re tricky to paint! A gaming mate Aaron took a more sensible approach and assembled his in two corner halves and painted them before final construction. So I took a scalpel to the pinned and superglued tower and broke it apart, painted it this week and re-assembled it.

As the OP roof is based on a cast guard tower roof I’ve now also got an alternate, sandbagged roof for the guard tower! Nothing like re-using terrain to make your life easy imho. Here’s the 15mm guard tower with the original flat roof (I’d use this as an airfield tower myself), without any roof, and finally with the new OP roof instead.

I’ll add some new pricing and products to the order page this weekend for the 15mm OP and guard tower with alternate roof.

I based five of the Germans yesterday afternoon, supergluing them to GW bases and building up the ground detail around them using Selley’s Pollyfilla. A scattering of Woodland Scenics railway ballast and kitty litter was added just to give the smooth Pollyfilla some texture. I based the doggie from the Celtos ‘King of the Wild’ review figure the same way.

Time to do some research into DAK WWII period uniform before I start painting!

Looking at the .45 Adventure rules I’d play this squad as a Grade 2 Enforcer armed with an SMG and four Grade 1 Gat Men with rifles for a total Grade 6 squad. The dog would definitely have to be a Grade 1 Villainous Dog too.

These figures are going to be painted as part of the Pityak forums ‘Mini Mid Winter Madness‘ challenge. That should at least motivate me to finish a few of them before May is out!

Well that was fast!

Artizan Designs sent me an email on the 18th letting me know these figures had been dispatched and they arrived last night. That’s less than a week in transit which is half the time I expected. Typically it takes around two weeks for anything I ship from New Zealand to reach the UK.

The three baggies of figures look very good. They’re all well proportioned and sculpted with plenty of detail like canteens, ammo pouches and knapsacks that makes them look suitably field-worn. Their rifles and sub-machineguns look good too although several of them were bent in transit.

Their faces all look suitably Germanic although I notice they all look fairly similar. I suspect they’ve been sculpted around a couple of common heads. While that’s mitigated by the fact several of the figures I chose are wearing desert goggles or are cloth wrapped it would be nicer to have seen a little more variety in expression. Mind you they do all look like stoic Teutonic soldiers. A bit of stubble here and there and different hair and flesh tones should make each man a little more individual.

The casting is top notch although they seem to have a fair amount of flash on them, as you may be able to tell from the photos, but that’s easily cleaned off. Several of them had flash posts between weapons and limbs which is a little annoying but is certainly better than getting miscast figures!

I only spotted one figure of the twelve with a really bad mold line that will require some serious filing to remove which is a fine ratio for any metal figure manufacturer.

Probably the only irksome aspect of the figures is they come with oval metal bases cast onto them. Most of the cast on bases will also require filing to get flat.

I would clip them off their bases but as there’s several figures where that’s problematic I’ll probably just end up gluing them to round GW base and building up some detail to hide the original basing.

After years of dealing with Games Workshop’s metals I must say I much prefer a slotta tab solution to molded bases. Then I can chose how I want to base my figures rather than having to rely on the manufacturer.

All in all though I’ve very pleased with these fellows and Artizan Designs are going into my links list right now for future reference.

It’s ANZAC day today in New Zealand and I’d just like to take a moment to reflect on the men and women that have served our country in the past and continue to do so in the present. New Zealand and indeed the World wouldn’t be what it is today without their efforts.

It seems I’m on a spending spree at the moment.

Copplestone Castings had a great sale this weekend and I was very tempted by the £34 ‘Big Adventure’ offer but didn’t want several of the British looking ‘pith’ helmeted gentlemen. So I ended up simply ordering a subset of the offer, one pack each of

• Armed Archaeologists
• Female Archaeologists
• American Adventurers

That’s probably enough Pulp ‘Heroes’ to foil the plans of the DAK Germans which are currently winging their way to me.

I’ve also made quite a bit of progess on the North African Flames of War table which will double as desert terrain for Pulp games and Westerns too. I’ve textured and painted two of the six tiles and hope to finish another two before Tuesday’s gaming night.

This is a very nice looking model from Bolt Action Miniatures: the legendary German 88 flak gun in 28mm scale.

I have absolutely no use for this piece in Pulp gaming but if I had a spare £35 laying around I’d probably pick one up just to go with the DAK Germans I ordered earlier. Mind you that’s almost exactly $100nz at the moment so it’s quite a pricey piece.

I finally finished the Stone Henge I started late February using Chris’s cast 28mm henge pieces. For some reason it took me over a month to prime and drybrush five lintel blocks and a small stone altar.

I blame the two week World of Warcraft trial CD myself.

I had considered leaving the lintel pieces unattached but then dropped at least one on the concrete floor of my garage while moving the unfinished terrain piece around, so I eventually glued them down. The stone altar isn’t glued down though and is typically removed for gaming over the terrain.

I’ve applied some additional Woodland Scenics flocking around the base of the stones and glued a few reeds into the underlying blue foam. It’s not the sexiest piece of terrain as I could have added a lot more detailing to the henges themselves. Stuff like weapon and skull piles around the bases and the odd wode daubed rune here and there perhaps.

However it was very quick to put together, probably only taking around 8 hours in total - ahem - spread over a month and a half. Leaving off specific Fantasy details also makes it quite a nice ‘non-denominational’ terrain piece that seems to work just as well in Warhammer 40k as Fantasy.

In fact Imperial Guardsmen, Tau and Space Marines have all huddled behind those henges during our recent gaming evenings.