Felix, Author at Felix's Gaming Pages

Finished the 4Ground 15mm Corner Bakery

4Ground 15mm Corner Bakery

Finally finished one of my Christmas presents (from some time ago) was the 4Ground 15mm Shop 4: Corner Bakery. I already have a couple of the 4Ground 15mm buildings, a pair of semi-detached houses and one of the hotels.

The Corner Bakery is a great piece of terrain to enhance your battle board. It comes pre-painted with 4Ground Base paints with high levels of internal detail as well as shop specific signage and acetate shop windows.

Each floor is removable allowing access to each one and the different rooms usable doors. To keep the floors in place there are little locking lugs in each corner. The external walls are rendered with cracked detailing and acetate window.

The model comes as flat pieces of coloured MDF which has been laser cut. Having put most of it together, I went ahead and finished it.

There are lots of details and depth to the models. The instructions are clear and the model is easy to assemble.

The model has separate floors allowing models to be placed inside the building.

As you can see the model’s pre-coloured MDF does make these stand out and quick to put onto the table.

4Ground 15mm Corner Bakery

In the end I found the model challenging to keep together as separate floors so I removed the lugs and stuck the whole building together.

I have added glazing to the windows and used the included posters on the wall.

4Ground 15mm Corner Bakery

I quite liked how the signage which comes with the model includes English signs, Operational Sealion anyone? Or what about a 1930s VBCW scenario? Though of course the building is quite continental in appearance.

Going back to 1971

Had my first game of Team Yankee at the weekend, using my new painted (but not finished) Scorpion and Scimitar light tanks. This was a blue on blue combat with British forces versus British forces. I had a platoon of Centurions to fight alongside my Scorpions and Scimitars. Opposing them was Centurions, FV432 APCs, with Carl Gustav teams and 66mm LAW teams. British troops refer to the Carl Gustav as the “Charlie G”. This was no 1985 era game, but really more likely 1971 or thereabout.

My first impression was that this is quite a deadly game and you need to play tactically.

Though not the same as Flames of War there are similarities. One aspect which still confuses me, partly due to experience playing other rule sets I think. So the process of rolling to hit is based on the target not the unit or weapon firing confuses me slightly.

I think the answer is to play more games of Team Yankee.

Overall the Centurions were deadly, however I can imagine if they were up against more modern tanks they would suffer. You would need a fair few Centurions to ensure you could take any punishment and flank the more powerful tanks.

I did like the speed and weapons of the Scorpions, but their thin armour was little protection from the 105mm guns of the Centurions or even the Carl Gustav and 66mm LAWs.

Looking forward to my next game.

SDD Daimler Dingo

The Daimler Scout Car, known in service as the “Dingo” (after the Australian wild dog), was a British light fast 4WD reconnaissance vehicle also used in the liaison role during the Second World War. In 1938 the British War Office issued a specification for a scouting vehicle. Out of three designs submitted by Alvis, BSA and Morris, the one by BSA was selected. The actual production was passed to Daimler, which was a vehicle manufacturer in the BSA group of companies. The vehicle was officially designated Daimler Scout Car, but became widely known as Dingo, which was the name of the competing Alvis prototype.

I bought some SDD models in the 1990s.

SDD British Daimler Dingo

Not sure how I will use these, potentially desert models or as wrecks.

Another option would be to use them as part of my modern English Civil War background.

SS-GB

Adapted from Len Deighton’s 1978 alternate history novel, and starring Sam Riley and Kate Bosworth, SS-GB premieres on BBC One on the 19th February 2017.

Produced by Sid Gentle Films Ltd and written by Bafta Award-winners Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, SS-GB is a complex thriller focusing on British Detective Douglas Archer.

Forced to work under the brutal SS in occupied London, Archer is determined to continue to do his job in the service of his country, but against impossible odds.

We first meet Archer in 1941, with the vast majority of England and Wales are under Nazi occupation after losing the Battle of Britain. Pockets of resistance continue to show their defiance against the occupying German forces, but after a German pilot is murdered by a British Resistance fighter, tensions in London could not be higher.

When investigating what appears to be a simple black market murder, Archer is dragged into a much darker and more treacherous world where the stakes are as high as the ultimate outcome of the war. The elusive American journalist Barbara Barga may hold the key – but can he trust her? And when his lover Sylvia endangers her life by bravely making a stand against the oppressive regime, Archer is forced to confront a deeper dilemma. Can he carry out his duty to defend law and order when he is working for the wrong side? What is he willing to risk in the fight against fascism?

The trailer and the images released so far, show a disturbing image of London under Nazi occupation. What may have happened if the proposed Operation Sealion was successful and Britain had lost the Battle of Britain in 1940.

Though most experts agree that there was little or no chance of Operation Sealion ever succeeding, many people have wondered and extrapolated what could have happened if it had indeed taken place and the Germans were victorious.

The background of SS-GB offers a range of gaming scenarios across different kinds of actions and scales. I may explore these in a later post once I have viewed the first few episodes.

Painting the roof

This was the third Sarissa Precision Old West building I constructed, House with Stone Chimney. Like my other Sarissa Precision models, these went together really easily, and are for comparison purposes much simpler than the 4Ground models (but also as a result less detailed).

Like my other Sarissa Precision models I have now painted the roof slates.

House with Stone Chimney

I still need to paint the chimney.

House with Stone Chimney

I am contemplating if I should paint the wooden sides, doors and window frames.

A&D Hardware Store

4Ground A&D Hardware Store

This is a laser-cut mdf building from 4Ground for Great Escape Games’ Dead Man’s Hand set of rules.

Andrew Dewey and Dave Annabelle met whilst they were serving as elected members of the Territorial Legislator of Montana and both living in Helena. They both had a firm interest in travelling to the Town of Dead Man’s Hand and joining the gold rush, after buying as much equipment as they could they set out on the road.

Along the way they found out about the boom town of Bitter Creek and the gold just being picked up from the ground. So after passing through Dead Man’s Hand the partners reached Bitter Creek, they quickly realised that the gold was not just waiting to be picked off the ground as they had been told, but the constant influx of new pioneers would pay handsomely for the abundance of equipment they had brought with them. Annabelle and Dewey quickly decided the best thing to do would be to set up the first hardware store in the town, ordering in all the goods they needed they quickly started earning a fair amount.

Now the A & D Hardware Store sells mining goods, tools, provisions and clothing to prospectors and pioneers. As their shipments have increased they have noticed a rise in the town of unsavoury types said by some to be under the payroll of S. L. Wheatley in nearby Dead Man’s Hand.

Like most of the newer 4Ground models, this is a well designed kit with lots of interior detail as well as on the outside. So there are inside walls as well as exterior walls.

4Ground A&D Hardware Store

Inside the building is the main retail area, time to add a counter and stock, whilst there is a rear storage area at the back of the building with a rear exit for a quick getaway if required.

4Ground A&D Hardware Store

The model goes together really easily, but as the instruction recommend you should use clamps (or pegs) when sticking the exterior walls onto the main frame to avoid unsightly gaps and a near fit.

4Ground A&D Hardware Store

I think the only challenge I can see is adding glazing to the windows.

More of the LVT-4 Buffalo Amtrac

I have started working on my Warlord LVT-4 Buffalo Amtrac for Bolt Action. The LVT-4 is a 1/56th scale 28mm resin and metal kit. Having given the model a white undercoat I then gave the model a base coat of British Armour Green.

Here are some more photographs of the model.

Warlord LVT-4 Buffalo Amtrac for Bolt Action

This is a well detailed model.

Warlord LVT-4 Buffalo Amtrac for Bolt Action

Thinking I might need to get some jeeps for my commandos.

Finishing the Shotgun House

Having being half completed for a while, I took the time to finish off my The Chicago Way Shotgun House from 4Ground.

In the mid C19th on the French island territory of Haiti a narrow gable fronted worker’s dwelling had developed with external door openings in the gable ends in alignment front and rear. Internal partition walls were used to divide living space, with internal partition doors in alignment with the external doors enabling good air circulation; often built with a high roof pitch and small windows below the gable peaks which contributed to the cooling environment created by the effect of drafting air through the dwelling.

By the late C19th these dwellings had spread across much of the USA and could be commonly found from Southern Texas all the way up to Chicago – North East Illinois. Better quality examples were sometimes called ‘Shotgun Houses’ rather than ‘Shotgun Shacks’ to distinguish them from those of a poorer quality. By the early to mid C20th almost all of these houses were considered old and dilapidated and both ‘Shotgun Shack’ and ‘Shotgun house’ implied a poor quality dwelling.

I found the model went together really easily.

However I did find the doors a little difficult and I constructed them back to front, so worth watching out for that if you are building one of these houses.