Buildings workshop (Part 2)

While the new moulds for the French howitzer slowly set in the pressure chamber (the first mould was an abysmal failure) I have returned to building buildings.

First up are a pair of ruins to change up a street of houses, or to replace buildings when my artillery finally manage to hit something.

I have used these to change up and perfect my detailing. All the windows have lintels and proper shutters, the corners of the building now have brick work rather than the rather plain straight edges.

 
Next up is a corner building for a road junction that features on one of my hexes. This was a bit of an experiment, and not one that I would repeat in a hurry.

See all the brickwork, each brick was placed individually, it is a good thing I am already touched in the head. Not something I can see myself repeating unless I was planning to cast it up.

Lintels, arches and shutters all conform to my new standardisation, but the rest is come as you may. I did try to make another storey to this building, but the angles were off and I had to ditch it. I may give it another go at some point.

The  building has an arched walkway which I have no idea how to deal with in the game, but was copied from buildings in H&D2.

More Buildings on the way soon, and hopefully some successful howitzer casts.

~ Bob
 

French Medium Howitzer

I got somewhat annoyed by my failure to find a medium howitzer for my planned WWII French army for Bolt Action. Despite many hours of searching I could not find any French artillery larger than 75mm. I even hunted for Great War vintage weapons as the French used a lot of antiquated equipment during the Battle for France. So on Thursday night I started to scratch build (Westwind 25pdr for scale).

I based on the design of the Schneider 1913 105mm. Primarily because the box carriage is simpler than split trail and partially because I can use the same carriage for the 1917 155mm heavy howitzer.

I posted the work in progress shots on the WWPD forums and received a deluge of requests to cast and sell it (Four requests in two days counts as a deluge in my mind). With this in mind I put in a bit more work into the model than I would have done for my own temporary proxy model. This was the result just before it entered the pressure pot for the start of casting.

 

It wasn't until I received the 'Armies of France and the other allies' earlier today that I realised what luck I had in choosing this subject to scratch up. The French did not manufacture this gun only for domestic military use, but also exported it to Poland, Belgium, Greece and Italy.

I'll see how it casts up some time next week.

~ Bob

Buildings workshop (Part 1)

I have been working on some buildings for my bolt action gaming boards to replace the rather odd selection I currently use.

These buildings came after some trial and error in adding buildings to my Hexboard Project, which has attracted some local interest, but I have yet to refine to a point where I would be willing to put it on the market.

Building 1

A fairly simple two storey house. Parts of the dimensions (particularly the window sizes) come from Matakishi's designs. I actually built a few houses according to his templates, but I found them ridiculously small and they have now found there way into a bits box.

The finishing details change between each of the houses in this set, mostly because I couldn't settle on a good way of doing them that was time efficient.

Building 2

Superficially the same as building one, but with rooms in the attic.

All of the buildings split into their individual floors so that models can be placed inside rather than having the models placed off board (and the confusion that often results).

This building has 'stone' arches and no shutters, personally I find this my least favourite detailing. The roof tiles on the dormers also annoys me.

Building 3

 

This is the first building with a basement. It adds a little more complexity to the build and even more complexity in game play; what do you count at the 'ground floor' for entering the building, can people really climb through those tiny windows in the basement?

The detailing on this is a real muddle. I decided the basement windows were too small for shutters, but the ground floor has standard shutters and the 1st floor has shutters with extra detail. All arches have a keystone. I find this the best detailing, but it also takes the most time

In-Hex pictures


You may have been wondering why the ground level of each of my houses was two cm above the bottom of the building. Well my game board hexes have precut slots for the buildings, demonstrated here with the basement of Building 3:

The next floor then slots on top:

Each floor can fit 12 models on 25mm bases without any overlap, admittedly I didn't design the buildings with Japanese players in mind:

The Buildings are all to the same floor plan, so I can stack as many floors as I like in a single Hotel:

And use the leftovers to make some Bungalows:

Please leave me some feedback, especially let me know which detailing worked best.

~ Bob