Card Models New 2 Storey Cottage

 
I want to point out this new cottage by Tony at Card Models. It makes a perfect addition to his free standing two up, two downs to create a village or small market town.

You can also remove the top floor to make a single storey but and ben cottage, typical of country areas in Scotland etc. Just £2.50 each.

Tony also has some new town houses. A set of four for £4.99. Once again providing a cost effective means of building an urban table.

Cheers
Mark 

Streets of London

I came across Road Scene on eBay. They offer a range of vinyl road sections orientated towards the model railway layout hobby, but equally useful for us.

The road sections come in a choice of town black or 'country' grey and are available in a range of sizes from 46mm (N gauge), 66mm (HO) and 76mm (OO). Here is a multi-pack of products, most of which can be bought individually and includes 2x 1m lengths of road.

In my view, 76mm is best for main roads, main streets in a city, dual carriageways etc as an Airfix Land Rover is 12mm wide and a Britannia FV432 is 35mm. The 66m wide road section (which matches Noch) is just a bit nip and tuck though it can be useful for side roads and narrower country roads .

How do they stack up against Scale Scenes downloadable pdf print yerself roads? Well, more expensive obviously, the pack above comes in at around £27, whereas the Scale Scenes pdf is £3.99 (plus your ink, card and or paper).  They are also a bit clean and don't have that used tarmac look of the Scale Scenes roads that you can see in Sapper Joe's photos. However, for durability and low fuss, they may be what you are looking for.

SITREP

The working day has rolled over into my evenings and even this week's game got put on hold.
And on the positive side...... loads of new buildings from Tony for me to build. Also inspired to start on the small stash of Metcalfe bits I'd built up for my 'Manor' before Tony came on the scene. Half of the Metcalfe to be turned into burnt out homes and shops to add a little Winter of '79 urban meltdown colour when required. So my focus this week will be on my urban terrain.

On a related note, my Winter of Discontent inspired piles of rubbish sacks are coming along slowly. Just about got the scale right now - first dozen sacks were far too big. I've decided to take the clay into the office to work on the sacks at lunchtime so I can actually feel like I've achieved something in the day. I'll photograph the results and put them up on the blog sometime during the week ahead.

Cheers
Mark

Posh Pads Up West

 

"It can be a hard life on the mean streets. But a boy can make good. Go up west. Get a pad. Buy class."

 Go upmarket with that bijou pied a terre!

Maybe the revolution starts here or spills over into middle England.

Everything you see here for £20 from Card Models.
 

The Posh End of Town

by Tony at Card Models

A great way to end this week.

Cheers
Mark

The Lord Nelson

"So I says like, Harry, you gotta get yerself a premises. An' he does. Four doors down from the cop shop. I mean? Who is gonna have a drink and flash a bit of pony on the odd flutter in their drinkin' hole"

 I need a corner pub. Tony delivers and to u guv...just £2.99. For more details and further pics, check out Card Models here.

Cheers
Mark 

Rioters!

If you build it......some bugger will come along and smash yer face in! Only yesterday I was saying "had to think about rioters" and bam! Time of Discontent kicks in the front door of Winter of 79 with a new range of 1/76 riot figures and much more promised in the pipeline.

Time of Discontent 'Rioters'

Back in 2010 the talented "Whiff Waff" AKA Adam Gayford produced a stunning Riot Cop which he showed on the Lead Adventure Forum.

I'm hoping this guy and his plexi-shield colleagues will be reading the riot act to the rioters (shown above) on my Manor and new urban decay streets come 2012.

Whilst not strictly 1979 or early eighties in appearance, choice currently is very limited and you can't say we haven't asked. So these Time of Discontent minis can only be a positive compromise. You know, depending on the weapon choices they're sculpted with, those riot cops may well find themselves in the Alcovian or Trebizon Polizi.

Cheers
Mark
  

SITREP

 

I got to enjoy half an hour of absolute peace and quiet to myself this morning before the household started moving round. Bliss!

This was... fanfare of bugles.... my first full week back at work since March! Meant going through the tiredness barrier again, but gratefully reached a tipping point early in the week where I found myself with spare energy when I got home in the evenings. It did eventually catch up with me by the time I was on the train home on Friday, following some pretty intense days with delivering a proposal for introducing immersive technology, brainstorming and giving advice to circles outwith my nominal remit. So yesterday was a lazy day.

Visited the clinic for a checkup on Tuesday and glad to say they are happy with my progress. The steroid based meds steadily reducing inflammation in my brain. Whilst I'm increasingly able to think more clearly, I still have memory issues. I found that I can burst with ideas and process a lot of information but it has a finite 'limit' which if exceeded results in more short term memory loss.

Since my last SITREP, I won an auction on eBay for a couple of squads of OOP Liberation Minis Israelis. Came in at just under the bare metal price. Now these Israelis, mostly from the old ISR4 pack are ideal as organised and uniformed Winter of 79 militia - Para lids, SLRs, GPMG and largely wearing light kit. Excellent as Free Taffs or Scottish Nationialists, especially if mixed with the new Urban Meltdown packs.

The 'webbing' is vaguely similar to 58 pattern and only really needs kidney pouches to make it have a typically British look, but to be honest, the return on any effort invested in sculpting them is minimal. So let's not bother. Hardest part is going to be scrubbing the paint off the minis to start again. Maff thought I should just give them a couple of washes and say they are in boiler suits to distinguish them from the DPM masses. I'll give it a go but not convinced at this time. But I'm sure muddying the bases would also tone them down.

In the meantime, I have 20 fun Urban Decay buildings from Tony to complete. Just to remind you, this is what they look like.

Tony had such a positive response from Winter of '79 followers, including enquiries from Australia, Hong Kong and Denmark that he has started his own Card Models website to promote and sell his models

Card Models

Coupled with Rolf's new Urban Meltdown Brits with SLRs, the Urban Decay range allows Winter of 79 to really put the wellie down in 2012!

I also picked up some Falklands era SAS from Mark at CP Models for Free Taff special forces and other sneaky beaky types. They really are beautiful figures. 

 CP Models Falklands era SAS

The figures second and third from left - looking at watch and reading map respectively, are destined to be my new Free Taff/Scot commanders. Who knows, I may even use these CP Models' SAS as the Duke of Fife's personal army or heavily armed 'survivalists'. The guy 2nd from right with the M203 is really nice and a good candidate for my 'personal' figure in Winter of 79 games.

Question is whether to add Bergen's or not to the gun bunnies? Of course, I could always save them for a couple of Rolf's Urban Meltdown figs or ex-Hotspur SAS/SBS.

I read elsewhere this week that Shaun at S&S Models, one of the gentlemen of the hobby, has been seriously unwell recently. Really sorry to hear that mate. Maff and I, and I'm sure all our followers, wish you a very speedy return to health.

Looking to the week ahead.... will be picking up several packs of Rolf's Urban Meltdown figures, plus Land Rover crews and maybe another SAXON APC. Finishing Tony's Urban Decay buildings I'll be taking stock at what's needed to complete my urban setup. This will include street furniture such as street lighting, road signs and those rubbish piles that characterised Britain's streets during the 'Winter of Discontent', even if it means making tons of 20mm bin bags out of DAS clay. Will also have to start thinking about rioters and urban yoof!

Cheers
Mark
   

NEW Urban Meltdown British with SLRs

Rolf's Urban Meltdown British with SLRs are finally here! Rolf describes this as a starter pack with 11 civilians wielding SLRs and one with Bren. Just perfect to crowd our new Urban Decay streets. Here are some of the greens:

 Rolf will be taking packs of them along to Reading this Saturday and Sunday. Pack code is URBMELTSLR. And don't forget URBMELTSUP with Sterlings and GPMGs which complements the new pack.

Let me tell you that I'm grinning from ear to ear! A great end to this week and it's been pretty good so far! Just what Maff and I have been waiting for. These miniatutes are really going to advance our gaming of the political turmoil in the UK to the next level!

So drop by the RH Models/ Liberation Miniatures stand at Warfare and say "Hi" to Rolf  from us here at Winter of 79!
 
Cheers
Mark