Skaledale Derelict Farm

Hornby's Skaledale Derelict Farm has finally been released and is now available in their online shop.

This farm consists of a farm house (top left) £15.99, barn (top right) £19.99, outhouse/bothy (bottom left) £12.99 and stables (bottom right) £16.99.

There's just something about the house that reminds me of a British Army training estate....

I really like the boarded up windows - gives it a true air of being abandoned in a military area of operations or where law and order has broken down with the owners leaving to live with relatives in the nearby larger towns.

The stables provide an attractive and versatile  building that can be used within other existing Skaledale or similar farms. There's plenty of buildings in this state of disrepair on working farms around me.

I'm tempted to collect the farm house, bothy and stables, rounding it off with a DIY destroyed and partially collapsed Dutch barn. Again, many round here to base it on.

The painting on the preview pics doesn't look that great - but given the cost of the 'painted' model is only a little more than Airfix's unpainted resins, I think it's worth it. Nothing a wash of Devlan Mud won't fix!

Derelict Cottage No.1  is also available in the Ready To Paint range. At £10.95 not to be sniffed at. The classic but tired these days Dapol (ex-Airfix) Thatched Cottage kit is £4.69 (and the rest!).

If you want to represent something a bit more "Tea, cucumber sandwiches and hand grenade vicar" it's right up your street. I may get one sometime during the summer. There's a terraced house in this range too but at £12.blah,blah I think it is just that bit overpriced given that they could sell noodles of them.

Cheers
Mark
  

Garden Leave

Very difficult to think of 'winter' when the view from the house is this....

Somewhere in Kinkydeenshire

Maybe I should call the blog 'Long Hot Summer' after another TRB hit from the Power in the Darkness album. Though 'Man You Never Saw' was the one that put something in my head that led directly to Winter of '79.

Today is brilliantly sunny and warm. I'm wearng my Russkie 'flora' pattern shorts. Or is that just 'flora' pattern legs? Too much information. This is the sort of weather I've needed all week to dry the bloody glue and clay on my terrain. Never mind. I'm packing away my Sci Fi tonight to clear space mentally and physically to concentrate on Winter of '79 and Crisis in Alcovia.

Cheers
Mark

DIY Hay Bales from Pan Scrubs: Redux

My pan scrub hay bales are an instant success! Here you see five cut out in less than a minute each using a pair of sharp scissors and a 22mm round mdf figure base as a template.

From one of the off-cuts, I managed to peel off the third layer of pan scrub and quickly cut out these two traditional straw-bales.

I've been a bit slapdash with my cutting and only expect to get 9-10 of these 22mm bales but even so - 1 minute per bale to cut and at 3p or 4p each, plus I can fill my OO scale barns and litter my farmyards with straw-bales for pennies. Not shabby at all!

Cheers
Mark

DIY Hay Bales from Pan Scrubs

I just thought I'd experiment and see if I could make round hay bales from cheap pan scrubs?

The answer is a resounding.... err yes!

I glued 3 pan scrubs together with PVA 'white glue'. These are really cheap ones from Poundland (10 for £1). Then weighted the pan scrub 'jam sandwich' down so that they stuck firmly together. It worked, sort of.  The glue is still wet a day later but the pan scrub sandwich is stuck together just enough to try out the experiment.

Again using a traditional Humbrol Enamel paint as visual guidance, I first out cut a square around the tin, leaving me holdings a small  pan scrub 'cucumber sandwich'. Then with a pair of sharp scissors, cut a circle, freehand.  

OK, I need to make it a little smaller perhaps. Add a fourth pan scrub. But it's alright as a bit of ridiculously cheap scatter terrain. I reckon you could make 9 per 'sandwich', perhaps 12 if you were careful - that's 18-24 for just a quid! The still wet glue hindered cutting, so I would suggest putting your pan scrub 'sandwich' somewhere warm and ventilated for a couple of days before trying this yourself at home.

I will try using a 20-22mm mdf base as a template circle to cut round in future. Oh! and yes, I know that I have to finish the Platoon 20 Paratrooper's base but I am trying out Woodland Scenics' Earth Undercoat. Which I'm finding both bloody cheap and effective.

Cheers

Mark

DIY Hay Bales

I wanted some round hay bales for games set both in Winter of '79 and Alcovia. Anyone who has played the farm mission in Ghost Recon on the X-Box will know the importance of the bales. So they are a must have.

Harburn Hobbies sell packs of five OO scale resin, painted hay bales for around £8, but we're talking a tenner including postage. So I thought to myself, how hard can it be to make my own?

Mark's Homemade Hay Bales

I already had a block of DAS Clay - long story I won't bore you with - so set down to making my own hay bales and it couldn't be simpler. I used a Humbrol paint tin as a template, cut the clay in strips and then placed the paint tin on top. Using a butter knife (don't tell Heather), I cut out the shape using the sides of the tin as a guide for the knife. It was then a case of using a cocktail stick to score in the hay effect. In all between 6-8 minutes per bale.

I'm really chuffed with the result. By the fourth I was a bit bored, but had learnt how to get a near perfect round shape. Plus there's enough DAS in a standard packet to make up to 10-12 bales.

Cheers
Mark

Overthrowing The Fascism of Tabletop Terrain

I have declared war on the fascism of tabletop terrain. Yes the glossy mags with their "look what you can have" Cosmo wargaming terrain that's more of a lifestyle than a hobby - moved the hobby forward. But it's created a fascism that divides us into the terrain haves and have nots.

Yeah, I could have that beautifully sculpted terrain but I'm joe average wargamer. My dining table remains my dining table at the end of the day.I have a finite about of space, time and patience - more so the latter. Plus, I have gaming interests in a range of periods from Sci Fi to Ancients across a variety of scales. Even when I focus that jackdaw mind of mind see's something new and shiny and off I go in a different direction.

So I have come to a compromise to rid myself of this (to some extent self imposed) hobby fascism. Terrain is not there to be fought over - it should be part of the visual appeal of a game, yes, but it should also be a functional part of the game mechanics and scenario.

Why fill my table with walls and hedges when I only need a suggestion. The terrain should be directly relevant only where it impinges or aids movement or fire. Living in the country you often find abandoned and sunken  stone walls that could act as cover or hold up movement over here, but over there you can simply step across it and it provides no shelter at all from incoming fire.

So my new mantra. I can have a piece of terrain that suggest a broken down wall on a windswept heath, a ridge line or whatever, but I don't need to recreate the whole sodding wall running across the table. This has freed me in a staggering way and not just for Winter of '79.

Cheers
Mark

On The Buses

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I was given one of these Tower Models Leyland bus kits............

Got to admit I'm stumped as to what to do with it. Plenty of ideas, just which one?

• Burned out barricade
• Armoured Bus
• Post Apocalypse Survivor Bus

Whilst not strictly on topic the latter interests me. Driving around last year I came across a similar green bus in a wooded layby that was obviously someone's motor-home. It had tarpaulins set up to create a leanto and it looked very much like a fun post-apocalypse 'survivor wagon'.

Searching Ebay (where this photo is pinched from) I found that Tower Models did a range of buses including the famous red double-decker.

Cheers
Mark