Quest for a quickshade alternative.

Well last week my loyal can of army painter quickshade final died. It been on it's last legs for a while now, a film seemed to form over the top of the shade after about 24 hours of removing the last one. I must have lost about half the tin this way.

Before parting with £20 for a new tin I thought about alternatives. After all quickshade really is only woodstain at the end of the day, so could a cheaper tin from a DIY store do the same job?

After some google research I discovered that the general consensus online is that the stuff to be using is an American brand called Miniwax, sadly unavailable in the UK. However a few people where singing the praises of B&Q's own brand of interior Rosewood varnish, which was only £5.99 a tin. I popped down to my local branch and bought some last weekend.

The first thing I would say is that it looks rather different in the tin to quickshare. It's almost grey in appearance. I dug around in my bits box and found some old LOTR Orcs for practice. I sprayed them a nice Panzer Grey and brushed them with various thicknesses of  varnish.



After a few practice tries, I worked out the following technique.

• Take a small amount of varnish from the tin with your brush.
• Thin it slightly on a pallet, I find the correct ratio is about 4 parts Varnish to 1 part water for a clean finish, however you may wish to experiment. I found that it had a dirtier finish if applied straight from the tin, but if you are shading a model with a dirty appliance, such as an orc or undead model this may be ideal for you.
• Slap it onto your model, don't worry at this stage about getting too much on.
• Leave it for about 1 minute, then using an empty brush collect up the pools of varnish that have accumulated. At this stage the varnish will still appear grey, this will turn brown later on as the varnish dries.
• The varnish is dry to the touch in about 30-40 minutes.
• Zap the model with your favorite matt varnish.

Here is a infantry stand shaded using B&Q varnish and the results are excellent. It's certainly a recommend purchase.

Vinyl Roads update

Well the vinyl roads have come on very nicely indeed. After painting up all the pieces I cut from the tiles I set them out on a table to see how they looked. I have to say I'm really rather pleased with the way they have turned out.

Here are a couple of pictures. This isn't from a game, I've place miniatures on the board it's just to illustrate their appearance.

British Infantry straddles the road outside of a small town.

German Infantry approach the town with armour supporting their flank.

I must have a good 15 feet of roads from the 2 packs of tiles I bought. Total cost including sand and paint was £4!

I even have a few tiles left over. My next project is to try and make rivers from them.

Cheap Roads from Vinyl Tiles.

Roads are a necessity for anyone gaming WW2 and if you're gaming in NW Europe you need lots of them!

I've been looking for a source of cheapish roads for a while. I've experimented with foam and felt but never been happy with the results. I tried making a few pieces from Plasticard and whilst they looked good they where unfortunately only good for flat tables, quite expensive at £1.50 for an A4 sheet, and it's a bugger to cut the curves.

Today however I think I may have stumbled on a solution when I wandered into the wargamers treasure trove that is Poundland. They sell Vinyl floor tiles in packs for 4 for (you guessed it) £1, the tiles are 30cm square. These are cheap, flexible, a doodle to cut with household scissors and have an adhesive backing so you don't even have to worry about covering them in glue. I bought 2 packs to experiment with.

After this I popped over the road to Wilkinsons to buy some more supplies. First I picked up some of their bird sand from the pet section. This is always a good buy and only costs £1 for a Kilo of the stuff. Considering that GW's modeling sand is now £5 for 100 grams , the wilkos alternative is quite literally 1\50th the price of GW's. Doesn't that make your head spin?

Wilkos Acrylics

Also I looked at their art section. They do some useful and cheap acrylic paints that are good for terrain. A 75ml tube of their 'burnt umber' paint is 90 pence and a almost exact match for GW's Scorched Brown. This would be an excellent base color for my roads. I also grabbed a tube of their 'burnt sienna' color which I thought looked a good terracotta color for roofs on model buildings. I've not tried it yet but I'll probably post something about it in the future when I do.

After cutting the tiles into pieces I removed the backing and covered them in sand. It adhered nicely, thought there where a few small bald patches that I touched up later with PVA. Once painted though this should seal the sand nicely.

A few of the pieces after they had been sanded.

One of the pieces after being painted.

Tomorrow I shall drybrush and flock the test pieces and post the reults!

Plastic Soldier Company

Well I must have been a good boy in 2011 as Father Christmas brought me my first 2 boxes from The Plastic Soldier company. I've been following them online for some time and have been meaning to buy something from them for ages. Well I got one box of German Stug III Ausf F8/Gand another of SdKfz 251 Ausf D Halftrack.

I've put one of each together sofar. The assembly process is a little fiddly for the Stug, especially for the tracks, but overall isn't too difficult. Each one took me about 20 minutes (or one episode of American Dad which I was watching on TV as I put them together). I'll try to take some step by step photos when I stick the rest together. There are plenty of options for the Stug, you can make up about 4 variants, so its good for both the Mid and Late war player.

At about £16 a box (or less if you shop on-line) these are quite the bargain.

Below are some comparison shots, with the PSC model next to their Battlefront equivalent. As you can see in terms of size both models are near identical. I'll take some more shots when painted but I think they should be virtually indistinguishable.

 The SdKfz 251. PSC on the left.

 The Stug. PSC on the left.

15mm Forged in Battle British

A few photos of my latest project. A WW2 15mm British force for use with Blitzkrieg Commander and Flames of War.

It has to be said that the FIB miniatures are excellent. They are crisp, are require very little prep work. In fact they are considerably easier to work with than Battlefronts Infantry.

I took these pictures a few months ago, I've just purchased a 2nd platoon to paint up and I hope to add a step by step guide to the painting guide at a later date.

The FIB stuff is also excellent value. If you shop around a platoon costs about £8.50-£9. This makes them one of the cheapest sources of 15mm WW2 miniatures in metal. Unlike Battlefront however you must provide your own bases. I find Warbases to be an excellent source of bases. The are about 1/3 the price of Battlefront bases, and as they are made of MDF they don't warp.

 Here are 2 of the Mortar Teams.

And all I had painted at the time. 2 mortar Stands, 2 infantry stands and a command stand. I've since painted allot more.