The Square - 15mm ECW Star Fort

At this January's Crusade Show I purchased a resin terrain piece from The Square.

Now this isn't unusual as over the year's I have quite a few of their pieces in my collection as they frequent the shows that I attend. However I'm not sure how well known they are widely, as they don't appear to have much of an interweb presence other than a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/The-Square-Wargames-Modelling-388837544922073/).

Most of what I've purchased in the past were small scale items (6-10mm), all are cast in a grey/brown hard resin and, universally, all paint up much better than you'd expect when looking at the raw casting!

Like many old school resin casts they display air bubbles that may need filling, as well as a little flash that needs careful removal due to the brittle nature of the material.

The sculpts are always good, and detailed and are priced well. They present excellent value for money.

I believe that The Square also own the old Wild Geese 1/200th range, though I've not seen them on their stand. These were some of the first 1/200th WW2 kit that I owned (and still have them) and were good value at the time.

Back to Crusade, and my eye was caught by the site of a large resin piece that on closer examination was a 15mm scale earth fort in the style of an ECW Sconce (though I guess it could do for any black powder period i.e. American War of Independence, ACW, Napoleonics etc). It was priced at £14 and to my mind it wasn't worth trying to scratch-build such an item if that's all it would cost.

I had no obvious need for such an item, but I couldn't resist. I think I hoped it would rekindle some interest in painting my 15mm ECW armies that still languish in a really useful box...

It's a simple single piece cast with four timber lined bastions linked by timber re-enforced breastworks, one of which contains the entrance. Centrally there is an earthen powder store (?) with a separate removable roof.

I did the bare minimum of cleaning up, before spraying the entire piece in Army Painter Leather Brown. I then painted the timber revetments and boards in Vallejo Middlestone, the stones in the earthen ramparts with Light Grey and then the entire model was given a coat of Vallejo Sepia Wash.

Once dry the entire model was dry-brushed Iraqi Sand before being given a coat of matt varnish.

Finally to finish it off I added some static grass here and there to help it to blend into my GW battle mat.

I'm very pleased with the finished article. It will make an imposing centre piece in any siege game. The bastions will take guns mounted on a 30x30mm base (mine are on 40x40mm) so I may need to consider re-basing.

And has it rekindled my desire to paint 15mm ECW figures....? Well currently yes! Let's hope it lasts!

Cruel Seas - First Game AAR

I played my first Solo game of Cruel Seas a couple of weeks ago and thought it might be worthy of an after action report. I had genuine fun playing this game which I have to say, really lends itself to solo play with the random dice activation mechanism.

I chose to play the 2nd scenario from the book, where a cargo vessel/tanker has to travel from right to left, protected by two S-Boats from three Vosper MTBs.

I played this on a 4 x 3 foot table area, using my GW Dreadfleet cloth play mat and some simple terrain (Modular hill doubling up for land and some random rocks).

Move 1: The three MTBs start from stationary as the S-Boats peel off to head them off before they can reach the slow moving tanker.

Move 2: A chance to find out how decisive (and bloody) Cruel Seas can be! My right hand MTB was caught off-guard by the two S-Boats and, with some lucky dice rolls, sunk!

Move 3: The remaining two MTBs continued regardless and positioned themselves to launch a brace of torpedoes each. Meanwhile the S-Boats swung round to attack them from the rear.

Move 4: The torpedoes from the centre MTB failed to have any effect and those from the left hand MTB completely missed the tanker. The S-Boats started to engage the remaining MTBs - one each.

Close up of the moment of impact

Move 5: The left hand MTB found itself in the path of the Tanker and a collision resulted. The MTB was left severely damaged, but managed to limp on past the Tanker, which was itself, largely undamaged by the encounter. The centre MTB was engaged by one of the S-Boats and sunk....

Move 6: The game was academically over now, but I played out the last few moves to see the Tanker leave the board. The nearest S-Boat slowed to a halt to avoid colliding with their Tanker, while the other S-Boat set off after the damaged remaining MTB.

Close up of the last engagement

Move 7: The S-Boat caught up with the MTB by the rocks at the top of the picture. A brief gun battle proved inconclusive (due to the relative speeds of the two vessels) and the last MTB made their escape. The other S-Boat manoeuvred while stationary, to avoid both the Tanker and the rocks.

Move 8: As the last MTB limped off the board towards safety, the two S-Boats were both having to do some careful manoeuvring to avoid hitting rocks/land obstacles. Meanwhile the Tanker exited the board - Victory to the Germans!

Naval wargaming for me is just a pleasant diversion from what I usually do. Therefore I don't see me buying any more ships than I have already (maybe print some though😄). However, I will certainly play the game again.....it's fun! I know there are a few house rules appearing to try and make things "more realistic" but, to be honest, I don't have any need for them on the experience I've had so far.

Hats off to Warlord, a jolly good game.

Rubicon 28mm 75mm Pak40 Anti-Tank Gun - Part One

One thing missing from my growing Bolt Action/Chain of Command late war German army was any form of towed anti-tank capability.

To put this right I treated myself to the Rubicon model from Firestorm Games - at £13.50 it looks to be good value for money.

The model comes packaged in a nicely illustrated card box together with a glossy, printed instruction leaflet.

Having built models of one sort or another most of my life, I have now got into a tried and trusted routine of checking the instructions stage by stage and looking at the corresponding parts, before I start with my side cutters and glue.

 Luckily this turned up an issue with the assembly instructions. In step 1. the instructions show the gun barrel & recoil assembly as one complete part. Evidently they are separate parts on the sprue! (see above). This is easily overcome by starting with assembling these two parts...but be aware!

I was attracted to this particular model as it included a crew of 6 plus a good selection of whole rounds, empty cases and shell packaging equipment. The figures come on three sprues, two figures each, and are "anatomically correct" in stature, as opposed to "Heroic". More on these later.

Whilst assembling the barrel and recoil system I drilled out the muzzle break to enhance the look of the finished gun.

The breech assembly has a few fine parts that need some care whilst adding, but nothing too difficult.

Again, there are some more small parts to add to the gun mounting, but with care they aren't too difficult. However, some of the location tabs/recesses provided were not of the required size and needed a bit of "fettling" with a scalpel. With care the assembled mount will allow the gun barrel to be elevated, if that's your thing!

Next was adding the gun shield. This glues to four points on the gun mount, be careful to ensure it is touching on all four of these as failure to do so will leave the model weakened and the shield likely to fall off ..... guess how I know!

The carriage is straight forward to assemble as a separate step. Again with care the trail arms can be left movable. There are some optional parts to consider here depending on whether you will depict the model in a firing or towed configuration i.e. the towing eye and the front, lower armour plates.

Finally the two assemblies come together and (with care) can be assembled so there is a degree of rotation available to the gun. Altogether a simple model to build with adequate detail for a wargames piece that will look good on the table.

Now those figures....

Whilst they are nicely sized, the sculpting leaves much to be desired. The bulk of my German figures are dressed in Field Grey jackets & trousers, so having a crew dressed in Camo Smocks wasn't top of my want list. To be honest, the detail is that indistinct I think I could probably get away with just painting them FG. The heads are particularly "Blurred" and I chose to replace them with Warlord items (thank goodness there's always so many spares!) to better help them blend in.

To mount the model, I purchased a ready cut large artillery base from Just Lasered. This allows up to 4 crew figures to be mounted on 25mm removable bases (included) to simulate casualties.

I will finish the model with a crew of five, one seated astride the trail leg, aiming the weapon, the rest on the bases provided.

I will cover this in Part Two............

Bolt Action Dice - 3D Printed

I thought I'd give printing some dice a go, as I now feel I've a good solution to stop my prints from lifting.

My method is to; -

1. clean the bed with mentholated spirit to degrease it
2. apply Red, Hi-Tack masking tape (£2.50 for 5m from Wilkos)
3. apply double sided (25mm wide) sticky tape over the masking tape

I found the files, as ever, on Thingiverse at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3171940 designed by dapoppa.

They are designed to be 19mm cubed, larger than the official dice from Warlord.

As suggested I turn the file within Cura to have the word "RUN" on the base as this would be the simplest to clean up after printing, and away I went.

I could fit 9 dice comfortable on my little print bed, though I think there was room for 12 at a squeeze!

Once finished I gave them a quick clean up with some wet & dry paper before starting to paint them up. To remove the double sided sticky tape, I've found that spray oil (WD40 for instance) will remove it. Afterwards a quick wash in detergent is required before paint will adhere.

I started by letting diluted black paint into the recessed letters. Once dry I dry brushed the upper surfaces with either white or light grey to differentiate who's side they represent.

Altogether not too bad. Ok they look like 3D printed dice, but they cost three fifths of bugger all to make where the real thing are about £1 each. They'll certainly do the job 😁