Terrain Workshop Sorted (at least for now)

 

Well I've managed to clean out the Terrain Workshop.  Sadly, the bulk of the "debris" consisted of various shipping boxes that were retained for storage or to use in building terrain.  Of course neither of those objectives were fulfilled.

This space measure 8x8 and serves as both a terrain workbench and storage.  The big plus of this apce is it has a pair of doors which can be closed and hide the mess from the wife.  She has learned long ago that these doors are best left closed.

I've got the bulk and most commonly used scenery materials in a shelf unit right next to the work bench.

If we pan in a clockwise direction one can see 1 of 2 small parts bins - this one has small terrain items like various grass tufts, different grades of sand and special small detail parts.

Continuing our clockwise progression is a new paint rack for craft paints and the second small parts bin which is pretty much empty (for now)

In this corner, I store my unfinished hex terrain (just cut hexes in the boxes and my collection of 2x2 terrain panels.

Finally, another storage cabinet - the drawers hold my 6mm Russo-Japanese War collection and the plastic bins have 6mm ancients.  On top are my fully finished 4" hex terrain. 

Speaking of terrain making, I did decide to do a little work on the hex terrain - you knew that workbench couldn't stay that clean!

Stalingrad Project: The Third and Final Section is Done!

 

The Southern end of the Stalingrad table is now done!  This section was a smaller 2ft x 6ft section and includes the Univermag Department Store.

The last of the 11 iconic locations from the battle to be completed is the "House of Specialists". It was a large multi story apartment complex that provided an excellent observation post for the Germans to call in Artillery and Air Strikes onto the far side of the Volga.  The current rendition is a re-purposed early version of the Grundin Mill that I converted and repainted.  The model is scratch build from pink foam and was way to small for the Mill but happened to be the right size (3 hexes) for the House of Specialists!

Two of the centerpiece locations on the table is the Univermag Department Store and Red Square.  I put a lot of effort into scratch building both and am very pleased with how they came out.  I need to add a bit more battle damage to the Univermag and may green up Red Square. Having something with a little bit of greenery will really contrast with the drabness of all the urban rubble.

A shot from the front.  Some battle damage has been added but I found it strangely hard to put holes into "my precious" model.

A street level view.  The park did have small trees through out but really didn't have a row of tree along the street next to the department store.  I tossed them in on a whim and kind of like them

Just west of the Department Store is the "L" shaped  Nail Factory which saw very heavy fighting in later part of September.  Next to it is a generic apartment block.  To be honest, the apartment block is on first on the list to be replaced as I tweak the board.  There are two reasons - it's a bit to flat and clean looking (hard edges) and its too tall to be on the edge of the table - player will get caught on it as the lean over it to reach units in the middle of the board.  There is a 99.9% chance it gets "belly squished" during game play.

Some Russian village buildings that are currently being pressed into service as worker home.  At this stage in the battle most of these wooden structures where reduced to ash, rubble and a chimney so I'll likely replace these also.  The buildings are MDF kits for "Things for the Basement" and are very nice.

A shot looking at the rear of the Department store.

A last picture looking at the other side of the House of Specialists.

My gaming table is 8ft by 4ft so will not fit the 10x6ft size of the Stalingrad set up.  I will be adding some 1 ft table extensions so I can set the whole thing up but that will need to wait for warmer weather.   To try and give you an impression of how the table looks here are pictures of each of the sections:

Southern (it's just the left half of the image)

The Middle Section.  The souther section is to the left and the Northern one to the right.

The Northern section.  Since this photo was taken, I have repainted the roads to match the same color that was used on the other table sections.

The entire table is 30 x 18 hexes which is a total of 540 4 inch hexes.  That was a lot of work but I think worth it as the hexes are easy to reconfigure and break down pretty efficiently for storage / transport.  I'll probably build another 150-200 more open terrain hexes for non urban scenarios for the rules I'm writing whic have the working title: Company Command: Kompanie vs Rota.  I'm pretty sure having an over-wrought title is required for any ruleset.

There is still a lot of detail / scatter terrain work to do but that is more on the "nice-to-have" rather "got-to-have" list of things to add.  I also need to continue all the rail lines across the lower and upper sections of the board.  For some idioc reason, I decided to scratch build all the railroad track.  It has a nice "crafty-look" but it is very, very tedious to do.

Some of the items I want to add are

 - trench hexes

 - street barricades

 - wrecked vehicles

 - LED lighting effects for fires

 - artillery craters

 - a little more river front details (docks, maybe some wrecked rivercraft.

Stalingrad Project: No Paint Rubble Base Scenicing

I have stumble upon an easy no-painting way to scenic infantry bases for an urban / rough terrain look.  Here's a close up of the first platoon I've experimented on.  It took me less than a minute to finish these bases.

A comparison of the urban rubble bases to my "standard"  basing.  For Stalingrad, I'm thinking of using different basing types to denote troop experience.  Those that have the traditional green foliage bases will be inexperienced / conscript troops, while those with rubble bases are Veteran / Guards.

When adding texture and rubble to hex terrain, I use a cheap aluminum pan to catch the run off.  After making 500+ hexes, it has a considerable amount of ground texture materials.

For the miniature bases, I paint the bases edge with Vallejo tan-earth and then put on a light coat of undiluted modge podge (a cheap form of matte medium) and then dunkt the bases in the bin.  After shaking off the excess I hit the bases with a spritz of water from a spray bottle which draws up the medium to bind everything and the base is set aside to set.  It's ready to go after that.

I like the look but will add a bit more tile grout to reduce the percentage of rocks (model rail road ballast).

The next experiment is to just use the tile grout and then add some ground foam for more standard bases but I think I've stumbled on a really easy way for basing.

Stalingrad Project: Final Road Sections are Laid Down

The road sections and curbs have been completed and have 2 coats of paint.  I'll put a third coat on these tomorrow.

The next step will be to scratch build a few more ruins )most are single hext structures and then figure our how to do the parl section (red square) in the center.

Getting close to done!
 

Stalingrad Project: Preparing for the Last Terrain Push

 

The last batch of hexes needed for the Stalingrad project have been cut out.  

This section of the table will be a lot of fun to build as it has iconic buildings like the Univermag Department store and the Nail Factory plus some actual green space in Red Square.  Red Square still would have some green in it as of Sept'42 but it will need to be muted or it will appear to jarring with the rest of the purposely drab table.

The Univermag Department store has been patiently waiting for me to get to this point.  I'm looking forward to painting and getting this iconic building "tabletop ready".

There is one iconic building left to scratch build - the "House of Specialists" which is located in the lower right corner of the map image.  The research for this building is ongoing as I'd like ot to be as realistic as I can make it.

It's exciting to get the terrain portion of this project almost over the finish line.  There is still a lot of work to do on detailing and scatter terrain plus the rules need to be tested.  Stalingrad is the most ambitious gaming project I've undertaken and I suspect I'll be running it at multiple conventions - well assuming the game isn't a disaster!

Project Stalingrad: Middle Section Done

 

The middle section of the table is now fully built.  I still need to add some weathering pigments and a few details but I need to order some more and like to let the base terrain fully cure for a few days before weathering.

I like how it came out

Now two pictures from the German table edge - The train station in the lower right corner 

I think the table is shaping up nicely.

When embarking on a project like this, doing some prep-work and planning really makes it easier to accomplish.  I made a mockup of the table in powerpoint which has been used to guide the build out.  The section in today's post is within the "black box" on the chart.  The section to the right was finished a few month ago so all that is left is the roughly 2' x 6' section on the left.

Here's a picture of the right side section

and another one of it all packed up

Just a few weeks ago central Stalingrad looked like this, I'm very happy with the pace of the project.

Once the table is fully built the really fun part of the project starts - scatter terrain and super detailing the table.

Stalingrad: Terrain Texture Saturday

 

The terrain workbench if all set up to add texture and sanded tile grout to each of the hexes.  This is the last step in terrain making and really is best done in a production line manner.  I'll do a more detailed tutorial in a future post.

There will also be a good bit of building painting today.  One of the drawbacks of laser cut terrain is the burn marks that show through on the tabs and edges.  Because these are end grain and soak up paint it can be hard to get rid of them.  I like to just cover them up with moulding using my favorite hobby glue - Eileen's Tacky Glue (it's just super thick PVA)

I use plastic angle stripe (from Evergreen) to cover the corners.  Boom - no edges.

I also cut some thin stripes of mat board to add along the sides - its a nice detail to add to a model building and they cover up the construction tabs.

Stalingrad Project: Trundling Along

 

A good bit of progress on the central part of Central Stalingrad was made over the past few days.  The base layer of tile grout has been applied to most of the hexes and the building placement is finalized.  Also the most tedious part of the project - the rail tracks are mostly done.  Hand cutting all of the railroad track ties was a pain in the , well you know where.  I still ned to add the rails - which is just 1/16 inch square plastic strips painted black grey - that's really easy.  The first picture is taken from the east along the Volga River.  All the river embankments are cut out and I'm still playing around with how to do so of the details such as supply depots and ferry wharfs.  As these hexes are along the edge of the table, adding details really helps "sell" the whole concept.

Looking from the west.  I am cheating a bit - rather than making a custom model of the Train Station, I'm using the large factory model from Terrains4games as a stand-in.  It worked out to be about the right size.  I may end up replacing it and using the factory in another spot (that's one of the benefits of hex terrain) but it looks good for now.

The next step is to paint all the buildings and then add texture / rubble to all the hexes.  Once this section of the table is completed there are another 5 hex rows along the right side that need to be built.  Most of the iconic buildings that are located in those 5 rows (the Nail Factory and the Univermag Dept store have been rough built.  There also a lot of open space from Red Square so building those rows should be pretty fast.

Soviet Armor and the Tyranny of Sharpies

 

New 15mm scale Soviet tanks are rolling of the production line in preparation to face the German onslaught.  4 T-70's, a pair of T-34's and one Katyusha rocket launcher.  These are are plastic models from Battlefront and I really like them.  I did mess up and purchase some later war T-34's - these dont have the single large top hatch but they'll do.

There are also some KV-1's to build.

I've been bouncing back and forth between painting mini's and building terrain.  The road network for this section of the table has been built and painted up.  1/16" square styrene strip is used to make the curbs so laying out the streets is a bit time consuming but it really looks nice all together.  Once the curbs have set the streets are painted concrete using a mix of Apple Barrel craft paints:

1/3 Pewter Grey

1/3 Country Tan

1/3 Country Grey

The road network is a bit more complex and there are several crossroads that I expect will be hotly contested in the games to come.

With the exception of the Soviet Bank building (upper left in the 3rd picture) all of the building placement is temporary - I'm still playing around with building placements.

I did make a really dumb mistake.  When rough marking where the street would go, I couldn't find a pencil so grabbed a black sharpie marker.  Craft paints are great for terrain making and very economical but do not cover sharpie markers all that well.  You can see it showing through the paint on this cross roads hex.  Still visible after three coats of "concrete" paint.  Dohhhh!!!!!

Stalingrad Phase 2 Commences

 

It's time to return to terrain making for the Stalingrad project.  I packed up the north section and started to layout the hexes and draw in the roads for the Central section of the map.  The overall map will be 10ft x 6ft.

As you can see I ran out of hexes and need to cut another 140 or so to complete the full table.  Outside of the Soviet Bank building (lower right corner in the first picture) all of the building placements are just tests.  Once I get the road grid in I'll figure out how to best place them to balance historical locations and gamability.

I'm working of a scale map I drew in power-point.  This diagram has proven to be really helpful in keeping track of the project as it's really easy to let such a large scale project like this overwhelm me.

The terrain design principal is historically important buildings such as the Univermag Department Store or Pavlov's house are located where they were historically, especially relative to one another.  You can see them on the diagram as either green (built) or red (to be built).  All of the other buildings (in light grey) will be a bit generic and placed more to simulate building density rather than actual historical location.

The northern section all packed up.  When I get the all clear from my lovely, yet fierce, Dr Wife I'll be bring this bin up to the club to start doing some test games with the rules.  I'll end up with three of these bins for all of the terrain - which is a lot but still transportable.  

Reassembling the terrain will be fun.  I did mark the bottom of each hex with its corresponding row number and put them back in the bin in a somewhat organized fashion.  I suspect the first time I try to "reset" the terrain will be a disaster.  We'll find out.

One concern I have is that given the size of the table at 10 x 6 can players easily reach units in the center?  Yes, I am fearful of the dreaded gamer "belly smash" were players with ample "provision storage" accidently crush figures and terrain features along the table edge as they lean over.  I have committed this sin many times in the past and will likely do so again.  It shouldn't be a problem along the soviet side as it has the Volga river so there really isn't any elevated terrain features.  It might be an issue on the german side  but we'll have to see.  I may need to shorten the width to 5 feet which the design will allow without too much compromise.  One of the benefits of a hex terrain design is it pretty easy to make adjustments like that one.