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.

Unexpected Flooding on the Volga, Stalingrad Progress Delayed

 

It seems our water heater decided that Friday afternoon was quitting time and when I say quit I mean flood.  The tank ruptured and proceeded to flood our basement.  Actually we were very lucky as I think we caught it maybe a few minutes after the leak started and were able to minimize the water flow.  Well limit the flow water flow after a three stooges like episode of trying to remember were all the water cut-off valves were.  

I was wander down to the basement to do a little more work on the Stalingrad table so, in a way, miniature gaming "saved-the-day".

The Heater is located under the stairwell into the basement so all of the flooding was limited to a 10-15 foot circle around it (300 to 450 cm for you free range hipster metric types).  We had a berber carpet in the basement that's pretty well shot.  That carpet was also close to 20 years old and the wife wanted to replace it - looks like that's going to happen now!

I removed all the soaked carpet and padding (to be honest any type of demo work is kinda of fun) and then rented some fans and dehumidifiers to try and dry up the space.  I'm told these need to run for 3 days - at least that's what the rental place tells me.

You can see that true disaster was narrowly averted as the water came within 8 inches of my troop cabinet.  Some minis and terrain were damaged in the flood but nothing of any importance and stuff that I should have gotten rid of years ago.

We do have a brand new shiny hot water heater, complete with a drain pan that's linked to the sump pump.  A feature that would have been most useful 24 hours ago.

In all honesty, this is my fault as the water heater was from 2003 and should have been replaced years ago.  I just forgot about it and have now paid the price for my negligence!  

The REAL issue is can I find creative ways to delay the wife's selection of a new carpet so that installation occurs AFTER the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is finished (March 20)?  My current plan is to throw money at the problem and wrap the new carpet installation with some other renovation projects she wants to do. That way, maybe, I can delay the project until the late Spring / early Summer under the guise of moving out to our place on the Eastern Shore while the renovations are completed.

I will need to check the whereabouts of a certain Martin C or Noel W who are chasing me on the leader board of the challenge - maybe there is more afoot here than mere happenstance.......

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!

Something A little Different for the AHPC XI: 15mm Vietnam US Infantry

 

A bit of a welcome break from grinding on my Stalingrad project - 15mm US Infantry from Vietnam.  I don't know the provenance of these figures as they were given to me by Ed from the club but these 14 chaps were fun to paint up and scenic the bases.

They're intended to be used in Ed's running campaign game using the "Charlie Company" ruleset which is a combination skirmish & RPG style game.

Ed ran a game with Tom and I last November using the rules.  It was a simple scenario where Tom I were both leading squads who were tasked with wandering down a road looking for a broken down M-113, which we needed to fix and then get off the board.  It a cooperative style game where the players control one US side and the GM controlled the VC.  It was a lot of fun and at the end of the game, Ed gave me a bag with 14 figures for my own squad, which now have been painted up.

This game is at the top of my list when I can get back to in person gaming.  Hopefully I can coax Ed into running a few more games.

I've also done a lot of work for the Stalingrad project which will get posted in due coarse.  I'm building up my strength for the last terrain push of a 100 or so hexes!
 

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!!!!!