Russian decoy guns for Kursk, Part 3

Shields up!

Gunshields are made with wooden swizzle sticks, paper and superglue. The real thing was stakes in the ground with branches woven in between, but this was a bit easier and quicker to realize. I did it with the first decoy gun and the wood weathers nicely.

I made the gunshields so they fit the gun as good as possible, then glued them down with wood glue and some sand. Paper and superglue holds the different planks together.

Drying as I am typing this, they will be ready for a dust off and green basecoat in the morning. I'll only flock my own, the ones I'm giving away will be unflocked so they fit in better with their new masters.

Btw, here is the original picture I'm working off:

Russian decoy guns for Kursk, Part 2

All of the decoys are now based and have wheels. I sacrificed a Pegasus fast build armoured car for the wheels plus some horse carriage ones from a Sgts Mess rubble pack.

6 guns got real wheels, 4 got wagon wheels, and one of those I wrecked cause it will look good in pictures :)

Next up: gunshields.

Neat and tidy

The one plus thing about my current unemployment is that I have the time get the little things done for which you never had the time. Having finished the chores around the house it was time to get cracking on my collection in storage.

Yes, I'm a bit of a Ikea fan. And very much into black and white (the purple wall is my gf's idea, not mine). Drawers for the painted stuff and WIP's, cabinets for the boxes and scenery. Everything boxed by producer or in the case of tools, by type. I just wish the smaller flat boxes had not been discontinued as they are perfect for the hobby. I keep looking around for second hand ones, in any colour, cause they are that good :)

The cabinet beside it has all of my paints in wooden display trays, I rarely take the trays out anymore, I just take the numbers I need to paint with and put em back afterwards. The 3 cabinets beside those need a good sorting as well, I really need more boxes but can't afford them right now so I'll have to come up with something in-between.

Why yes, I have a bit of OCD ;)

Hotz Mats 15mm fields and 6mm weathered roads

One of my last big purchases was one set of weathered 6mm roads and 2 sets of 15mm fields. Ever since being gifted a 25mm set of roads (that I use for 20mm and propably will with 15mm as well) and purchasing a large European Fields mat with hexes from Hotz Mats I've been a great fan as it gives you quality stuff that doesn't weigh a ton, stores easily and looks very good on the table.

As I will be downsizing a bit the 15mm field set and the 6mm road set came into view.

I'll start off with the 6mm road set, weathered. As you can see in the pics the white lines are faded, and darker bits have been airbrushed on, representing brake marks and new asphalt patches, to give the idea of a well used roadway. I requested a white line set, and the weathering cost me an additional 10$ on top of the 35$ for the 28 piece set. The set contains 10 long straight sections, 2 intersections, 2 short straight sections,  3 T sections (one of them is trimmed a little too short compared to the others), 1 straight section that is actually a intersection but missing 2 exits (don't know how else to say this, sorry!), 4 quarter turn circles and 6 1/8th turn circles. This should more then suffice the average micro armour table IMHO. Quality is excellent (bar the what I think is a miscut) and it looks like it should look when combined with micro armour. I base mine on 40x20mm bases and 1 of these fits nicely in a lane so the size is fine for me. Unbased micro armour should have no problem with this either. In the end, 45$ is a lot of money, but the ability to create good looking roads quickly and repeatedly has proven a bonus in 20mm games and will continue to do so in 6mm games, of that I am sure. You also have the benefit of not having to make your own, source the materials, find the time etc. I know that sounds all too logical but can be a big deal to some.

The 15mm field set. Compared to other Hotz Mats offerings these are very low cost. 1 set of these will set you back 16$ dollars with each set after that costing you 14$. Each Felt Field Set contains six individual fields in four sizes: two 4x4inches (10x10cm); two 7.5x6inches (19x15cm); one 11.75x6inches (30x15.5cm); and one 9.75x8inches (24.5x19cm). Total area coverage is 20x14 inches (50x35cm). I picked these up with the road set because they have a picture din their display using it with 6mm vehicles, and it fits very nicely. I've made fields for 6mm before, but these were always on plastic so took up quite a bit of space unless I made them small. So this is excellent, just pick it up and put it into a box, practically no weight to them, and the added benefit that they work with multiple scales. They are well sized for 6mm and will be nice crop patches for my 15mm and 20mm armies. The sets themselves are mixed colour wiseso each pack varies in its content, but the sizes remain the same. To be even better for larger scales these fields really need to be a bit larger, if they could double the size of some of these fields it would be grand. As it is, these won't stand out next to a Russian or French farmhouse. If you are ordering a mat and have some spare cash, I'd say add one of these packs, it won't let you down.

In conclusion I will bore you with some technical details. :)


I made the order on the 19th of May, received a quote for shipping of the lot on the 20th of May, paid for said lot on the 21st of May. On the 29th of May I received an email telling me the lot had been shipped to my location (The Netherlands) and the package arrived on the 5th of June. All in all I had a very fast turnaround.


Total cost was 35$ for the 6mm roadways plus 10$ for the weathering, plus 30$ for 2 sets of 15mm fields. Total postage for this lot was 12$. Total cost for the entire order was 87$ dollars, or 70 euros in todays exchange rate. Not something I can do every month, but for a planned purchase more then fair. It is the kind of thing to order as a group as well, cust down on the shipping costs and the group gets a or several nice mats in return.


I hope you found this informative, I've put this online to show what is available, how I feel about it and what the costs involved are.

Russian decoy guns for Kursk, Part 1

I'm having a small factory line here....producing decoy guns for the Russians players for the game in August, based off a original schematic. I'll be modifying it in places to make it more wargamers/builders friendly though. Doing this on a practically 0 euro budget as well.

They are not hard to build and add a little character. I'll leave it to the Russian players to use them or not. More progress and details soon.

Get out more.

Wargamers need to get out more. We all know what the average sterotypical wargamer looks like. Not the healthiest of men, is he now.

How to motivate them to get out more? Cause that way they can save money, mans best motivator since there ever was one.

Ok, what am I on about? Well, since i'm forced to downsize my focus has been on 6mm items, and as always scenery is high on my agenda. And because I'm overweight I run 2-3 times a week in the wooded area behind our house. One of the more common trees that grows there is the Alnus glutinosa aka Zwarte Els or Black or Common Alder in English. At the moment these are chock full of dried up female and male flowers, and fall to the ground underneath the trees.

Thx for the biology lesson you say, but what has this to do with wargaming?

Well, the female flower of the Alder makes for perfect micro armour trees.

One tree will shed tons of them so you can just bring a bag ans scoop up as many as you like (they served their biological function anyway so no harm, they are not edible or anything), just make sure you dry them properly. Make sure to bring the stems as well.

After basing I go over them with a 50/50 water and woodglue mix to make sure the wood gets soaked in it so they will last forever. For a basic tree, basecoat them in brown and drybrush them with greens. You could also flock it to create bushier trees. The stems make nice fallen trees, trees for swamps and if you want you can flock those as well creating even more trees.

When drybrushed in other colours they make lovely sci-fi trees for various scales.

So there you have it, not only do you have a reason to get out more, you can find basic trees by the hundreds for free. Whats not to like? :)

Ready for Figz 2012

All ready now, packed painted stuff and WIP's from various scales, some sheets and promomaterial for various fora, and enough little bits to keep me going.

Early rise for a sunday though :)