David Bickley's Wargames Blog

The occasional ramblings of an average gamer, journeyman painter, indifferent modeller, games designer, sometime writer for Wargames Illustrated and host of games in GHQ.



Saturday 12 February 2022

Roads to Nowhere?

Well, to Groß Bikelberg and Bikelheim perhaps at some stage? As I've said previously my Cold War Gone Hot project in 15mm is both a small project, at least it's intended that way, and a bit of a back burner. Phil has undertaken to paint the modest collection of Battlefront plastic vehicles, fitting them in amongst his own projects and his commission work, so naturally they will arrive in GHQ for basing as and when.

As for the figures, well, I bought the PSC 15mm plastic Russian Infantry box and hope that the corresponding B.A.O.R. box will arrive this year sometime. I do have Battlefront's metals, but they are an uninspiring bunch of lumps of metal to my old eyes set next to the exquisite plastic Russians. I'd wager a few folk might think that a strange comment given my general antipathy towards plaaaastics! 

Leaving that aside for now at least, I've been making, painting and basing up MDF buildings for the game, having no terrain at all in 15mm size, besides a few small trees from The Last Valley which will do. Warbases let me down when their Prussian 28mm buildings didn't appear in 15mm as I'd hoped but fortuitously a web search lead me to LaserCraftArt and their small but exquisite range of post war German buildings. All are now assembled and most are painted and based ~ just the two bases of terraced houses/shops still to paint!  Of course I do have some industrial buildings for a factory complex, from Sarissa Precision, but these will be a later project in terms of painting and modelling even though they were the first 15mm buildings I bought - at WMMS pre plague!

With all this in mind Phil and I have been discussing roads, having concluded my venerable universal Scenic Effects rubber dirt roads (above) simply won't cut the mustard for this game. After much searching of various options I've settled on a set of roads printed on a 6'x4' mat by Geek Villain at £45 plus £5 P&P. 













I'm confident this will give me all I might need and more for the games on my 6'x6'6" gaming table here in GHQ. They will also do service of course in some 20mm WWII games and in our 28mm VBCW  and occasional Blandings games.

 The company offer these roads and other types of road in two  width sizes, mine being the larger at 100mm road widths. As the vehicle bases are 45mm wide this seemed the best choice for the overall look of the game. When Sue has carefully cut them out for me I'll do a small preview layout complete with the finished buildings to date to give us all an idea of how the games might look. More on that next week I expect.

12 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Resin? 3 D Printing? Winning a game?🤣😂

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  2. Those roads are new to me, but with Geek Villain’s name on them, looks like a winning solution.

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  3. Nice touch with the parking places, the roads look the buiness.

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    1. Thanks Phil! I think the roads you found will do the job.

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  4. Nice buildings David and interested to see how the roads work when cut up ?

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  5. Fine additions to your real estate portfolio…
    These roads look great… I have to admit that I do like Geek Villains products…

    All the best. Aly

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Aly, we shall see next week what it looks like out on the table in GHQ.

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  6. Those roads should work quite well!

    Christopher

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