Pecorama

A weeks break walking in East Devon, but I got chance to visit the Model Railway exhibition at Pecorama yesterday. Only £2.20 as it was off season and a chance to look for terrain making ideas.


My favourite the Spanish railway "Catalunya"

Starting work on the hills

I was lucky and found an almost complete sheet of "Celotex" foam insulation in a skip just down the road, so I definitely have enough for the seventeen (17!) hills I need for the big game. Here are the first three roughed out and the beginnings of a hilltop town.

The shaping of the two larger hills is almost finished, I just need to fill all the gaps and then add several coats of PVA before adding scatter, etc. The smaller hill is a first attempt at a terraced hillside. The walls have been coated with "hard as nails" and then gravel pressed into the surface. I'll need to do this on the slopes of the hilltop town.

Sicily - walls part 1

Completed my first batch

The basic wall came from ebay (link), but needed cut to size to fit on the large lolly atcks used for bases.

A picture showing progress so far.

Although there is one gateway shown, I've decided not to create more and just use gaps between the walling. I also need some shorter sections and I'll work on them with the next batch

Winter Panzer IVs

Pressing on with work on the WMMS purchases. The Italeri fast build Panzer IVs were fast to assemble and paint. Given the white decals on the T34s showed through I decided to add decals to these.

Note that normally I would have used the Airfix Panzer IVs from the stash, but everything I've done so far for winter is 1/72 I decided to keep a constant scale.

Winter T34s

The cheap diecast T34s picked up at WMMS have been winterised by dry brushing pale grey and then white

What the drybrushing did highlight is that the hull of these is the uparmoured (ekranami) version, but the turret is not.

WW2 Winter Italians

From the warmth of Sicily to the freezing cold of Russsian. Like the Hungarians I still don't hane all the bts needed to complete the heavy weapons so I just completed the rifle companies.

Figures are the Strelets Italians at Stalngrad.

Orange Trees

Another step forward for Sicily, the orange groves. my period map shows quite a few orchards around Lentini so I hope these will provide sufficient for my big game needs.

The basic trees came from China via ebay and were based on foamcore. One thing I should have done was spray the trees with fixative (hairspray) first, rather than last, to reduce the lost of fruit and foliage.

WMMS - the booty

very limited purchases, especially as I was looking out for anything Sicilian

But I did get

• Another box of cacti
• The M32 TRV I need to complete my new US Armoured battalion
• The new Italeri fast build Panzer IVs - these won't fit in with the rest of my German forces, but will with my new winter units
• A trio of T34/76s for £10 - again these will be winterised
• Finally 3 Brittannia Breda 20mm AA guns for my desert Italians - I would have like more to replace my old oversized BP cast models, but I can wait

Pictures from WMMS

Good day out at WMMS and plenty of chance to look around as I wasn't committed the helping out on the Lance & Longbow stand and this year there was plenty of inspiring games put on.

Here's the L&L society game, another Teutonic knights skirmish

A neighbouring table with 28mm WW2 desert action

Tony with his charge of the French cavalry at Waterloo



More Napoleonic action

A very nice Renaissance game

With a very tempting Ottoman galley

ECW action, if the boards look familiar it's because they were made for a Gettysburg game, Devils Den is hidden in the wood.



Some quite interesting buildings in the game



Indian Mutiny




WW1 I'm never convinced by the hex based trenches

WW2 Japanese attack on the Phillipines


Mexican-American War



Anglo-Sikh war



6th edition Ancients!!


Battle of Bouvines 1214 with the Society of Ancients. I took on the English/Imperial force and had apparently gained the upper hand when my opponent was dragged off to lunch by his wife!

WW1 action, much nicer trenches

WW2 Chain of Command

Great Northern War, more temptation.


A US 37mm gun on display, but I still can't work out where the bits of photo-etched brass in the S-Model kit go!