Scratch Built 1:600 scenery - Village (Part1)

I've had some 3mm buildings for a while now, from manufacturer's SPC Wargame Creations (complete structures, in resin) and Oddzial Osmy (damaged structures, in metal) obtained through Fighting 15's, but what to do with them? Well I've decided to put some of them in to a village for use in Cold War Commander games. This is how I'm going about creating the finished product. First find a suitable hardboard base, mine is about 300x200x4mm spayed up.

My next process was to decide a road layout and where building plots were going to be. For a bit of village flavour I'll include a stream, bridge, church, various house designs, shops and a pub plus a couple of light commercial buildings representing a petrol station as well as a couple of farm complexes. So I drew a rough map and cut out the shapes.
















Now I put on the first coat of paint to delineate the residential plots from commercial and road. Whilst i know this will be covered over it gives me a feel for what is going on as the build progresses.








Next port of call was to get a bit of surface contouring for which I turned to my trusted polystyrene pizza bases cut to shape using my original card map as a template.  This piece will end up in the top left of the board

I left the road and stream at base level and added the height (stick polystyrene to base using No More Nails); this is placed where where the buildings would eventually be. It also gave an opportunity to include pavements (side walks)

These are a selection of resin buildings primarily from SPC Wargame Creations in resin but also there are a couple of metal buildigs as well as parts from a children's toy.

At each stage I tend to add buildings back to the board just to keep the look in check. This arrangement will not end up being the final one.


This is the board with all the polystyrene glued on. At each stage I tend to add  buildings to the board for effect but they are not fixed at this point






















Everything now slows down a bit as I start to add detail such as walls (polystyrene), fences (plastic packaging straps) and hedges (green wool)

Building a 1:600 scale airfield (Part4)

 So let’s scatter some of my buildings onto the airfield back drop and see what we get. 

Looking 'North' over a provisional layout

There is still a bit of painting to do to remove the original wider black runway but essentially this is the final layout. On the far side of the runway is the HAS complex with 4x F-16's and x2 F15's (both Tumbling Dice) added for scale.   
In the foreground, left to right are the four buildings of the Barrack block, then the control tower, 'round' hanger, Fire station, square hanger, and workshop (the grey 'concrete' hard standing has yet to have any markings applied), then three warehouse / shopping Malls (two scratch built) and the school complex.

Looking 'East' over the finished Airfield

Airfield painting completed, though I'm still not convinced by the colour of the lighter 'concrete' taxiways as they look too yellow to me. Also, the hand painting to remove the original wider black runway needs to blend into the main field area better.


This picture was taken before a game of Cold War Commander but the layout is the same as above apart from the HQ building barging into the place of the school that has now moved further 'East'. 










 

Firestation, hanger and workshop hard standing





I've added markings to the hard standing to give a car park and aircraft movement lanes as well as some hazard markings around the fire station





HQ Building warehouses, hangers and the school 







This picture shows, from top to bottom, the HQ Building, a collection of fox-holes, warehouses, hangers and finally the school with houses. The numbered markers were used to 'hide' combatants during the game

HAS Complex

And finally the HAS complex, similarly marked up, this time with British Jaguars and Harriers (both from Tumbling Dice) providing scale.

The making of the HAS complex will be the subject of my next few posts.


Building a 1:600 scale airfield (Part3) Sky Wave Models

I also have a number of plastic buildings (1:700 scale)  from Japanese company Sky Wave:
Set 23 is for airfields:


Hanger Type A



Hanger Type A again


 

Hanger Type B































Set 24 contains factories but I do not own

Set 25 is a town building set with houses & school / hotel :

Gaming Modern conflicts in 1:600 scale

A small group of us at the Scimitar's wargame Group in Coventry, UK have been playing Cold War Commander on and off for the last 12 months with 1:600 models from Tumbling Dice for aircraft and Oddzial Osmy who also produce vehicles and troops.
I feel that this scale looks particularly impressive on a 2400mm x 1200mm (6'x4') layout and the scale also seems to sit well with rules fire range and movement distances.
We have played a number of scenarios primarily using British and Soviets armies from mid '70s to mid '80s owned by two of the guys, Neil and Richard respectively, and I've fallen into the niche of terrain provider (I also have desert camo’ Arabs and Americans but they haven't seem much action yet - they may show up in future blog entries).
We have played encounter scenarios mainly but now that we have got a hang of the rules we are spreading our wings a little into more complex scenario's, however, one factor that seems to be consistent is that the Soviets always seem to do better than the Brits. This may have reflect that the Soviets are good value for money (kit for points) or that Richard is a far better player than Neil or myself (I suspect the latter).
The latest scenario we planned to fight was a Russian airborne Assault on a British Airfield in Germany, around 1981 and I will report on that soon.