Have yourself a Merry Old Christmas

While looking for something else (the story of my life) I found an ancient Citadel Space Santa, a limited edition from the late 'eighties. As I thought it was appropriate for this time of year, I thought I would share it.

I would like to hope that I did not get round to finishing painting it before it got put away. Here it is in its 'as found' condition.

 I think that over the years my skills improved, here are some not so festive Snowmen from a few years ago.

Copplestone Castings Evil Snowman and henchpenguin.

7everance

Quick trailer for a 7TV cast - 7everance.

Flamboyant Agent John Easton.

'Angel' of Justice - Michaela, provides John with both emotional and fire support.

Other members of the cast are awaiting selection.

One of the ruins that Cromwell knocked about a bit...

Warlord Games do a very nice model of the Cromwell Cruiser tank

 Scaled at 1/56th of full size, it fits nicely with their range of plastic and metal WW2 miniatures. The model went together well. It is just awaiting some decals and weathering.

The Cromwell was in British service until the Korean War, variants served in Greece and Finland until the sixties.

The building in the background is part of the Warlord Games Ruined Hamlet.

City Block

At Salute this year I bought four Sarissa buildings: a container, a Wild West shack, an Explorer pod and a City Block.

The container went together with no problems, though it is rather large (I was expecting something nearer the size of an ISO container).

I put together most of the Explorer pod (pictures to follow at a later date) but it is waiting for some finer weather to allow it to be spray painted.

And then there was the City Block.

It is supplied (at least at exhibitions) in a very compact stack of HDF in a plastic bag.

I found it rather intimidating, and put it to one side.

Time passed...

One evening, I was at a loose end and thought that I would "just have a look", just pull the instruction sheet out and have a look.

About twenty minutes later I had dry fitted the whole thing together.

Time passed again.

I took it all apart, and here is a picture of the bits.

Unlike a number of other laser cut kits, the City Block range is supplied already separated from the sheet.

The kit is supplied in 3mm and 2mm HDF. The outer walls, floors and ceilings are in 3mm HDF. The window and door elements are in 2mm HDF.

The ground floor was assembled using the floor above to assist in making everything square.

It was at this point that a slight problem in my assembly occurred. When I did the dry build, it went together fine. Unfortunately when I put it together, I managed to get the end walls in the wrong place. No, I did manage to get the side door on the ground floor, unfortunately the floors are designed to use the top tabs to hold them in place. So when putting it together, ensure that you do not have a down tab in the slot that is supposed to be used to hold the levels together.

So I managed to put one of the end walls in the wrong place. Emergency surgery ensued to remove said tab.

So now I have a two storey building in 'natural' HDF.

Agents Blue and Red check out the new building.

So, how to paint it.

I did not glue the door and window elements inside the building (if you peer closely at the above picture, you will spot the blu-tack (tm) holding the windows in place.

This allowed me to paint them separately.

I sprayed the exterior and interior of the building with Halfords grey primer. The windows and doors were sprayed with Citadel Skull White. Once again the doors and windows were held in place by blu-tack.

Tweedy and May discover the Photonic Spanner is no guarantee of entry.

While May keeps an eye out at the front, Tweedy tries his luck (and Photonic spanner) on the side door.

Though the exterior face of the windows and doors are painted, the interior face needs to be painted, as does the walls.

Additional details required include drain pipes (how else do you access the first floor - especially as the building has no interior stairs), and some detail on the roof.

It also needs some detailed painting, mortar between the blocks, oh and some door knobs.

I was concerned that the etched detail might be lost under the paint, but as the photographs show, the detail is still visible.

Now I need to build the other two kits, and then get some more so I have a town for my miniature figures to run (or in the case of the zombies shuffle...) around.

Mechanicals - friendly and not so friendly

A Juggernaut has gained access to the Albion Rocket Consortium base.

An Ainsty Castings Mechanot on 40mm base.

Not all mechanicals are unfriendly. Ainsty Castings have just introduced a range of friendly robots. Available as a set of three, or as part of the Valley Forge set with four buggies and drivers.

Now where are the plant pots?

WARMILL Portable Utility Pod build

I saw WARMILL for the first time at Colours. They have an interesting range of Laser cut buildings, terrain and accessories

As an experiment I bought a Portable Utility Pod, a single small building on legs. They offer a range of options, with multiple pods, walkways etc.

The kit came in a flat cardboard box (looks rugged enough to cope with most posties material science testing experiments).

I had started to remove the pieces from the sprue before deciding to take the photograph, all pieces were securely on their sprues.

The kit is made from 3mm laser cut MDF. As a size comparison, that is about the width of a new Crooked Dice Armed Minion's head excluding ears (say about 200mm or eight inches). The Sarissa City Block buildings seem to be a similar thickness, though the habitation pods and the Old West buildings look more like 2mm.

Generally, the pieces came out without a problem, there was one sheet (the one with the side pieces) that did require the application of a scalpel as the laser cut had not made it all the way through the material.

I assembled the pod without glue, and with only a few minor areas that needed filing/sanding. For the final build I will tidy up the edges and use glue.

There are a lot of pieces, and the high density of pieces on the sheets is to be applauded.

This is a view of the 'assembled' pod with a Crooked Dice Tweedy for scale.

It was at this point that I noticed a problem. The door kept falling over. In the end I propped it up with a Time Lift Security with rifle figure.

I then checked the instructions again (the construction is so easy that there is a temptation to just build it). I was missing the two door hinges. As I mentioned before, there are a lot of strangely shaped pieces on the high density boards, so I went through the 'sprues' again, to no avail.

I was just contemplating either sticking the door in place, with the inner door detail added, when I noticed that the 'inner door detail' was cut through the 'inner door' piece, and looked remarkably like the missing hinges.

So, having added the hinges, here are some additional pictures.

Three Crooked Dice Armed Astronauts protect their field base though one of them is going to have to clean the back blast from that rocket launcher.)

Tweedy breaks out from the prison pod.

Tweedy says good bye to his confinement.

So, overall a nice easy build, a few areas which needed a bit of scalpel and file work, and a requirement to look at the instructions clearly (though a pointer to the hinges would be nice).

The building itself looks fine, it could do with some finer detail such as cabling and a replacement key pad (easily done by the builder).

The building is only single ended, it could do with an option to have two doors. It could also do with some inner detail (possibly as an option). As one of the pictures above show, it is eminently suited as a base for space operation, so it could do with an inner wall for an airlock.

The range could also do with some corridors to link them together where they are in use in hostile environments.

Would I buy more, yes, I will probably buy some more, with some of the additional gantries etc.

Now I need to take it all apart and finish and paint it.

Colours 2012

Once again I journeyed into the the West, well, Newbury really. It is west of somewhere.

The racecourse was very busy, though a lot of it was due to a Giant Boot Sale, though I did not see any larger than normal footware, though I did see a few people that might have wanted a pair.

After a slight detour to the Atenociti's Workshop (and the purchase of a 'Mobile Turret' - or Spider tank and admiring their forthcoming power armour), it was round to the Crooked Dice stand to buy this month's releases - Troad, Gascoigne and Dr Argus. The nice people there were showing pictures of their forthcoming releases, including the first two Future Freedom Fighters, Argonauts and Talos. Helena was wondering why I wanted three Dr Argo, all I can say is "Argonauts... In Space!

Ainsty supplied their new buggies, drivers and three little droids (and very cute they are too), plus additional resin items.

Warmill supplied a small pod (a build review later). I bought from Empress/Imprint models a BTR80, a FV410 Warrior and another 'Technical'.

Not in the least bit inspired by the previous night's Doctor Who, I picked up a resin Triceratops from Magister Millitum.

The new Wargames Factory plastic female zombies will build up the undead forces for 7ombieTV.

Three examples with May Killan for scale. They are a major improvement on the original Wargames Factory zombies.

I added a couple of Cadet Judges plus a Brit Cit Judge to my Justice Department. Having seen the film, I need to find one of my Dredd figures, and some gangers.

I also bought another Figures In Comfort carrying case, no matter how many I buy, they always seeem to fill up.

Overall the show was entertaining and thanks to those who chatted.