Terrain For Leipzig: Part 7

I've spent the past few weeks expanding my collection of terrain items for Leipzig. The latest batch includes a townhouse, a bridge, some brick walls, an update on an older building and some trees and plowed fields (the trees and fields will feature in a future blog entry). 

The townhouse is an MDF kit from Sarissa Precision; their East European Townhouse. I upgraded the roof a wee bit by adding strips of styrene to cover the seams and giving the appearance of a metal roof.

The base is scribed Foamex over MDF 

The bridge was actually started a couple of years ago; one of three that I had bought for Wagram (see here). It is also a Sarissa Precsion kit.

Even with the width trimmed down, it still strikes me as a bit over-sized for 15mm.

The brick walls are from Fenris Games. Really wonderful resin casts; I have been very pleased with everything I have bought from Fenris. These came with a bit of minor warpage - you can see in the photos how there is a gap at the top of the wall from the warping - but nothing that can't be hidden with strategically placed vegetation.

They are actually for 28 mm but the sculpting is fine enough that they work for 15mm if you don't look too close. 

The only thing that is a bit a disappointing is that Fenris do not make gate posts for these walls; I will have to make some as I think they would make good walls for the city of Leipzig.

Although time consuming to paint, very satisfying and I am happy with the result. 

I scratch built this church from Foamex for Wagram but I didn't have enough time to do the paint job I usually like to do. 

Plowed fields and autumn trees up next. 

Terrain For Leipzig: Part 6

 With so many communities on the battlefield, providing buildings to represent them is going to be a collective effort. I have approximately 12 of my own already, but I picked up three more from Warbases. Specifically a few of their rural German buildings from their 15mm Buildings range:

As usual, I made some modifications to the structures:

 I used some Lepages Plastic Wood Filler to texture the walls of the farmhouse and some Gorilla Glue Wood Filler (natural) on the barn and outbuilding, including the daub infill:

The farmhouse got a roof of Platers Plasticard, fish scale tiles: 

All the siding, beams and thatch rooves were primed with Vallejo's Parched Grass primer; the tile roof got hit with a coat Rustoleum Paint &Primer spay, brick red:

The walls of the the barn and outbuilding were textured with Gorilla Wood Filler and the thatch rooves were made from the same. I then brushed the thatch with a moist coarse brush for texture:

I used the Parched Grass primer as the basecoat for the thatch; I am pleased with both the texture and the colour. It is probably the fastest and simplest thatch roofing I have ever done.

Normally I like substantial bases on my buildings that I can add some landscaping to but I left these as is;  the base they come with has a small lip.

These are larger buildings than the Sarissa Precision and Battlefield Accessories products; I think they are designed with skirmish gaming in mind as the rooves and second stories are removeable.

I loved working on these and I am tempted to get a few more.

Terrain For The Battle of Leipzig: Part 5

I was able to take my foot off the gas on this project as the due date has been bumped from last weekend to sometime in May (most likely). At this point, the six new panels are finished and the older panels have been touched up and would have been ready for last weekend. 

I lined the Elster and it's tributaries with shrubs made from Woodland Scenics Clump Foliage (medium green, light green and burnt grass).

The swamp area to the west of the Elster was also lined with clump foliage and some home made shrubs:

... and filled in with a lot of Army Painter tufts (Highland and Swamp).

The swamp and minor tributaries of the Elster are just three or for layers of Golden Gloss sealer over the grout base:

Overall, I think the result is effective. 

The extra time has allowed me to add some details that I might not have otherwise been able to do such as make a large batch of trees in autumn foliage (this is about a third of them):

As well as more roads (we will need about 60'!):

This weekend I got started on some buildings I ordered from Warbases (rural farmhouse, barn and outbuilding) which I have upgraded with sheet styrene and Lepages Plastic Wood Filler:

This week I expect to make headway painting these as well as another Sarissa Precision building and bridge that have been started for a while now. 

Sarissa Precision's European Timber Framed Town Set

 I have some more 15mm structures for my Napoleonic terrain collection; this time from Sarissa Precision, their European Timber Frame Town set.

This set is more complex than the Battlefield Accessories buildings in that all the buildings are at least 2 stories and have the necessary etched timber framing. Like the Battlefield Accessories buildings I textured the walls with Polyblend grout. 

Even though I was careful, I still got grout in the lines, and had to go back over the buildings after texturing to scribe out some lines.

I decided to do all the texturing and glue the card shutters onto the walls before assembly and priming; it was definitely easier to do that on the flat. 

The way the chimneys are cut means that two sides have no scribed brick texture. I scribed some bricks into some .5 cm foamed PVC for the exposed sides.

Handsome little buildings even before paint is applied.

2 of the 5 buildings in the set are urban town houses:

One has a bar or shop on the bottom floor:

The other is a typical town house:

There are also two larger buildings, a little more rural but still suitable in a town:

One is a barn:

...and the other a farm house:

For the church I chose some fish scale tiles from Slater's Plastikard for the roof. I also filled in the MDF of the dome with wood filler to smooth it out, and added strips from styrene.

I like my buildings based so I plumped them down on some MDF and added pavers scribed into some foamed PVC sheet to give the buildings a bit more a urban look.

I paid a little more attention to the rooves when painting as that is what we will be looking at the most when war gaming. 

Due to various embellishments and the more complex nature of the assembly and painting, these kits took quite a bit longer to do than the Battlefield Accessories kits. Between the two sets I imagine I will have enough buildings for most games as most towns and villages will consist of two or three structures. Having said that, I still have a couple more buildings I would like to add. Thank you for looking.