Flames of War - Tutorial - Lets make some buildings Part 1

In one of the forums I am part of I got the question if I could not do some sort of easy tutorial on building a building, house or something similar.

As staying neutral at this stage I want to do some scratch building with you on doing this. Lets start for the beginners and doing it .... NOW....


Materials needed:

Thick cardboard (I used grey cardboard approx 2mm thick)... makes it not easily to destroy and still flexible enought for our purpose

A ruler (really essential here) and...

a hobby knife.....

and a bit of glue which I will need in Part 2


So lets start

Step 1 :
Define your measurements... for our purpose and game technics it makes sense to at least get two stands of infantry into it... so lets put them together and cut a scare around them (makes it approx 65mm by 50mm)

Great stuff... bear in mind... we will need this approx 3 times (one is the bottom.. two are for the roof parts)

Step 2:
After this step build your walls around this. As I like the Battlefront webpage "Flames of War" quite much you can also find a definition there how high a building should be a minimum by refering to the Stalingrad Appartmentblock tutorial.. if you do not know it by hand.... its 30mm high.

As you can see on my picture I left out a couple of blocks... why you might ask ? I always hate it to fill my already small space available to me with a full 65x50x30 plus roof building. So I was thinking on interconnecting parts. This also leaves me to some easy to make variations later on and a much easier casting then it comes to reproduction. We need all parts two times.

As you can see I also already did cut out the windows with my hobby knife... the measurements for this I got from the based miniatures themself:

Windows are 10mm by 10mm
A door is 10mm by 15mm in my measurement.. Do not cut away your excess cardboard now. We will need it later on.


Step 3:
Continue with your roof tile.. we want the roof to be taken away so that we can place some miniatures inside of it. We do not later on want to move the complete house.

So we need the roof triangle as well.I decided on the smaller 50mm side being the right one to place my roof on. So cut out this tile as well two times . My highest point here is 20mm..... that makes it 50 by 20mm and we will have a small angle.

Step 4:

We also need a chimney... so lets also cut this out. Now we come to a place...you need your chimney being more exposed ? Then cut it out two times... in our tutorial we will be pleased with one time. Chimney is 60mm on its highest point and 25mm on on its widest part. Do yourself the favour and work with helping lines to get the upper part in a better shape then mine :)))



By now we should have:
3 Parts 60 by 50mm
1 chimney 60 by 25mm
2 parts of long side walls approx 64mm by 30mm
2 parts of short side walls approx 54 by 30mm
2 roof triangles 50 by 20mm



See you in the next part.

Flames of War - Tutorial - Entrechment Marker

Also finished the painting job on the Entrechment Marker... easy way to build it up with some putty , balsa wood , toothpicks and the usual colours and flock...

Flames of War - Tutorial - Rebuilding things from Battlefront Webpage (Minefields)

Also finished a couple of more minefields by now as shown here:

Minefields

Flames of War - Tutorial - Selfmade fences the tricky way (mikado)

With some more time I finished a couple of more of my

Fences (the tricky ones)

Love the outcome ! :)

Flames of War - Tutorial - Fences (the not so tricky ones)

After the tricky fences we also can work out the better concealing ones.... takes also less then 5 minutes.
For this purpose I took the same stuff for cleaning ears.. but you can also use the toothpicks if you bought them for the other projects


So here we go...

What do we need ..

Materials:

Tongue depressor
Toothpicks (Partysticks) / or earcleaners
Superglue

Step 1:
No coffee today.... take a look at the gathered materials

Step 2:
Superglue the lowest "log"row directly on the tongue depressor.

Step 3:
Use the lowest row as hold for glueing one (NOT BOTH!) side of the  upright standing logs of your fence. Place as many as desired....

Step 4:
Build up one to two more log rows like Step 2.. but simply superglue them to the pins as well as to the row below.

Step5:
Superglue the other upright standing parts of your fence

Step 6:
Superglue the last row... paint and flock as desired... enjoy your result

Flames of War - Tutorial - Fences (the tricky ones)

Today it is time to again work a bit around on something that takes less then 5 minutes for at least 2 parts of todays fences.

Everyone knows the classic ones. Being a one piece cast thing totally shutting down any view and giving concealment to troops. Why should that always be the case ? Why cant a fence not be a hinderance for advancing troops instead of giving concealment ? ....


So here we go...

What do we need ..

Materials:

Tongue depressor
Toothpicks (Partysticks)
Superglue

and thats it....

Step 1: Did I state that I like coffee ... so lets start with one upfront and have a few on our materials

Step 2:
The more tricky variaton.. Superglue upright standing "bolts" on your base.

Step 3:
Put a lose layer (I took two here) on a 180 degree ankle on your base. In my case it is 2 toothpicks... Why ? Because a fence does not start on the bottom but somethere on the first third.

Step 4:
Superglue toothpicks from one upright "bolt" to another. To give the more hold we first layed the 180 degree toothpicks. So you can simply go ahead and place your fence parts simply in 180 degree again on the already existing bolts.

Step 5:
as seen on the picture and


Step 6:
Equal steps 3 and 4.

Step 7:
Base as desired and enjoy your result.....

Flames of War - Tutorial - Entrenchment Markers (easy way)

After looking around on the web in search of entrechment markers I was wondering why there is a prize for approx 15 Euros or 12 british pounds for a bit of markers... ok they come prepainted and possibly also with some flock... too expensive in my opinion.

So lets take a look at them closer and substitude some things.

Scaling... 

always the worse problem to encounter... I scaled mine to approx half of the width of a small base. Means you take your small base. Place it and then use half of the smallest side. Thats my base width.
For its length I took two medium sized infantry platoon bases and put them next to each other. With this I still keep the opportunity to work out a complete entrenchment for a much lengthier part.. e.g. dug in platoon etc.


With this settled.... start ...

Substitution....

Materials needed:
The base I have done upfront
Partysticks
Superglue
Filler


Step 1:

Make sure you have everything by hand... enjoy your coffee....

Cut the partysticks to an even length. I personally dont like the more upper and lower parts.. I only took the middle part from it.


Step 2:
Use some rest from your base cutting part and glue it on top of the base. Afterwards Superglue the Partysticks alongside.

Step 3:
Cut some smaller parts from the partysticks as to stabilize the thing.

Step 4:
Use filler to get some sort of upwards hill to your entrechment.

Step 5:
Wait till dry.. Decorate, Prime, paint and flock it as desired.... and, of course,  have fun....

P.S.: Time on this one is nothing more than 5 Minutes......

Flames of War - Tutorial - Building Wood Trees the njami way

Still cheaper then the last one but takes more time is this variation. Suits perfect for more mediterrain environments etc.. is also quite easy scaleable up to 28mm. The earstick variation is a bit ... well lets say limited... :)

What you need:

- Grapes (red or green one ... doesnt matter) from the supermarket
- Base
- Superglue
- Flock
- Miliput or other putty



Step 1:
After buying the grapes.. enjoy them (NJAMI) but dont throw away the part they grow on.. thats the thing we need. Let it dry out for a week and then go ahead (you can also start right away ... I just like the dry variation a bit more)

Step 2:
Use Superglue and miliput to get your "tree" stand up the way you like it to be.


Step 3:
Superglue Flock on the parts there your fruits have been growing. Much space here to attach something.

Step 4:
Wait till everything dryed and do your basing...

Enjoy your lovely result

"Other Realms" in Cork City now stocks FoW

Hi all,

some posts earlier I told about the presentation I had with the manager of the store called "Other Realms" in Cork City.
Yesterday evening I got informed that they now Stock a limited supply of Battlefront Miniatures including the Starter Box (YEAH) and a couple of German and Allied tanks.

Support your local business !



In case someone is interested:

I will be displaying my display board in the upcoming weeks there including my homemade terrain as well as parts of my armies there. Currently we are looking how the display should look like.

I will also be holding a couple of demo games along during the next week. So drop in and have fun !

Flames of War - Tutorial - How to build a barn

After reading through OntheStep.net I thought it is time to build a bit more terrain. Also the WWPD.net guys inspired me heavily on building some new stuff.

As to figure out measurements etc... I will give you some hints here on what I used on mine.

Things used:

Foamboard
thin cardboard
Coffee sticks
Small metal pin (old needle cut down)
Beer matt
PVA Glue
Filler
Sand

Measurements:

Front side heigth 35mm, wide 75mm
Back side heigth 40mm , wide 75mm
Both sides approx size of a medium FoW base with heigth going from 35 up to 40mm


Step 1: Cut your pieces out of the foamboard

Step 2: Cut the two doors out of the beer matt and glue them to the smaller front side and scratch in the panels, also glue smaller crap pieces as handle and for the bars

Step 3: Use filler on each wall section so that you will have approx 3mm thick walls (that also matches the beer matt part then and the total thickness includes the foamboard)

Step 4: Stick the metal pin as a bar above the larger door.

Step 5: Put sand on each of your filler filled wall parts and gently press it into the filler. This gives texture for painting and an old worn feeling to the building.

Step 6: Let the parts dry

Step 7: Meanwhile cut your card board a bit larger then the overall building will be. Start glueing your coffee sticks on it (I did cut them before and broke them off, you could also wait and cut them afterwards)

Step 8: After everything is dry basecoat your wall sections as well as the roof part. If you are sure that you sealed your foamboard with the filler you can use a normal spray primer on that. If you are unsure just be on the safe side and prime it with a colour and a brush.

Step 9: After the primer dried the sand should stick in place as you first pressed it into the hardening filler and then sealed it in with the primer. Yeah !

Step 10: Paint as desired.

Step 11: Highlight as desired

Step 12: After drying .. enjoy the result

New Terrain additions

After Operation Overlord and all the gaming around I needed some more terrain. As you all know I am quite fond of making it myself and that resulted in me doing some molds and working with them....

So here we go (Picture heavy):