Dead Livestock

These are a recent purchase from Warlord Games that I have wanted for some time and finally picked up. There as some pretty famous pictures of dead livestock in the Normandy area during or after the D-day invasion. The Allied bombing campaign prior to D-day was pretty intense and took a heavy toll on the livestock of the region, especially the Normande breed of cattle that was nearly wiped out as a result. I thought that these would be a great addition to the gaming table. While not your ordinary terrain, to be sure,they look good in any skirmish game.

 I thought that as terrain they should have an impact on game play. So I have been tossing around some ideas, and for Bolt Action I think I am going to classify them as an obstacle that does not provide any cover. This way you just have to move around them, and they are just minor annoyances, but still something to be considered. 

The blister contained three models, a horse and two cows. The models are made of white metal and are well cast. There is not much flash in general but there is a lot of small bits on the hooves that are easy to overlook, as I did. I primed them and then started painted before I discovered these and so had to redo a little bit of painting. 

Painting was pretty straight forward. The horse I decided to paint brown and give him white socks, a white blaze on the nose, and some white mottling on his hind quarter. If you are not familiar with horses, perhaps because you were not raised by a horse fanatic who taught you to ride before you ever attending school, then you might appreciate some further information. Wikipedia, as always, has some basic information to help you with painting your own Horses, Horse Markings.  As for the cows, well there are some 800 breeds and vary quite a bit. So we have to focus in a bit more and look at dairy cows from the Normandy region. They have a particular type names Normande Cattle that are pretty common in the region, and the site linked to gives some pretty good pictures of what they look like, as well as the variety. Basically, these buggers are white with brown splotches, although these splotches can also be black. They are also many examples of the splotches being a mottled brown and black and white.. So I went the easy route and just made them white and brown, call me lazy. The other details are pretty simple. Paint the eyes, tip of the nose and lips black, with a small white dot in the corner so they look like they are reflecting light. The inside of the mouth, tongue and nostrils I painted pink. The underbelly I painted Vallejo Medium Flesh, the painted over the center of this with a coat of Vallejo Light Flesh. Then I put a thin was of pink on the udders. After that dried I painted the whole thing over with a wash of white and tried to blend it in with the white hair on the rest of the hide. The hooves are painted painted black.

Wow, can’t believe I just did a tutorial on how to paint cows, even if they are dead. 

If you want, you might add some dried blood, depending on how gory you like things. Then dull coat varnish the whole thing to seal it. After that I was thinking to do a satin finish on the horse to give it a shiny coat and maybe a bit of gloss varnish on the eyes to give them that glassy look.

Mediterranean Houses

This is one of my most recent house projects. I built these for a friend who wanted some houses to use in a WW2 Italian campaign as well as something that wouldn't look totally out of place in a Napoleonic game set in Southern France or Spain.

Both buildings are made out of insulation foam and layers of single sided cardboard.

I did a little experimenting with the arch. Originally I had thought to have two buildings with the archway in the middle, but the whole thing turned out to be heavy. So instead I made it so that the archway could just sit up against another building, in the end making it much more versatile.

  

For the windows I used some plastic HO scale bits that I found at a flea market last year. I didn't catch the paint on the window sill until after the picture was painted, but I have painted over that. I really like the stucco texture on this one, and discovered it quite by accident just before I was set paint the whole thing.

This is a shot from the other side to show the stone portion of the building and the shingle roof.



This is the second building, which turned out okay. It was built using the same methods as the other building with the exception of the windows. The windows an this one are shutter made out of foam.

Here is the back side of the building. The small shed is there mostly to provide added stability as the model was pretty weak without it. It is made out of cardboard with small strips of foam added on for the planks.

The loading area is supposed to be concrete, and after taking this picture decided it was way to bright so I toned it down with a wash of dark gray.

Sd.Kfz 251 Hanomag

Here are some pictures of my two 251/1 Hanomags. Number 1022 is the old Ausf. C variant, and the older Warlord resin model that I purchased a while back before the new plastic one became available. The second (317) is the Ausf. D variant, and the new Warlord plastic model. I am not really sure of the differences between the real vehicles, but the two models do have some differences. The older model is thinner and a bit taller than the new plastic one, again, not sure if this reflects actual differences or just differences between the sculpts. The gunner on the new plastic model was noticeably bigger than the old gunner model, but the new plastic infantry are bigger than the older metal models as well so that was expected. The gunner model in the Ausf. D variant is not the original one that came with the vehicle model. Instead, I used a War Games Factory model that I already had so that the two gunners would be closer in size. You may notice that in the rear shot of the Hanomags that the WGF guy is missing his equipment, as I still have a bit of work and touching up to do. 








This is also my first attempt at German camouflage. I am working on some SS that have the Pea Dot camouflage as well. I had hoped to have them done by now, but now they will have to wait until I get back from my trip.