Right then,

I've been working on my own WW-1 project for a while now. Plans are to make two full Metropolitan French companies with support weapons and artillery (probably about three batteries) and armor and two full German companies; one Stormtrooper and one second rate company. They will also get support weapons, artillery etc. but only very few tanks. Up to now I've finished three full platoons of French (only two in the pictures) and the first German platoon is almost ready now. Both sides have some light support weapons but this will all expand the coming months. Figures are being painted in wargaming quality; with about 500 needed just in infantry I just don't have the time to superdetail each and every one; so sorry! The Bleu Horizon doesn't really come out in these pics but I'll get some more decent ones made some day...I hope...


I've also made some scenery for them to fight over; some generic pieces of woods, some heavily shelled Woods, some damaged buildings and a bunch of barbed wire markers. There's more to follow but it  should give tou an idea.





Hope you enjoy!
Cheers,
Rob

Blooming 'eck, that's some serious work! All rather nicely done too.

Only change I'd make is to tile some of the rooftops. Currently it looks like the builders downed tools.

- Neil.

I do like your troops - they look very good, with a worn campaign look to them. As you say its strange how the blue has really washed out in the photos.

The trees are very evocative - really give the look of the smashed woods you see in photos.

I'm not such a big fan of the houses - they look more building site, than battlefield to me - I'm afraid.

Blimey! There's some good work here!

For '18 the houses would be smears of redish dust...

IanS

For the houses I used the N-scale 'houses under construction' so your remarks are pretty close to reality!
I still have a bunch of second hand lying around that are waiting for 'reconstruction' and I must say that the rooftops are not up to what I wanted them to be either. Still looking at how to improve that, some remaining tiles may do the trick indeed...
My idea was a town that did suffer some shelling during the German spring offensive and is now being recaptured by the allied counteroffensives. Not a town that has been in the frontline for the last four years. So yes; there should be shelldamage but I was looking for rooftops where the tiles were blown off by the shockwaves with woodwork still intact... Maybe some more debris on the grond will make a bit of a difference too but I still need to be able to place some figures around them. The next batch will definitely look different and together with some houses that have escaped major damage I hope to create the overall feel I'm looking for. It's trial and error really...
Thanks for your comments and advice!

Cheers,
Rob

Just noted that I put in the same picture of the forrest twice; so sorry!
Put in another...

Cheers,
Rob

Really terrific, Rob ! 

Fred definitely used the right word.
Evocative!

Cheers - Phil

The trees and the barbed wire are fabulous. Its a period ive always wanted to game but the lack of rules put me off

I don't think it would take much effort to move the houses from 'builders just stopped work for a tea break' to 'shell damaged'.

I'd suggest make the holes in the rafters a bit bigger, and more irregular. Where there are just vertical ones, make these in to fairly big holes. The bits you cut off can either be put on the ones with no roofs, or used as debris.

Then tile some parts of the roof - I don't think I've seen photos of damaged houses with no tiles, but still having rafters.  You can probably go with about 50% roofed?

Those are superb! 

The other ting to try, maybe on some spare roofing first, is to make the rafters look aged or burnt. It's probably that the wood all looks new that is making it stand out.

Ultimately of course, if you are happy, you can ignore all of us armchair experts!

- Neil.

Great looking chaps and terrain, the barbed wire and tree stumps are very well done. You can't really tell from the pictures but personally, I would leave the joists as they are. just dry-brush the ends black to indicate fire damage. If you've got the patience you could always glue a few pieces of small card tiles across the rafters and joists and then wash the whole lot with dark brown and areas of black to remove some of the starkness.

The building on the far right of the picture is nicely 'damaged'.

Nice work there, the terrain really is top notch.

Very nice. But I do agree with what others have said about the buildings.

Quote from: Nosher on 17 October 2015, 01:34:15 PM
Its a period ive always wanted to game but the lack of rules put me off

Same here thats why I gave up on my wwi project.


Take care

Andy

 

As others have said, some tiles on parts of the roofs and a bit of blast/fire damage to the rafters and the buildings will be as good as the rest

Thanks gents,

One of the main problem with the rafters is that they are too 'straight' out of the box... Maybe on the next batch I'll make them myself to give them more of a 'period' look. Another thing that annoyed me from th start is the color; I was looking for an aged, somewhat grey colour but it didn't rally work out; the light  used when I made the photograph made it even more 'yellowish' and nothing of the weathering shows any more. Maybe another light and better camera could change that... I will have a look for some tiles though as soon as I'm back at the modelshop; think that'll do the trick. Cutting more holes in the existing roofs is tricky; the plastic is relatively thick and tough so there is a big change I would damage other parts and I don't want to risk that...
On the picture below you see the buildings from the other side; the roof on the house in the lower right corner looks better I think?

The next batch of buildings will also get more late 19th century and/or French/Belgian details. I already did more work on them as I planned originally but I better put in some more effort now and do it really right!

On rules, most rulesets I've seen are more or less made for the larger scales and seem to be made more for skirmishing than anything on a bigger scale. It seems that that is because of the trench warfare most people play. We adapted our own, very detailed, WW2 ruleset added/scrapped certain parts. We made up new tables for weapons and armour. Since we're planning on starting with late war and next maybe early war these rules will probably work quite well. While playing we'll adapt and work out new bits and pieces if things don't feel right and I'm pretty sure we'll end up with a system that will equally work for the open country early or late, as well as the trenches. We're planning a short testplay in november so we'll see. For example; we adapted our 'laying smoke' rules for gas attacks; the deployment of gas will be comparable to that of smoke. What we need to do is adapt the effectiveness of certain gasses to the weathertypes in or tables and the effectiveness of infantry wearing gasmasks while firing and moving.

I'll try to keep you all updated on building, painting and playing!
Keep those comments coming!

Cheers,
Rob

I agree the bottom right looks the best of the houses. The church also looks great.

A few tiles and some shading on the rafters around the holes similar to on the church and they will look great as well

Also make the holes in the rafters a bit more irregular.

IanS

Like it.
A few splashes of black ink on the rafters and perfection?