Painting Table Saturday #20: Two shades of grey

Another week passed by and it's saturday again. So here is what was on my painting table today:

Pegasus Bridge

Actually this afternoon started very promising. Mrs Monty and our daughter took a trip to Düsseldorf to visit the puppet theatre there with a friend of Viktoria's and her father. So I thought it would be a good chance for a first airbrushing session with the Pegasus Bridge. Since I was sure to need more than one layer of paint to cover the bridge gapelessly so I chose not to undercoat it. Warlord Games recommend dark grey as base colour which I hadn't at hand unfortunately but I mixed a suitable colour with neutral grey and german grey and started in good spirits.

But I didn't imagine how much paint is needed to colourize such a huge terrain piece. After an hour of constant airbrushing I ran out of grey with just half of the parts covered. Vallejo doesn't sell their paints in litre bottles, do they?
Anyway a good part of the job is done and I'll proceed sometime during the week...

Have a nice sunday !

28mm Horsa Glider - A huge and excellent blog of resin...

The last two weeks were quite here. I've been working on many different miniatures but didn't produce anything finished. Simultaneously I had some busy days at work and some efforts for the 1812 ruleset I'm taking part in. Many irons in the fire. Maybe too many...

Anyway I didn't want to bore you with daily WIP-shots. For the next week there'll be some more Vikings, the FIW British for BfC and some more 1812 French and allies.

But now for my entry for the recent fortnight bonus round of Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. The theme was 'vehicles' and I decided to prepare a 28mm Horsa Glider which I need for the Pegasus Bridge project.

The eagle has landed and the Red Devils disembark.

For this bonus round I painted a British Horsa. This glider was used by British and allied airborne troops to be carried into combat during Word War II. Its most famous employments were the invasion of Sicily, the airborne landings prior to D-Day and Operation Market Garden in September 1944. The Airspeed Horsa glider measured a length of 20 metres and wingspan of 27 metres. It had no engine and was drawn into the air by a larger towing aircraft like the Handley Page Halifax or the Douglas DC-3. It was capable to carry 25 fully equipped soldiers, a jeep or a 6pdr antitank gun.

The huge model is about 30cm (about 12  inches) long.

This actual model here is a 28mm Horsa by Grand Manner. It's a hugh model. A solid blog of resin from Dave Bodley's gifted hands. It shows all important characteristics and was assembled very quickly. The only thing I improved were the supports of the main wings. I substituted the white metal rods with solid brass ones since I thought it might be slightly too heavy under the hard circumstances on the gaming table...

 For painting I used my old airbrush and Vallejo Model Colours with suitable thinner. All in all it was an interesting experience to paint such a great model. Merely the tail seems to be a bit too short. Although I didn't paint the white and black stripes too broad I wasn't able to attach the transfers on the side correctly. Therefore I attached them slightly forward. It looks fairly alright to me but for the next Horsa I would repaint the tail with thinner stripes...

Wingspan nearly 36 centimeters (more than 14 inches).

However I'm glad to have this piece finished. Another step for my Pegasus project and another fortnight bonus round passed on the painting challenge. With around 260 points I'm nearly half done with my 600 points target and I'm rather confident that I'll be able to collect the missing points with the remaining fortnight bonusses and the other stuff on my workbench.

By the way Fran Lee won our 600 points race! Congratulations!

Therefore I owe him a painted miniature as well deserved price. Drop me an email mate to talk about the what when and how.

Cold overcome and Pegasus Bridge assembled

This weekend was rather unpleasant since I was suffering an unpleasant cold. Cough, snuff and headache tortured me and I didn't manage to prepare an AAR from friday where we had a small Bolt Action game to recall the rules. Meanwhile I realized that there aren't too many good pictures but I'll present them later this week anyway.

The bridge in all its beauty.

But the last days weren't in vain since I found the time to finish the largest kit I ever constructed: Warlord Games incarnation of the famous Pegasus Bridge.

The whole terrain piece measures about 85cm x 45cm and is nearly 30cm high. It will definitely dominate any gaming table and momentarily I'm not sure whether I'll build a complete Pegasus table or whether I'll prepare some board tile for the bridge which fit into my current tiles. Anyway this piece is too awesome to place it just somewhere on a blue blanked which is called Caen canal.

The first paras stepping on the bridge.

On this picture you can get an idea of the size of the bridge. I marked the three Red Devils which I placed on the bridge that you can spot them easier. Those are the usual 28mm Bolt Action miniatures.

Momentarily I haven't glued all parts together. On the one hand to be able to place miniatures inside and on the other hand to make it easier to paint the different parts. Probably I'll let some parts unglued permanently to simplify storage and transport.

Anyway it was a pleasure to build this kit. The construction manual was simple but rather clear. The parts were cut extremely accurately and they were easy to remove from the sheets. After this experience I acquired a taste for MDF kits. Maybe I'll try one of the ships which Laser Dream Works offers next year...

Cafe Gondrée and pillbox assembled

Last weekend I didn't paint anything but I took the time to examine the contentes of the Pegasus Bridge set a bit more carefully. In other words I started to assemble the kits.

Since those were my first MDF kits I decided to start with the presumably easier buildings: The Café Gondrée and the pillbox.

The instructions proved to be short but absolutely adequate and I finished both buildings after about three hours. What really elated me was the excellent accuracy of fit which the laser cut parts have. In both kits there was only one part which needs some further treatment but anything else is absolutely fine.

But now for the two buildings in detail:

Cafée Gondrée

The Café Gondrée was and is near the western bank of the Caen Canal just near the approach of the Pegasus Bridge. Supposedly it was the firstly liberated, French house in June 1944 and temporarily it served as sick bay after the success of Operation Overlord. It's still operated by the Gondrée family and one of the major places to go for visitors who are interested in the events of June 1944.

The kit consists of three or four sheets of MDF parts and one sheet of laser cut cardboard for the window shutters. It is well detailed and represents all features of the building as it is conseerved today as well as it is pictured on coeval photographs. Although I haven't checked the dimensions yet the model seems to be rather good in scale. The assembly went well and without major problems. All parts fit very well together. Singly with the shutter of the lower right window you have to be careful since it's smaller than those of the other windows at the front. Actually the windows on the side have that narrow shutters as well. The only point where parts didn't fit perfectly is the side gablet on the right hand side of the front. Probably the roof framework got slightly out of place when I glued it together. Therfor a gap of about 1.5mm formed between the slanted part of the roof and the straight one. So be careful there. I'll have to fill this gap with greenstuff or Miliput.

The Pillbox

This fortified building stood near the eastern approach of the Pegasus Bridge. Actually it was the cellar or basement of a larger building which was pulled down earlier during the war and then converted into a fortified position. Likewiese the parts of this kit fit together perfectly and it was a pleasure to assemble it. Although it seems to be well in scale - as far as judgeble from the only photo I know (here) - the ceiling is too low to place standing models inside. I presume the real basement would dig deeper but the kit is obviously limited by the baseplate. Anyway I left the top unglued to enable access to the insight. Probably I'll install some sandbags on to of the building to create another position there inspired by the coeval photograph mentioned above. Unfortunately there's nothing left of the building today.

Well... Those were the first two buildings of the set and assembly was great fund. I hope to procede equally good when painting them. 

The bridge itself is much more complex. I started with the kit on saturday and finished several parts of it but nothing coherent yet. I'll present it as soon as possible. Anyhow it's the very next project to be finished on my workbench. I want to have that done before Curt's Painting Challenge starts. Luckily I got one of the last entries for it and I don't want to be sidetracks during that quarter of the year. But more on this later...

Pegasus Bridge unboxed

Lately I received my copy of Warlord Games' huge Pegasus Bridge set. It was a bit like Christmas when I got the large, heavy parcel and I was really curious what the boys from Nottingham boxed.

But first of all I weighted the box and with about 4.6 kg or more than 10 lbs you get a lot of bang for your buck:

After opening the box my expectations were completely fulfilled. There are four bundles of laser-cut MDF parts for the bridge itself, the Café Gondrée and the pillbox near the bridge approach. Additionally there are the appropriate construction manuals, some resin parts and a couple of figures:

More precisely there are enough sprues to build up twenty German soldiers, a 55mm gun, a MG-42 team and thirteen twelve British paras and the exclusive Major Howard miniatures which is only available with the Pegasus Bridge battle sets:

The figures are from Warlord Games' usual range and have the well known quality. Especially the metal miniatures are excellently detailed, slender and depict lively poses. The casting quality is appropriate. There is little flash and no major faults. In fine: I like those Red Devils a lot.

The Germans look very well too. The metal miniatures bear the same qualities as their British counterparts and are as good as these. The plastic reinforcements are multi-part miniatures. That make them very flexible on the one hand but requires some additional work for cleaning several parts and glueing them together. Although I'm about to turn away generally from platics for this reason, the late war Germans from Warlord Games look very well. A lot of interesting head and weapon options and the advantage of easy conversions.

Additionally there are some resin parts for entrenchments. A gunpit for the 55mm gun and two sandbag pieces for the MG-42 nest. All three in excellent quality but unfortunately the gunpit has a large sprue bush on the bottom side. It'll cost some work to remove this...

One thing I waited for excitedly was the special figure for Major John Howard. Besides Lieutenant Colonel (later Major General) Johnny Frost and Major General Roy Urquhart he was kind of hero of my younger days since I first watched "The Longest Day" where Richard Todd re-enacted him. All too well I remember the heroic assault on the bridge and his "Hold until relieved" order.

Anyway Warlord Games made a really nice figure of him. At first glance I was a bit disappointed because I irrevocably envisioned him with a beret but after a closer look on the painted model I like the dynamic pose more than I dislike the helmet:

All in all an excellent set which promised to become a real eye catcher when well assembled and painted. I have no idea how large the bridge will or how long it'll take to build and paint it. My goal is to have it finished for June 2014. I'll start with the pillbox rather soon because it seems to be the easiest of the three kits. Hoepfully a good chance to gain some experience with mdf kits since it's the first one for me.