Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Last December I posted a blogpost about of an article about a friend and fellow MRC member Heine's Garden Railway which was published in Allt om Hobby, the biggest hobby magazine in the Nordic countries. It also covered some photos and information about my military garden trains. Allt om Hobby is a Swedish magazine and published in Swedish which is not a problem to read within the Nordic countries. But I didn't expect the majority of the readers to this blog to run to their local newsagents to buy a copy though.

But now recently Allt om Hobby published the whole article for free on their website. This gives you all an opportunity whereever you live and whatever language you speak to visit and read the article if you'd like to. Depending on your browser, the website for the article can easily be translated from Swedish into whatever language you prefer. I've translated it into English in my 'Google browser', which worked great! So here is the link to the:

Link: Free article in Allt om Hobby about Heine's Garden Railway

Photo by Joakim Sannagård/ Allt om Hobby

Enjoy!

1 BC (One Brain-Cell) Snowball Fight Rules for Miniatures

Last year I was inspired by some blog posts by Alan at Duchy of Tradagardland and Mark at Man of Tin's blogs to make a 'non-lethal wargame'; a snowball fight  using the Snowball Fight Rules by Mark the Man of Tin. It was a different, but also a fun way to wargame, without taking into account the horrors of war. In fact, it was so successful that I decided to make another 'snowball fight' this year as well. I could have used the same miniatures that I made for the snowball fight last year of course, but last year I bought a bag of really ugly and bad looking soldiers. - Probably the worst ever made, so there weren't many things I could use them for. - Well, maybe except for using the hand grenade guys as snowball fighters, since they were the least ugly of them. Since I used the same pose to make soldiers last year, I decided to see if I could use them to make civilian snowball fighters this year . I painted all the hand grenade throwers in the bag, which with a simple Miliput and paint conversion gave me two snowball fighter armies of four each; one Red Army and one Blue Army:

Team Red

Team Blue

This is how ChatGPT envisioned how my armies would look boxed if ever made from Airfix:

The rules

The Snowball War rules by Mark the Man of Thin worked just fine. To reduce the number of turns and quicker game, I wanted to see if any of the other free wargame rules I use could be amended for a little snowball fight. One of my absolute favorites is the 1 BC (One Brain-Cell) Toy Soldier Rules by Pete Kautz. These rules are actually turning 25 years this year. They are free, very easy to learn, and quick and easy to play, and I have used them for many wargames . I based my “snowball war rules” on these rules with a few changes:

• The Snowball Fighters will fight as individual characters and not units.
• There will be no morale test since there are no units. Also, it's a snowball fight just for fun and it won't breake morale.

The game

Although it is designed for tabletop game, I decided to take this miniature snowball fight out into the real snow to set the scene.

The scenario is as simple as most snowball fights in the world; knock out the other team, and the last team standing wins. Blue (to the left) vs. Red (to the right):

Turn 1

In the first turn Red Team made a run for the trees to seek cover behind them. So did the Blue team, except for a couple of them who advanced slower and made a long shot and stunned one of the Red fighters:

Turn 2

In the next turn that Red fighter wasn't stunned anymore and both of the Red players made a really hard 'ice ball' each...

...and managed to hit one of the Blue players so hard that he was out of the game.
Further into the wood a couple of Red players tried to encircle 2 Blue fighters behind a tree, and actually manage to daze one of them. The other Blue snowball fighter made an 'ice ball', and knocked one of those Red attackers out of the game:

Turn 3

In the start of turn 3 an 'ice ball duel' takes place...

...and further into the forrest a single Red player tries to outflank 2 Blue players:

The 'ice ball duelists' actually manage to hit one another and both a Red and Blue player are out of the game. Further into the forrest that sneaky Red player successfully outflank the 2 Blue players and dazed one of them:

Turn 4

In turn 4 the last Red player standing from the 'duel' makes a run for it and help his Red friend encircle the only Blue player standing:

The other Red player throws a really hard 'ice ball' on that Blue player and knocks him out of the game:

Turn 5

In the last turn the last Blue fighter wasn't stunned anymore and got up on his feet again:

He didn't actually manage to do anything before he was knocked out by an 'ice ball' from one of the Red players. This shoot made the Red team winners of this snowball fight:

I really liked the rules and they were really quick to play with only 5 turns in 20 minutes. Which was 'long enough' considering the outside temperature this day. Hot coffee in the mug was a 'must':

Blog PostScript 

It seems like another phenomenon are trending on Facebook these days. -At least in those groups my wife follows. The 'new thing' is to have ChatGPT (or similar) make a caricature of you based on a photo and information found about you online. I provided a photo and the url to my blog:

More Flat-Car conversions

Last year I bought a lot of 2 used flat-cars. I actually bought it the just to get one of the flat-cars, the upper one in the following photo looking like a heavy duty one. The lower one just came with the deal and I have several similar of this type in my collection already:

Heavy Duty Flat-Car

In my fleet of Flat-Cars I wanted some of them to stand out, and this one looked like a larger 'heavy duty' Flat-Car for heavier loads. It also looked almost ready as is and would need minimal efforts and changes to be ready for military service in a rake in some of my G-scale military trains:

This is actually an American Standard Gauge Flat-Car by Accucraft, which also runs on 45mm gauge. I wanted to make it look more like a narrow gauge car so I 3D printed and added buffers to the buffer beams. To the buffers I added hooks for the 3 link couplings for my WDLR train:

The bogies were of an American type and had American knuckle-couplers attached to them. As I don't use this type of couplings on my rolling stock I just tried to replace them with LGB ones, but they didn't fit very well on these bogies. So I replaced the American bogies with LGB ones which had original LGB couplings attached. The LGB bogie (lightly weathered) to the left, and the original American one I replaced to the right:

The floor was given a blackwash followed by a drybrush, and I washed the wagon sides to make the rivets looks rusty:

The other Flat-Car in the job lot

I have several similar Flat-Cars of this type already, but it followed the purchase. This was brown and had American lettering:

It didn't have any buffers usually found on narrow gauge rolling stock, so I 3D-printed some from a free stl-file found on Thingeverse:

To make it fit my other military rolling stock I just spray-painted it grey in a slightly other shade than the similar Flat-Cars and painted the floor:

Salvaged from spare box

This is strictly not a pure 'Flat-Car' as it has more similarities to stake-wagons. It was included in a job lot I bought a couple of years ago. I couldn't use it as it was so heavily used that it's axle-slots had become oval and the wheels didn't spin properly and the wagon wouldn't roll anymore. I didn't buy the job lot for this wagon in the first place, so it was sent to my spare box for future projects. 

While working on some of my other military 'wagon projects' I got some Miliput left over and I decided to stuff it into the oval axle-slots to see if I could repair them. When it was completely cured and hard I drilled new holes for the axles. This seemed to work, as the wagon and wheels were running freely again now. Then it was given a coat of grey paint, had the floor painted and finally given a blackwash and drybrushed:

I didn't make any loads which I fixed to these cars as I want to be able to swap out different loads on them.

Creating an 'Army' of the 'dirty dozen'

Last year I bought a bag of (probably) the worst Army men ever made, in a local toy store. They looked so bad that I did not know what to do with them or use them for, or to use them at all.

Among these 'sub level quality' figures the grenade-throwers, originally originating from Matchbox American Infantry but now cloned to the unrecognizable, were probably the 'least poor' in the bag. They were still looking so bad that it was difficult to take good photo of them:

This pose is not so useful in general wargaming, but they can be used as 'snowball fighters' as I did in another wargame I played last year. Ironically the grenade-throwers I made back then in 1:87 scale looked better than these thin strange looking 40mm-ish clones. Mark man of Tin has also converted similar figures into 'snowball fighters'. So I decided to try convert these to civilian 'snowball fighters' by adding 'bobbles' or 'pom poms' (to their helmets, making it look like a bobble hat), scarfs  and snowballs made of Miliput. Their 'mittens' will just be painted later on:

Then they were primed:

At this point I thought I should ask ChatGPT for a suggestion how to easily convert these figures into civilian snowball fighters. Except for my reference photos and being more 'well proportioned' the suggestion was almost similar to the conversions I've made to them already:

Due to these figures semi-flat bodies, thin limbs and bad proportions I kind of got a 'tin- or lead figure' feeling. Inspired by Mark Man of Tin's 'Faking lead' conversions of plastic figures, I decided to paint my figures in silver to see if it would give such a resemblance:

Beside an original semiflat tin figure in 40mm from Prince August I casted with my oldest son many years ago, it looks pretty 'close' I think:

I have a (bad) habit of 'overdoing' things when coming to modelling, so even if this 'faking leads' were pretty close to an original tin-miniature as is, I decided to blackwash them as well just to suggest some oxide and dirt:

It would be tempting to just keep them like this, but as I plan to use them for snowball-fight wargaming, it would be nice to tell them apart. Keeping them to this 'vintage' and 'faking lead' style calls for solid colors without any washes or drybrushing and a glossy finish. This will be the very first miniatures I paint this year:

Note to self; don't choose opaque paint for solid colors unless you're very patient.

Since I plan to use them for snowball-fight wargaming I painted them to give a hint of 2 different teams. Team Blue:

-And Team Red:

I haven't painted miniatures in a glossy finish since I was a young kid, back when I didn't know the difference between 'Matt' and 'Gloss' from the local 'Humbrol rack'. I think these turned out just fine in 'Gloss' giving them a hint of a 'vintage style-ish' look. I considered 'drybrushing' silver just to give a hint of wear and the 'faking lead' underneath, but I was happy with them as they were. Actually I think these figures justified buying the bag of these bad looking soldiers in the first place. 

I was very intrigued by Mark at Man of Tin when he made a blogpost on 'What-if' Airfix snowball fighters, so I wanted to make one for these figures as well:

I guess they're about ready for the tabletop, or even better, outdoor wargaming now. We've had snow and it's interesting conditions outside. Please follow this blog (if you don't already does) and get updates as soon as I post them.

Blog PostScript 

Last month we arranged the first scale model builders meeting in the city where I live, Moss. Yesterday afternoon/evening the second meeting was held with a small secondhand market and a small 'competition'. Most of the 'members' are also IPMS members, but I brought my RC Combat Boat 90.