Grand Opening of Pletten Railway

Last weekend a friend and fellow member of our Model Railway Club, Thomas, invited to The Grand Opening of his new and large extension of his awesome garden railway named Pletten Railway. Pletten Railway is located at Thomas' cottage by the coast and has it's own Facebook page and YouTube Channel, and I really recommend 

you to pay the links a visit. The weather was sunny and perfect for this great premiere.

This is part of the original layout:

The new extension of the line surrounds the estate:

Here is a 'cab view' video of Pletten Railway:

The guests were making their trains ready in the fiddleyard:

And off we go:

There was even enough live steam locomotives for a small 'Steam Gala'. I usually don't have many running photos of live steam locomotives as it takes so much attention just to drive them:

Thomas is also a 3D-designer and 3D-prints a lot for his garden railway:

The house is a 3D-printed model of Thomas' Grandfather's old house. Everything else in this photo is 3D-printed as well.

After running trains for a while we needed a break, and our friendly and generous hosts served food most suitable for such a lovely summer day:

After a most delicious meal it was time for running more trains again, and they was running until late evening when it was getting dark:

Later it became so dark that it was difficult to spot the trains along the line, and my grey Heeresfeldbahn became invisible due to it's grey camouflage, which was very effective. So at late night it was time to 'park the trains' and have a 'debrief'.

We stayed overnight, and the planned to run more trains on Sunday morning. But this plan was cancelled due to heavy rain. We enjoyed a better breakfast instead.

Thank you Thomas and Elaine for inviting us to your Grand Opening and for your warm hospitality!

Airfix Magazine in Norwegian

At the model railway club I'm a member I recenently found a really old magazine someone brought to our 'liberary' at some time. It was an old issue of an Airfix Magazine. Whats special about it was that it was issued in Norwegian. I've found that they were issued in Norwegian from January 1964, but don't know for how long. I'm not sure if the Norwegian issues was similar or corresponding to the British ones? Perhaps someone know?

Less than £ 2 for subscription for a year. It would still be cheaper to buy each magazine individually  at the newsagent or hobby shop though:

It looks like the H0/00 Tiger tank was new in 1964.

Robin Hood and his Merry Men:

An article about how to kitbash Airfix structures for both model railways and wargaming. I really like these kitbashing suggestions:

I hope you enjoyed this brief 'blast from the past' as much as I did. 

A Wargame on the go

 

This blog is mainly centered on wargaming, model railways and military models. I have actually no plans to change 'this concept', but sometimes I take some 'hobby detours' and do some other 'odds and ends'. So I'm doing a little bit different Wargame Review this time. -I'm not even sure if this blogpost is considered as 'wargaming'??

Even if I prefer tabletop wargaming with miniatures, I really like the thrill, decision-making and dice-roll which randomize the outcome of any (war-) games. Sometimes I just want to have a 'quick wargame on the go'. The "Lunge, Cut and Stop Thrust" Dueling Game" is such a simple, fast to set up and easy to play wargame you can play without much preparations. But sometimes there is not even time or place for even such a small wargame. I've found a substitute for desire to fast and easy wargaming by downloading a App from Google Play/ Play Store called Risk. It is just like it's board-game equivalent, but it's much faster to set up and play, and it allows you to even do it on the go. -Which suits me when train-commuting to work for instance.

The Scenario

The Risk App allows you to choose between a lot of different scenarios, modes and maps, but I went for The Classic in this casual game; Conquer the World.

Forces:

You can play this game against the App it self with bots, but I like the unpredictability added by the human factor, and invited 3 other 'live players'.

The Game

Time:    30 minutes

Turns:   12

Result:  Red wins

I like the game to randomize the countries and number of troops given to each players in the start position. It looks like a pretty good start for several players and which continents they should focus on (to gain extra troops) in this game:

And the gamed pretty much started as expected....
-Until Orange Player went rogue:

The Orange offensive changed the situation, and decisions needed to be made. Probably worth the risk of loosing a lot of troops to 'change continents' to improve own chances to achieve the mission now:

Luckily the Blue Player was equally defensive as the Orange one was aggressive. Probably a good idea to take out Orange now and fortify the the rest of the troops:

-Which was a success. Being too defensive and careful can cost you a victory. -Time for Coup de Grace:

Victory:

Pros

• The App is free, but you can pay to gain even more options to your games.

• The rules are very easy to play.

Cons

• It's not a Tabletop wargame with real miniatures nor dice.

• It's not a very narrative game.

Conclusion

Just to follow up the 'Con', I'm not even sure if this can be considered as a 'wargame'. What do you think? Please share your opinions in e comment-section.

I'm usually a SOLO-gamer, but this Game-App allows me to casually 'battle' against other people, which again adds to the 'human factor' and a uncertain outcome of a game, which again adds to the satisfaction. Besides you can play it when you actually have not time or possibilities to do other (war-) games, but just want the thrill of throwing some dice. If you haven't tried this yet, I recommend you to give it a try.

Arming my G-scale German Heeresfeldbahn train - An easy model you can build

When participating at garden railway running sessions at fellow MRC member's garden railways, I often bring my G-scale WW2 German Heeresfeldbahn military narrow gauge train and run it on unsecure lines and into 'unknown territories'. -unaware of any potential danger of saboteurs or partisan actions. It is a military train after all, so I decided to give it some light protection against ambushes or railway sabotage. It's only for a small narrow gauge train, so nothing big or complex, just perhaps a small armed wagon in front of the locomotive?

I haven't seen any periodic photos of small machine gun trolleys or armed railway cars used by the German Wehrmacht on their narrow gauge lines during WW2 (just standard gauge ones), so this is just some modeler's licence and a product by my imagination. Hopefully it's not too improbable.

I did't want a too large armed wagon in front of my small narrow gauge locomotive, as I think that would make the engine seems small, so I decided to try one of the smallest I got by LGB:

Even if the wagon was lightly weathered, I decided to give it a more heavy weathering depicting a surplus wagon that would be available for this kind of service:

For the German soldiers I sourced some free files at Thingiverse I could 3D-print. They were actually meant for 28mm Bolt Action, so by scaling them up to 1:19th scale they looked a bit more chunkier and 'over-sized' (like many wargaming miniatures often do). Even when 'down scaling' them a little bit more to the right height for sitting in this scale, they still looked oversized due to their larger 'wargame proportions'. Perhaps too much bier and würst? For instance the ammunition for the machine gun looks like it's 0.50 ammo for a M2 Browning machine gun instead of 7,92mm. I don't actually mind that much since I'm not into this scale because it's a 'fine scale'.

The 3D-file comes with multiple machine guns, but I went for the MG42, as I have a soft spot for this weapon after being a main instructor on the NATO equivalent; MG3.

After carefully removing the supports:

This is eventually what the equipage would look like (after some adjustments):

But first some imperfections and layer lines needed to be filled and smoothed on the 3D-printed figures with Miliput and modelling paste:

To make the surface even smoother they were given a couple of coats of car spray filler:

Then they were primed:

And painted:

Finally they were given a light brown- and black wash and lightly drybrushed:

I think they looks less 3D-printed now. I also think the soldiers looked a little bit unprotected on the flat wagon, so I decided to give them a couple of sandbags for protection too. The sandbags them selves were again sourced from a free file on Thingiverse, rescaled to 1:19th scale and 3D-printed. To remove the layerlines and replicate fabric I decided to drape them with tissue paper soaked in diluted white/wood glue:

Finally it was time to tie everything together and give the whole thing a coat of mat varnish. Despite being 3D-printed the surface of the soldiers was so smooth that it was really challenging to get it as flat as I wanted.

It seems like they're ready for some action. Coincidentally a member in our model railway club invited to a running-session in his garden instead of going to the club one afternoon/evening due to very nice weather, so I decided to take them for a day out:

It was a long and heavy rake of wagons the locomotive was hauling this afternoon, and about it limitations coming to the gradients:

All in all this has been a fun little project thus taking a little longer time than expected. Thank you for reading!