A tip for a simple conversion

Where are they when you need them?

As I'm intending to use my previously reviewed Toy Story Army men for wargaming, I'm organizing them into rifle squads/sections. But to so in a propper way, they actually miss one thing which most rifle squads have; a machinegunner armed with a a LMG. The 'Bucket O Soldiers' didn't contain any such figures.

The two sections are kind of large (at least bigger than a Norwegian section of 8 men), and can be divided in to even more fireteams. A LMG might get usefull for them

Make a not so useful figure more suitable for your needs...

As I wanted my new machinegunners to match the rest of their squad in both style and size, I decided to convert some of the other Toy Story figures left in the bucket for this purpose. Since I've used most figures for different purposes, there wasn't so many left to choose between. I had some engineers with mine-detectors left, as they are not so useful for my type of wargaming. Besides, their position is not that bad for a soldier carrying a LMG (at least not for a "links-shooter").

Still in a Classic style and pose

...And arm him with "Lego"...

The next challenge was to find a suitable LMG to arm them with. I keep leftovers from kits in a box full og bits and pieces, but my guns there were mostly 1:35 scale. I found them to small, as the Toy Story-soldiers are bigger. To buy other kits just to get the machineguns wasn't tempting, but on Thingeverse I found a lot of 3D-files for free to print. I also found a huge selection of different weapons there as well. As I was able to print some files from Thingeverse (more on that in a later blog-post), it was just to take a pick. 

Even though their generic, green and tan "imagiNATION" style, I kept Norwegian soldiers in mind making the UN-troops. Therefore I wanted to arm them with a machinegun used by Norwegian Armed Forces. As the MG3 was one of my favorites from my own service, it had to be one f those. It is very similar to the WWII German MG42, so it was easy to find some models/files on Thingeverse. I had to try to print different files of the MG42, as not all of them came out successfully due to the small size. I found a "Lego MG42" for "Lego Minifigs Wargaming", and resized it to 1:32 scale. It was a robust model and turned out quiet well, so I printed 2 models with both folded and unfolded bipods. I kept the drum magazine on, as it enables the LMG to be operated by 1 person and will be an advantage in wargaming.

Printed in both black and white PLA-plastic with bipods both folded and unfolded.

Now the soft, oily plastic the soldiers are made from became handy, as I was able to bend the left arm on one of them easily by hot water. The other one I kept a little different deliberately to get a slight variation. With the LMGs fitted, my soldiers became wobbly due to their small original base and added weight. Back at Thingeverse I found different bases and resized and printed one of them. Now they stands steady.

Don't look to good yet, as some putty and glue is still visible

Finishing touches

Painting is straight forward, nothing new here. Washed, primed, painted, and sealed with Mod Podge directly this time. 

Primed and ready

I tried to add further variations as some of the drum magazines looks different from different manufacturers. Some MG3s uses old and new parts, and some even has old MG42 parts. That's why I gave the soldier to the right an older 'brownish' bakelite sholderstock to his weapon.

A quick wash and drybrush brings out the few little details that these 'smooth' figures has.

Now they're ready to team up with their BIA and complete their squads, and probably for some action as well....

In war (-gaming) your soldiers needs protective cover!

Tired of army men loosing their paint?

Perhaps you have experienced that your Army men  starts to loose their paint after a while, and ruins your paintjob? Especially if they're regulary handled and if you use them for wargaming. That happened to me. After a just a few gaming sessions my painted plastic soldiers earlier mentioned in this blog, was starting to take their toll and the paint started to flaking (!). It was actually worse on the soldiers from the 'Toy Story'-collection as their plastic seemed softer and 'oilier' than their Matchbox-clones Brothers in Arms (which had harder plastic and took primer and paint better).

As I have a 'budget-approach' to wargaming, I painted them with cheap acrylic paint  from the craft store. This paint works fine with my model railroading, but was it also usable for miniatures which shall withstand some handling during gaming? I was not sure, so therefore I initially followed 'The book' here and washed them, primed them (twice as the first coat was with plastic-primer), painted them and sealed them flat clear varnish. Despite of this the paint was still coming off shortly after some handling:

This one was the most heavily attacked. It does not look good!!

The solution

So, how could I provide some First Aid quickly and save my plastic army men? I found a possible solution with another product from the craft store. In model railroading I've been using (Matte) Mod Podge for scenic glue and sealant. This dries without the slight shine often found on PVA-glues, so I decided to give the Matte Mod Podge a try as a varnish for my miniatures. If you want flat figures, it's important that you go for the Matte Mod Podge and not the 'glossy' or semi-shine versions:

Still wet of a cover of Matte Mod Podge (yes, it IS Mod Podge!!) it still doesen't look too good...

First I tried a thin layer of Matte Mod Podge as a varnish, and found out it turned out pretty flat and transparent and gave a resistant and flexible surface. It still had a slight shine to it.

I wanted to try to make the surface even more durable and resistant and tried a thicker coat of Mod Podge. After it dried, the figure was still pretty flat but with a slight more shine to it. The coated surface felt very durable yet still completely transparent and flexible:

This is how (flat) it looks after it's dried after a heavily coat og Mod Podge.
Note that I modified his rifle as well to give it a more generic look of assault rifle like the G3 or from the FN-family. This way they looks even more different that their 'foes' based on the same figures.

Despite the slight shine, the clear cote from Matte Mod Podge is still very flat and your figures are fine if you leave them like this. I wanted a even more 'dull' and 'dead flat' look to them, so I finished them off with a thin overspray of 'Army Painter' "Anti-Shine":

With a thin coat of Armypainter "Anti-Shine" added

I'm sure the whole problem with flaking paint can be avoided if you use 'right' primer and  'right' paint or using metal or hard plastic figures. Perhaps Enamels are better suited on stubborn plastic than (cheap) acrylics. I'm also sure there are a lot of other ways to fix it if you run into problems with paint coming off your (plastic) figures. I found my solution and fixed it with a liberate cote of Mod Podge, and it seems to work just fine!
A benefit is that you can buy Mod Podge in craft shops, and it's cheap. Another benefit is that if "glossy figures" is your thing, you can get Gloss Mod Podge as well. I have not tried the glossy version and don't know if it acts differently than the Matte.

For future painting-projects, and especially for figures made of soft plastic, I'm going to coat them with Matte Mod Podge directly. If I still might find them to shiny I'll just give them an additional coat of something very flat, like the Army Painter "Anti-Shine".

Once upon a dice in the west

Budget tabletop gaming

As previously mentioned in this blog, I've found bags of cowboys and indians clones in the store, so cheap that not buying them was actually not an option. I wanted to use them for some kind of tabletop gaming, but for figures this cheap I did'nt want to spend a lot of money on buying rules. -Which often are complicated and take a lot of time to read anyway. I wanted some fast, very simple, skirmish, playable and fun rules which captured the cinematic feeling of western-movies and didn't demand more much more than a tapemeasur and some d6' besides the miniatures.

On 'Whitewash City' I found some links to a lot of both cheap and free Wild West rules, but many rules were no longer available. I ended up with creating a homebrew I named 'Once upon a dice in the west'. Please have a look at them and feel free try them out. Feedbacks  are appreciated.

Veteran's day!

In Honour...

Today it is not only the 'liberation day' and 75 years ago VE-day, but it's also the Nowegian  Veteran's day.

In memory of those who stood up for something much bigger than themselves. All gave some, but some gave all!

I salute you all! Thank you for your Service!!

The good, the bad and the.... -cheap??!!

Cowboys and Indians

Bags of cheap figures

From time to time I've seen these small plastic bags with cowboy and indian figures in different dime stores or in the toy-section in food stores, but they haven't actually caught my attention. Well not before now, as  I found them 'dead-cheap'; only £ 0.80, $ 1.04 or Euro 0.95 for each bag of approximately 24 figures. For a fistful of dollars, I was able to buy some few bags....
There were slightly more Indians than cowboys in each of the 3 bags I got.

The contens of 3 bags. Not any specific numbers of poses, numbers of Indian/cowboys or cheerful colors in any of them

The 6 different cowboy-poses. Looks familiar??

The 6 different Indian-poses. Looks familiar too......

The clones and their originals

The figures them selves seems to be clones of the Airfix 1/32 scale cowboys and Indians, somewhat 'smaller'. Maybe actually closer to 1:43 or 40mm scale? Unfortunately there are only 6 of the original 12 poses from both the original Airfix cowboys and Indians available in the bags. Their bases seems smaller and makes them more wobbly. The copies are not as crisp and sharp in the mold as their originals. I don't have any Airfix Indians to compare  them with, but I do have some old, half-painted, well-used cowboys from my childhood to compare them with.

Airfix to the left, and clone to the right.

Again the original to the left, and his smaller cousin to the right

Popular pose. Britains Deetail to the right, Airfix in the center, and the clone to the right.

This is one of my absolute favorites. Britains to the left, Airfix in the middle, and the copy to the right.

Conclusion

Not as nice as their Airfix originals, but for this price they'll make great gaming pieces. They seems to be pretty common, so wherever you live, you should be able find something similar I think.

With these nice cheap figures, I now only need to find some nice, free, simple and fun rules for (wild west) gaming.....

Creating a 'ghost army'

Fog of war in wargames

During battle-conditions there exist a 'Fog of War' due to consealed units and consealed movement of units, which make a complete overview of the battle impossible. This also makes it difficult to make plans ahead, as all enemy positions may not be known. It's said that no plans survives the first encounter with the enemy. Usually when we're playing wargames we automatically have a pretty good overview of the whole battlefield, as we're usually playing on a table or similar, and usually we can see all the enemy units too. Some units may be in cover or behind obstacles, and the different units may therefore not see each other, but the players know they are there, and what kind of unit it is, and it's strength etc.

Fog of war in miniature

There are several ways to incorperate 'The Fog of War' into a miniature wargame and make it even more challenging. Some simply write down a unit's size and whats in it on one side of a small piece of paper, and a unit-number on the other. Then the pieces of paper are laid down on the gaming-table with the unit-numbers "facing up" and the unit's data "facing" the table, and are moved around at the 'speed' of the slowest unit in that numbered unit on the note. This way the players know that there is "something or someone there", but not the exact size or type before it gets in line of sight or close enough to bee seen by other units. When such a unit comes in the line of sight of another unit, they are both exposed and the papernotes for those units are flipped and replaced with the gamingpieces of those units, which are then placed on the battlefield.

Instead of small papernotes with units numbers, there are another way to move such miniature 'ghost units' around the miniature battlefield. I got some figures left after the army-building from the Tobar-sets reviewed earlier, and decided to use some of them as 'ghost units'. I painted them all solid black, and drybrushed them with khaki. On their stands I painted different numbers, which will go to a reference-note made by each player before the game begins. On such a reference-note each player writes down what kind of unit, size etc. a numbered figure represents. When one such figure are spottet by another or by another enemy unit, the unit (s) is revealed , and all its miniaturesare placed on the battlefield.

Now reconnaissanse units will become usefull in your wargaming, as they will help you to get a better overview of the battlefield and what to expect. This way of adding 'The Fog of War', can be used with a lot of both free and comercial rulesets, eventhough they do not specify a Fog of War"-element in their rules.

The advancing UN-troops are soon to find out who and how many they're facing... 

The 'Fog of War'-miniatures are replaced With the units and miniatures they were reprecenting according to the refrence note made before the Battle.