15mm WW2 Russian Buildings - From Box to Table

 

I have been working on some forces for WW2 Kursk and usually terrain comes last in my priorities but this time I thought I would try and get ahead of the game and get some done. After a search of the tinterwebnet I found some suitable candidates at Empires at War, a company I was familiar with after building lots of their 28mm Italian Renaissance buildings. 5 buildings for 35 quid, I'm in.

I will hold my hand up and admit I find terrain a real chew, don't get me wrong I love a good looking table and enjoy having great looking buildings etc, I just have zero enthusiasm for actually building or painting any !

So if I can find some easy build MDF buildings that are pre coloured that you literally put together and plonk on the table I'm pressing the "Add to Basket Button" right away. I've done a Unboxing (or sunbathing in this case 😁) video and built one of the buildings live on camera, so if you want to see my wonderfully agricultural modelling skills have a watch of my Utubes video.

For those who prefer the written word below are some pictures of the 5 buildings.

The buildings are nice and easy to put together even for a clumsy modeller like myself, they come with some nice straight forward instructions and all I used to put them together was a modelling knife and some Bostick Glue.

The buildings can be bought direct from Empires at War on the link below,

https://empiresatwar.co.uk/product/15mm-russian-rural-village-set/

My only query on these is the scale, they do seem rather big for 15mm, I'm sure it will be to do with the strength of the parts, it's not something which is going to stop me buying them but something to be aware of.

So there you are, some great buildings to grace to your Kursk games or even your Borodino games. Later in the week I will have a look at the forces I have built up for the initial Kursk games.

Yarkshire Gamer - September 2020 Wargaming Update

 

Another month has gone by and gaming in person just seems to be getting further away, I'm starting to think I won't be gaming for at least another 6 months so I'm preparing to just be a painter and collector for the immediate future.

I've put a video up on the Utubes covering the lockdown goings on at YG.

For those who just like pictures here are the new units for the month.

28mm Gripping Beast Hannibals Veterans 

1/2400 Tumbling Dice WW1 Ships

15mm Plastic Soldier Company WW2 Kursk

I had a lovely 2 weeks in Scotland and picked up a lovely haul of stuff from Wonderland Models in Edinburgh.

Plus a visit to another great store in Glasgow, Static Games.

Thanks for watching further update next month.

Lighting for Gaming Photos and Videos - Neewer ZC-10S Review

 

Everyone likes a good photo on a blog, Insta or the Twitters and a good well lit video on the Utubes is a bonus too.

I was very fortunate to have Mrs YG buy me some lighting for my photos recently and after a few weeks use I thought it would be an idea to share them wider and illustrate their use for gaming related photos.

Below is a Utubes video going through the contents of the Neewer ZC-10S set and their operation.

Link to purchase on Amazon

I've added some photos below to give you an idea on how the lights work.

The first photo is taken in my games room, it might time so their is no external light source, the room is well lit with a high power "cool" strip light.

The second photo is taken with the one high, one low set up shown in the first photo on this post,  it's easy to see that the light levels have increased dramatically, however it can be very easy to have too much light and "white out" a picture.

Shadows can also be an issue if the intensity of the light levels are too high, look at the shadows from the flags on the buildings in the bottom photo.

Looking in the next set of photos, I will look at a bit more detail, the above "control" photo is simply taken with no additional lighting.

Followed by full intensity with both lights.

The next photo is also full intensity but the lower light has been moved to the front of the subject to light up the faces, note how the rear building is whitened out and the flag shadow is very prominent.

With the lights in the same position I've dropped down the intensity by 3 on both and things are starting to get better.

This final photo would be my choice, both lights dialled back by 6 from the strongest, the buildings are no longer standing out, the shadows on the figures are adding to the level of detail, possibly too dark for some but we are now in the area of personal taste rather than definitely too dark or too bright.

The lights also make a great portable paint table illuminator as well, I used them recently whilst on holiday.

Hope that's been useful, see you for the monthly update next week.

Naval Wargaming, a basing and painting Tutorial : From Box to Table

 

I did a Painting and basing tutorial a few years back before my venture into the motion picture world of the Utubes. With a few additional ships being added to the collection for our early WW1 Naval Campaign I thought it would be a good idea to refresh that initial tutorial with a video version, link below,

The video is about 40 minutes long but there is a lot to get in, I'm torn between the multi part tutorial and the long form directors cut, let me know your thoughts.

The ships used in the tutorial are 1/2400 scale, from Tumbling Dice. This is the first time I've bought ships from this company, they have a lot less detail than my usual GHQ models but they are a 1/3 of the price, Tumbling Dice also specialise in the pre WW1 period which gives lots of choices not avaliable from GHQ.  Sadly postage and import duties rule out WTJ for the moment. Below is a quick review video of the ship models.

Our WW1 Naval Campaign stalled a couple of years ago as circumstances led to the next game being larger than the avaliable table at Yarkshire Gamer, fingers crossed, post lockdown, my local club will have premises to suit.

Hope that the videos prove useful, any questions just ask. Some pics below of the ships above.

Don't know why but blogger is let me put my usual photo labels in today.