Ishoo Twelf A: Missile Silos

Well, here it is at last hippo fans, Ishoo Twelf A: Missile Silos (the first half of Ishoo Twelf seeing as the people's choice poll was a tie)
Take it away grot!



One very useful thing about this sort of missile silo is that it is not scale specific. In 28mm scale, it represents a smallish ICBM. In 15mm, it's about the size of a Saturn V, and in 6mm... well, it's about the right size for exterminatus work.

Ah, but what, I hear you ask, do you do if you don't have a toy Luner Command Module? After careful consideration, I've decided the next best thing is a plastic disposable champagne flute. It'll need to be cut down a bit and modified slightly, but it's about the right shape. Be warned howerver that they tend to shatter easily when you are cutting them.

ORCSMAS SPECIAL: Orcsmas Trees

Ah Orcsmas! That strange midwinter festival in which Orcs find themselves strangely compelled to wear pointed red hats with white pom-poms and false beards while they pile presents under decorated trees, sing strangely un-warlike songs, and totally refrain from dismembering each other or anyone else. Why they do this is a mystery as they spend the rest of the year cheerfully dismembering, pillaging, looting and singing songs about dismembering, pillaging and looting.
But it's a nifty excuse for plunking down a wargames style Christmas tree and using it as an objective in your games. Plus making Christmas trees using your wargaming skills finally provides you with something from your hobby that your grandmother doesn't feel uncomfortable around. (Hell, I even gave one to my grandmother one year!) They also make great gifts for your gamer mates, or those who live in itty-bitty teeny-tiny flats and can't fit a real tree in.
Anyway, making one is absurdely simple, as you shall now see - take it away, Grot!












Well, there you go! I should mention that I had some problems with this one. The dye used on the flock ran when the PVA was painted on, and turned the snow green... this could probably be avoided by using spray varnish before adding the snow.
Oh, and the star fell off when I dropped the tree; I didn't notice until after I took the photo.

Anyway, Ishoo Twelf should be along soon - I need to borrow my dad's shed, or atleast some of the tools in it which I will be doing this weekend.
Until then!

Ishoo Eleven Point Fiv: Pretty Pictures

It seemed a waste just posting the in progress pics of the castle, so here are some pretty pictures with my freshly painted 15mm normans. Enjoy!

Ishoo Eleven: 15mm Castle

Well, here it is Hippo fans; the Castle; quite possibly the most spectacular single building any fantasy or medieval wargamer can build. This one is 15mm scale, a scale which is very good for large buildings as it is small enough for them to be practical, but large enough to allow detail work. 15mm scale is 1.8 times smaller than the 28mm scale used in many games, and it's amazing how much difference this makes to the foot print of a building. Incidentally, all the techniques used here could be scaled up to 28mm scale easily enough; you'll just get a much larger model in the end.
Take it away, Grot!


































Well, there you go!
It's hard to list exact sizes for the parts as a lot of it was done by eye and modified during the building process to get it to fit properly. The round towers are made from 50mm PVC pipe, the wall walks are about 24mm across and the keep is 100mm square.

Who said wargames weren't educational? I was invited by a colleague to talk to her year seven HUMS (Humanities; History, Geography and Economics) class about castles and model castle building, so I took this one along. At that point it was completely assembled, but not yet texture painted. I took a few other items from TFH along as well, and managed to keep an all boy class interested enough that they didn't talk for fifty minutes.

Anyways, next ishoo will be Twelf A and will feature Missile silos. The one after that will be Twelf B and feature polystyrene boats. Don't blame me; the poll was a tie.

UPDATE:

I've had a request via comments for dimensions. It's not easy getting measurements from a completed model, but I've given it a shot and got some rough meassures. Hope it helps anyway.