Town

Tanks join the troops.

Small reconnaissance vehicles guard the perimeter.

More vehicles move into the center of town.

Trucks arrive to bring more troops.

Searching continues.

The streets are narrow.

Even the toy shop is checked.

The overview.

Vehicles

Truck in the narrow roadway.

Troops move around the town.

Narrow walkways.

Troops check the narrow passages. 

Vehicles and troops in town.

Tile Floor

This is a ancient model kit from Model Power.  It's a nice, generic little building, but no interior detail.

I like my wargames buildings to have an interior and a removable roof.  I glued the two roof parts together, but did not glue it onto the walls of the building.

I used Evergreen Models sheet styrene TILE to make a tile floor.

The interior of the completed building.  Just cut out a rectangle of tile and glue it in.  Simple, easy, and perfect.

Great Wreck

One of the first rules of the hobby is: Never throw anything away. I sell hobby stuff, I trade hobby stuff, I give hobby stuff away, but I never throw hobby stuff away. Someday, some how there will be a need for it and you will wish you never tossed it out.

My old buddy, Wayne Wanner, Master Modeller, who is no stranger to this blog, almost forgot that rule recently. He got this tired old model in a collection he purchased and took one look at it and tossed it in the trash bin. Soon afterwards he rescued it from the landfill and turned a junked wreck into a useful junked wreck.

Battlefields are often littered with the dead vehicles of previous battles. In Afghanistan the Allied keep finding monuments in the form of BTRs and T-55s to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, burned out hulks that sit alone alongside a former ambush site.

On the wargame table these used up old warriors can be used as wrecks to clutter the battlefield. They can hide a sniper, or artillery observer, or an panzerfaust team. They can serve as an artillery reference point or a hull down position for a defending tank. They can canalize an attacking enemy force into the minefield or into a good position for a side shot by your long range anti-tank gun.

Even if you don't use the wreck for as a stand alone model, road wheels, gun breech, gun muzzle break, gun tube, bow machine gun, return rollers, drive wheel, all kinds of good bits there. That's the kind of stuff you scratch build or convert with or use as bits on your recovery vehicles.

I am proud of Wayne Wanner, Master Modeller, for bringing this old heap back to life.

Christmas Village III

The dark patches were snow when I first got this monument. I looks like something in the middle of a big park or memorial or even graveyard. It is generic enough to work for about the last 500 years, and could even work from about HO to 1/32nd scale.

The center of the monument has an angel type figure and it looks great. The model was painted just like this apart from the dirt patches.

A priest prepares to bless the troops before they go off to war.

A small covered bridge from the Dollar Tree store.

A little too narrow for a tank, but good for infantry and even horse drawn vehicles. This is a good example of they type of items that can be found for very little money if you keep your eyes open. I feel like I always look at everything to see if I can use it with the hobby stuff.

These buildings are most frequently found at dollar stores around Halloween, Christmas and Easter, which is coming up. That nasty old paint job can be painted over or stripped off and then be repainted. Some of these are actually resin buildings which is great, much more durable than ceramic.

Christmas Village II

The Model Power 1/87th scale M47 Patton tank travels up the Christmas Village street. These buildings were only $1 each at my local Dollar Tree store. Look at the roof of each building and you can see black and gray patches that show where I painted over the white snow. I don't play snow wargames but I still wanted to use these buildings.

Look at the ground cover near the cafe table, I painted over the snow with a gray making it look like rock or asphalt. These buildings were pre painted and only required that I cover the snow to make them usable on the wargame table. They are also hollow so I can put troops inside.

This Revell WWII US Army figure on the roof looks over the edge to see the tank pass by below. Many of these buildings had flat parts on the roofs which are great for posing figures.

A couple infantry sneak around a corner, notice the black edges where I painted over the snow. I could also have flocked them wtih green like the solders bases, or even went with a brown ground cover. Buildings like this are great because they are cheap, durable, and allow me to spend time on other hobby tasks.

Many battles took place in urban areas, in WWII in Europe, many small villages were only a collection of a few small buildings. A few of these placed at a crossroads and you have an instant village. Your American or British forces can surround the village with armor and then send in the Infantry to dig out those few hold out Nazis. More fun for use than it was for them.

Christmas Village

Around Christmas and Easter my local Dollar Tree store often has little ceramic buildings that are about HO to 28mm size. With a bit of careful shopping sometimes I can pick up a real bargain, cheap.

These buildings come already painted, assembled and ready to go, unless you don't want to wargame in Santa's Village. They do need a little work. Usually they are covered with glitter and snow effects. I just take a stiff brush, go outside, and brush off most of the glitter. Then a little soap and water will usually be enough to remove the remainder.

Then you can paint up the village with a little black, or green, or brown or gray to replace the white and the village is ready for a visit from SGT Santa in his MBT Slay.

These little buildings are perfect for just about anywhere Western style buildings have been used in the last 200 years. I have these with 1950s era vehicles and troops, but they could just as easily work for ACW, or WWI or WWII.

For $1 each this is a very quick and easy way to whip up an entire village. There were a lot of different ones, and I even got duplicates of a few. Painting them differently helps to disguise the fact that some are the same, but of course, in a city you can have identical buildings, like row houses. Add some new signage and these would work in any number of locations.

Monument to Dollar Tree

Around Christmas time and Easter, my local Dollar Tree store has little about 1/72nd scale buildings in a sort of ceramic material. They are pre-painted, often with "snow" and glitter in the snow. This set of statues monument was one of them I picked up for only a dollar each. The base and part of the statue was in white with some glitter on it. Using a stiff brush, I brushed off as much of the glitter as I could and then repainted them. The one on the left I repainted with a heavy black wash to represent ash, dirt, ruins, over painting all the snow part. The one of the right I repainted with green and then flocked the green for a more normal look. Having a little bit of green on the monument looks like the maintenance crew is a bit behind on the gardening.

It was a pretty nice monument, I think it says "Samuel Adams" on the front, but it is hard to read. He fits okay as someone who could be on a monument almost anywhere in the world in the last 200 years. This Revell US Army guy shows just how large the monument is, the smaller figures are a chunky 1/72nd size.

Just changing the base really makes a big difference in these to models. And the difference from when they had the snow on them is huge; they really looked like toys before.

Monuments like this can be found in town squares, cemeteries, parks, and in front of great public buildings everywhere. Here a HaT WWII German soldier directs the tour to another interesting location.

I try and visit my local Dollar Tree about once every month or so, just for little gems like this one. A similar monument from a model railroad store could easily be $20 or more. This one was basically pre-painted. I have done similar ones and repainted the stature figures in bronze for a different look. In the next few days I will post a few buildings I got at the same time.

Munitions Depot 668

Another of the military buildings from Model Power. This time it is the Munitions Depot set. Again it comes with two copies of the HO scale Roco walking infantryman at sling arms, but they have been left off this photo series and replaced by two converted Revell US Army soldiers in 1/72nd scale. The camouflage tank comes with this set. It is identical to the M-47 that comes with the Quonset huts, only the paint job is different. You can see the two together in this photo.

Since this is a model railroad building, it comes not only pre-painted but also pre-wired for the little light bulb in the ceiling. Not very useful for a wargaming building but a nice touch. The tank has a WWII era white star with surround. The M-47 was first fielded about ten years after WWII and so never wore this marking in service.

The building is nicely camouflaged, as you can see from this close up of the roof. A very good pattern and well done.

This brick building is lined with windows and while labeled as a munitions depot could be used for many purposes, machine shop, repair garage, storage, even as a barracks.

These double doors are beneath the markings that identify the kit. Very well done paint job over green plastic. I got several of these buildings that could serve many armies from at least the First World War until next Tuesday.