There is Unrest in the Forest. There is Trouble with the Trees.

Pursuing my quest to find the most difficult ways to make trees for war gaming, I picked up two boxes of GW's Citadel Woods.  I'll be honest with you.  I bought these thinking they would be easier than Woodlands Scenic trees.  But you'll be pleased to know these trees were every bit of a bitch to put together as Woodlands Scenic.

I guess I like them well enough.  They will help fill my table with terrain, and trees work for any type of game.  Here's how they came out.

These models look tree-like to me.  I painted one set dark and one light.   But you probably noticed that for yourself.  What else can I say about trees?

So here's where these trees are not so cool.  First, the foliage pieces don't stay attached very well.  Ironically, they fall from the trees like leaves.  Go figure.  I thought I could avoid this by completely drilling out the holes and pushing the branches through them.  No dice.  They still fall off.  Also, the foliage pieces have a definite up and down facing that you don't realize until you've started to paint them.  One side has more detailing and depth, clearly meant to be the topside.  I didn't figure that out until about five minutes ago.

The bases are a nice feature of these sets.  I don't have any good "forest area" pieces and thought these would work for that.  The bases even fit together to make a continuous forest section.  The allegedly cool idea is that you can remove the trees from the bases when you put models in the forest.  Well, the trees are removable.

The trees actually remove themselves for you.  All the time.  Every time you touch them, and even sometimes when you don't.  You see, unless you precisely balanced your limb and foliage placements your tree is going to be unstable.  Heaven forbid you did something vain and stupid like arranging the trees in a way that looked cool to you.  The good news is there appears to be definite ways to put certain trees in the base.  Figuring that out is practically a mini puzzle game in itself.  Well played, GW!

So now I have more trees.  I don't look forward to making additional trees.  But I know I need more to fill the table.  I'll save that for a future date when I'm having such a good time that I need something to bring me down.  Fiddling with trees always seems to do that for me.

28mm WWII: More US Reinforcements

Time for the Saturday update.  This was another slow week in terms of actual production.  I jumped around a lot and worked on a few different things.  I'm currently fiddling with the GW forest models.  Good lord those things are a pain.  But I'm tired of Woodland Scenic trees shedding all over the place.

I think I'm done for now with my US Rangers.  I've added in more figures, bringing it up to a full strength platoon of two rifle squads, a command squad, tank, and several support weapon options.  I might buy another tank and an infantry gun to really call it complete.  Here's what I added this week.

Here are eight more riflemen.

Four more Thompson SMGs

Two more riflemen with grenade launchers.  These are both Victory Force miniatures.  I show them here with a Crusader rifleman for size comparison.  They really mix in nicely and the models are outstanding.  I really like these miniatures.

The Rangers used to share storage space with my Germans.  But the US forces have grown so numerous that they've graduated to their own storage box.  Now the Germans look really anemic in comparison.  I guess I'll be beefing up these guys next.  Where does this end?!

Female Armor Sucks!

I've been painting up some of my female elves for my Song of Blades and Heroes warband.  This video is absolutely hilarious and so true of the models I'm working on.

Back to the War: 28mm WWII Japanese Infantry

I've jumped back into my 28mm WWII project over the last two weeks.  I've been interested in trying out War Against Japan, and I can't do that with all my Japanese infantry stuck in bags.  So I busted them out of their plastic prisons.  Here's a full rifle platoon all completed.  Click the picture for a better view of them.

There are three squads, each comprised of a squad leader and assistant squad leader, Type 99 LMG and loader, and nine riflemen.  Off to the far right of the picture there is the Platoon HQ with one officer and one man.  The other man is carrying a flagpole.  I've got to figure out what to do about that.  I guess I could go with a crappy paper flag.  But I'd like to find another way to do it.  Any ideas are appreciated.

So totally that brings me a full strength platoon of 41 Japanese infantry.  Here is a detail shot of some of the men, and one of the leaders.  I gave leaders red headbands for their caps to distinguish them from rank and file men.

These are all West Wind models.  I still have more models to add.  I have three mortar teams, two HMG teams, as well as 8 "Jungle Fighers/Snipers."  Once those are completed, I could pick up a tank and call this completely done.

But right now I'm filling in gaps in my US and German forces.  This week I managed to complete three German Riflemen with grenade launchers, as well as a one Panzerfaust and a German NCO.

The Panzerfaust is a West Wind model.  The four remaining models are all Victory Force miniatures.  I have to say that these Victory Force miniatures are outstanding.  I absolutely love these models!  I stumbled on them because only Victory Force sold single models with grenade launchers.  I wanted these for my German forces.  I also picked up a few for my US Rangers.  When I got them, they looked too thin and tall to mix in well.  But after I painted them, I was amazed at how good these look.  Also, while being a little bit on the tall side, they mix in with my Crusader models nicely.  I like these enough to consider doing my Russian army (which I haven't started) all in Victory Force and supplementing with Crusader.  But cost may actually prevail in that argument.

So that's all for now.  I'll polish off the fourteen or so models I have for the US Rangers and then probably move back to terrain.  I've got a lot of terrain sitting on my work table that I'd like to move to the game table soon.