La Belle Alliance Part Five

Hello There! I have continued to progress with the Waterloo building. The previous part is here. Now, I can describe adding and weathering the roof on the extension, weathering the window and door frames and applying a rust finish to the bars on the windows and door hinges.

This is a picture of a roof on a building at a previous game at New Buckenham Historical Wargamers. At this point I had not decided what finish I wanted to aim for.

I reached a decision when I drove over to a wargames friends new house, after he had recently moved. I drove through a part of a VERY rural Suffolk. 

On the way I saw a pantile roof on an old building and it was covered in moss. I though that during the Napoleonic period people would not be bothered about removing this and moss would be a lot more prevalent than now considering the less polluted environment

To start off with I used some pantile roof sheets from the Wills Scenics range of plastic materials.

The above is the roof for the main building. The roof was self colour. However it did not take paint well. I wanted to add different shades of tiles to the roof. I glued two sheets together to make the correct size for one side of the building. Above is the original colour on the left, enamel white undercoat in the middle and the repainted, (Vallejo 929 Light Brown), on the right.

The newly painted sheet on the right also had a slightly grainy finish.

I added some slightly different shades to the individual roof tiles. Unfortunately this does not show up well on this photograph.

I then washed the roof in Army Painter Quick Shade Strong tone.

When dry, I added a wash of AK interactive Slimy Grime Dark mixed with Woodland Scenics fine turf. The colour of the turf does not matter as the AK interactive product will colour it.

Then added small portions of the mix to the troughs of the roof to represent moss clumps. After this has dried I washed the roof in a 50:50 mix of PVA and water to hold the moss on the roof.

The clumps were painted 872 Chocolate Brown. When dry the top surface was painted 922 Intermediate green.

Next I painted the woodwork on the windows, doors, window shutters and barge boards.

I copied the system for painting worn old timber from Emmanuel Nouaillier. In the June 2008 edition of Continental Modeller he used a mixture of Humbrol enamel paints. (Matt numbers 27, 28, 98, 119 and 147). Using enamels come with the usual odours, especially from white spirit, when used as a thinner, and in my case the resulting headache.

I thought that it would be possible to use Vallejo acrylics. I found equivalent colours in 859, Basalt Grey, 875, Beige Brown, 841, Burnt Umber and 992, Neutral Grey. Thinning with water worked just as well.

First you clean the plasticard. Add a wood grain to it by rubbing the face of the strips with a suede brush, or for a deeper grain a wire brush. I make the grain deeper by scoring it with a scalpel with a no. 11 blade. The previous fine grain from the brushing guides the scalpel point so it does not meander all over the card. Remove the swarf from the plasticard. Make the frame, or in the case above, the window shutters. Glue them together with 'liquid glue for plastic' by Revell. Allow to dry. If you do get finger prints on the scored plastic, do not worry. Leave it to dry and rescore later.

Paint the whole item in enamel white and allow to dry.

The idea of painting is to wash the colours over the plasticard card and merge the colours together. You can try to get different shade on individual planks. Do not worry about the planks being too light or dark. Try to leave a hint of the various colours from the Vallejo colours listed above.

After the wood effect has dried, I washed in a thin coat of 950 black.

As the doors were treated the same as above, the door hinges were painted in 981 Orange Brown. This is the base of the rust finish.

I masked the rest of the door off. 

I then added a coat of pigment fixer on the bear hinges and added a covering of AK dark rust AK2042.

Before adding a coat of more pigment fixer to the surface of the pigment, I gently brushed away the excess pigment. I then dropped a further layer of pigment fixer and allow to dry before adding more pigment fixer.

After removing the masking tape I ended up with this effect. Any excess pigment that found its way under the masking tape can be removed using white spirit on a paintbrush and washing it away. 

As you may see in the above photographs I have added 'glass' to the windows. I used 'Leaded Windows, Diamond Pattern' from Scale Model Scenery. Another supplier to the model train world which can be very helpful.

Last I have added the fir 'La Belle Alliance' sign. This is made from foamcore. After cutting to size I  covered it in a layer of AK Terrains Dry Ground, AK8015. I let that set and painted 820 off white.

Next I shall add the timber boards to each end of the building and the main roof.

Naval Confrontation

Hello There! It is not very often that I get to play a naval wargame so it was great to see a game on offer one evening at the wargames club. 

The game consisted of a German in shore convoy being escorted by some R boats while out in the Channel some British MTBs and MGBs sat in wait.

The convoy had to get from one corner of the table to the other, to escape from the British forces. The rules were from a free wargames rules website and provided a very enjoyable game with good company. 

Book Review- The Tanks are Coming Through Now, (The Brigade Battles at Gazala 27 May - 18 June 1942 by Neal Dando

Hello There! Recently I have finished a few books and found them very helpful for various aspects of my wargaming. My habit of reading a number of books at the same time, one at work, one before bed and one in the afternoon, is not something that I would not recommend!

The chapters cover: Planning, Terrain, Training, Opening Battles South, Cauldron, Armoured Battles, Infantry Battles, Bir Hacheim and Conclusion.

Overall, and due to the confused nature of Gazala, the infantry and armoured battles do cross over in their chapters, but can be followed.

From a wargames perspective there are some useful maps and information to compile scenarios for a wargame. Also the maps do correspond with the text but the maps are all together, in the centre of the book, so the map relating to the text are far apart.

Also some of the place names in the text are difficult to find on the maps, if at all. Also due to the sparseness of place names in the desert, some references points of height, which are also difficult to find, if at all.

The chapter on Bir Hacheim is sparse but did produce some new information that I have not seen before.

Overall I would recommend this book, for the scenario information alone, but alone for the information on the changes in the armoured units and their strengths during the Battle. Units were constantly changing as squadrons were added and removed from commands during the whole of the battle.  

I bought this after realising it covered a lot of the battles during the battle of Gazala. It includes maps showing

Book Review - Command by Al Murray

Hello There! I had received this book as a Christmas present from my partner. 

I listen to 'We Have Ways of Making You Talk' which is the WW II podcast Al Murray co hosts with James Holland and have heard that this was going to be published.

I didn't really know what to expect at first but was pleasantly surprised with the easy reading content.

The chapters cover Montgomery, Freyberg, Tuker, Wingate, Slim, Bradley, Patton, Pearson, Hobart and Peter White.

Each Chapter covers some of the character and personality of each person and then goes into a specific difficulty they faced during their period of command.

Montgomery tackles the problem of venereal disease affecting the troops. This was a serious problem with the fighting men and dealing with it was made more difficult due to the public sensibility of talking and accepting such things.

Montgomery accepted that when men are away from home they will find their 'pleasures' where they can and that this will put them at risk of being infected.

Due to the coarseness of Montgomery's character he repeatedly gets himself in trouble with those up the chain of command because he ruffles peoples indignation and inability to deal with the subject.

Despite this he insists that every man who is not able to fight due to having an avoidable disease is helping the enemy.

Each chapter has a similar exploration of each subjects unique situation and ranges from the above to a change in the style of fighting in unfamiliar environment.

The last chapter describes the experiences of a man in the front line, in the closing months of the war in Europe, and the effects of some of the judgements of those above him in relations to the frontline.

Overall it was n easy read and a good introduction to to each commander. I read a chapter a night before sleeping and it did not require a thorough understanding of any person beforehand. 

There were a number of rhetorical questions and 'tongue in cheek comments' which did make you think, 'Why did that subject do that?' There must have been a more tactful way of doing or saying that but that is from the point of hindsight.

I have taken great delight in my profession of imitating the proverbial 'Bowling ball through a plate glass window' myself. Sometimes it is to gain attention and effect, when other methods have failed and other times it is to show those above that they are plainly wrong, as they will not listen to me.

Overall it was a pleasurable read and I do recommend it.

J Hugh L Beattie, Artist

Hello There. During the visit to Tiger Day at Bovington Tank Museum I found a number of stalls set up in the Normandy Room.

Among them was a Military artist, J Hugh L Beattie. His stall caught my eye because while there were the original oil painting for sale there were also a range of military prints available as well. He also paints civilian and portrait commissions.

Some of the painting of battle scenes from the Wars of the Roses reminded me of work by the late Rick Scollins.

He has extensive experience of painting military subjects and was very approachable and easy to talk too.

I purchased the print 'Crusader Advance' because I am studying the Battle of Gazala. I liked the  the background in this print and would like to try to recreate this for a back drop on my wargaming table.

He also supplies a number of commercial items including coasters, tea towels, mugs and shields.

His website is extensive and is here.

I would certainly recommend his work and have already saved his website for Christmas presents!

Battle of Caldiero 1796

Hello There! Recently the New Buckenham Historical Wargamers put on an early Napoleonic wargame along the lines of the Battle of Caldiero, 1795.

Here is an overall view of the battlefield. It was fought using 28mm figures and used figures from a few collections from various club members. The rules used were Shako 2 with some club modifications. Prussian figures stood in for the Austrians.

As you can see the quality of figure painting was high.

The French came on to take the settlements in front of the ridge which the Russian forces occupied.

Here is one of the attacks on a village.

And another view of the same attack.

The Russian figures used reflected the later 1812 uniforms as we do not have figures available for the earlier period. 

Here French chasseurs  try to clear enemy cavalry from the hill so their infantry can take the hill. The changeable weather stopped many charges from taking place as it stopped infantry firing, if they were not in a village and cavalry could not charge.

A highly enjoyable game and very good company.

Further photos of the game are here.

La Belle Alliance Part Four

Hello There! I have made some progress on the La Belle Alliance building. The previous part is here. Since then I have washed the whole in a watered down wash of black paint. The tutorial that I have been following suggests using ink. In the past I have found that inks do have a habit of fading a bit. This was a different colour ink and on figures. In this case I presume that a wash of Vallejo 950 black paint would suffice. I applied a wash of watered down black paint to all the bricks and then taken some 400 grit sand paper and rubbed all the bricks down. I wondered what this would achieve but could see that the concave shape of the bricks caused by the embossing process was alleviated. The bricks had a flatter surface now.

I was following the instructions from tutorial by Emmanuel Nouaillier in the January 2026 edition on Continental Modeller.

It was at this point that I realised that I had missed a step out!

After embossing the foam core he recommends airbrushing the surface with two layers of Humbrol 'Neutral Grey' enamel paint. I feel an Vallejo equivalent would suffice. Anyway I inadvertently missed this step out. This did cause a few difficulties later.

When this is dry I then used various colours dry brushed on the surface. They included 982 cavalry brown, (main colour), 909 vermillion, 829 amarantha red, 957 flat red and mixed some of these colours with a small amount of black to obtain a number of different shades.

I would suggest when applying a vastly different shade to dry brush along the brick course as when a wall is built the bricks are usually taken from a pack and different shades of brick are usually present longitudinally. Some brickies do mix the brick packs before they lay them but this does not always happen.

This is the point that I realised what the airbrush layer of grey was for. The bricks, even after being light sanded had a series of groves in the surface. Although this was realistic the black wash was not adequate to fill this grooves in the brick surface. I applied a second black wash, were I could see this problem, to fill these creases. 

Here the end of the building has had a layer of white weathering powders applied and the powder has been pushed into the mortar joints using a dry brushing brush using a stippling action. There are some bricks that have a darker shade. This is a combination of an addition black wash and, as I felt the white mortar was too stark so mixed a black and and dust colour weather powders together to dull this white down.

Here is what the side looked like after just applying the white weathering powders. As you can see the powder, despite having a damp, (not wet!), kitchen towel, dabbed over them, the weathering powder tends to be trapped in the pitted surface of the bricks. I got over this by reapplying the dry brush colours over this. When happy with the finish I applied fixer for the weathering powder.

Here is a closer view of the side of the building before the reapplication of the brick colour. For added realism I picked out the odd brick suggesting that it had 'blown' and the frost had damaged the front of the brick.

I hope to have all four sides of brickwork completed by the end of the week and start the window frames and doors started.