Welcome to the jungle

This year's Chain of Command game at Gothcon will be (a small part of) the battle of Dien Bien Phu in Indochina. This is a prelude to the Vietnam war of which I know next to nothing about, but my mates Thomas and Koen are well versed in both relevant history and tactics used. As such my role is relegated to terrain making. With mostly Vietnam war movies in my mind I ordered a bunch of cheap but useful items from eBay.

I can imagine the customs' dissappointment when they realised the contents were all plastic.

Massive MDF Megalomania

A post, three days in a row? Yes it's true, and with even more MDF terrain! This time it's the Sarissa Precision Medium Stanchion Building for Beyond the Gates of Antares from Warlord Games. The building comes on three A4-sized sheets of 2mm thick MDF so is quite sturdy.

Fully half of the first sheet is taken up by the baseplate.

The pieces were cut through so thoroughly that a few pieces fell out of the sheets when I opened the package. At first I was afraid I had lost some parts, but they were all off-cuts from inside windows or door frames and not necessary for the finished building.

Second Sheet. Most of it is taken up by the floor (to the left) and the roof (to the right).

Last sheet. A lot of support struts and all the actual walls.

More MDF Madness

...or should that be Moar MDF Madness?

An Upright Piano from 4Ground and a nice little Village Fountain from Sarissa Precision.

As I told you in yesterday's post I had recently aquired two small MDF kits and now was the time to build them. (If you didn't read the building of the piano yesterday go back and do so now.) Here's how I built the fountain.

The fountain comes on one sheet of 2mm MDF.

The sides of the basin is built up using three layers on top of eachother.

The top layer is slightly larger and overhangs the walls. On the right the parts for the pump tower.

And finished. Our intrepid German soldiers liberate another piece of terrain.

I didn't mount the taps since they were flat and I plan on replacing them with pieces of wire instead. The design is a bit cruder than 4ground's kits, but it is easier to assemble and goes together without any problems. The thicker MDF is not as prone to warping as the thin sheets in the 4ground kits. You have to paint it yourself though, which I don't think is a problem really.

Monday MDF Madness

(Well, it's still Monday somewhere in the world...)

So I recently happened to aquire a couple of small MDF kits, but I hadn't had time to build any of them.

An Upright Piano from 4Ground and a nice little Village Fountain from Sarissa Precision.

I decided to build the Piano first.

All the parts for the piano. 

Starting with the stool, It's tiny! All those blobs of glue will disappear when it dries though.

Some of the sheets were a bit warped or bent, so the keys needed pressure while drying...

...and dry. All good.

The sides also needed some pressure. Note I have fixed part I in this step contrary to the instructions.

Front pieces glued in place. More pressure needed.

The outer sides and backpiece hides all the ugly joins. And needs pressure, you guessed it.

And last of all the lid. Which was bent as a banana and needed pressure.

The finished instrument is liberated by a German soldier.

Although the kit was a bit fiddly and the piano is quite petite, it was pretty straight forward to assemble. The end result is certainly worth the effort.It was about time I aquired this essential piece of WW2 terrain; every modern war film has a piano in it it seems.

Happy gaming!