Rapid Fire! - Wargaming pine trees from Christmas decorations

 

For long I was trying to find pine trees in a good quantity, reasonable price and in good size for 12mm up to 25mm scale. The main goal was the Ardennes and for these trees to be used for Rapid Fire 20mm games, even if these ones can be useful a bit all over the world. 

Well, Santa was generous and at the local Action warehouse I found eleven of these bags, each with 10 trees (four small at around 5cm height; three medium sized around 8cm and three others around 11 cm). At 2 euros each you can have 110 trees total while spending around 20 euros. Not only they are cheap but they are reasonable depictions of miniature pine trees. All trees had an exaggerated sized piece of plastic to keep them standing but that could be solved with texture and flocking. 

Another place was visited for the bases, a very nice downtown Chinese shop specialized in handycraft. I brought all kind of round bases I could find and the trees got stuck with electric glue together with some pebbles of different size and shape. 

The bases were then textured and flocked with the same style as most of my basing. The 1/72 Matchbox car is from my youngest kid and is here just for scale. As I´m feeling attached to it this one will soon become a command car for a German Umbau column from the Market Garden period. 

Again for scale with  two Matchbox figures.

Bird´s view. 

All bases were made taking into account the accomodation of a varied number of Rapid Fire stands from my regular 3,5 X 2,5cm infantry stands to some larger AT gun stands. 

Next: More Ottoman Sipahi. 

Impetus Rules - Mohacs 1526, part 12 - Hungarian Hussars in 20mm

 

Some badly needed light cavalry for the Hungarians (CL Hungarians or Serbians)  is on the way to the shelves of Mohacs (in fact transparent plastic drewers). The models are metal and made in Hungary by Takács Krisztián. 

The models have five parts, horse, cavalryman body, head, lance and shield. The shields, heads and lances are different allowing plenty of variations. Two of the figures had flag poles and I was also given two beautiful Hungarian flags. The horses were glued with electric glue to the base for extra sturdiness. 

The Hussars were the most numerous cavalry in the Hungarian army and a few more stands have to be added. 

Next: a bunch of pine trees for the Ardennes. 

Rapid Fire! NW Europe 44/45 - 101st US Airborne - New C-47 and Waco

 

Some years ago I bought an old 1960 Airfix C-47 from a guy that sells and collect second-hand toys. The kit was complete and the figures showed clearly its age as they were mostly blobs of plastic. The model kit even so is not bad and was glued very quickly as I discarded all interior. 

The windshield was lost so I used electric glue to fill the space and that shows :) But frankly I know you are not looking at that but your attention was caught by the beautiful laidy, as Bertorelli would say, taking her panties and saying "Com´in". I used the C-47 "Steppin´out" as inspiration but changed the name and the "6N" is also my invention. Try to guess what it means...

The place from where the asspiration... sorry, the inspiration came. 

Only after painting it I realised that the paratrooper is a British one as shown by the shorter boots and the type of helmet. Even so as its not a very detailed character it makes a passable US paratrooper. The open door is again electric glue which hides partially the exiting figure. 

The Waco glider is Italeri and some details were not glued as I want to make a number of them in wood and Blueboard using this one as template. 

At the moment the US airborne fleet counts with one Airfix C-47 and one Italeri C-47 and Waco but more Waco will be added soon. 

Next. Pine trees for the Ardennes or Hungarian cavalry for Mohacs. 

Rapid Fire! NW Europe 44/45 - 101st US Airborne - 3rd battalion done and 501st PIR finished

These ones were black primed for some months and were quickly finished upon the arrival of the latest RFR The Road to Carentan booklet from Masters Colin and Richard. In this batch I added some cute resin prints offered by Pedro Pato of MiniGeneral 3d. The rank and file are the usual Revell and Esci figures as I´m out of SHQ minis. 

Three resin printed Cushman scooters are a beauty with all being different. One will go to each battalion for liaison purposes or, if not necessary, to look good on the table. 

The 3d resin Pack 75mm gun comes with three beautiful figures. 

The 3d resin 57mm AT gun comes with three other lovely  crew, again all different. Only one gun is missing to complete the Para AT battalion as this one is the fifth 57mm of this group. 

The Bazookas are Hasegawa and Revell (the closest one). The No2 are Revell with repositioned M1 carbines and Hasegawa Bazooka rounds. 

Again the Revell tripods of the 30. cals. were turned into bipods with added plastic stocks. 

Together with the OP stand the radio was added to the back of the Thompson armed figure. 

The 81mm mortar and main operator comes from Esci US infantry. With some extra GreenStuff on the uniform and equipment he could join the airborne. The 60mm mortar is made of pieces of plastic. 

Next: more aircraft for the US airborne.