From TamsinP: Somewhere Near Arnhem (90 points)

The Adventures of Oscar: Time Traveler, Slayer of Squirrels and Very, Very Good Boy

Chapter 7

In which our hero risks explosions to sate his hunger...

*KARUMP*

*BOOM*

Cripes! Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to come here looking for food. Those explosions seem quite close.

*KARUMP*

*BOOM*

*KARUMP*

*BOOM*

*KARUMP*

*BOOM*

Hmmm, they seem to be moving away from here! Well, that's a blessed relief, I can tell you! Explosions and starving dogs do not mix at all! Ruh-ruh-roh! 

From all this rubble I guess there must have been lots of explosions. There probably isn't any food here, but I'd better check them out. Just in case...

Nope! No sign of anything to eat in these piles. Oh, woe is me! But, what's that I hear? It sounds like men...and they're speaking like Daddy-Curt! Different voices, but same sort of words...

...and I think I can see a house over there where they are. They're bound to have food and take pity on a poor hungry dog like me. I'd better go and say hello!

"I say, is that a dog over there?"

"It is - must be bleedin' bonkers, Sir, running around a battlefield like that!"

"Hello, doggie! No, we haven't got any food for you. Try the chaps in the house."

I recognise that tone - they're saying no food. But they seem to be pointing me towards the house. I guess they mean that there's food there. 

*sniff-sniff* Ooooh! they might be right - I smell cooking! Better get there quick before it's all gone!

Ruff-ruff! Hello! Do you have any food for a poor, starving dog?

"Collins! There's a dog in the doorway!"

"I say, Colonel, there is! What on earth is a dog doing in the middle of this battlefield?"

"I've got no idea. And what's that it's carrying in its mouth?"

"I've never seen anything like it, sir. Sergeant - take charge of the dog and see what it's carrying!"

"Yes, sah! Come here doggie!"

 Hmmm, that chap seems to be calling me over to him. Maybe he's going to give me some food?

"Good doggie! Yes, your a grand hound, aren't you? Now, let me see what that is you're carrying..."

He's trying to take my device. can't let that happen. Grrrrrr! Grrrrr!

"OK, easy now boy! You can keep it!"

"Well, Sergeant, what is it?"

"I'm not sure, to be quite honest sir. There's a label on it, but it must be a joke."

"A joke? What does it say?"

"Well, "Tamsin's Time Travel Device", sir."

"A time travel device? Ridiculous!"

"Indeed, sir. He looks rather hungry - is it all right to feed him?"

"I guess so. Is that stew ready yet, Perkins?"

"Just about sir. I'll put a bowl out for the mutt."

That chap over there is holding out a bowl for me. He's giving me some food! Ruh-ray! I guess I'd better go say hello and thank him!

"My word! What stinky breath you've got. It smells like you've been drinking jungle water!"

Jungle? How does he know I've been in the jungle? Very suspicious...but he's offering me food, so he can't be all bad! It looks a bit hot...oh, he's adding some cold water to cool it down for me. That's nice of him!

"There you go, dog! Some nice bully beef stew."

*sniff* Smells of meat. Tastes of meat. Not as nice as proper home meat, but what's a hungry dog to do? Well, that went down rather quickly. Any more? 

"Sorry, dog, that's all we can spare I'm afraid."

Sob! Sob! I don't think I'll get any more than that from these men. But I'm still hungry! I'd better go round and thank them all, then toodle off to find some more of these nice men to scrounge food from!

"Yes, yes! Down boy! That's right, you're very friendly, aren't you. Now, I'd suggest you scarper from here - there's going to be some more shells coming in very shortly!"

Row-rye! I say goodbye and head for the house whose roof I can see over that hedge...

*KARUMP*

*BOOM*

*KARUMP*

*BOOM*

*KARUMP*

*BOOM*

*KARUMP*

*BOOM*

Explosions again! And they're getting closer! Time for me to get out of here, my hunger only partly assuaged! Ooops! Pressed button 5 again - didn't want to do that...

You'll probably be pleased to hear that that is the only bit of silliness for this post!

So, what have we here in this post? To put it quite simply, some terrain and some figures. To be more specific, some rubble piles, a building on a diorama base, some crates and some WW2 British Airborne. I had the figures and thought it might be nice to do some scenery to show them off. Initially I was just going to do the building, then I thought about putting it on a larger base and adding some elements around it, then I...well, you know how these things escalate!

The House (and Environs)

This is the "Bombed Out House" from Sarissa Precision. The corner base is from Wargames Tournaments.

The cobbled paths to the doorways were done with Milliput rolled thin and then textured with a roller from Green Stuff World ("Small Dutch Bricks").

I also made a big load of sandbags using white Das clay. While I was doing that, I rolled out some thin sheets of red Das clay and applied the texture roller again, then scored along the line of the brick courses (having learnt from a previous attempt) so that I could cut out the individual bricks when the clay dried.

Last Saturday saw me spending a boring couple of hours cutting off the individual bricks. I also broke up some as slightly larger blocks of several bricks.

For the rubble piles, I made up a mix of sand and acrylic frame sealant which I sploged into suitable areas. Then I added bits of MDF cut from sprues, some short lengths cut from coffee stirrers, some of the bricks I'd made and some bird grit.

Early on in this project, I'd had a think about what to do on the rest of the base. I decided to make a bank with a dugout. The bank was shaped with blue XPS foam, and the dugout line with coffee stirrers.

I forgot to take a pic of the removable dugout roof!

I base-coated the house before gluing the bottom floor onto the base. After that, I applied my home-brew texture mix (acrylic frame sealant, sand, bird grit) all over the exposed areas. That was done before adding the rubble piles and sandbags. I then thinly spread some Vallejo dark earth texture over the bare areas of the floor.

After that, everything apart from the walls of the building was airbrushed with Vallejo Flat Earth. The sandbags, bricks and "wood" were picked out in appropriate colours before everything got drybrushed. 

With that out of the way, I decided to try out using the "oil dot" technique to weather the building. I thought I'd made a bit of a mess of it, but the advantage of oils is that they can be removed with white spirit. Everything (including the upper floor and roof of the house) got a few thin coats of matt varnish to seal them before I added static grass.

Rubble Piles

I had some spare frame sealant/sand mix so, rather than waste it, I decided to make some scatter pieces. I glued down some blue XPS foam shapes to MDF bases, then created rubble in the same way as around the house.

Crates

I'd grabbed a couple of crates from a Debris of War pack for the signaler figure, so I decided to paint up the rest of the crates while I was at it.

British Airborne

A while back I bought the (fairly recently released) British Airborne Command pack from Artizan, along with another pack of their seated crew figures. I'd also acquired the "Para carrying casualty" figure from Warlord Games as a freebie when I placed an order for some other stuff. And they were the origins of this whole mad diorama submission.

HQ Group

Figures from Artizan, crates from Debris of War.

I used the same "bold" scheme for these as I've used for the rest of my British Airborne.

Casualty Group

The medic is from the Artizan command group pack, the para carrying a casualty is from Warlord Games.

Seated Chaps

The figures are from Artizan; I added the MG42 and Thompson from my bits box.

These chaps might be seated, but they are fully painted so I can claim full points for them!

For Scoring

The house, diorama base, rubble piles and crates fill out 12" x 8" x 2.5" = 240 cubic inches = 1.1 terrain cubes.

Terrain - 1.1 cubes @ 20 = 22 points

11.5* x 28mm foot @ 5 = 57.5 points

Total = 79.5 points

* counting the para and casualty as 1.5 figures.

However, that's not all. I have an error to correct. I realised today that I might have claimed some prone figures as full figures. Checking back, it looks as though for my second and third submissions of WW2 Japanese figures that such was the case. Four prone figures have inadvertently been claimed as full figures. Mea culpa!

So, to correct that error:

4 x 28mm prone figure deduction @ -2.5 = -10 points

New Total = 69.5 points

___________________________________________

I'm very happy that Oscar got some food, but it seemed like too hazardous of an environment for my boy. I suppose if he was in a real scrape he could fall back on his dog-breath as I'm certain it could be classed as a biological weapon. :) 

Lovely work on these figures, but I have to say the star of the show is that wonderful piece of terrain. Wow, your extra efforts have really paid off as it's a tremendous showpiece. I especially like the sandbag reinforcing and the rubble that you've added - they bring that little bit of realism to the piece that transcends it from off-the-shelf, to something rather special. Well done!

Thanks for the self-audit Tamsin, your sins are forgiven as are mine for not 'catching it' in the first place. And 1.1 cubes?! You're thinking about this far too much, m'dear. :) I'm going to give you another 10 points for your excellent work on the terrain, which should level the karmic balance. 

- Curt