Quick Update: Apologies, Airbubbles (Dead Marshes: Part 4) and Sturmpionere

Just a quick Blogpost to apologise for my absence over the past few weeks. I've been really busy at work, and I'm doing some work on my house which has meant losing my painting room for a few months. I'd never have thought that losing the spot you go back to in the evenings and pick up the brushes could make such a difference. Ah well, it's in a good cause I suppose. Or at least that's what my wife keeps telling me.

I thought I'd take the time to draw together a couple of loose ends: the last of the tips from The Dead Marshes posts (with many apologies to those waiting - yes, Mr Saturday, that means you - mea cupla!) and an update on one of the smaller units I started in early August.

The Dead Marshes: Dealing with Air Bubbles

I rather optimistically wrote in the Blogpost from 4th September that: "You’ll get quite a few air bubbles in the mixing process, but these never seem to have been a problem for me when the resin dries – they just seem to float to the surface and disappear (The note which comes with the Solid Water” packs says you should try and avoid getting a lot of air bubbles in the mixed water resin, but as I mentioned this hasn’t been a problem for me by the time the mixed water resin is dry)." I generally stand by this, but with a couple of major ampliciations which I wanted to mention based on my experience from finishing The Dead Marshes boards.

First off, when mixing the Solid Water resin by syringe I seemed to get a lot less air bubbles. When you are making a lot of Solid Water, and pouring resin and hardener together from the jars, I seemed to get a lot more air bubbles. There must have been something about these bubbles (maybe the way I mixed the resin) that they didn't go away in the first few hours on a couple of the pools.

Second, if that happens, don't panic. The solution is a bit painstaking and involved getting the air bubbles out with a pin before the Solid Water has totally set. It's painstaking, but it works.

I even found that you could make quite severe impressions in the still-unset water to get a patch of air bubbles out, and the resin would reset back to a flat surface. The picture below is an example of something which I really poked at for a while, which has re-set flat (to my relief).

Third, if you're still left with some bubbles, you can always stain or paint over these with some paint mixed with the next layer of mixed resin. That works very well. The picture below if the clearest shot I could manage of this sort of "staining" approach (which I admit isn't very clear at all!), but I promise the "staining" technique works quite well.

That's it chaps. Not much of a tip, but it might help you if you get stuck. If anyone has more specific questions (particularly if what I have written is not very clear - which is highly likely!!), please feel free to post them in the comments.

Late War Sturmpionere

I enjoyed converting and painting this large section of German Sturmpionere. There are a few accounts of line troops using bags of grenades and concentration charges against British tanks at Fontaine on 23rd November 1917 as part of the Cambrai offensive. The grenade bags were dropped in front of tank tracks, or even dropped from the upstairs of houses in the villages as the "B" Battalion tanks attempted to clear the village without infantry support.

Another situation where similar tactics were tried was by the 3rd Company of the 97th Infantry Regiment in the engagement south-west of Cerisy on 8 August 1918 against advancing tanks. In the thick fog and concealed by the undulations in the ridge line to the south-west of the village, several tanks were destroyed or disabled by a combination of armour piercing SmK. rounds fired by German machine gunners or by concentration and satchel charges deployed by assault grenadiers swarming round the tanks once immobilised or separated from their supporting infantry.

There are no doubt other examples, but I thought that the unit offered something which was historically accurate and also a little different to the late war German players faced with ever increasing numbers of allied tanks.

The figures are slightly converted Great War Miniatures figures, and were painted with Vallejo and Plaka before being varnished. To my eye, once I'd finished them, they did have more than a look of 1940 about them (which I was trying to avoid), but perhaps that's just me. They may have looked more firmly 1917-1918 had I done the helmets in camouflage colours. Perhaps next time!

That's all for now. Again, many apologies for the slow posting and the slow commenting on other people's blogs. I very much like to do that, but as I mention work has got in the way. I may be blogging a bit less in late September/ October until things get back to normal on the worksite ... sorry, at my house, but I'll see if I have some older stuff to post which hasn't appeared yet. Until then, mes braves....