Bridge & Troops

We had a couple days of good strong rain and it knocked down all the dust in the back yard, so I took some Caesar Winter Germans 1/72nd scale and the Hudson & Allen three arch bridge 25mm size and took some photos. The roadway surface is kitty litter. The nice thing about that is that over time it will just break up and go away, so there is no clean up!

In our small plane flying overhead, a Storch no doubt, we see Germans have secured both sides of the bridge and are retreating over it. They are protecting two field wagons as they make good their escape.

The bridge comes unpainted just as you see it in the photo. It is made out of a very light weight resin foam material. Scenic Effects used to use a similar material for their terrain. It is a great terrain material, good and hard and sturdy but lightweight. It won't crumple up or slide around like vacuform plastic will do sometimes. It is like that aerosol insulation foam.

Caesar Winter Germans WWII are another of the great Caesar sets. They have a nice mixture of small arms, rifles, SMGs and on LMG being fired from the shoulder, very nice.

One of the men secures the area under the bridge to keep it free from those Ivan trolls who may try and create trouble.

Wigwams

http://www.wargamescenics.com/

Vatican Enterprises sells products made by Hudson & Allen. They are the same folks who made the Alamo in 1/72nd scale. This is their three wigwam set, also in 1/72nd scale. It has three similar buildings on a single base all molded in foam resin. They are hollow and quite durable. There is also a little campfire in front of the center structure. I got three of these sets to make a little village. When I combine them with the smaller Imex Eastern Friendly Indian sets building, I will be able to make a large village. Typically, these buildings were surrounded by a palisade in Eastern American Indian villages.























These Indians are conversions, the one with the rifle has a US Army M1 WWII era rifle. I cut some Indians in half to make horse mounted Indians into standing figures; firing a bow & arrow and a rifle. I wanted an M1 rifle for a WWII era game we were playing.






















This figure is from Eagle Games. It shows that these wigwams will work well for Indians, and even African native and probably other primitive peoples too. Clustered together these buildings make an instant village. There are two similar but larger buildings listed in their catalog as out of stock, but I hope to get those sometime in the next few months.

Even More Alamo

Another view of the Alamo.

http://www.sdsoldiers.com/

I got it from Toy Soldiers of San Diego.























In the early afternoon sunshine the Alamo model looks really great even without being painted. The worn concrete surface of my patio makes a realistic setting. The concrete looks much like desert sands.




















I am using Imex Alamo sets, and their Lewis and Clark, Pioneers, Eastern Friendly Indians, American Revolution sets together with cannons from almost any source.






















As you can see from the close up photo the detail on this set is incredible. The foam construction is lightweight and durable. With the addition of the Alamo / Southwest Accessories from Imex many of the other items needed to make this a really fine model will complete the complex. They include two flag poles, stumps, cacti, and hitching rails. The Pioneer set has women and cattle. There were several women at the Alamo until the end and they had a cattle herd for food.

Alamo Photos

Hudson & Allen make a 25mm size Alamo that I have had my eye on for about a decade. It was well worth the wait. The front gate is at the lower right corner of this photo.






















Here are a few photos of that Alamo on my patio. I got one from Toy Soldiers of San Diego a couple days ago. It is really nice. It is just a bit large at 25 mm size compared to 1/72nd scale; but I like the extra space to place and move troops.




















This view shows the Chapal in the lower right corner of the photo. I placed a few gray, tan, and brown figures here for scale.




















Placing the Alamo on a concrete patio makes a great surface for the model. I have seen many photos and even models of the Alamo and it's large size surprised even me. A great model and I will have more photos later.