Plans for 2020...

While this is in no way a new-years resolution, I do have some plans listed for the coming year...

Hexes...
I aim to expand my Hex terrain considerably. Not only do I have plans to double the number of snowflake Hexes to enlarge the surface of my Hex terrain, but I also want to create more different Hexes to further increase the diversity of the set. The Hex Terrain Toolkit offers plenty of options I haven't even used yet...

6mm...
Even though I already finished quite a few of my new 6mm stuff, I still have plenty of tanks and armoured cars waiting to be painted. I hope to complete my stock of vehicles and infantry, expanding my range of models to be able to play larger battles.

Play more games, fight more battles...
In that regard 2019 has been a very, very slow year, but 2020 is looking to a lot better already... Having recently discovered What a Tanker!, getting in more games should be quite easy... I also want to try the Battlegroup, I Ain't Been Shot Mum and Crossfire rules in 6mm, ad well as play a few games of Flames of war, also in 6mm...

Dungeon...
While most of my hobby time and effort is being absorbed by the 6mm WW2 Hex terrain project, the Hirst Arts Dungeon isn't forgotten... I do have some interesting pieces waiting to be finished as well as an abundance of very nice furniture and assorted clutter. I also have a growing collection of NPC's and monsters to populate the massive dungeon...

3D-printing...
I already have a bit of experience when it comes to 3D-printing, as I have an Ultimaker 2+ in my classroom. While this is an excellent printer, it's hardly suited to print 15mm or 6mm miniatures. At the moment I am saving up to purchase a resin 3D-printer, most likely an Elegoo Mars, preferably the updated Pro version... This type of resin printer has become surprisingly affordable and seems to yield impressive results...

Whatever comes my way...
Last year, the whole Hex project and the 6mm miniatures came rather unexpected, so there's no knowing what I will stumble upon this year...

Hexes, Hexes everywhere... pt. X

The most recent additions, a small set of roads, a few basic grass Hexes and several multi-Hex fields... This has been one of the largest expansions so far, the fields especially cover quite a big surface...

For the new lay-out you can see below, I removed all the hill Hexes and rearranged a good portion of the river to accomodate all the new fields. It makes for a very different type of battlefield. The fields offer plenty of cover while still allowing line of sight...

With all the new fields there is plenty of colour. I like the overall effect, almost patchwork, of the village and outlying buildings surrounded by fields with various crops.

I originally intended this field to be just bare, plowed earth...
However, after finishing it I decided to plant some crop

This expansion represents the biggest part of the multi-Hex modules I have been working on recently, but there are still more under construction.

Multi-Hex madness...

I have used my Christmas break to construct a serious expansion for my 6mm Hex terrain...

I decided to make some new multi-Hex modules. Most of these will be finished with fields on top, but a few will feature buildings, too... To complement the new multi-Hex modules I also made a few road Hexes and some plain grass Hexes to fill the inevitable gaps.

To prevent warping and gaps the multi-Hex modules are topped
with a thin sheet of high density foam...

Hexes, a lot of Hexes...

All of the multi-Hex shapes I cut...

I ended up making two sets of three Hexes, three sets of four and five Hexes and a single module of six Hexes...  

One of the new modules in progress...

At this point most of the multi-Hex modules are already finished. I haven't taken more W.I.P. pictures, but the finished products can be seen in the next post.

One of the multi-Hex modules with buildings...

The module above features a farmhouse with two sheds and a wall... I intend to add a little orchard inside the wall.

Hexes, Hexes everywhere... pt. IX

I finished another set of Hexes, two crossroads, a house and the mill...

While the other Hexes are all practical and I am quite contend with those, the real star of this update should be the mill.

The original post with w.i.p. shots of the mill

Building the mill was fun and a bit challenging and I must admit I put off painting it, fearing I would botch it up with a dodgy paint job...

Both the new buildings and one of the intersections, all put together in this section of the board. I really like the way the mill stands out, it towers over it's surroundings, making it a focal point of the battlefield... When I create a new set-up of the board, I will most likely put it on top of the hill.

The pictures below give a good view of the terrain so far...

There are several pieces in progress, including the second multi-Hex town module, two new bridges and another two Hexes with buildings. All these smaller buildings should give me the option to either expand my village or dot them across the battlefield... Nothing beats a bit of hard cover...

Over the next couple of weeks I want to make another batch of snowflake Hexes to expand the surface of my Hex battlefield. More flat Hexes, roads, fields and hills are also high on my list of things I should make.

Hexes, Hexes everywhere... pt. VIII

The latest expansion of the snowflake Hexes left some gaps in the lay-out of my Hex terrain. Adding about twenty basic Hexes shouldn't have taken this long, but work and other commitments slowed progress to a mere crawl.

However, with the new Hexes ready to go, I can now fill in the gaps. The new additions consist of two roads with intersections, about twenty grass Hexes (the standard flat Hex), four new hill Hexes and six risers...

I decided to re-arrange most of the terrain set. I started with building the hilly part of the terrain. After that, with the river, roads, town and fields all in place, the gaps were filled in...

The edge of the board clearly shows the elevation of the large hill...

At this size, the board is already big enough for a decent battle. Features like the hills and river are what makes me so enthusiastic about this terrain, especially on this scale... It's very hard to achieve this with conventional terrain and scenery.

There are several other Hexes nearly finished, these all feature roads and/or buildings. After that, I really want to complete the second multi-Hex town module and the two bridges.

A Sturer Emil looking out from atop the hill...

Out of depth...

As the Hex Terrain Toolkit is used rather intensively, there is bound to be some wear on the parts... The first piece to show this is the depth cutter. More precisely, the bit that's used to cut the Hexes in half... These half thickness Hexes are used for rivers, risers and snowflakes, this means it gets used a lot...

It might have something to do with the fact I use a table cutter instead of a hand held model. This means the hot wire is in contact with the same spot of plywood kit for longer periods of time, the high temperature of the wire burning into the wood and glue. Or maybe it's just the increased power of the table cutter when compared to a hand held model...

Either way, the module is damaged to such an extent that the precision the whole system relies on, is lost...

The wear on the Toolkit... 

I came up with a solution to this problem...

A piece of MDF board with two pieces of wood, glued on top as guides. The wooden guides are 9mm tall (at least, they were supposed to be). So I glued a sheet of 1.5mm plasticard in between them. As this proved to be insufficient (as the wooden guides were closer to 9.5mm) I added a layer of 0.5mm plasticard. Now this little contraption gives me the 7.5mm of depth I need.

This picture shows the two layers of plasticard...

I could have asked for a replacement, and in time I probably will, as the regular depth cutter is beginning to show signs of wear, too... But for now, this solution works as planned and results haven't suffered.

Laying the foundations... pt. II

Expanding the Hex terrain means I need more snowflakes. A lot more...

As I mentioned before, these are rather time consuming to cut. However, they are also indispensable if you want tight fitting Hex surface.

Over the last couple of days I managed to complete nine sheets of snowflakes (54 snowflakes in total, the sheets measure 2x3 snowflakes, glued together for improved cohesion).

These will be enough to expand the surface from the current 6x2 to 7x3 sheets (for a total of 126 Hexes)... This will easily be enough for a regular sized game or battle. This surface is just under a quarter of my total table surface, so there's still a way to go...

The recent expansion...  Now we're getting somewhere!

The landscape is taking shape... Mind the gap though...

The expansion of the snowflakes has overtaken my stock of terrain Hexes... I am going to make more basic Hexes to fill all the gaps.

The added space gives me enough room to deploy the entire river set. I like the meandering nature. In combination with the hills, the result is oddly organic, despite all the Hexes...

Hexes, Hexes everywhere... pt. VII

With the completion of the new batch of hill Hexes I rearranged the set-up to include a large hill...

I rerouted the river to make some space for the hilly terrain. I think it 

certainly adds a bit more variety and visual interest.

What's that coming over the hill... pt. II

I have finished the hill Hexes I started the previous week...

All grassed up...

To fit in with the rest of my Hill Hexes I decided to put some trees on some of them... There is something about wooded sloping hills... I tried not to make them too densely forested so there still should be enough space to move models around.

The finished Hexes... 

I used a few tufts of the grass I purchased at Crisis. I like the look of them, but they might be a bit too tall... I think I may shorten them a bit

Didn't have the time yet to build a  set-up with the new Hexes, but will do so as soon as possible...

What's that coming over the hill...

Would you look at that, it's more hills...

In one of the previous posts I mentioned I needed more hill Hexes. I have made about a dozen, right at the start of this project, but these aren't nearly enough...

The hill Hexes can be sorted in different models, depending on the number of high points. I have made several hills with one high point, two high points, three and four high points.

Examples of hill Hexes...
Picture taken from the Hex Terrain Toolkit Kickstarter.

Making the most of a free afternoon, I have made a whole bunch of new hill Hexes. Including a couple of double level hills, Hexes on which the hills rise two levels. These are indispensable when constructing a larger, higher hill. Something I found out while setting up my Hex terrain and trying to build some high ground... Without these Hexes it's highly likely you'll end up with vertical gaps.

The bare Hexes, stacked and glued two or three high.
These form the basis of the hills...

The basic shaping of the slopes is done.
The shape is still irregular and a bit jagged here and there...

This relatively small set of hills does take 39 Hexes, six double layers and nine triple layers... While cutting basic Hexes doesn't take up a lot of time, cutting 39 does... All worth it though, these are a welcome addition to my ever expanding set of Hexes...

After some firm sanding the hills look a lot better...

The top of the Hexes is painted green, as a base for the grass.
The sides are painted in a dark grey...

These will be left to dry properly overnight. The next step is applying a layer of glue and grass... After that, some of them will get some trees or bushes applied to them.

Hexes, Hexes everywhere... pt. VI

I have finished the first multi-Hex, below are some pictures of the newest addition integrated in the rest of the Hex terrain...  

With the addition of this new module there are enough buildings to make a decent sized little village... While I was setting up, and even more now, posting this update and looking through the pictures, I realised I need a bigger surface...

Going to town... pt. IV

The first multi-Hex town module is finished...

All grassed and with a couple of trees added... 

About half these buildings are magnetized and are thus detachable, this should help to keep the streets easily accessible, even for fat-fingered gamers like myself...

With the detachable buildings removed, there's plenty of space to move around

Here are a few shots from different sides...

I tried to use different colours for the houses. The different colours are there to break up the uniformity of the buildings but without adding too much contrast (if that makes sense). I used several muted browns and yellows, which, when combined, give a nice overall appearance and add a suitably sombre look to the town...

I am thinking about adding another tree or two, but I am unsure as to whether that would limit the accessibility of the piece...

Musings on terrain... pt.II

With the completion of the church and the first real village module being almost finished, there's the question of what to add next... The river set is already being augmented, both with the new bridges and the second village module (which also covers the expansion of the village/town).

With all those 'special' Hexes and modules being completed, it might be a good idea to pay some attention to the basics before embarking on the next ambitious project...

• I am going to need more snowflake Hexes. As my collection grows, so should my foundation layer of snowflakes. I want to be able to fill a bigger surface, big enough for a serious battle, at least twice the size of my current set-up.
• More basic grass Hexes... Just regular, flat Hexes... All the gaps between those special Hexes and modules need to be filled.
• Hills! I want more vertical versatility... I really like the hill Hexes I have made so far, but the set is too small to be able to make any 'real' hills... 
• Roads... With all the recent additions, like the houses with road access, I will need more roads, preferably Hexes with three or more exit/entry points...

Both the basic, flat Hexes and the hill Hexes are relatively easy and quick to make. I should have plenty of styrofoam, too. I hope this expansion can be realised soon... 

After that? I have some plans regarding building a quarry, mostly because I want to try out the cliff module of the Hex Terrain Toolkit, but also because I want to use it as a V2 launch site... That would make for a great objective, game wise...

For our what-if Seelöwe campaign I would like to build a RAF airfield and some radar stations, but the how and what part is still unclear.

I also want to add some damaged buildings to my Hexes. These should be simple enough to make and add some visual interest to the landscape....

Going to town... pt. III

When building my first multi-Hex town module it quickly became apparent that, in order to be able to move miniatures around, some of the buildings would have to be detachable...

To achieve this I turned to magnets. I inserted magnets in the buildings I wanted to be able to remove and mirrored the magnets in the Hex base.

 Mind, the module is still a long way from being finished...

The streets are narrow, the buildings tall...
I looks good (I think), but is it practical to game on?

The module with the detachable buildings...

They might be small, but four of those small 2mm magnets
can secure a block of houses without any problems...

Milling around...

Adding a mill to my scenery set has been something of a wish ever since I started my mordheim board, more than ten years ago. For my 15mm Flames of War, too, adding a windmill to my scenery was always high on my list of things to do... Even so, I never got round to it.

Until now, that is... Making scenery in this scale is a lot easier, though it offers it's own set of challenges.

Building a mill required some research as there are so many different types. Sure, I might be from the Netherlands, living just 15 km from the renowned windmills of Kinderdijk, but I needed some background...

De twee Gebroeders, wipmolen op stelling,Harlingen, Netherlands

De Rat, zaagmolen op stelling, IJlst, Netherlands

Dybbøl Mølle, Sonderborg, Denmark

I decided on building a zaagmolen, or sawmill on a stelling, a raised platform. This kind of mill can be found all around North-Western Europe, with differences in style. 

First up, windmills are big... Not just big, but, like, very, VERY BIG... Even at this scale I wanted my mill to reflect this. A proper windmill should tower over it's surroundings.

The construction was a bit challenging. The shape of the building, though a regular octagon, was a pain to get right...

Octagons... I was smart enough to make a back-up...

The tapered octagon... 

Early mock-up...

After I managed the basic shape, making the rest of the structure was actually quite easy... Below is a sort of step-by-step of how I built my mill.

Apart from the railing (a re-purposed 1:87 ladder) the whole mill is scratch built from just foam and plastic.

I had originally planned to make a larger, multi-Hex module with multiple buildings but ultimately decided to put the mill on a single Hex. This way, it's much easier to combine the mill with other Hexes...

I magnetised the vanes, using the magnets as axle.

Magnetised windmill...

Two shots, showing the mill alongside the other new modules. Even though most of the surrounding buildings are three or four stories tall, the windmill clearly sticks out...