The pain of hex games....

Have recently purchased "Bag the Hun" WW2 plane rules from toofatlardies to replace our miniature warbirds rules . Needed something so we could play larger dogfights/bomber attack games , quicker. Also have decided to go to 1/600 planes from 1/300 (whats that ? a lame excuse to buy more minis !  Why I never :p ) Only problem is with the change in rules, is a change in hex speed of the aircraft. On average its doubled, meaning our existing home sprayed hex board has become a little....small.

So it falls to me to remedy this situation. After a long stroll through the net for ideas, short of buying a hex mat/board. Unfortunately not an option at this time. I end up with the plan of using a plastic grid used for cross stitching to make the hexes on MDF board than rule in the lines later ....seemed like a great idea ! Marked out the hexes on my "template", bit of a fidgety job but not too hard. Then started marking onto the MDF. Made the mistake of doing this on the floor ! If you try this method....DONT !

After a while I had made a bit of progress.

I should have left them as dotted hexes but no, I decided I would fill in the lines....Thus successfully turning a good quick solution into two painstaking nights of dots and lines that left me wondering why I didn't just order a hotz mat online and take the heat from the wife when it showed up a month later ?

Well at least now they are finished. Only problem is they are raw MDF and will need to be flocked or something eventually. Will jump that hurdle later , me thinks. Maybe drill the points in and just paint and flock, leaving the hex outlines to show through ? They get their first trial run tomorrow night. Run the 1/300 hundreds for the last couple of times, until the new babies show up. Might even throw up a quick post on the game.

Hindsight observation....Should have used my template to mark on some thin MDF or acrylic and then drilled out the holes to make another template. Then just use my airbrush to spray the grid on..if I need to do more, that's what I'll be doing and advise anyone else to do the same.....or buy a bloody mat.....its a damn sight easier..lol

More on the trees
    Been a few weeks since last post. Better get back into it. After a bit of consultation we have decided that the new trees need to be on bases.....had nothing to do with the fact the bloody things are top heavy and dive to the ground at the slightest provication !! As we use a template for the area of the woods e.g. Felt, MDF or a hill (the dreaded wooded hill), we figure we can base them in twos and threes with the odd single and just move them around the wood as your troops move through.......It came to us in a dream, honest !!! 

Ready for base texture.

Still about fifty or so left in the bag !

Thought would give it a go..managed to flick a chunk of

it in my eye when I opened it..Yep its got rocks in it all right !

    We have decided to forgo games this friday night and get stuck into finishing them off. Well not completly forgo, I got a copy of angels 20 this week. So there may be a few shots fired in anger. Anyway i have made some inroads into the prep, so hopefully I can kick back a bit while the boys do some catching up on friday. ...lol  

Terrain modeling

    Finally got a little bit of terrain done this week. Trees ! Woodland scenic trees to be exact. Thought we would give the armature trees a go. After about an hour of fidgiting and sticking them to my hands, arms and anything else I accidently bump them with............ That Hobby Tack glue is apptley named :)
I managed to complete a few early efforts....only about another 109 to go. Could take some time to get through.

    Also got a start on some destroyed tank markers...more to follow on that front !!