One Hour Skirmish (WW2) on the cheap (part1).

Right then, having painted some figures in 15mm (too small) and 28mm (too big) with the intention of putting together a small One Hour Skirmish Wargame set up I have settled on good old 20mm scale by way of a compromise! The plan here is simple, to put this project together on the cheap using as much scratch built terrain etc as possible  and utilising some of the skills I have learned from building 'Yaldbury' and indeed the wide range of 00 scale scenic accessories on the market to 'dress up' the battlefields which will use my trusty 2'6" x 2'6" folding card table which is covered in a suitable Geek Villain fleece mat.

We begin with some rather nice (and cheap) 3D printed buildings purchased on EBay for the grand sum of £4 each. I bought six of them to begin with and have so far painted the first three. They are nice and light weight being hollow and take the paint well and I added a touch of 'ivy' growing up the walls here and there. I might print a few small period posters. They are sold as 15mm  but work just as well with 20mm.

Figures: I must have looked at every 20mm range out there before settling on good old Irregular Miniatures - at least to begin with, At just 66p per figure they are the cheapest on the market and as I'm just looking to start with two squads of a dozen figures they are perfect for this project. German and US of course to begin with. The German squad is about done, NCO, MG42 (LMG) team, riflemen and a couple of assault rifles is enough for now. 

Trees: I like model trees, I won't lie, and for this I required some chunky models to suit the scale. Nice trees can be expensive of course so I decided to kind of make my own. A bag of Chinese 60mm trees wsa purchased via EBay for just £12.00 including postage, 50 of the things. I then grabbed a handful of plastic pipettes ( a few pence each) and cut them into two basic ' trunks'. Three of the Chinese trees were then bunched together and pushed into the the tube with a few drops of super glue. Once dry a couple more trees were cut down and added to build the height and again glued in. From the bag of 50 I managed to get 9 nice large bushy models in all. The plastic sleeves were then glued to 25mm MDF bases and covered generously in Vallejo texture before painting a suitable grey/brown. I have to say I'm rather pleased with the results. You could of course airbrush the foliage if you wish but I don't have one so these will do nicely.

Roads and rivers will be made using my Magnetic Printer paper method ( see video link below). I'm looking at making some hedge sections next, I purchased a bag of horsehair but the stuff is horrible, I don't like touching it even, so now looking at alternative foliage, possibly Woodland Scenics which cost a bit more but is very realistic.

That's it for now, I enjoy making stuff so this is a good fun little project for me.