20mm African ImagiNations - P.6: I've been workin' on the railroad...

[sandsmodels]

excellent terrain work i like that a lot

[Ash]

Awesome result. Very realistic, both design and finish.

[Artorious]

Truly inspirational!! Thanks for sharing.

[Centaur_Seducer]

Oh my, I totally missed this thread earlier! Stunning and inspiring
I so want to do 20mm due to the amount of vehicles available. On the other hand, I just can't leave 28mm just like that

[Andym]

Nice work as always Chris!!

[Legion1963]

Very nice terrain. I really like and admire your modular approach.

[Rob_bresnen]

That's lovely. There is so much I like about it I don't know wghere to begin. The chain link fence is great, the signs are great, the colour is great... everything is great. very impressed  .

[Westfalia Chris]

Hi folks,

somehow, I lost interest in the project rather sharply sometime in June. I had finished some pieces then which I hadn't yet shown here, and recently got back into it after reading "Congo Unraveled" and drifting out of the 2000AD wave which had occupied my hobby time for most of the late summer and autumn, so I finished pieces that had been lying around in various 1/n ratios of unpaintedness, dug out some kits I had bought but not built and pulled out the scratchbuilding materials for scenery.

First, some additions to the CLAPTRAP forces.

No. 1 Armoured Car Squadron got a 1970s' vintage tank commander from ROCO:



No. 2 Armoured Car Squadron got reinforced by a Gramodels Ferret which I bought at Crisis:



No. 3 Armoured Car Squadron received another Saracen troop carrier with a squadron commander, again a 1970s ROCO piece.



Transport section got two more Bedford trucks, one of WW2 vintage:



Moving on to scenery! Having built the Airfix airfield control tower back in June (but not finished painting it), I was quite taken with the style and relative ease of assembly, so I was quite happy to discover some of the Dapol building kits (which are reissues of the old Airfix ones, AFAIK). Those were a bit more tricky, but work perfectly for period and size, and I plan to get a handful of the bungalows to do some residential areas of Batasi, capital of Adawambe province.

First, the control tower of Batasi Regional Airport (ICAO code GZBR):



A two-story residential house. Not exactly happy with it as it doesn't look properly "African" in style (bungalows will be better), but I guess once it's surrounded by trees it will be alright.



A filling station/garage. Part of the Speedol Garages chain, which is Anglo-Zambwana Petroleum's main competitor.



Some markers for use as scenario objectives or as "Hot Spots" (i.e. "spawn points") for Force on Force:



Moving out of the urban areas, I did a first batch of trees back in May and June using bonsai twigs I got from a local deco store at a decent enough discount. On top of the twigs, some moss with added flock. Not exactly convinging as they are a bit too lush for the veldt and a bit too light for the jungle, IMHO, but good enough.





Then, some metal tropical trees I picked up from Irregular Miniatures back in 2010:



A bunch of rocks:





And numerous "pseudo-tropical" trees made from plastic fern fronds and seasonal fir decorations, courtesy of a hot glue gun. I don't know why I waited so long to get one.









I hope to get a proper layout set up following the holidays. I've done a couple of baseboards using MDF and textured wallpaper plus a runway and some road pieces. Haven't tried it out to see how it looks all pulled together, but I am moderately confident it will work out.

Thanks for looking and to anyone interested, sorry for the long wait.

[Predatorpt]

Excellent work as usual! Love the airport name in Portuguese 

[Mason]

That is one hell of an update, Chris!
 

Well worth the wait.
Loads of gorgeous new goodies to admire.
 


Whilst the vehicles are wonderful, it is the more scenic elements that catch my eye with a level of consistency that makes your work instantly recognisable.
I look forward to a few 'staged' photos incorporating all this lovliness together.
 

[Centaur_Seducer]

Well worth the wait!

[von Lucky]

Beautiful work - really has a sense of place.

Where does GZBR for the ICAO code come from?

[Elbows]

This is one genre I've always wanted to get into, but don't know nearly enough about it to put stuff together on the table (even for an Imaginations setting).  This is all glorious...any police planned?

Incredible stuff (I think we're all aching to see it on a table top!)

[Westfalia Chris]

Hi all,

thanks for the kind replies!

Where does GZBR for the ICAO code come from?

G for West Africa (I wanted to do Southern Africa but those ran all the way through to Z, while the G codes stop at GV for Cape Verde), Z for Zambwana, the fictional country the Berlin guys made up, and BR for Batasi Regional. I originally wanted to use a IATA code, but anything that had a  somewhat appropriate letter combo was already taken.

This is one genre I've always wanted to get into, but don't know nearly enough about it to put stuff together on the table (even for an Imaginations setting).

Blatantly put, I chose post-colonial Africa since it gave me a chance to use Cold War hardware without seeing a mushroom cloud on turn 3 and going all "well, this escalated quickly".

Also, ImagiNation because it allows me to minimise the "less pleasant" aspects - setting my part of Zambwana in the 1970s (unless I ever play with the Berlin group) means concentrating on Western-backed reactionaries vs. Marxist-African Nationalist revolutionaries and not having too much of that whole Warlord business. Selective, I agree, but I don't have any inclination to play Volkssturm and Hitlerjugend in WW2 games, either. And that's it.

This is all glorious...any police planned?

I've got a couple of Civvy vehicles on page 3:

Direct Link to the post in question

So I've already got a patrol vehicle ready, but unfortunately the Oxford range doesn't include any squad vehicles or paddy wagons in that scheme, so it may be a one-off in that case - that said, I'm currently looking into suitable civilians for hostage-rescue scenarios à la Dragon Rouge/Noir, leaning towards the Dapol railway passengers although they are all a bit warmly-clothed for Africa. Some police officers wouldn't go amiss with that.

[Elbows]

PS: I like the homage to Guns at Batasi (of Batasi?)

"That man there!!!!"