Desert Map

I took the leep the other day to order a desert play mat. After a bit of looking on eBay, I went for the Baron steppe version. I liked the greenery of the bushes and I thought it looked more like the Sudan.

As well as the Sudan, the mat will also be useful for the future desert war project too. I thought the price was good too at £43. It will definitely make my desert games look better.

The green areas of shrub add a lot of interest. 

I also think this would be a good mat for playing the Indian wars on, as there is quite a bit of dry grass.

 

The only real problem was a white blob on the sheet. I'll have to paint over this as it's obviously a mistake.

Desert Armour

The 3rd infantry are now mobile.

Colonial Marines are here too with their classic APC.

Two very different styles of APCs.

The Marine vehicle is quite a bit larger than the army one.

3rd infantry disembark from their new mount.

 

The marines from Wargames Atlantic are very nice and are growing on me.

Quite how the infantry get into the vehicle is a process known only to them.

A ladder would be nice...

Future Desert War

Finally finished off this last printed building that's been hanging around for over a year. A nice big brush and some cheap craft paints and all done. I added some straw and grass tufts just to finish it off.

Two captured marines for objective markers. A game searching building for them while holding off roaming hordes would make for a good session.

I also bought another building from Twoshedsfred just to bolster the desert town.

Here you can see I've stuck down some straw flock with PVA glue on top of these printed building.

These desert fighters have been given a coat of Ultra Matt from Ammo. I left the flesh and weapons still in the original varnish just so they have a little more shine.

Down but not out, help is on its way.
 

Future Desert War APC

Saw this battle wagon on eBay and thought it fitted the look of my future War project. The first to do was to give the sticky print a scrub with soap and warm water.
 

A six wheeled armoured Humvee looking vehicle fits with the marine vibe. The simple desert camo below should work well.

Update.

After a Red brown undercoat, I added some Blue tack stripes. These were just random lines that swirl around the vehicle.

I didn't go too crazy with this first pattern as the dark brown is quite intense.

Humbrol Desert yellow is then sprayed over the model and blue tack. This is a great colour and I was tempted to leave it at two coats.

Once this coat was dry I added another layer of blue tack swirls. These touched the first layer. This means the two previous colours will be touching.

I also added the odd dot and stripe that weren't connected to the first blue tack layer.

So the last layer of paint is Tamiya Dark yellow. This is slightly lighter than the one before and should create some nice tonal contrast.

Now I just need to wait for it to dry to unwrap this visual treat. I hope it works...

Update: Okay now the paint is dry let's wrap it!

So far so good. The colour tones are working well together. I was a bit worried about the brown but I think it works well.

So all the blue tack is off and the camo scheme is revealed. All in all I think it works well and I'm pleasantly pleased.

The next steps are to give it a colour wash and add some armour chipping etc.

It's definitely a desert vehicle that much is for sure.

Update: so here he is with some washes on and so weathering. I used the sponge effect with dark grey to create chipping on the most used areas of the vehicle. Mainly around the doors and hatches.

I also added some decals from a Gundam set, just to create some detail.

Lastly, I added on a desert wash, I've never used this before so the results will be interesting. So far it seems fine.