Scatter Terrain for Stalingrad part 1 Thinking Big

Our Stalingrad Chain of Command campaign is about ready to go, but we still need some terrain. Actually that's not 100% true - we need some nice terrain. So each of us in our own way are working on that. Paul is building a railway siding, Andy is building some more ruins, Mark is, well typically he's got distracted so he's probably working on something Napoleonic Vietnamese in 12mm but he will be back on the program soon, and me?

I'm working on some scatter terrain. Stuff to leave around rather than specific buildings. I've already finished a couple of shot up Opel Blitz trucks - and have just finished something a bit more err ambitious...

Inspiration for this is a bit mixed. I had toyed with the idea of getting a shot down Me109 to use as terrain in the desert, but could not find any suitably cheap kits. Then I went to Vapnartak a few months ago and saw what the Spectre Miniatures Black Ops guys had done with a crashed C130 Hercules and I realised I needed to think bigger. Much searching of ebay finally resulted in a 1:48 scale He 111 from Monogram which I picked up for about £35 - pretty much the top end of the budget on this.

When it arrived I was a bit stunned - there's a lot of it and it has quite a bit of internal detail. After being put off a few times I finally decided enough was enough, and grabbed a razor saw. It was a strange project, trying to work out what to cut, and whether it was best to assemble it first or do the surgery on the components. In the end I did a bit of both, chopping the model into three parts - tail, wing and "the rest". I then blanked off some areas where the razor saw had been at work - the tail was easy as there is a convenient bulkhead half way down the real thing that houses the battery compartment, so that made a convenient place and a plasticard bulkhead was cut to fill the gaping gap. Similarly the now exposed wing root was filled with "bits", Everything got a first coat of paint, based and - and then I stalled. 

This was because I don't have any experience painting anything this big, and it put me off, however after putting it aside the opportunity offered by the Bank Holiday weekend was just too much, so I screwed myself up and decided to get it done. I resisted the temptation to go too daft and didnt try breaking any of the glazing, and anyway this was going to be a "done and dusted" project. 

And here's the result - being climbed over by some wary Pioneers

I have to say I'm quite happy with it. It covers a lot of space on a table, and looks the part. It can also be used in bits if needed. The only real issue is storage and transport - I should have thought a bit more about that :-)