1/600 Buildings from China

Back in early January, I stumbled across a bunch of modelling supplies on AliExpress. AliExpress is an online shopping site in China that I guess is connected to Alibaba, though I am really not clear why or how they are different. They are both Chinese versions of Amazon.com, but everything comes directly from the manufacturer. Two other differences from Amazon.com are that they don't seem to sell books and it takes FOREVER for the stuff to get here. The first time I ordered from AliExpress, which was some dice, it took almost a year for them to ship. This time, it was about three months. And regarding what they sell, if you don't know, or are too young to remember, Amazon.com started off selling books before they got into everything else.
I had the fear in the back of my mind that the packages were dripping with Corona virus. I'm going to assume that they are not contaminated, or if there were any virus particles on them, they did not survive the trip. I sprayed everything with some disinfectant anyway.

I got these buildings. They didn't have a scale assigned to them, but the dimensions seemed like they were roughly 1/600. I ordered a few just to see what they looked like. I have yet to paint them. You be the judge.

These two appear to be small office buildings. They don't seem to have entry ways. The windows on the ground floor almost touch the ground. I assume the small structure on the roof is a stair access.

I bought three of these. They look a lot like large Soviet style, high rise apartment blocks. These apartment complexes are still very much around today throughout cities in China. Many of my in-laws live in such buildings. Like the previous buildings, there doesn't seem to be any doors. At first, I thought the two towers might be for elevators, but they have windows. I might make them into elevator shafts by covering over the windows. I'm not all that certain which is the front and which is the back.

They are very stylistic, and that is OK. I'm going to leave the windows they way they are rather than put clear plastic behind them, or maybe glue black paper behind them. I might buy some more, if I can find them on AliExpress again. UPDATE: Here is the link, and they cost about US$3.00 excluding shipping.

Progress During Isolation

I can't say I've been living the life of ease since the stay-at-home "strong suggestion" here in Tennessee. Most of my time has been going back and forth between homeschooling the boy, my own online teaching, and dealing with the back and forth tension between TigerMom and "where do you thing she gets that from" strong-willed daughter. Despite all this, I've been working like a fiend, mostly 3mm stuff. Here are some of the fruits of my labor:

9K33 OSA also known in the West as the Gecko. Its a big SAM system mounted on a really big truck thing. Even though it is Russian in origin, Lavonia ordered a bunch of them for evaluation.

BRDM-2 with Sagger ATGM. Bovatopia has a lot of somewhat obsolete weapons, but so do most of the threats they face.

T-55 MBT. The Pico Armor site now sells the one of the right, which is a more updated model, according to Marcin who is the owner of O8. However, there seems to be a lot of the older style models still in stock, which is what you see on the left. This is Bovatopia's primary MBT, at least until more modern Chinese MBTs come on line. I kind of like the older model.

Above is a number of models painted up. In addition to the T-55s and the BRDM-2s, I have some BTR-40s, what I think are BTR-80s, and some AMX-13 light tanks. Early on in the struggle for Bovatopian independence, they managed to score a bunch of these light tanks. Like a lot of my fictional nations, obsolete weaponry are never junked. 

Last but not least, I made up some terrain. Above are dug-in markers that I made while I was making the bunkers for the SA-2 SAM. They are made the same with aluminum foil wrapped in polymer clay, then flocked.

Post on Cool Chainmail Game

I am writing up another post related to campaign thoughts, but I'm throwing this discovery up on a massive game using the old Chainmail rules. It takes me back when I used them in high school

Chainmail: Battle of Emridy Meadows

Mostly a lot of great pictures with out much commentary. If you are gamer of a certain age, see if you can spot how many classic Ral Partha fantasy and historical 25mm figures are in the game.