Dragonfrog Asian Shop Type 5

The Chinese buildings continue with an addition from Dragonfrog Games. This is part of their Asian Shop line, which consists of six building variants.  You get two identical buildings per package, plus one additional third floor (not used in this build). Design-wise, they seem to be based off the Chinese shops is South East Asia, particularly Penang, Malaysia. I plan instead to use them for Shanghai and considering the European influence on the city at that time, I think they'll blend in without too much fuss.

For this particular building, I've gone with a green painted front and signage for a puppet/toy shop. As usual, I've used plastic roof tiles and paper textures to enhance the basic MDF kit.  The kit comes with engraved window frames, but they look very flat and I was concerned about getting a good edge where the paper textures meet the windows. 

I thought about adding window images over them to match my scratch built buildings, but was then worried about stability with the window openings behind them.  In the end, I decided to glue some clear plastic to the back of the windows, and attached window frames glued to card on the outside.  This both helped hide the window seams and added a slight 3D element.

The floors link together using divots and pegs at the meeting of each level.  While the seams aren't too noticeable in the busy brick texture, They are painfully obvious with a stucco texture.

To help hide this, I added some additional trim to the front of the building. On my first attempt I put the trip flush with the top of the pins, but the seam was still not completely hidden.  As such I had to add some additional material. For future builds, I'll be sure to have the trim sit a bit higher. 

And here's the finished product. The balustrade color was supposed to match the grey trim and did so under my desk light, but in sun it ended up with more of a beige tint. Luckily, I don't think it's too distracting.

The kit come with enough shutters for all the upper windows, but I opted to leave them off the sides so I could put the shops closer together.

While I am overall happy with the kit, the one big drawback I find with it is the reduced height of the upper level.  As you can see in this side by side, the upper floor is only about 2/3's the height of the lower.  The optional third floor is even shorter.

While visually it still looks good when assembled, it limits the usability when trying to put figures on the upper floors.  As you can see in the below photo,  Copplestone figures easily fit on the ground floor even when waving a sword.

However, on the upper floor the standing officer will just barely squeeze under the ceiling, but the swordsman will not fit. The optional 3rd floor (not pictured) is too low to fit any figures in my collection that aren't prone. It's a not a deal breaker in my ability to recommend these kits, but definitely a missed opportunity.

Looking at the photos on the Dragonfrog site, it was difficult to get a sense of size for the buildings.  The actual frontage was a little narrower than I visualized, but you should be able to fit approximately 3 figures on 25mm bases across the front.

Width and depth-wise, the shop is actually fairly close to my scratch built buildings.  Though shorter, I think it will blend into the street scene without a problem.

If people are interested, these are the doors and window frames appropriately scaled for the shop.

So my final verdict is that I am overall happy with the kit, despite it's one limitation.  I bought the bundle of variants 4,5, and 6, so will have six shops by the time this is done.  The nice thing about them is that parts seem interchangeable across the kits, so I'm going to try mixing them up on future builds to add additional variety.

Warbases MDF Niu House

The hobby desk has been dormant the last few months, as that space turned into storage during a kitchen renovation. But the boxes are now gone and I can get back to modelling.

To celebrate, I treated myself to some MDF Chinese buildings. First up is the 28mm Niu House produced by Warbases.co.uk as part of their 55th Day - China line. 

The basic kit is very nice on it's own, but as usual, I did my best to tart it up. As my current collection of Chinese hutong buildings is scratch built using paper textures, I decided to do the same here so that everything would match.  The brick and concrete patters are my usual Scalescenes OO scale sheets printed at 120%, and the windows and doors come from elements found elsewhere on this blog. Though I used the doors from the kit (with paper added to the surface), the included window shutters didn't work with my plan to add window frames and were left off. When adding paper coverings to a MDF kit, be sure to dry fit pieces first, as the tolerance between pieces may be too tight to slip a sheet of paper between.

The most challenging aspect of the build was replacing the card roof tiles with plastic tiles from Plastruct. I have used these tiles previously on roofs with a straight slope, but this kit has a curved roof line.  I originally tried gluing the tile sheet down with my standard white glue and a strip of wood and some clamps to hold the curve.

Sadly, this was a complete failure, even after allowing the glue to dry 24 hours. As soon as I took the clamps off, the sheet popped back into a straight position. For round 2, I tried superglue and the clamps, which held.  The only frustrating part is that my original gluing attempt caused the underlying MDF to warp. I did my best to bend it back into shape, but it's still not fully straight across the bottom edge. Hopefully it isn't too obvious.

For the small title sections on each side, I elected to use the card tiles and then glue the plastic tiles on top. 

To get the slopes right for each section, I held them in position and dropped a pre-cut section of plastic rod down the middle (same rod used on the main roof). Once the superglue on the rods dried, the shape stayed. The roof elements could then be primed and painted before gluing them onto the building.

I originally cut the plastic tiles to the same length as the card ones, but quickly discovered the the thickness of the plastic tiles caused them to extend too bar over the central roof, preventing it from being able to come off and on.  One by one, I had to trim back the inner tiles until the clearance was good. As a result, they don't look as nice as the outer ones, but once painted I don't think they are too noticeable. 

And here's the final product:

For Copplstone Chinese figures on thick bases, the doors are a little low, but not too bad.

Here's the house with some of my earlier scratch built buildings. By using the paper textures, I think they blend in rather well. 

My final verdict is that this is a very well designed and sturdy kit, and that it can really be brought to the next level if you are willing to invest some time into adding upgrades.

Burma: Merrill's Marauders and Chinese Transport

Back with some additional reinforcements for my Chinese X and Y forces in Burma. First up is an allied squad from the US 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), better known as Merrill's Marauders.

These figures are produced by Warlord Games, and are quite well done. The sculpting quality is good, the casting had minimal flash and mold lines, and they use the separate head system, allowing you to create some variety if you want to field more than one squad.  Sadly, they do not produce any bazooka or mortar teams as part of the range.

I painted mine using the following Vallejo color combinations:
OD uniform: German Fieldgrey 70.830, Green Grey 70.886, 50/50 Green Grey 70.886 and Green Grey 70.971 Mix
Webbing: Khaki 70.988, German Camo Beige 70.821, Stone Grey 70.884
Beige Shirts: Khaki 70.988, German Camo Beige 70.821, Dark Sand 70.847
Helmets: 50/50 German Camo Black Brown 70.822 and Brown Violet 70.887 Mix, Brown Violet 70.887

I normally have just a rocky bases with a bit a grass to allow my figures to better blend into a variety of terrain types, but since these are jungle based troop I opted to add a bit more more greenery.

Next up is a Morris CS8 15cwt truck, also produced by Warlord Games. This is a resin vehicle with white metal fittings, and can be built with either the tarp covering the back or rolled up. The driver also uses the separate head system for more variety.

While the resin portion was fairly well cast, the metal portions were poorly done, with significant seams and signs of mold misalignment.  The worst was on the front wheel covers. I spent a lot of time trying to file things smooth, but reached a point where the metal was getting too thin and had to stop. As you can see below, the differences in height along each half of the covers is still very visible. I would not recommend this kit until they fix the issues with the metal elements.

So a bit of a mixed bag in terms of quality this round of builds, but I think everything will still look good once it's out on the table.

Chinese Expeditionary Force (British Equipped)

For the most part, my Chinese army has been more appropriate for the northern half of the country. However, I've been interested in expanding my force to cover the Burma campaign as well. 

My hope was to find troops in 28mm that could pass for members of the British equipped Chinese Expeditionary Force, such as you see here:

Unfortunately, there is nothing on the market that looks like this, so you have to settle for figures that look reasonably close.  I asked over on LAF for ideas, and got a few opinions on things I could try:

• Woodbine Design WW1 British infantry in shorts:  You can get these figures with Brodie helmets, but the blouse and webbing are not correct. You are also limited to rifles only.
• Warlord Games 8th Army infantry in shorts: The weapons, uniform and webbing are correct, but the puttees are not.  Also, when I started this unit, single frames were not available, and I didn't need 30 figures.
• Empress Miniatures 1930's British: The weapons, webbing and puttees are correct, but the blouse is not.

At the end of the day, I ended up settling on the Empress figures. Having figures in trousers verses shorts would give me the option of using them in my northern campaigns as well. Plus, the uniforms are actually similar to uniforms used by other Chinese units, as seen below. 

For this infantry squad, I ended up with a 12-man team, including a sergeant with a Thompson submachine gun (though with the old style drum magazine) and a light machine gun team. Helmet decals are from Company B, available in the US from Brigade Games; They are bigger and lighter in color than I would like, but still better than I can paint.

Additional support is provided by a Boys anti-tank gun team.  It's not a heavy hitting anti-tank weapon, but I'm hoping it will do well enough against the light Japanese tanks.

Finally, I have a pair of officers. One is holding a map book, and I think he'd look good as an artillery observer. Rather than trying to hand paint a map, I opted to print out an actual WW2 map and glue it down on the book.

Finally, how do the Empress figures compare in size to other manufacturers? My new squad is on slightly thicker bases than my other figures, but I would still say there are a good match with the Copplestone Chinese figures and Artizan British.  The Brigade Games Chinese and Warlord Japanese run a bit smaller (mine have their bases padded), but I don't think it will be too noticeable on the table. 

Artizan, Brigade Games, Empress, Copplestone, Warlord