Perfect Six barricades - a review

In my last order from Perfect six I had a set of barricades and this is both a guide to painting them and a review.

Preparation

Perfect Six scenics are generally very cleanly cast and these are no exception so only a tiny bit of clean up required around when the metal comes into the mould.

As I want to use them within my buildings I did not want to put on a base but I also did not want to have bare metal on the bottom. My solution was to glue on to thin black plasticard. I can't remember how thick it is now - as I got it for other reasons - but it is less than 0.5mm I think but not the paper thin stuff.

I first super glued on to the plasticard sheet near the edge.

This gives an idea of how thick it is.

Next I roughly cut them out with a knife.

And next I trimmed the edges so they were flush and used a file to make sure it was completely flush with the metal.

Painting

I used Tamiya light grey primer (looks pretty much white actually) followed by a Flames of War spray called British Armour - a nice earthly brown as a base for the painting.

I then painted the ground part with Games Workshop Steel Legion Drab, the barrels and 'bricks' lying around Games Workshop Mournfang Brown and finally the pieces of 'wood' and the crate with Vallejo US Field Drab.

I then gave them a heavy wash with Games Workshop Agrax Earthshade. The front one below has had the wash and it does make it look very different - the wash gives the browns a different tone and highlights the distinctions as well as edges the detail but I just couldn't get it to show up in the photo (probably should have taken it up on to my terrain boards but too late by the time I realised I should have done that rather than take the photo on my work table).

I then painted some highlights with the original colours and then with a bit of Games Workshop Ushabti Bone in the Mournfang Brown for the barrels. I used Vallejo Light Brown to highlight the bricks scatted in the earth and that is quite an orangey brown which looks the part and gives more variety in the colour contrasts.

The final stages. All of them have been brushed with an acrylic varnish then sprayed with anti-shine.

And as a final touch a few pieces of foliage have been added to give a bit of colour beyond shades of brown.

Barricades in use

For Napoleonics these are not just scenic pieces but I will be using them as markers. For many rule sets I have looked at recently they make a distinction between moving through / just having entered a built up area and defending it. When Richard said he was going to do barricades I thought these would be an ideal way of marking the distinction. Put the figures in on the first move with no barricades, then when moved to defending add barricades to show the unit is now defending the buildings.  I have also thought about fortified built up areas (i.e. preprepared defences) and these could be marked with more substantial barricades (e.g. bits of furniture in them) and the number of barricades indicate the level of fortification (rules sets I have seen this is usually 1, 2, 3 or 4 so can easily have a barricade on as many sides as needed to show the strength). Anyway, need Richard to do the alternate barricades for that but for now I have a way of showing occupation and this type of barricade could still do that alongside the more substantial one for the level of preprepared defence.

Here are some examples - I did discuss with Richard the sizes that would be useful to do so no surprise the work well with my buildings!

Example one:

I have used barricades on each of the three routes into the village but when using as an occupation marker the number does not matter - just for aesthetic reasons really.

So now the battalion has either just entered the village or is moving through on the road and hence no barricades - it is not defending the village.

Example two:

Different village, just for variety really.

And once again just moving through.

A few examples now with 10mm WW2 figures to show how well they work at that scale. These could be used to show entrenched in FOW or defensive positions.

Conclusions

I really like them and being made for 6mm they work very well with the Adler 6mm Napoleonics and I think they are going to be a great marker to show the unit is defending the buildings. Not sure how many I will need until I play a few games with multiple villages, but I suspect I will put more than one on just for the effect even if one would do the job to show the unit is defending. So will probably need some more I would guess.

For WW2 they woudl also work well for 6mm and for 10mm I think they are fine for light barricades or entrenchment markers. Would need something bigger for anything that is supposed to be a fortification / heavily barricaded.



For an easy way to see all my Napoleonic posts check out the Napoleonic summary page.

For an easy way to see all my WW2 posts check out the WW2 Summary page.