The XLC – An Archive For The Steinberg Shed Space Blog

Control Tower

At Salute this year I caught up with a fairly local company The XLC. Based in Northampton it seems quite local, but as all companies these days, it has an internet presence but no storefront.

I picked up an older piece, their security tower, a design from their first Kickstarter project. I invested in that kickstarter but have not done many since. This company managed to get all the items out super quick and without hassle. Other Kickstarters I have been part of have put me off since then… They have another Kickstarter running at the moment which is worth a look, as their stuff is reasonably priced and comes pre printed…

This will be a control tower for my planned airfield scenery (until Coronasan pulls his finger out and designs one himself in MDF).

A nice simple piece and big enough for 25 and 30mm bases to fit inside.

Warehouse District

Our Dust Battlefield game is due to be played on an industrial table. Lots of cover and height changes. A great excuse to get out my various warehouses and workshops.

Along with a bunker or two to add a bit of WWII theme.

You can see I am making good use of my barbed wire rolls and the walkways I picked up from our trip to Salute.

The small workshop from Warbases and the pre printed units from the XLC Kickstarter.

And the new factory unit from Sarissa Precision. Now painted like the Warbases workshop using a sponge painted, layered application. Brick base in industrial grey and roof and windows in weathered black.

I’ve had some rust effect paint in the shed for some time and not often used it so it was a great chance to try it out on something.

Looks good on the window bars and the railings. Not so sure on the door. I think less is more with this stuff.

Overall a great little building that adds a little more to the collection in the shed. Likely to be well used. Just need to get those walkways done now…

More Lasercut Scenery For The Collection, Going To Need A Bigger Shed Soon.

Some of you may recall that I began to build the scenery that came from the XLC Kickstarter recently. I’ve got the rest of it done now and a fine set it is…

For such a simple set of box style buildings, the effect is very good. The designs on the preprinted boards are better than any photo I can show you, and you really need to see them close up to take all the detail in.

Their scale is great for our 28-32mm games, and they are large enough to give a good level of cover or block lines of sight completely in most cases. You will see them in a number of upcoming posts, as they will definitely be featuring in a number of games over the next few weeks.

The containers and main warehouse were built, and the glue was drying, when last I posted about them.

The second workshop, or factory building, is now finished too. These kits have nice little extra touches to them, like the air conditioning units that get stuck on the outsides. This gives a slightly more 3D aspect to an otherwise flat box building.

The doors for the large and medium units are flat printed boards so cannot be opened and closed as such. So after much thought I decided to magnetise them. In the shed has been a sheet or two of magnetic rubber matting for magnetising the bases of miniatures. It has never been used for this, but that was its purpose when I bought it 8 years ago… This stuff is not very strong, as magnets go, but has been used to stick a few light weight things to other things over the last few years though.

It is, when used in long thin strips, up to the job of holding the doors in place for these buildings.

The last of the buildings is a more quirky, L shaped, factory. This will be more useful for blocking lines of sight on a table, or as an objective, as although the 3 roof sections come off, no part of the building is that big or accessible enough to put many men inside.

All in all, this a great little set of buildings that will add to my already wide selection of scenery in the shed. The scenery collection in the shed is really becoming something that affords us a wide range of choice. With our habit of flitting regularly from one game to another, setting up and gaming on a range of tables from a range of periods is no longer a problem.