First Play Muskets and Tomahawks

The British are ordered to burn a farmhouse believed to be used as a supply for the French. Thier plan is to send a threatening regular formation to draw out the defenders while some light infantry and allied Indians sneak through the woods.

The French have detecrted the enemy approach and hastily erect a barricade to weather the British fire.

The British Regulars advance  in disciplined ranks.

With an eagle eye they spot the French cowering behind the barricades and unleash a volley, confident in their training they will get reloaded in short order. Returning fire from the French at the barricade reduced the British unit but its morale holds and it keeps advancing.

French allied Indians massacre the oncoming British Light Infantry to a man, thwarting the British sneak attack.

 Accurate British fire drives back the other unit of French Indians as they attempt to move to the flank of the advancing unit. Another advance and shot sees the Indians wiped out. Even with the intervening wall the muskets are lethal with this much incoming fire.

 The French regulars have arrived on the table accompanied with their officer. The militia defending the barricade step aside to allow a swift charge into the British Regulars who have just reached the barricade.

The combat is both swift and bloody, shocked at the ferocity of the British the French Regulars flee form the melee and after receiving a volley from the now flanking British unit disperse form the battle.

Seeing the fall of thier regular unit and a distinc decline in French numbers the remaining militia and Indians also disperse from the battlefield leaving the area under British control.

Thanks to Kevin Tingle for providing most of the scenery, all of the figures and the rules! I really like the action card system and the possibility of not getting to use everything you have on the table. Most rules seem simple and I think it suits scenarios. Will certainly be having another bash at it soon.

Mighty Armies 15mm Fantasy

As wargamig butterflies goes I have the attention span of a mayfly... ooh shiny!

Just over a year ago Craig bought a set of rules for 15mm fantasy called Mighty Armies by Rebel Minis, and about 4 armies :) I have and undead skeleton army by Alternative Armies from 15-20 years ago which looked like it could do service. However about a month later my interest had once agian moved on to another project.

Last week we were discussing the merits of armies that have units all on one base like Kings of War and Inpetus. This sparked my interest and I started having a look at DBM and then Hordes of Things. After sending alink for HOT to Craig to look at he reminded me of Mighty Armies and erupted in to what I can only describe as an orgy of enthusiasm!

So having a bit of a look on the web for inspiration on basing and terrain (unfortunately both extremely limited. Last week I knocked up the folding 3 foot square board for Malifaux and was myself inspired to make a similare set up for Mighty Armies. The idea of having a 2 foot square folding board and nine bases of troops to plonk down almost has the air of a portable wargame.

To get started I have begun assembly of the undead and this week I will be making the folding board.

Production Line In Full Swing

Some linear obstacles for Warmachine / 40K type 28mm games.

Ogres Re-Basing Update

Having to press on with this as the competition is looming and I need to actually put paint on the figures.

Styrofoam was 'painted' with pva to stiffen it, after drying it was then given a solid coat of matt black.

When the black dries the bits that get missed including air pockets show up so I went over them all again with a black wash.

The rocky surface was then dry brushed with dark grey (wilko flintstone emulsion).

Used fine builders sand for the base as I wanted it to be a bit like snow, The builders sharp sand I usually use would have been too coarse for that.

The sand and base edge were then painted with pearl grey emulsion (a tester pot from wilko - great for painting scenery). I applied this slightly watered down so it would not cover completely solid and give me some sandy colour showing through to dirty it up.

When I asked my wife what colour is snow, instead of the getting a silly answer she said "well, if its fresh then its white but old snow tends to get dirty brown."

Rocky area then dry brushed with the pearl grey to give it definition and help to blend the base together.

By the way this is about as sophisticated I am going to get on the snow front apart from adding a little gloss varnish here and there to represent either ice or melting.

Trying to get  frozen water effect on the front but I think it is going to need a few more layers to get the effect I need. Still quite pleased with how its coming along.

Always good when something starts to look a bit like your initial ideas.

Ogres Re-basing

Well a competition is only 2 weeks away and I have done nothing to prepare my Ogres for it as per usual. However I have a plan that included changing the basing on the ogres with a rock and snow finish. Originally the rock was going to be slate but I am too lazy to cut all the slate to fit!

So using a technique to texture styrofoam taught to me by Andy (check out his excellent painting and terrain making blog here http://napoleonicwargamingadventures.blogspot.co.uk/ ) I came up with a new plan.

With mdf bases for all the ogres cut out, I marked the 25mm thick styrofoam with half of them as I intend to split the styrofoam once textured. It is a good idea to mark the styrofaom slightly larger than you want as the texturing will remove a bit of material.

The knife blade held rather too casually in my hand is a bread knife. I have bought this specially for such job as she who must be obeyed would go ballistic if I borrowed one from the kitchen :)

The technique is to drag the blade along the cut edge of the styrofoam to roughen it up. You can also use the point to dig out some larger chunks.

Second step is to take off all the flaky bits. I do this by rubbing my thumb over the surface till it is the texture needed.

Now I have all the pieces textured it is time to split the bases to get the number I need and a more sensible 12mm height

Voila! As our french comrades say! PVA glue to be applied and then leave them for 24 hours. Once the base is securely glued to the styrofoam I will 'paint' the textured edge with PVA to help stiffen this surface in case any loose bits were tempted to fall off.

Folding Malifaux Board

Just a couple of pics to show the 4-way Malifaux game played last Thurdsay night on a new folding board I knocked up. It folds up so the flocked surface is on the inside.

This one is 3' x 3' on the gaming surface. The frame gives and edge about 18mm, something that is growing on me since playing on Kev's board at his home. I will be experimenting with some other sizes as it it quite rigid and can store easily in a corner. It has felt pads on the bottom to protect precious dining tables and keep the missus happy :)  I will be doing one with two catches and a handle if its needed to be carried about.

Demonstration board - Part 2

So the final part of creating the board took a little longer than expected. For some reason my wife thinks I needed to replace the loft insulation as I removed it all in April to replace a ceiling in the house and it was full of soot and stank of cannabis.  Turns out the people next door were running a cannabis factory and it was busted last Thursday, hey ho.

On to the build...

Creating a demonstration board.

Well this is really some pictures of the demonstration board I am knocking up which is also the first sculpted board I have done.

Sunday
Using the Relics demonstration board (that Rich T had at Triples this year) as inspiration I made a quick sketch of the layout on a bit of paper.

Then it was off to B+Q to acquire some materials - 6mm mdf sheet and 18mm x 44mm planed wood. The nice B+Q people offer a cutting service so my big sheet was divided into smaller pieces, one of which was the 600mm square used for this project.

Next step was to mark the sheet up into 4 squares to make transferring the drawing layout easier. I also replicated the drawing layout on a piece of styrofoam again 600mm square by 25mm deep.

The styrofoam was cut using a hot wire cutter and some shaping done with my trusty breadknife. The stream section was cut out as a chunk first then I ran it through the hot wire cutter again to get a graduation from the rock in the centre down to the board edge.

I have a selection of Woodland Scenics railway cutting and rock molds and this has provided with some nice plaster chunks to use as the basis of the rock formations.

Monday
I attached the wooden battens to the mdf to make the board rigid.I had to get this done quick as Craig was invading the workshop and I am sure he did not want to wade through sawdust.

 

Styrofoam and plaster was glued with PVA and then left for 24 hours - any project like this needs patience!

My brick collection helping to weight the pieces down. Here you can see the layers of construction so far.

Tuesday
One thing I have tried to ensure on this board is playability. Using a model on a 50mm base I checked that it could move easily around the board and sit on the slopes without falling over. This last part was not entirely successful and a couple of slopes received a bit more work.

As a demonstration board is intended to be transported a lot I have taken two steps to help with its durability. First is to make a box for it to go in and I will show this later. The second was to protect the styrofoam sections from side impact damage. Using more of the 6mm mdf to edge the board, I placed it against the side and drew the contour, finally cutting out the shape on my scroll saw.

With the edging in place it was time to fill gaps using wall filler. Once again with the glue for the mdf and the filler drying it would be another 24 hours before the next step. I used the next couple of hours to make the basic structure of the box.

Wednesday
With the first round of filler dry I put another thin layer on to make sure the edges and any bits I missed were fully covered. This new layer took about 4 hours to dry so later in the day I was able to sand it all down and give it a coat of grey emulsion to get a feel for how it would look.

This has shown a few areas I will deal with tomorrow. For now I am finishing the underside of the board with a few coats black satin to make it look neater.

So with box pieces and the base of the board stinking up my workshop with the smell of drying paint I will leave this and post up some more when it is done - hopefully for Saturday!