Bits and Bobs

 

After a number of years of on and off (but mainly off) painting, I've finally finished a batch of various terrain pieces for my 25mm forces.  Many of these can be used in various genres while a couple are only common to the Victorian/Edwardian colonial era.  So here they are ---

These three "barricade" pieces are made up of barrels, a chest, and various bags.  They can be used from the Pirate era all the way to at least the early 20th Century.  I mounted each of them on wood strips to increase the height for compatibility with 28mm figures.

The bee hives of "Tanga" of course probably didn't look anything like these wooden spindle ends, but I think they turned out rather well.  Just make sure you are well away from them if they get disturbed!

Two piles of trade goods and some barrels of spiritous liquid.

Big bins of food stuff and bales of cotton, both good for cover from enemy fire.

Two large silage bins made of stone, useful from Medieval times to the early 20th Century (and even beyond in some places).

So these now join my other bits and bobs of terrain pieces that will enhance an otherwise drab battlefield.

The figures are some of my just recently painted Indian Army Corps of Guides (see previous post).

Terrain Pieces by Russ

One of my wargaming buddies, Russ S., is an artist and art teacher (now retired) and does great work on both figures and terrain pieces.  At a game we had this past Saturday, he brought some new science fiction-style terrain pieces to help with the table scape for our final test of Jay's "Frogs in Space" variant of the venerable The Sword and the Flame rules.

So without further ado, I present Russ' terrain pieces.

They are constructed from gum balls (link) from the American sweetgum trees which are common in the southern US.  Russ cut them into various size pieces and glued them to a hardboard base with appropriate ground cover.  The paint job really glows and ensures one knows that these are some sort of alien growth.  The two 28mm space marine figures give a sense of the size of the gum balls.

Hope you enjoy the results.

The Buddha Head - Part 1

My wife (bless her!) goes out walking with her friend from across the street (another veteran's wife).  They ramble throughout the neighborhood and occasionally make forays around the local area.  They pick up aluminum cans so her friend can sell them to The Can Man for a little pocket change.  They also look into the various trash dumpsters (dust bins to my British readers) along the way.  Over time they have come home with good clothes, some still with store tags, that have been thrown away, toys, and other stuff.  Most of it is cleaned and goes to a local non-profit's thrift store.

But the other day, she found this very nice, undamaged porcelain head.  I took one look at it and thought, "Its a long forgotten head of the Buddha!  I can use this in a pulp game."  And so work begins on "The Head of the Buddha."

The head hasn't been touched other than to be washed and then glued to a foam base.  Posing with him are a doughty explorer and his Ghurkha batman.



He'll get some weathering and a drapery of vines and other vegetation.  Soon he'll be the "beau of the jungle" just waiting for a doughty explorer to find him.

EDIT:  Thanks to Bluebear Jeff for correctly identifying the Buddha head.  I thought it was one but wasn't quite sure.

More Painting and Hedges

Last night I completed some additional command figures for my Very British Civil War forces.  Please click on the pictures for a bigger image, but be forewarned that the faces are rather plain as I have a very hard time with faces, especially eyes, so normally do not attempt them.

Battalion headquarters, 2nd Battalion, Essex Regiment (Royalist), with (left to right): battalion major, headquarters guard, battalion commander (bought already painted and based), battalion radioman, and battalion sergeant major.  Except for the colonel who is a Renegade figure, these are Artisan Designs WW2 British.

The company medic for Essex Regiment and an already painted company runner.  The medic is from Artisan Designs and the runner is from Brigade Games.

Squadron commander (on foot) and tank commander from the Essex Yeomanry (Royalist).

For right now, these will complete my Royalist forces for my convention game next Saturday.

I also thought I should show what I used for my "civilized" hedges (see Hedges - Part 1 ).  Each pack has three scrubbers.  If you click on the picture you'll see the dimensions.  Folded in half long ways and glued, each will fit on a wide craft stick.  The referenced post explains more about making them.

That's all for now.  Tomorrow we're doing a D+1 scenario where the British landing from the beaches are trying to link up with the paras holding a bridge near Caen.  We'll be using Don Featherstone's rules so it should be an "old school" thrill.

Hedges - Part 1

I've embarked on a rather ambitious project - to prepare a large amount of hedge sections for my Very British Civil War game at Bayou Wars on Saturday, June 14.  So the count-down is on.

I reviewed several on-line tutorials and initially selected one that used pot scrubber pads.  I looked at my local major name grocery store but they didn't have want I needed.  Then I stopped by my local "cut-rate" grocery store and they did have them.  So I bought one package of three of scrubber pads that are about 6" x 4" x 1/4".  I folded each in half along the long axis and secured each with Aleene's tacky glue and left them to dry under weights overnight.  The next night I glued them to 6" craft sticks.  After they had dried again overnight I covered each with Elmer's glue and piled on the flock.  Here are two views of the process in progress with a couple of 28mm figures for comparison.  The tops were trimmed wit scissors to give them an uneven appearance.  These will be good for "cultured" hedges in town or around an estate house.

 

 

 

I need to pick up another pack so I can have 36" of this type of hedge.

 

 

Another tutorial used shaped and sanded dense extruded insulation foam as the base for more of a "bocage" type of hedge.  I decided to use half round architectural moulding for my bases, cut into 5-1/2" lengths and glued to 6" craft sticks.  I drilled various size holes into each so I can use tree armatures and 1/8" dowels to act a framework for the vegetation.  I plan on using the plastic stuffing from a household air filter (the flat kind) as the base vegetation and augment it with flock and foam foliage clumps.  I have all of the base sections cut out, holes drilled, and the sections glued to the craft sticks.  They will dry until tomorrow night when I'll start inserting the tree armatures and braces.  Here is a sample, again with a 28mm figure for size.

 



 

I'll eventually have 10 feet of this type of "wild" hedge, including two with gates.  Now the only question is if I can complete this project in less than two weeks.  And still paint a small number of figures and complete the build of the BUF armored truck.

 

Stay tuned!



Indians and Breastworks

I ran my first imagi-"FIW" game today.  It took place along the border between the Britannian colony of Georgiana and the Capitania General de Florida.  I completed this group of figures of six American Woodland Indians just before the game.

These figures are pack Woodland Indians B from Conquest Miniatures 500 Nations line.  As with the other Conquest figures, they were a joy to paint.  They joined six Iroquois Indians (pack Iroquois Warriors B), that I had painted sometime earlier, as part of the Britannian punitive expedition.  More on the battle at a later posting.

I also prepared ten sections of temporary breastworks for the Asturian (AKA Spanish) troops to shelter behind.  These breastworks were inspired by the blog of Little Fritz - Der Kriegshund (link to posting).  They were made from sections of 2" x 4" cast-offs after the edges were ripped to a smaller dimension.  I cut the strips into 4" sections, glued on pieces of dried branches, and then added white glue and sand to give them some ground texture.  I also added some plastic plants to some of the sections.  The following pictures show some of the sections being used in today's game.

I still have some more work to do on these terrain pieces, such as improving the look of the "ground" and adding some additional foliage.

As usual, please click on the pictures for a larger image.

Walls, etc.

At MilleniumCon in November of 2008, I bought a batch of various types of walls - stone, timbered, and wicker gabions.  The only problem is that I can't recollect if they were made by Ed of Two Hour Wargames or Al of Askari Miniatures.  :^(  I'm hoping that one of them will add a comment to this posting and tell us how we can obtain them.

Added Comment:  As Ed said in his comment to this post, these products are available from Acheson Creations.  Looks like he has a large number of very interesting terrain pieces and various forts and buildings.

The first piece is a 2.5" segment of four wicker gabions.

They are pictured with an Old Glory Eastern Woodland Indian.

The second type is a 3" timbered wall that is constructed with log walls and packed with earth.

A Foundry British light infantryman is firing from behind it.

There are also two types of 2.5" stone walls, one with several upright wooden posts at one end.

 

Here shown with a Conquest Colonial Ranger firing at the enemy.

And the other is just a slightly tumbled down stone wall.

Shown here with a Redoubt Colonial Ranger.

I've already used the wicker gabions in my Assault of Fort Khalaam Victorian colonial game last summer and the gabions and the timbered walls in the 18th Century Action at Eisenmuhlen game from this past fall.

These pieces are cast with some sort of pearl gray plastic or resin that feels very slick.  Even after washing them in warm, soapy water,  I had to spray them with Krylon Fusion paint for plastic before my brush-on primer would stick to the entire surface.  But that was just a small bump in the road to getting them painted and not a reason to avoid them.