Sharpe Practice Carts

I have had a couple of carts sitting finished on my painting table for the last couple of months now. Yesterday I thought I'd take an hour or so and finally get them based up.

I purchased the carts and horses from Warbases in the UK months ago. They arrived in a very timely manner and were very easy to put together. I spent less than half an hour painting up the wagons and horses and ... then pushed them aside to work on other projects! In part was because my Mexican-American War II force does not have any carts. I had purchased them for the upcoming AWI campaign, and as we have been firming up the parameters of the campaign, I now thought it was time I finished them.

I chose to do them on circular bases instead of rectangular, mostly because I don't like the look of square/rectangular bases. And I suspect that the carts are not going to move about the gaming table very much. This led me to do the bases up with the heavy diorama look.

First up was the Water Cart ... I know this cart will be useful as the "thirsty" event has already afflicted many units in our MAWII games already.

The figure is a very, very old and of an unknown manufacture (Front Rank maybe). I believe it came from an artillery set for the French Indian war, but this figure has been re-tasked to supply water to thirsty troops!

The large water barrel is resin cast (the carts are laser cut wood) and it fit very well onto the cart. I also added a water bucket, a get "un-stuck" rod and a pile of backpacks to the base to give the diorama some flavour. I know the backpacks are more of a Napoleonic French 1812 style but it looks good and don't think anyone is going to complain about the "future" tech on the base :)

Next up was the Ammo Cart ... Not even sure if my force will have this cart, as the few times I have run low on ammo my troops were already within 12" of the enemy, but hey you never know :) The cover on the cart is a supplied piece of thick paper, which you score to fold across the opening of the cart. Hard to tell in the photos, but I applied a very light wash to it to knock down the brightness of it.

I used 4" circular bases which I had on hand. These were large enough to have the cart, horse and figure on them comfortable, as well as some open space to diorama up.

I applied my usual three layers of "rocks", followed by my grass mix. It was immediately clear that this was inadequate for the size of the base. So I added a bunch of tuffs and then packed in some "thick" flocking next to them to give a "bush" look to a few areas on the base. Applied a second layer of grass mix to thicken the remaining sections of grass.

Again the figure is of an unknown manufacture, perhaps from the same set. I think he looks generic enough, with his shovel and water bucket, that he'll fit in most black powder periods.

Quick and easy and both look good on the gaming table. My only worry is that they are difficult to pick up and move about, so I might have to pin the carts to the horse to make them more "game sturdy" in the future. Again though suspect they won't be moving that much in the first place.