Quick Hobby Project - 28mm Fir Trees

I was scrounging around some old boxes yesterday and found an open bag with a few fir trees in it. I recalled that when I was making up trees for our 15mm Napoleon's Battle games and I deemed around a dozen trees as being too "big" for use with 15mm miniatures. However, instead of throwing them away, I packed them away in a box and then promptly forgot about them ... for over a decade!

I had sold off my NB figures several years ago and now almost exclusively paint/game with 28mm figures. So when I came across the forgotten trees I realized I now have a reason to get them on the gaming table. So taking a break from painting up some Dutch infantry for Sharp's Practice and a Dark Elf Blood Bowl team, I decided on a quick one day hobby project to base up the trees.

The trees are wire stemmed so before use I would need to make some kind of base for them. I had thirteen trees (with one of them being a very small one that I must have missed those years ago) and at first was going to base them individually, but upon reflection decided to do a mix of one's and two's per base.

I cut various shapes from card stock but realized that the card stock was to thin glue the trees to. In addition the stem of the tree was to short to twist into a flat shape to glue to the base. So I cut up thirteen squares of foam board to thicken up the location where each trees would "planted". Needless to say, the foamcard kind of stood out, so I puttied up the base to hide them.

I then painted the base a reddish brown highlighted with a tan, glued on some dirt/rocks, as well as some flocking. The base was looking a little bare, so I added some clump foliage to "raise" the height of the flocking. I then drilled a small hole into the foam board and superglued in the tree ... for eight bases of "large" fir trees for use with my 28mm Chain of Command, Sharp's Practice, SAGA figures or even a Frostgrave games.

Hasty Breastworks for American Civil War

I have not put on a ACW Fire & Fury game in a long time and thought this month would be a good time to correct that. I have been gaming F&F since the early '90s and it sometimes feels like I have gamed every conceivable ACW battle imaginable! While I have participated in several games of Antietam using the original Fire & Fury rules, I realized I had not gamed this battle at all with my current gaming group ... in the last 20 years!

And as I have not gamed the battle using the Regimental level rules, it was an easy call to pull out my copy of Civil War Battle Scenarios Vol 1 for Regimental Fire & Fury to run the Cornfield scenario later this month. When looking over the terrain notes, I noticed that both the Walker and Douglass confederate brigades start the game behind some hasty breastworks made out of piled up fence rail. As all my 15mm fieldworks are geared for WW2, I thought I'd go about making a couple of feet of fields works for 1860's.

After reading about the battle, it seems that the breastworks were just piled up sections of fence rail ... so I thought it would be easy to also just pile up some toothpicks and pour glue over them to hold them together. While it would be more "realistic" I did not like the look of it. In addition I was going to have to either do layers of fence or make a jig to build up the height of the breastworks. So after viewing some actual pictures and reading several other blogs about it, I decided on making them a little less "hasty".

I collected up the materials, 6" popsicle sticks, toothpicks, putty, a few rocks, paint, knife, glue and water. Then found a suitable "work space" (a priority mail box) and started the build.

I realized early on that the 6" sticks were going to warp, so I ended up cutting each in half (3" sections.) I actually think the smaller sections will work better in the game as well.

I first mixed some putty, paint and water into a cup and spread the dark brown paste to each popsicle stick. Then cut a little section of toothpick and placed them upright along the centerline of each popsicle stick to use as a barrier for the piled fence rails. I planned on "piling" up the toothpicks on the half closest to the unit, with the other half flocked to blend with the table.

For the pile of fence rails I used toothpicks and cut each end down to even them up. Then I just started gluing them down to the paste, then atop each other. I broke a few and laid them at angles to the rest and used some rocks to fill in larger gaps. I was in a hurry and some of them turned up a little short, but in the end they will all work just fine on the gaming table. I let this dry overnight as it was getting late at the store.

The next day I painted on a mix of water, glue and lighter brown paint to the rocks and fence rails. This was to both prime them for painting but also add more strength to the piles of fence rails.

Once they were dry the next step was to paint the rail fences. I ended up using three colors, Terracotta Beige, Khaki Tan and Light Buttermilk. Not much thought went into the colors, I just grabbed two lighter brown colors and a "white" from my box of craft paints.

I painted each section using a slightly modified overbrush/wet blend process. I first applied a heavy coat of Terracotta Beige over about 80% of the fence rails, then I dry brushed a thick coat of the Khaki Tan onto it to lighten them up. I mixed some Light Buttermilk into the Tan and lightly dry brushed the fence rails, trying to pick out the edges and ends. I also dry brushed the earth as well.

Finally I added a some small stones and light grass color flock. As this was drying I glued down small clumps from my clump foliage remnants container to give each of them a green "look". In reality, with all the feet trampling the ground as they built up the breastworks, the area around it would be mostly dirt/mud. That however looks too stark on the gaming table, so green foliage to the breastworks it is!

Considering I did three feet of breastworks in less than two days work, they turned out pretty good. The only thing I would/will do differently is just make sure that all the works are waist high, a couple of them are pretty low.

I am thinking I'll next airbrush the map onto a green cloth next week. We won't have enough fence for the battle but airbrushing in all the roads, fields and woods will help divide the battle field up. And time permitting I might look at turning some astro turf into cornfields...

Jump-Off Points for CoC

We've been playing more and more of the Chain of Command rules by Too Fat Lardies at the store of late. And one of the really cool parts of the game, is the Patrol phase that starts each game. It is a quick mini-game to see where your Jump-Off Points are located, and these in turn are where you can deploy your troops from. As the JoP's were going to be on the table, I thought it was about time I started making some diorama JoP's bases instead of the wooden discs we've been using.

As the patrol markers will only be on the table for a short time, I just found some images online, printed them out and glued them to a thin 50mm circular base. Once a patrol marker moves to within 12" of an enemy marker, you flip the marker over to locked both of them into place.

Once all of ONE sides markers are locked, the Patrol phase ends and the Jump-Off Points need to be placed. Basically you use one of your patrol markers and the two closest enemy markers to find an area that a JoP can be placed in, which must be in or behind cover.

I am using 60mm bases for JoP's and since they are going to stay on the table, thought it would look best to turn each of them into a mini diorama.

The first couple of ones I did, I used a barrel and fuel can resin piece from Micro Art Studios.

I painted them up in varies shades of green and olive drab. Rusted them with dabs of red-brown with a piece sponge and the washed them in a couple of shades of brown, green and black.

The result was some pretty used and beat up barrels. This was compounded when I based the pieces and washed the area around them with the same colors plus some yellowish orange wash!

They turned out very well ... for a toxic spill site :) I am still going to use them in our games, especially when tanks are present. But will only use one per side and they will most likely be the JoP closest to the table edge.

So it was back to the drawing board for the next JoP's. I fished out a miniature that a friend of mine had painted up (hoping it was not one that Steve needed!) and started thinking of ways to use him on a base. My first thought was to have him behind a hedge, but when fiddling around with the miniature on a base I realized that it was going to be too "plain".

So I shrunk down the hedge to a large bush, but I thought a sign post would look good next to it, so I drilled out a small hole in the base for it. I of course then realized I would need to place the signpost next to a road, so I marked off some of the base to be the edge of a road.

I glued down the figure and did my normal basing steps on most of the base, though leaving the road bare. I normally don't use spackle on bases, but wanted the road to be different from my regular basing steps, so put a small layer of spackle on the area marked off and gouged it with a hobby knife for a "road effect".




I then glued down a large chunk of clump foliage and soaked it with water downed glue to stiffen it up. The sign post was quickly made from some scrap material I had lying around and painted in white, added the St. Lo and then glued it to the base. Next was some weathering of the road and sign post, as well as touching up the figure. The figure needed to brighten and touched up. I then called this JoP finished!

I'll do up another two for the Germans, then mimic them and do a set of three for the British. I ordered some small farm animals and have an idea about adding a pig or chicken to one of the bases. Still looking for more ideas, but am thinking using some of my "hated" prone figures.

Hopefully will get some of the British ones done quickly as we want to start up one of the mini campaigns (Martlet) and will post those JoP's as they are finished.

The Neilson House - Saratoga NY 1777

As we have been gaming a lot of Sharp's Practice games of late, I thought I would make a building to use for our future games. I first did a minimal search for "1777" structures and found a pic of a red cabin at the Saratoga National Park, the Neilson House. I liked the design of the house, but was not so sure about the color of it, very red! But alas that seems to be historically accurate and who am I to buck history :)

I sketched out the design on some graph paper using a perry figure for scale ... while I admit it is a little larger than I anticipated, it is not nearly as "large" as these pictures make it out to be; must be the angle of the camera phone. Out came the foam board, balsa wood, rulers and cutting blades.

Most of this was simple measure and cut, but the "cut out" section proved a little harder to do than I thought it was going to be. Fortunately, I had plenty of extra scrapes to fix any of the walls that came up short. I also wanted the roof to come off but had not had much success with my previous buildings. So on this build I tried out a "new" reinforced technique which worked well and I kind of feel dumb not doing this on most of my other buildings. I just cut out foam board and stuck the roof tiles on to it, instead of two end pieces and running the roof tiles across ... doh!

The slat planking for the sides were pretty tedious to do, but do look really good. I cut lots of strips of thin cardboard (such as cereal boxes) then glued then onto each other to form each side of the building. Unfortunately I did not actually have a cereal box and started to run out as the box I used was pretty small! So I ended up combining several shorter pieces to finish every side. That said, I actually really like the look of this, as no two boards are actually the same. IMO this gives a much more realistic look than the "perfect" laser cut mdf buildings.

For the windows I started out like I normally do, gluing cut strips of balsa wood to a piece of graph paper to line them up, then glue it the side of the building (and spackle around it) ... in this case I had to cut out a section of the plank siding to get in order to fit in the window. This was not working out very well, so I decided to measure and cut the windows on the siding first, then glue the siding to the wall, and then use the cut out to "measure" the balsa wood pieces for the frame to fit inside for each window. I really should go back and add in shutters but was getting anxious to finish, so skipped them. I can always add them in at a later date anyways.

I wanted to roof to look different than the siding so made the "tiles" a little longer. Then I took a pen and drew in the "individual" tiles. Cut up the bottom of and generally scuffed each layer before gluing it down. I also paid special attention to the front porch overhang and the removable roof, as I wanted to have fairly seamless line when the roof is on. I was mostly done with the roof, when I realized I had not put on the chimney! So I just added a couple of layers of foam board and glued it straight onto the roof tile ... by far the worst looking chimney I have done and plan to redo it in the near future.

Now onto painting ... first up I wanted to try and "stiffen" up the building, so as seen on Youtube, I mixed some Mod Podge, brown paint and water; then painted the mix onto the building as a primer, as well as stiffening the build. This worked pretty well, though I need to get better at mixing the concoction, as the colored "primer" was really thin.

I next broke out the Iwata airbrush and loaded it up with some Vallejo Fire Red to paint the sides of the building. I then added some a sand color to the red and airbrushed some faded areas on it. To my surprise the red actually turned out pretty good! I next used a grey blue and sprayed the roof, but used a large brush to dry brush the edges and picking out individual tiles. I also painted the windows and the porch, though the worn wood look I was going for, did not come out like I wanted. To "fix" it, I applied some wash to it ... and was still not happy with it, so may line each plank to make them standout a little better.

For the most part I am calling this house done, it is very game usable right now and I can get to the other little things at any time. I have come across some close up views of the house and now realize that it sits atop a layer of stone ... sigh :) When I am really feeling like it, I will cut out a thin base of blue board and outline a stone base for it. Because of this I am not going to base the building right now and just use it without a floor.

Napoleonic Buildings - Plancenoit, Part Three

Finished! Well as done as I going to get them at this point :)

Northern Plancenoit - five BUA's sectors.

I won't be doing as many walls and hedges as planned, as the area to fit the troops in is already small and I don't necessarily need an entirely walled village. Fields and brush will be placed around the perimeter to break up the lines created by the built up areas.

Overall the village came out pretty well; though the "whole" looks a lot better than the individual buildings. But for what it is going to be used for, it is well past good enough!

The hedge at the end can be removed for another road opening.

Each BUA area is roughly a 9" square and I spray painted the road, dirt and grass areas on to a piece of felt. I'll most likely reverse the felt and spray a different pattern so that we can vary the village.

Time was the issue, so no door on the "city" gate. I can easily also one in at any point.
But thought the village needed a restricted entry/exit as well as an end cap. 

At the last minute I changed one of my buildings to a small church and went 'fancy' by adding color printouts to represent stained glass. It came out alright, but I think I need to figure out how to add a window frame.

The walled church area can be used for a particular difficult area to fight over.

When using the plastic stone facings, I need to be more precise with the cuts and do a better job of hiding the joins.

Need to frame that stained glass!

Most of the other buildings went as planned, though did add an inner gatehouse at the last minute.

Hard to see, but the Inner Gate is directly in the back.

As with all my projects, there are a things I would do differently. First and foremost is to make many of the buildings taller to give them illusion of being a 28mm building. As it is, several of the buildings would work well in a 15mm game :)

Some of the buildings are very small, the worst offender is seen above in the center.

I also used a homemade wash (really just gloried dirty water!), and not sure I like the look. Though I am warming up to it the more I put other terrain on the table. I suppose I should also do a better job of mixing the "ingredients" and perhaps add more brown to it to warm up the color some.

The wash used for the wall and buildings was different ... I tried to dry brush the walls to better match the buildings

The stone wall was much easier to do up than I thought, but next time I will spend more time blending the top and sides together. Kind of expensive using all that plastic, but thought I needed one BUA sector that could represent a fortified area. I had plans to do a wrought iron gate, but just felt it was not worth the time at this point, and I can always add it in later.

The gap is noticeable on the right side wall.

I watched a video by a "railroad guy" on how to do up hedges, and so set out to copy him. Turned out to be a very quick and easy way to turn those blue scrubbing pads into trimmed hedges! I am also thinking about making a gate section as well. Right now they are all unbased which means I'd need to sink the connecting popsicle stick into the bottom of the hedge, very doable just hard on the scissors :)

First layer drying ... then the bright stuff will be added.

Hedges complete, some bright green to make them pop on the gaming table.

The hedges are about 1" high and fit well with the 28mm figures.

I had issues with the new spackling I used. It seems that I was not paying attention and bought a different brand. Many of the buildings sides were much "smoother" than planned. It was also 'wetter' and so may not add as much water and paint next time.

The spackling turned out much smoother so I might add some sand next time.

I got tricky with the last BUA wall section. Instead of two corner sections I combined them with a small strip of cardstock. Pretty flimsy but the building notch in really well.

Notched out a section to fit the back building in between two wall sections.

Again think the village will work very well for our General d'Armee games, and we should have enough BUA's for most games were running now.

Back to miniatures for next project ... another unit of Russian Infantry in greatcoats.

Napoleonic Buildings - Plancenoit, Part Two

While waiting for the next unit of Russian Infantry in Greatcoats to show up, I thought I scratch out a few more buildings for the Plancenoit Village, well really for any Napoleonic game.

I thought it best to sketch out the town layout including walls/hedges, trees and the cobblestone road. I settled on five sections laid out in a cross pattern. Once I had a rough idea, I started on the nine remaining buildings.

 I roughed out all the buildings like this one before going onto the windows, doors and roof.

Once I have all the buildings to this stage, I'll get out my spackle for the sides of the building and to cover up any mistakes.

 Almost done with all the buildings, I start getting "crafty" at this point to make each building unique. I'll do more walls as well and then start on a few simple hedges.

It kind of gets messy but I like to wait before tossing the scraps, as I almost always need some of it to fix mistakes.

I keep a base on hand to test the height's and make sure they do not dwarf my "tall" 20mm buildings.

Here is an example of a "crafty" building, I was just going to have a short and tall rowhouse building next to each other. Then decided to turn it into a gate house next to a building. I have only attached it to the smaller building as I think I can also use it next to a wall section for a gate. This way I can have it face to the outside or the inside of the village/town.

I'll update the status of the project once I start spackling the buildings.