It’s another Wednesday and we have a bumper crop this week.
I’ll start with my progress for a change. The above image shows the progress I’ve made with my Napoleonic Balloon project. I’m building ten balloons in total for the game.
Next up I’ve been painting two more cavalry units for my Wars of the Roses army.
Next we have Marcus with yet more planes. The first batch are A4C’s (whatever those are?)
And some Mig 23’s
Now we have the start of some more Swiss infantry for Felix’s Lion Rampant army.
And lastly some more Dredd miniatures and scenery from Mark J.
That should be an impressive game when it’s finished.
This building project is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while but never got around to it.
That’s mainly because I didn’t know what I wanted for this model, how much effort to put into it (in relation to how often it would be used), or how to go about building it with the above restrictions in mind.
But recently two events occurred that focussed my mind – I achieved painting backlog nirvana (I had nothing outstanding to paint!) plus, in our War of the Roses refights, we had the battle of Wakefield coming – the backdrop to which is Sandal castle.
With hobby time and motivation on my side, I decided now was the time to commit!
With any terrain building project the first thing to think about is storage. It’s easy to get carried away on a big build, but where are you going to store it? I made up my mind the model would have a footprint no bigger than A4 so I could store it in a box a ream of A4 paper came in (at this point I should add that it’s going to be used with 15mm miniatures!).
Right, decision made on that one.
Now for the actual build, and construction decisions that need to be made. I knew I didn’t want this to be just a tower, I wanted the bailey included. That’s going to be a potentially fiddly build, because I need to think about all that brick work. I thought about the Wills Scenics embossed sheets, but they’re really scaled for HO/OO railway models, so would be too big, plus the cost of buying all those sheets would make the model expensive for how often it would get used. I thought about a paper model, because all the other 15mm buildings I use are paper models so it would fit in stylistically. But the paper models I found on the internet were either too basic or too complicated.
However, after my recent build of lots of skyscrapers for a Stargrave game where I used simple boxes covered in printed textures, I thought that’s what I would do.
So, I scoured the internet for stone textures I liked the look of. I re-sized them, so the stones looked about right for 15mm miniatures and printed out loads of sheets. I also used MS Paint to put some arrow slits on them as well, and some sheets had doors, of various sizes printed as well.
First thing was to lay out the design of the castle. A piece of A4 modelling ply was cut and on that I drew the design of the castle – a keep on a mound, plus walls and towers. A classic (later) motte and bailey castle.
The best laid plans.
I cut a piece of expanded polystyrene for the motte and stuck that down. When that was dry (and PVA takes a while to set when gluing EPA) I carved the mound, keeping in mind that I had to leave enough space on top for the keep.
I started with the keep. I wanted to make it a round keep, but I couldn’t find a tube the right diameter. Oh well, this particular castle would have to have been originally built in the 12th century – square it would be.
Foamboard keep walls.
Construction proved remarkably simple and remarkably quick. The main structures were built from foamboard and then lagged with the printed sheets. Once that dried it was a matter of cutting out the battlements.
Keep and gatehouse in place.
I was keen to get the first bit done so I could get an idea of how effective the printed textures would look on the model. It was hard to say when I saw it, and I think this was because it was just the tower in isolation with the rest of the model completed to give it context. When I looked up-close I was impressed with the effect, so I decided that once complete, en masse, it should look alright.
The Keep and the steps to the keep door.
The rest went up a lot quicker than expected. This was mainly due to simple shapes and also because once up, they would be done – there would be no painting required (beyond the edges of the battlements where the foamboard and white cut edges of the paper showed).
The walls start to go up.
To give the model some semblance of being an organic structure that would have been built over time with improvements and changes, I made the towers slightly different sizes. You will also notice that one of them is round (a toilet roll insert!) – perhaps early in the castle’s history it was attacked and a tower was brought down, only to be re-built in latest round style? (Ed: Shades of Rochester Castle?”
The assembled castle
Yes, using printed textures was a good idea because, at scale, it looked like stone, but also because there would be no painting required which meant the model was finished much quicker than if I’d made other modelling decisions.
The round tower
To finish the base was given a coat of khaki paint and then covered with model railway ballast. And when that was dry some static grass was added – I didn’t put so much in the castle yard since that’s where it would have been trammelled by feet.
Adding the flock.
And that was the model complete, ready for Wakefield, and ready for any other games to be a backdrop for a proper medieval setting.
This week Eric has been busy making some more scenery for Gaslands. Above we have a good looking Gas Station while below are some rocks.
Stephen has started work on building a 15mm medieval castle. This is intended as a nice backdrop to a Wars of the Roses game to re fight the battle of Wakefield.
And lastly this week Marcus is at it again with yet more aircraft. Firstly a Condor german bomber.
And something a bit more modern with a pair of Tu22M3’s.
We start this weeks work in progress Wednesday with some Mech for Battletech. It’s been a very long time since Battletech has been played by members so we are hoping to get a game in soon. Eric has painted up two mechs.
Next up Marcus has been busy painting some more aircraft.
Above we have some HE111’s and below some HE115’s (which I’ve never heard of).
Now we have some adventurers from Stephen, this is apparently Aleecia One-Eye and Bill Mulligan.
Lastly this week Mark J has been painting up some more terrain for an up coming Judge Dredd game.
And some Swiss infantry from Felix for a Lion Rampant army.
Oops, a bit of a scheduling snafu today, but, better late than never, Stephen describes his latest project:
Like a lot of projects, this one started off small and just grew.
Originally, all I wanted was half a dozen elves for games like Song of Blades and Heroes. I looked around at the different options and I saw that buying half dozen metal miniatures was more or less the same cost as buying a box of 30 placcy Oathmark elves, and the extra numbers may give me a few options.
So inevitably this grew and I made them into a Dragon Rampant force.
Because you do, eh?
I like my fantasy to have that ‘alternate history’ vibe to it. You know, what if the ancient Greek heroes really had existed, what if elves and dwarves had existed.
That just sits better with me.
And given that my historical interests lie in the early medieval period (13th century is where my real interest lies) then I thought to myself, ‘let’s imagine the elves as if they were present in 11th century Britain’.
So that’s the aesthetic I’ve gone for, rather than Tolkien or (horror of horrors) the GW look.
The host of Dean
In the Hexham Chronicle, under the year 1138, it is recorded, ‘…after payment then did the aelfson unwrap their bows and they stood with the king’s men and brought upon the Scots a deadly rain of arrows’. This early reference to elves suggests it was they who brought to the English armies the battle tactic of a large body of formed archers that was to prove so popular in later centuries. However, the earliest reference to elves can be found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In the year 855 we find this cryptic reference: ‘And so did Milean, lord of the elves, bring to the king a white horse for his journey to Rome, as was the custom of old for the elves to pay honour to their lord.’ What this suggests is that elves had been known in the country for a long time. A later ASC reference says, ‘King Henry was reminded that Epping had been held by the elves since time immemorial and so the king rendered unto the elves that which he owed’. We also know that in 1322 the elves were no longer present in Britain since Chaucer, writing in 1381 says, ‘he was named Robyn of the Hode / and of Epping aelf he was sired / and with Thomas of Lancaster / he fled with kin and off they all rode.’ – interesting that he has Robin Hood as an elf!
We know that in Britain there were two main elven settlements – one in the forest of Dean, and another in Epping. Both of these were royal forests so it is unknown exactly what the relationship between the elven communities and the crown was. Undoubtedly the elves would have sworn fealty to the English crown as sovereign, and it is known they generally supported the English throne on matters (the exception being in 1171 when the elven court were signatories to a papal letter for Henry II’s involvement with the Thomas Beckett affair).
The elves that I have collected represent those from the Enclave of Dean (as the elves referred to the forest). This can be seen by their preference for red trimmings – those from Epping preferring blue. It’s not known if this was a fixed coloration (because there are many exceptions) or if it was just a general trend.
The Lord and Lady of Dean
The Lady and Lord of Dean
These two form the main leaders of the elven force.
The Lady is a single-model hero and I have her as Light Foot with the short-range missiles upgrade (to represent magical flurries of thorns and brambles) and also the full spellcaster upgrade. She is a Ral Partha model.
The Lord is also a single-model hero and I have marked him up as Elite Foot with the missiles upgrade.
Forest Guardians
Forest Guardians
These are the minor nobles – well-equipped and armoured. I have John Lambert to thank for these because he kindly donated some chainmail clad torsos from one of the Gripping Beast sets, which I then kept themed using the spare heads and arms from the Oathmark box. The shields came from the spares box and I went with 11th century Byzantine shield designs because that way they would both be period specific but also different.
They are Heavy Foot – with no other upgrades. I was desperate to avoid the elves as ‘super humans’ because it’s not a trope I like, so I resisted giving them the offensive upgrade.
The Company of the Glade and The Company of the Gloom
The Company of the GladeThe Company of the Gloom
These are two archer units made from the Oathmark box. This is pretty much as they come. I decided not to put them in a uniform, because I don’t like that look. So they got random colours but I worked from a limited palette to help tie them together.
In deciding what these are I was again in a dilemma. They’re elves, so they must be expert archers, right? Well, yes, I suppose so. But I decided the elven reputation for archery would come from their preference for large numbers of archers rather than being a horde of Robin Hoods. So I have them as Light Missiles, and bravely fought off the temptation to give them the sharpshooter upgrade. However, that remains an option if I need to up the points cost.
Oak, Ash and Thorn
Oak, Ash and Thorn; the Treekin
These represent the elves’ main allies – the forest itself. I have called these Treekin and they represent the spirit of the forest. The phrase ‘oak, ash, and thorn’ is a description that was given to ancient woodlands, so it seems right. These are also from Ral Partha.
I have these as a reduced model unit of Elite Foot. I decided against Lesser Warbeasts because I felt that troop type was too brittle and didn’t reflect the nature of the troops. I almost nearly made them a Greater Warbeast unit, but the Elite Foot stats seemed right.
Lightfoot and Kin
Lightfoot and Kin
Forgive me, a moment’s whimsy. There’s not much to say here. They are faeries, pixies, sprites – call them what you will. Again, sourced from Ral Partha.
What they are is a unit of Scouts with the invisibility upgrade.
So that’s my new elven force.
The problem is that there’s still room in the box for more. And we all know what that means…
For our recent Stargrave jaunt to the planet of Aqua Sulis, the five players were required to bring a boat. It could be anything that floated in, on or above the water, there were no design rules. Here we run over the various tubs, buckets and hulks that were served up.
Eric
Eric went for a laser-cut survey shuttle from Blotz that could obviously float on the surface of the sea. He should have done a little better with the security features, since it turned out to be very easy to break down the back door, shoot the pilot and steal the boat.
Andy
A few months ago, Stephen said he would run a Stargrave scenario based on a Waterworld location, and asked us to build some form of maritime transport.
I did a web search for 28mm boats, and amongst the hits was a Special Operations Craft-Riverine (SOC-R) from AnyScaleModels.
The main hull is around 7” long and 2.25” wide. Plenty of room for my crew I thought.
I needed to make it look a bit more Sci Fi than modern, so I asked Tony at Brigade if he had some suitable engine nacelles I could scrounge, he came up with some from their 15mm Perseus VTOL. I also had a few other bits and pieces from Brigade in the bits box: some Sensor turrets and some Heavy Laser guns from their Mercenary range.
Both the boat and engine nacelles had a few air bubbles that needed to be filled, I used some Humbrol Model filler for this. After drying and sanding down, the boat components and nacelles were washed in soapy water and allowed to dry.
The wings attached to the nacelles were quite thin, 2-3mm at most, this required that I drill and pin the short wings to the boat hull, as a glue only joint wouldn’t be sufficient.
I decided to mount the engine nacelles roughly amidships, in line with the pilot’s seat and control panel. I drilled a hole for the sensor turret in the front deck. On reflection I might have offset the pilot’s seat to one side rather than have it central.
Once the superglue had dried, I primed the boat with Halford’s grey primer, and then gave the boat a coat of Warpaint Soviet Green.
Once the Soviet Green had dried, I painted the sensor lens, engine intakes and exhaust matt black, I painted some of the boat’s hatches Gunmetal Grey.
I then painted the detail on the control panel, matt Black dials and Crystal Blue screens. The pilot’s seat was painted Khaki Grey. The final touch was silver on the wing leading edge lights and red and green navigation lights, touching up any errors with Russian Uniform WWII, which I found to be almost an exact match for the Warpaint Soviet Green spray paint
Once the model was dry, I gave it washes, Military shader on the green areas, Dark Tone on the metal hatches and engine nacelle grills and Strong Tone Wash on the seat.
I then had a hunt through my transfer box and found some very old decals from a couple of Airfix kits; some registration numbers from a Swedish Boeing Vertol CH-46 Sea Knight and name plates “Apollo” from a Churchill Tank kit. I also found a couple of DANGER decals from another helicopter kit.
I painted a layer of gloss varnish over the areas to which I intended to apply the transfers, which, considering their age, went on easily without breaking up.
Once the decals had dried, I gave the boat a couple of coats of matt varnish, and here she is, the Apollo, ready to venture forth in Waterworld.
Phil
When Stephen suggested the Waterworld game I thought that I would pass just because it involved building a boat and I really wasn’t sure I could be bothered. Then with a couple of weeks to go he asked me I was up for the game and I agreed.
Bum, now I needed to come up with a boat.
Fortunately this proved to be a fairly simple affair. Hidden away in a corner of my cellar were a few Games Workshop kits that I had been bought as presents many years ago. Combining bits from a couple of these gave a simple boat / skimmer that could fit my entire ship’s company.
The main part of the hull came from a 40K Tau Tidewall floaty thing. The exact model doesn’t seem to be available anymore but a couple of similar ones are still on the GW website. The dome at the back game from an Age of Sigmar Grundstock Gunhauler – another floaty thing. By chance the dome piece fitted precisely on a flat part at the back of the Tau model. Nice and easy.
Painting was also straight forward. A spray of GW Zandri dust and some complementary reds and browns from Wargames Foundry. And of course the obligatory GW washes to finish. It only took a day to make which was better than I expected.
Tim
Tim was the only one to go fully scratchbuilt, with a cross between a canal barge and a WW2 landing craft made from foam card. The cogs and wheels were ‘liberated’ from his wife’s craft supplies (we wonder if she knew ?). Looks like a bit of a pig to steer, but it was a cunning move to make it this long since the prow of Tim’s boat started 6″ further into the table than anyone else !
Tony
Finally, Tony went down the Don Johnson/Miami Vice route with a full-on speedboat. It started out as an accessory for a 6″ action figure – origin unknown. It was purchased from a bootfair for 50p, so who’s complaining ? I ripped out the existing cockpit, fitted a new plasticard floor, jump seats, engine and other bits and pieces from my spares box and gave it a quick respray complete with go-faster stripes. Only it didn’t go any faster since it spent most of the game being boarded by giant frogs or dragged down by a sea kraken.
It’s Wednesday again and we have some more work from members.
First up Stephen has taken a very wide departure from his usual dark ages and medieval projects and has had the sudden urge to paint up some WW2 T34’s.
Next up Tony has some 6mm sci-fi miniatures that were part of the Hammers Slammers game at the open day this year.
Marcus has also made some progress on his Tumbling dice jets and alien plants we saw last week.
And last but not least this week we have Eric’s boat for the recent Stargrave meets waterworld game.
We are planning on doing a blog post showing all teh boats that were created along with a report of the game its self.
We took a short summer break from our WIP posts but we return this week with some interesting efforts from our members.
Stephen is putting together a Stargrave meets Waterworld game and has asked players to create a vehicle to transport crews around a waterlogged landscape. Above is the beginning effort from Tony F, while below Andy has gone for a different approach.
Next up Stephen has been painting up some miniatures that will work as gods for the Gods and Mortals game from Osprey. This one is clearly meant to be Thor.
Eric has been putting together some scenery for Gaslands with some MDF kits.
And last but not least for this week Marcus has been influenced by the recent Top Gun film and started on some suitable jets from Tumbling Dice.
Good to see the membership slapping some paint on again.
At our recent Open Day I ran a 6mm sci-fi game using the Hammer’s Slammers:The Crucible rules. I created a lot of new desert terrain for the event and thought I’d write up some of the methods I used to create it. If you want to read about the game itself, there’s a report on the Hammer’s Slammers website with lots of photos of the game in action.
Sacred Sands
One major component of almost every item of terrain is the ground texture. I used a mixture of sand (bird cage sand from a pet shop), household emulsion paint and PVA glue in a ratio of roughly 3:2:1. I had a litre of paint mixed by my local B&Q to match Army Painter’s Skeleton Bone spray paint (I sprayed a small square of plastic card which they stuck in their scanner) for a very reasonable £18. I made up batches of the ground texture mix in an ice-cream tub so that it was always ready to go – and after building all of the terrain below I have about 2/3rds of the paint left.
Once dry, the ground was washed with a decent coat of Citadel sepia shade, then drybrushed with Citadel Tyrant Skull. This pretty simple method gave me a quick to apply, good looking and consistently repeatable ground texture.
I scoured eBay for suitable grass tufts in various sizes and shades of dry grass and found a good pair of sources in Boontown Metals and Serious-Play. These were used sparingly, the desert was supposed to be arid.
Happiness is the Road
The roads were made them from Busch model railway roads, which are a sort of very thin self-adhesive foam with markings printed on in white. The two-lane roads were 40mm wide, maybe a little overscale but some sci-fi tanks are pretty big so they look fine. As a base I used 3mm sheets of black Foamex – this is less likely to warp, as card or MDF is prone to. The edges were roughly bevelled with a knife and textured. I made some T junctions and crossroads by butting up sections of road surface and drawing in the road markings with a white acrylic paint pen.
2-4-6-8 Motorway
I had visions of making a big four-lane highway for a couple of reasons – firstly, it would be an impressive large terrain piece, which 6mm scenery can sometimes lack, and secondly it would cut down lines of fire and prevent heavy tanks dominating the battlefield and being able to fire from one side of the table to the other (heavy tank guns have no maximum range in Hammer’s Slammers). The motorway was mounted on 2″ thick insulation foam – I used normal white polystyrene, pink or blue foam would have been better but I already had the polystyrene to hand. This was cut into four 8″ wide, 18″ lengths with a hand saw – do this outside, it makes one heck of a mess! The edges were then bevelled at a 45° angle with a hot wire cutter resulting in a 4″ wide plateau. I ran two lengths of Busch roads down either side of this plateau, leaving a narrow central reservation. The edges and centre were textured as normal, and I put in a small piece of tiled plasticard in each section – the intention with this is so I could put in road signs at some point, although I haven’t done that yet.
One length was cut in half, and one end of each short length bevelled to match the sides. I scratchbuilt a simple bridge from plasticard and Plastruct girders, which was long enough so that one of my normal two-lane roads could pass underneath. The bridge was made so that it could be lifted out – this was for two reasons; firstly, I thought that attaching the bridge to the two end pieces would be too fragile, and secondly it gave me the option to add a destroyed version later.
I’ve learnt in the past that linear obstacles need more than one crossing point, otherwise you end up with a nasty bottleneck and the whole game ends up revolving around this one point. So I used the hot wire cutter to make two tunnels under the roadway – one larger one which is big enough to take a road, the other smaller one which is big enough for infantry on foot or small vehicles. For the larger one I used a piece of plastic cable trunking to make the concrete tunnel, the small one was made from plasticard. This left three crossing points so gives the attacking side more options. The sides of the embankment are rather steep, too much for heavy vehicles, but I allowed light vehicles (jeeps and infantry skimmers) and infantry on foot to climb them as if in bad going.
Houses in Motion
All of the buildings are from Brigade Models’ various desert-themed resin scenery ranges. I stuck them on more 3mm Foamex with Uhu glue and textured between them with the usual mixture. The buildings were sprayed with Army Painter’s Skeleton Bone, washed with Agrax Earthshade (GW) and drybrushed with Terminatus Stone (GW again). To add a splash of colour, doors and details were painted using GW Contrast Paints which give a decent effect in one coat.
One of my main sources of inspiration for the look of the buildings was the various Star Wars stories set on Tatooine. One standout feature of these is the fabric awnings across the entrances and frontages of many of them. I tried to replicate this using pieces of textured paper hand towels (some nasty thick industrial ones that don’t so much dry your hands as redistribute the water…) which I soaked in watered down PVA and strung across paperclip wire supports. Once dry I used Contrast Paints and drybrushing, often matching the awning colour to the other spot colours on the buildings.
I put some buildings on sections of road which allowed me to do some more interesting things such as a footbridge that passed over the road, or parking bays/side roads. The obelisk outside the tower below comes from Brigade’s 2mm range.
The objective of the game was to capture a series of radar stations that controlled the approach to the nearby starport. These all came from the Brigade range including several with ‘golf ball’ style radar enclosures and another tall tower with a radar on top. I added extra small buildings to the bases of some.
The Temple of Doom
I had a ruined ancient temple that had been cluttering up my office for ages – it was an aquarium ornament picked up from a pet shop. This was stuck on a small polystyrene hill with ramps and steps up to the summit. I repainted it in the same way as the other buildings. I discovered that the resin was rather fragile – it had an accident that lowered the heights of all the columns at one end…
Hanging on the Telephone
I scratchbuilt some simple telegraph poles using lengths of cocktail stick and short pieces of plastic strip for the crossbars superglued together, based on 20mm wooden discs from The Works. Ground texture, a single coat of brown contrast paint and a quick drybrush and they were done.
We Got the Power
In a box in my shed o’ stuff I unearthed three 3D printed power pylons, bought back in the days when they were still a sensible price on Shapeways. These were duly stuck on Foamex bases, sprayed with gray primer and drybrushed – again, job done and some welcome height added to the board.
Blood on the Track
A monorail ran across the town, made from Brigade Model’s elevated track and a selection of freight wagons. The pylons were based on 30mm wooden discs and the track was painted in the same way as the buildings. I initially painted the track silver and washed it but that made it too dull, so I went over the rail again with a silver paint pen to make it brighter.
And finally, a few shots of the game on the day. The Slammer’s Regiment (silver hovertanks) were mostly painted by Jon Roche, the Zaporoskiye Regiment in their superb green/white/brown urban camo’ were painted by Mark Johnson. The blue tracked vehicles are Guardforce O’Higgins, painted by me.
It’s Wednesday again and here we have this weeks offering from the members.
Above Stephen has painted up some Elves from the Oathmark range of miniatures.
Next up Mark J has continued to expand his Saxon army. And a mdf towerblock for a Judge Dredd game he is planning. And finally for this week Eric has painted up a team captain of the Draconis All Stars neo-bot team for Dreadball.
Also Eric has painted up a rather impressive 3D printed miniature, apparently this is Helgor Haim from CustomForge UK. See you next Wednesday.
And a mdf towerblock for a Judge Dredd game he is planning.
And finally for this week Eric has painted up a team captain of the Draconis All Stars neo-bot team for Dreadball.
See you next Wednesday.
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