Another Trio of Terrain

Here are a trio of terrain pieces I painted/made for our Siege of Delhi game.

The first is a mosque from (I believe) JR Miniatures. I bought this around two decades ago, but only recently based and painted it. It is rough by today's standards, and you can certainly find many better models in MDF or 3D prints, but I think it has its Old World charm.

And our second model today is indeed a 3D resin print of Red Copper Miniatures' Arab Souk, shown here with some Essex miniatures porters and Red Copper's Arab civilians. The print came in two main pieces - the ground level and the upper floor - with the trade goods being separate, small pieces, which made painting easier.

Finally, here is a cardboard building I made, meant to represent Hindu Rao's House at the Siege of Delhi. The structure is made using cardboard, reinforced with Jenga blocks, and the exterior is from Iliada Games Studio. It is by no means an accurate model, but I think it feels right for the period.

Hindu Rao House defended by the Sirmoor Battalion

Empires at War 28mm Spanish/Italian Set

For our Peninsular War skirmish project, I bought a set of MDF buildings from Empires at War.

These are excellent kits. I bought the "prepainted" version, which meant that the external faces of the walls were coated with a textured sandstone coloured paint. This served as both a primer and basecoat for the walls. Once assembled, I used a large make-up sponge to dab white paint over the surfaces, avoiding the bases of the walls and around doors and windows, which gave a weathered look to the buildings.

The pantile roofs were styrene sheets, while the spines of the roofs were provided in the form of a coloured, scored dowels; a coat of watered-down red-brown craft paint tied the two together, and provided the weathering effect.

One of the packs came with a frame missing, and so I couldn't build a storage bin on the side of the building, and had to make my own doors out of balsa - but it was an easy fix.

I will certainly buy from the range if I want to expand my collection of pantile roof buildings.

Printable Scenery Country Low Walls

With our recent focus on 28mm skirmish wargaming, I wanted to add a set of low stone walls to my terrain collection. I wanted something that would work for both Northern Europe and Iberia, and preferably for both 28mm and 20mm.

I ended up getting a set of Country Low Walls from Printable Scenery. The seller I bought it from printed it at a resolution where you can see the print lines. To avoid emphasising the print lines, I dispensed with washing, and  highlighted by dabbing instead of drybrushing.

The walls are scaled for 28mm, but as my figures are based on slotta bases, the walls reached just to their waists.

I primed the pieces grey, picked out individual stones in red brown, yellow brown, dark green, and dark grey, then dabbed the whole thing with medium grey. This helps the walls blend with both the green mat I use for our Northern European games, and also the arid map we use for our Iberian games.

In terms of height the walls work well for 20mm, as shown by these Spanish Civil War figures from Minairons Miniatures. The individual stones do look a little big though.

As part of research for buying and painting the walls I read a few websites on dry stone walls in Europe. It's a rather fascinating subject and worth learning about if you have some free time.

Blotz Dark Age Watchtower

After our first game of Ruckus, I wanted to use my other LOTR figures with the rules too. I own a small force of Rohirrim, but I needed some terrain pieces with verticality to fully utilise the potential of the rules.

The first thing that came to my mind was of course a Rohan style watchtower, which I have thought about scratch-building before. I googled for some ideas, and came across Blotz's Dark Age Watchtower.

The kit itself is not expensive, but shipping was a bit high, but a recent sale they had made me bite bullet.

The kit is built almost 'as is'. I beveled the edges of the base, and made some cuts on the MDF to give the timber a less regular appearance.

The genius of their design is that they made the distinctive horse-head finials a part of the roof piece (which lifts off) rather than the columns, which made it easier to access the cabin of the tower, as well as allow the gamer to perhaps build a different roof for a non-Rohan force.

Scatter Terrain

To improve the spectacle of our games, I have been making some scatter terrain pieces, chiefly using cork bits glued to a base, some sand and gravel, painting the bases to match my mats, and then adding tufts.

Recently I decided to make some bushes bases, and bought some ready-made tufts - the ones with yellow flowers in the photo above. On advice of Nowfel, I decided to make some more unruly shrubbery, but was unable to settle on a quick and simple method despite searching on Youtube, until I found this:

I had bought a pack of these new scouring pads to use, and while washing my dishes one day I realised that the colour of the pad meant I could use them as the 'branches' of my bushes without needing to paint them. So I tore one up, shaped and trimmed the pieces tot he shape I wanted, hot-glued them to a base, painted them with diluted PVA, and scattered fine foam on them. I am quite pleased with the results.

I also made some 'rough ground' terrain pieces for my arid mat, which will serve both as scatter terrain, as well as indicators for Rough Ground grids in the grid-based wargames.

Another Bus get the Rust

A few weeks ago Adrian ran a game of Mutant Year Zero: Zone Wars game for us. In preparation for the session I watched the video by Free League. I was impressed by the terrain of the board they used for the demo, particularly by the abandoned bus, and decided to make something similar.

For Zone Wars, I needed a larger model, in 28mm scale. I managed to find a plastic toy of an appropriate scale.

The toy was taken apart, and I removed the soft rubber rear-view mirrors, the window panes, the tyres, and the electronics and wind-up mechanism. I then spray-primed the model with a red-brown primer, and then sponged it all over with orange and dark brown paint to create a rust effect. As I wasn't sure how much weathering I would be doing at this point, I created the effect all over the model.

I then covered the model with salt for the salt-chipping process. Unfortunately the high humidity meant that the effect wasn't exactly how I hoped it would turn out.

Once the salt has dried (as much as it would) I sprayed he model with yellow paint, and when that had dried I brushed off the salt. At this point the model still looked a bit off, and I decided to add a black stripe across the sides. As this would be a terrain piece rather than a playing piece, I left the interior in primer brown, and just picked out the lights.

The result is shown above, alongside the two other school bus models I already owned in smaller scales: a 10mm scale one from the Dropzone Commander range, and a 20mm scale one which I made using a diecast metal toy, with bits from the Northstar Gasalands conversion bits to make it look like the smaller one.

Terrain and Movement Trays from Supreme Littleness Designs

I apologise for going "recipe blog" mode in this post, but...

Like many wargamers, I too have been swept up in the Midgard Madness and bought a copy of the rules. I plan to use them with my GW LOTR figures, which I have several of, but not enough if I used the typical 8 or 10 figures per unit for infantry, and so I settled for units of 6 (3 for foot skirmishers).

As my figures are singly-based, I needed movement trays. Most wargamers seem to favour Warbases for this - they even have a range of movement trays just for Midgard - but I needed movement trays with 6 slots. In addition, FG already has several movement trays with 6 slots (which he got back in the day when we played Dux Britanniarum), and these had frontages of just shy of 9cm, instead of the typical 12cm.

A bit of googling brought up the Supreme Littleness Designs site, which happily offered movement trays with 6 slots. What's more, they offered them in straight as well as wavy edges - I have been wanting to try irregular-edged movement trays to see how they blend with my mats - and instead of using MDF for the base, they used thin cards, which I prefer.

And since we were paying for postage, FG and I ordered some kits from their Frozen City Ruins range.

The two MDF buildings you see in the top photo are from them. I made a few cuts on the edges of the walls so that not all angles were right angles, then painted the pieces with a slurry made of wall plaster, grey craft paint, and PVA glue. I based them to match my existing "Osgili-esque" buildings, using a textured sheet with York stone pattern for the base instead of the MDF one provided, did a coat of black and then brown wash over them, and garnished the bases with fallen leaves and stones instead of snow.

As for the movement trays, I assembled and then primed them with a brown spray primer (more to seal the cardboard base), then painted them with a basecoat of green mixed to match my mat, and then stippled some brown paint to match the pattern of the mat. Finally, I finished them with some tufts and Geek Gaming Scenics scatter. They are shown below with a measurement template made by FG.

We have actually played a test game of Midgard, and hope to run a game with the rest of the group soon.

A Trio of Terrain Projects

We begin this year with photos of a few terrain projects I have been working on.

The first of these is an "Afghan fort" style building in 15mm which I must have acquired more than two decades ago. I cannot remember who made it, but I doubt it is still in production. It sat in the same box as my adobe buildings all this time, until my renewed interest in the Indian Mutiny made me dig it out again. I decided that it needed to sit on an elevation, and made a low hillock out of cork coasters, including steps which wound its way up. I then textured the hillock, and painted it to match the arid mat which I would use the piece with.

Hopefully it will see some action soon.

The second of these are some cardstock buildings from Paper Terrain, which I bought and built last year when I was planning an Epic scale ACW project. The cardstock isn't really thick, but when based on a stiff base, they look durable enough.

A couple of the buildings were a little trickier to assemble, but they do add interest to the tabletop.

The final one of these is the East Gate of Moria terrain piece. The inspiration for this was Midgard heroic Battles, which I couldn't resist buying. I already own many dwarves and Moria goblins, so naturally my thought turned to the war between these two races as described by Tolkien in the appendix to The Lord of the Rings. The final battle of Azanulbizar took place outside the East Gate of Moria, where Azog slew Nain in single combat, and was in turn slain by Dain Ironfoot. The account of the battle seemed to be exactly the kind of battle Midgard is written for.

I decided to make terrain piece depicting the East Gate of Moria, consisting of an elevation, a gate, and maybe a mountainside. It turned out FG already has a resin dwarven gate/arch, so I was spared the effort of making one. I made the base using corrugated boards, then textured, painted, and added vegetation to it to match the mat we would use it for. Finally, I printed a picture of a dwarven-style gate I found on google and blu-tac'ed it to the arch.

FG and I tried the rules earlier this week, and we plan to run it for the gang later this month, so stay tuned for the battle report.

Sci-fi Sentry Guns

So after our game of Zombicide: Invaders last month our group decided that we will try to progress beyond the first scenario of the campaign.

My part of the endeavour is to make and paint up a sentry gun model.

As Nowfel had printed me a few twin-link lascannons for the dropship project, I decided I would use the remaining guns I had as a basis for the models.

I rummaged through my bits box and found a pair of legs from a Tehnolog walker I bought a long time ago. It was a simple job attaching the lascannons to the legs, and then gluing the legs onto some 40mm round bases I had.

Unfortunately, I laid on the spray primer too thick, which gave the surface an uneven appearance. Instead of stripping and painting the models again, I decided to make them look weathered instead. I also used some weathering powder for the base to hopefully help them blend into the game tiles.

They look rather basic and boring now, but hopefully once I get my hands on some decals I can liven them up a bit.

Dystopian Wars East India Merchant Company Naval Battle Group

A few weeks ago my friend Dave was at a flea market and he saw a box of the old Dystopian Wars East India Merchant Company Naval Battle Group going for S$5. I was not even aware that this faction existed, but it was too good a bargain to pass up, and I asked him to help me grab it. It turned out the previous owner had already primed and magnetised most of the models, so it was a quick job to get the lot (minus the airship, which I still haven't decided if I will paint) painted.

The models have the aesthetics of the old edition of Dystopian Wars, which I much prefer to the more modern look of the current edition. I decided to lean into the "just put buildings on a hull" aesthetics by painting the ships in the "black and white houses" theme.

Example of a Black and White House in Singapore

The black and white houses are a relic of the colonial era - although there are modern houses built in the style too - and I thought it would be a nice in-joke for our group. They also bear some resemblance to the "dazzle camouflage" used during WW1.

Ottoman and East India Company ships clash in the Arabian Sea

The acquisition of the box set also prompted me to finish painting the tiny flyer tokens for my Ottoman fleet, make a few more islands, and to finally buy a sea mat - in this case a piece of quilt fabric from a craft store, which wasn't exactly cheap, but affordable compared to the price of a dedicated wargaming mat. The mat and islands will also prove useful for Thalassa, a set of rules for trireme warfare that comes with the January 2023 issue of Wargames Illustrated, which I have ordered.

The arrival of the East India Company ships has also prompted FG to restart his work on the French, and Adrian on his Prussians. This also shift our theatre of conflict from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arabian Sea.

I have also revised the set of rules I have been tinkering with for this period, and if things go according to plan we will be having a naval bash n April.

Gaslands Gates

I can't remember exactly how it happened, but recently Adrian expressed an interest in Gaslands, and I passed him the rules and the sprue of bits from Northstar, and now he has decided to build a war rig.

I decided I would make some terrain for the game, and so I made a few race gates using materials I had lying around.

Specifically, I used the plastic frame from these mini-whiteboards I bought; these were the cheapest and easiest way to get the ultra-thin steel sheets I wanted to line the plastic trays for my figures with magnetised bases. I broke the frames apart to get at the sheet; the cardboard lining was easy to recycle, but I had no idea what to do with the plastic frames then, and thought it would be wasteful to throw them away.

Fortunately, they were easy to re-purpose as building materials for the gates. I cut them into size, glued them to some resin bases I had, and sprayed them with a coat of black and then grey paint.

The signages were printed on paper, glued to PVC sheets, and then hot-glued to the frame. I based their design on the infamous Electronic Road Pricing gantries.

There are still some frames left over, and I think I might make some crash barriers with them later.

Warzone Eternal and Sci-fi WW1 Photodump

I found out recently that there will be a new version of Warzone called Warzone Eternal that will be launching on kickstarter soon. While I am not looking for a new set of rules, it seems like the figures will be released in small, five-figures packs, which sounds like a good way of supplementing my forces.

I joined their facebook group to keep track of the project, and thought I might as well lay my collection out on my new mat and contribute a few photos to the group, so here they are: 

A Tale of Sludge and Turnip

The two armies face off across a blasted field

FG and I played our first games of Sludge and Turnip28 last week. The two games have overlapping aesthetics, and feature roughly the same types of troops in around the same numbers, so it was natural to try both out.

Foot knights clash

We tried Sludge first, and as this was our first outing we got many of the rules wrong. I find the combat resolution a little too crunchy, but I love guessing ranges and rolling for bounce for the artillery. I am not too sure about the gore tokens, but I suppose once I learn more about my leaders and support characters I will appreciate the mechanic more.

Troops defend the redoubt

We then tried Turnip28, which I thought was going to be a simpler game. There was a bit of book-keeping with the Panic tokens, and we found that units fled too readily. I thought I was going to appreciate the black-powder smoke mechanic, but there were too few units in the game for it to be meaningful. We did play it without all the cult special rules, since none of the cults appealed to us, so perhaps the full game experience is different. I do feel that Turnip28 has the basics of a fun horse-and-musket skirmish game, but its retreat mechanic is obviously tied to its fluff and will need to be modified for a less comical game.

A group shot

This last photo shows (almost) all the figures which I painted for this project. It wasn't a lot of investment in time for me, since most of my existing WOTR/fantasy figures can be used in the game.

We will most likely give Sludge another go, and perhaps play one of the Sharp Practice campaigns if we can get the hang of the rules. I may also want to give Then Men Who Would be Kings rules a try, and see if we can represent some of the fluff with those rules.