River Tiles - Next Step

Sorry for the delay...its been a busy week.   I'm currently hip deep in sorting out a storage room.  There's nothing quite as liberating, and depressing at the same time, as sorting through various boxes of stuff gathered over the years for projects yet done (or even started!).   Stuff like various bits of fake fur, welcome mats, turf, wood bits, box after box of lead waiting to see the light of day, more boardgames than I could play in a lifetime, various rolled up maps, craft christmas trees waiting for conversion to wargaming trees....and the odd discovery of stuff that I'd sworn I had but couldn't find.   For example - a while back I was bitten by the bug to paint some Churchill tanks for my 25mm WW2 collection.  I KNEW that I had previously bought 3, but could never find them.   After a while, I thought "maybe I imagined that I bought them....".    So, today while cleaning I found the 3 original Churchill tanks I bought, plus the 3 ADDITIONAL Churchill tanks I'd purchased because I'd convinced myself that I never bought the first 3.     Oops.    Onward and upward.

Next up on the river tiles was first to give a heavy spray of Dullcote to the caulking river bed.  This seals it and keeps sand from the next step sticking to it.   After that was allowed to dry, I applied a bead of yellow carpenter's glue to the bank areas and then covered that with my sand/ballast basing mixture.  This is the stage shown in the photo below.

Next, I'll paint the sand areas with a diluted earth brown, and drybrush with American Mississippi Mud and Driftwood.   The sand areas will be finished to match my figure basing style.   I'll post an update with that later this week.

Tomorrow is the first day of OTA's (organized team activities) for the Broncos.....with PEYTON MANNING!!!!!!   I am SOOOOO excited for the NFL season to get here this year since the Broncos will have their first legit QB since the big guy (that's John Elway) retired.

Making River Tiles - Part 2

Step 2 goes fast.  Put a bead of caulking in the center of the river bed.  Smooth that out with your finger.  You'll want to keep paper towels on hand as this is messy.

Take the handy dandy caulk river texture smoothing device (aka cheap paintbrush from Home Depot) and dip it in some water.  Run the brush over the caulking to get rid of the large ridges and rough areas from your finger smoothing.   You'll now have something that looks like the photos below.  

Why not just leave the tile surface and paint it as water?   Well....water has texture; it moves, it dips, it raises.  It's not flat like a sheet of steel.   Using caulking gives that movement texture to the river area.

Let this dry overnight, and give the caulk "water" areas a heavy spray of Dullcote or whatever your favorite spray fixative is.   Sealing the caulk will keep bank texture sand from sticking to the water area.

More in the next post as we move the river tile construction forward.

Making River Tiles

Battle 2 of our 1809 campaign uses a terrain layout that requires 2 different rivers on table.  This means that I have to build 2 new river terrain tiles for the game set up.   A good time to summarize the build process!

I use 1.5" wide rivers at the edge.  Measure from each corner so that the river edges line up evenly.  I use a pencil to sketch out the general river course and then score along that sketched line with the utility knife.  Starting at an edge, slowly bend the tile at the scored line...then go to the other edge and start there.  After a few bends, it will snap off cleanly.   Do the other side of the river line similarly.

You now have the two top edges of the tile.   Apply a bead of superglue irregularly around the bottom of the top pieces and place on the full bottom tile, aligning on the corner - using your fingers around the corners to make sure they line up.

There you go - you now have the basic river tile.   Next up is applying texture to the river.   More later.

Start of New 1809 Campaign

We played battle 1 (of 3) in our 1809 campaign season last night.  A close fought battle between the Austrians and Franco/Bavarian alliance, resulting in a slim win for the Austrians.  The Austrians had 3 Army Morale Points (in Field of Battle, 2nd Edition) remaining when the French force failed its army morale test.    After the game, 3 French units were downgraded to "Raw", along with their CiC who falls to "Poor" - undoubtedly its a reflection of his self worth shining through after the loss!

The Austrians fared much better, with 1 unit jumping from "Raw" to "Regular", and 1 line infantry unit going from "Regular" to "Crack"!

Bad things coming for the French!

Some photos from the game:

Bavarian John surveys the battlefield.  The large hill mass in the center of the battlefield was key to both army's deployments.

Genl. Chris' heavily Hungarian command moves under cover of the hill.

Bitter fight for the town ends with the French evicting the Hungarians.

Furious firefight between Tony's Austrians and John's Bavarians.

Austrians form square, because of.....

These guys!

Rationalizing my Collections

So - I finally got around to re-organizing my library, storing some books, placing others in the "give away" pile.   I'm pretty happy - nothing beats the satisfaction of spring cleaning and bringing things back in to order.   Next is my storage closet for boardgames and as yet unstarted miniatures projects, to be followed by my under table storage of project materials and unpainted figures.

When I was sorting through books, it struck me that there were periods and books for which I was just NEVER going to do any miniature gaming.   A combination of events - organizing my library and watching the movie "Warhorse" brough that into focus for me.  

As an example, I have a great interest in WW1.   My WW1 library had grown to about 4 shelves of materials.   Watching Warhorse proved to be a fairly depressing event for me....the bleakness of the trench warfare scenes, the brutality to the horses...I'm an animal lover, so those parts were hard to watch.

What it did, however, was bring into focus what I most likely wouldn't game - for example, 1915-mid 1918.    I had a lot of books on that period...the Somme, Gallipoli, etc.    I just don't want to game it.  However - I DO want to game 1914, and the open period of 1918.   Just a completely different war than the middle years.

So - those books on the Somme, Gallipoli, etc., are off the shelf, as are the big "picture" books, Time Life series of ACW books, etc.   The stuff that was "nice to have" on the shelf made way for the "got to have" on the shelf.

It's really been nice to identify my main interests:

ACW
Napoleonics
FPW
Austro-Prussian
SYW
AWI
Zulu War
Sudan Wars
Early/Late WW1
WW2
Ancient - Rome/Gauls/Germans, Successor Wars, Punic Wars
Medieval - WoR, Crusades

These are all periods that I have stuff for, either "finished" collections, pieces of collections, or boxes of materials waiting for their turn.

Looking at the above list, it doesn't look like much of a reduced list!  However, it does help me avoid the temptation of doing "oddball" periods - Paraguayan war, Chaco War, Mexican Revolution.   It struck me that its OK to be interested in historical knowledge, but some periods are just not what I want to game.   

Enough of that - a quick photo to finish up the post.

Pulse of Battle: Ancients Rebased

I finished up the basing for the ancients that I have complete.  Some photos below of components of a Macedonian/Successor army, along with a Greek (mercenary?) hoplite unit and 3 bands of Gauls.

I'll add more closeups in a later post.

As you can see, my army isn't done - still need light foot units (bow, sling, javelin), plus some elephants, and extra heavy cavalry.   This is, however, the core of my "Macedonianish" pike-centric army.  It will do battle against Persians, itself (in Successor battles) and my Romans. 

Terrain Tiles: Roads

Continuing my "how I did it" posts for my terrain tiles - today I'll go through making the road sections.

All the finish stages (paint, flock, clear) are the same.  The only difference is the road surface and finish.

I mark the area (roughly) where the road will be.   I then spray paint that area with a brown paint - a shade you want to show as the shadow or base when you scratch in the ruts in the surface.   I use Rustoleum flat brown spray paint (from Home Depot!).  

After that area is dry, use a pencil to mark out the boundaries of the road.  My roads are 1.5" wide.  Make 'em however wide you want.   In my opinion, most wargame roads are way way too wide.  1.5" fits my stand width and is acceptably wide to my eye.

Next, apply a bead of caulking to the marked out area.   I use Dap Dynaflex 230, Cedar Tan.  This is a great color because it doesn't need any repainting, and its a nice neutral road color.  Check out the photos.   Smooth this out to the marked roadway edges across the width of the tile.  Doesn't have to be real smooth, but you don't want shark fin waves either! 

Now, while still wet, scratch in the ruts.  I use the edge of a craft stick (popcicle stick).  Push down until you pull the caulk away from the brown painted surface below; it leaves a nice dark brown rut that looks great.

Let that dry overnight.   Spray with dullcote to seal the slightly tacky surface.

Next day, I run a bead of yellow carpenters glue along both edges.  While wet, drop on a mix of sand and ballast.   Let that sit until dry.

Mix up a diluted batch of brown paint (I use Anita's Earth Brown acrylic craft paint) and flow that onto the sand/ballast edges.   Let dry.

Now you'll want to highlight the road and ballast.   I drybrush across the road using a cheapo 1"wide brush (from Home Depot!), picking up and emphasizing the surface variations and rut edges.   I use American Driftwood craft paint.   Finish off the road edges as you wish.  I do them with the same colors as with my unit stands so there is a consistency and theme in my collection (drybrush with American Mississippi Mud, Driftwood, paint larger rock areas black, drybrush with 2 to 3 shades of gray).  

As the last step, I add a few blobs of carpenters glue along the ballast/sand edges and stick in some static grass.  Let dry, brush off and highlight with a yellow drybrush.

Finish the grass areas adjacent to the roadways as in my earlier post - roll on paint, sift flock, dry, shakeoff, roll on clear - just on the flocked grass areas.


You're done!

Photos below of the set in progress.  You can also check older posts that show the terrain tiles with roads in a game setting.