Battle of Almanza, In Napoleonics

Hello There! The New Buckenham Historical wargamers club recently played a large weekend game.

Based on the Battle of Almanza, (1707), was fought using figures from a number of club members Napoleonic figures. 

Using the Shako II Napoleonic rules, with club modifications, a large number of club members played or visited during the day.

Here are some lovely photos of some of the figures involved.

You can find more pictures of the game on the New Buckenham clubs Facebook page here.

Modular Scenery Storage Rack

Hello There. After making all this terrain I was beginning to find that I was rapidly running out of space to work. I had some space in the cabin to put up a rack system so that the standard size tiles could be slid away safely until use.

Here is the terrain so far. There will be scenery suitable for the desert and North West Europe, (which shall also double for the American Civil War and Napoleonics).

The far right hand side has terrain which is awaiting it covering of flock while most of the middle column is desert.

The far left is the small 300mm x 600mm tiles with some 300mm x 300mm doubled up one tile behind the other.

I painted the rack 'Victory Green' from the Frenchic range, in keeping with some of the other book shelves in the cabin.

While most of the shelves, (each shelf has two runners of 19mm x 19mm planed timber to hold the edges of each terrain piece), and are equally spaced, the railway embankment on the top of the narrower column has required the shelves to be spaced further apart.

Also the first part of the desert wadi was heavy at either side of the tile but had no support in its centre, so had to have an extra bar across the front of the rack to support it. 

This impromptu project was swiftly completed and has allowed me to continue to build scenery os a large cleared table.

Desert Terrain Drop on Rocks

 Hello there! In the past I have scattered loose Cotwold Buff stone chippings on my desert boards, which has taken a long time to tidy up afterwards.

For this terrain system I decided to make things a little easier on myself by making some drop on terrain items.

The smaller stones are Cotwold Buff chippings again while the larger pieces came from an aquarium shop many years ago, (Yes another, Just in case I need it' item).

The think I liked about the larger rock outcrops was that they had a subtle ping vein in them and looked very 'desert wind blown' so suitable for my needs. I can also add a subtle spray of a suitable colour to mimic this on other items.

I have not painted the bases of these yet, as I will paint them all together with the rest of the desert terrain.

Modular Terrain Part Three

Hello There! As you will see I have been busy building up the terrain for the desert. The last blog post on the modular terrain is here. Since then I have built a number of scenic tiles and a rack to store it on safely.

The plain flat tiles do have some subtle folds in the ground to provide a potential hull down situation for any tanks used in games. The tiles are 600mm x 600mm with some of the slopes and flat areas being 600mm x 300mm and 300mm x 300mm.

The sides are timber and square so they butt up to each other. The base in 3.6mm thick plywood.

Once the styrofoam is glued in place and dry it is then sculpted with a Stanley surform. Then the bigger gaps in the foam and around the edges of the foam and timber edges are filled with a small amount of tile adhesive and allowed to dry overnight.

I do this as applying on thick coat of tile adhesive, and filling the gaps at the same time takes many days to set hard. 

The complete surface is then covered in tile adhesive and spread evenly using a wide blade scraper. To ensure the surface is smooth I then used a 2" wide, wet paint brush to gently smooth out any raised points. 

If you require the surface of the tile to be flat, I used the edge of a steel rule to draw across the surface. The above illustration is a sloping tile and I wanted the surface to be level.

Next a layer of watered down PVA glue was applied over the whole surface and various combinations of fine gravel, sand and sawdust was applied to the surface and allowed to dry. This may take a couple of nights, depending on temperature.. When this has dried thoroughly then I shall paint.

I am now up to the painting part and will describe that in parrt four.