Category Archives: Terrain and Buildings

New Project – Pt 1

Miniatures, Terrain and Buildings, World War II

Crummy weather, bad sports TV,  and an injured leg made for a busy wargame weekend here at The Pine Cone Lodge.

Focus was on my Tanks board and scenery.  As previously discussed, the game comes with a few quality 2-D terrain and building pieces. However, I wanted to go 3-D, but on a budget.  Battle Mats can be expensive at $30+ a throw for a 3×3 foot piece.

Last Thursday, I realized that a mat could be fabricated using thin, plastic, kitchen cutting mats.  I couldn’t find any at the Dollar Store, but Freddies had them at $4.99 for two 12×18 inch mats.   Needed six, so I shelled out the $15 bucks, then bought a can of green textured spray paint for another $5 or so.  Not quite the required 3×3 playing area, but close enough (which should be/is the motto of my wargaming efforts).

I had some other spray paint lying around that could be used, so economically this project made sense……if it didn’t degenerate into another Gunboat fiasco.   While cruising Freddies discovered that Krylon is making camouflage paints – marketed using the Duck Dynasty crew of all things.  Limited colors, but much much cheaper than shelling out $6+ bucks for a small can of green Model Master paint.

By Saturday morning the garage looked and smelled like a Spray Booth.  I started out with some brown “primer plus paint”.  Let that dry for about 2 hours, then started working with gray and green textured paint.  Let that sit, then started random sprays from stray cans of medium and dark green flat modeling paint, along with a few shots of an almost empty can of Krylon khaki.

 

New Project – Progress

Back of Beyond, Miniatures, Terrain and Buildings

Have spent a lot of time over the past week working on the Middle/Near East/Central Asia Village project.  Lots of blood, sweat and spackle.

Finally have them primed and spot painted, ready for brush and dry brush work.  I “spot painted” most of the buildings with random swatches of desert sand, medium green, and light brown spray to break up the under shading once I start dry brushing.  Dunno, worth a try.

There is a mosque, two large houses, two small houses, and a market building.  I think the scale is about right, and am anxious to get them on the table.  The minaret is problematic right now.  Have to figure out where/how to attach it.  So, it looks a little wonky in the photos.

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New Project

Back of Beyond, Miniatures, Renaissance, Terrain and Buildings

Decided to focus on putting together the ubiquitous Middle Eastern and/or Central Asian town and/or village for Back of Beyond and/or battles with Renaissance Turks and/or Persians.  OK, I will  not and/or again.

This is a project well suited for my (lack of) modeling capabilities.  My architectural models make the town in Cabinet of Dr. Caligari look like the work of Mies Van Der Rohe.  No square corners, even walls, or precision cuts required for this one.  Just get a sharp skill knife, plenty of foamcore and balsa, lather on the Elmers, cover up most defects with spackle and voila!

Plan to have two large homes, one smaller house, market building and a mosque.  Should spruce things up on the table.  Won’t terrify you with work in progress photos.  However, here’s a couple of shots of things after the carnage of basic construction.  Will add domes, awnings and other domestic touches over the next few days.

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Tangled Up In Barbed

Miniatures, Terrain and Buildings

Now that I have a general grasp of Red Actions!, it’s time to work on game/period specific terrain and buildings to complement my old Geo Hex terrain system (here’s some  backstory on what happened to the company).

I’ve messed around with on-line research on Central Asian architecture, but just haven’t been ready to start working on structures.  So, I decided to focus on something that has a practical application to tactical situations; a trench system.  The challenge with this is GeoHex.  When you remove the tiles, you get a lower level of a little over 1/2 inch in depth.  Ugh…another design problem.

Seeking a path of least resistance, the decision was made to start work on the barbed wire entanglement placed in front of the trench.

Without going through all the bloody details, the entanglement has to be 36 inches long.  The longest available bass wood section is 24 inches by 3 inches.  So, two sections, with barely enough room for my troops.

I started by marking 3/4 inch (and later 1 inch) sections on wood dowels.  I drilled two holes in each section, intending that wire would be run through each hole.  The next step was to cut the dowel sections and mount them on the 24 inch base Beta.

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As I was gluing in the second row of posts, I realized that I needed to make room for individual stands. What’s the use of something like this if your troops can’t “use” it?   I was able to create separate “sections” of the entanglement by placing posts at intervals connecting each lateral post line.  I then ran thin metal wire through the holes.  This was tedious and somewhat frustrating – especially when I missed a post and had to restring.  Many expletives later, it was time to prime, add ballast and talus, painting all of this with a basic coat of brown and splotches of green.

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To finish things off, the posts and talus were dry brushed, and fine turf added.  Gunmetal was used to paint the wire.  Here’s a few shots of the finished product.

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New challenge:  I have to complete the 12 inch section, and make it look like the 24 incher.  Good luck on that!  What’s that old saying…”Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Small Minds”

What Is It?

Miniatures, Terrain and Buildings

This weekend’s distractions were not limited to Heroes of Normandie (HoN).  My new Dirt Devil caused another problem.

I enjoy scratch building items.  Not that good at it, but I like doing it and find the cost of purchasing terrain and/buildings can be just too much.  After the winter holidays, I haunt stores look for drastically marked down buildings and trees that can be primed and repainted.  But, I’m always on the lookout for a piece of styrofoam, balsa, plastic, card, foam, etc. etc. etc. that might be used at some future date to build something.

Back  to the Dirt Devil.  While unpackaging it, I was intrigued by the two corrugated cardboard end caps.

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The piece at the top had the general appearance of a castle or fort with a keep.  On further study, a part of the bottom piece looked like a fourth wall.  By cutting off the end of the second piece, and attaching it, the rough outline of this fortification(?) became clearer.

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A decision had to be made; keep working with this or throw it away.  Oh…..why not?  Using left-over balsa bits and spackle, I built up the walls.

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Then priming, and punching some holes in the towers to represent windows/firing positions.

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Next step was an initial quick random spraying with dark brown, light brown and desert sand.  The corrugated cardboard really sucked up the paint.

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The final steps were to figure out the dry brushing and flock the base.  The first few dry brush attempts seemed to be too dark.  So I lightened up the light sand shade even more, and wound up with something that was OK.  The flock with ballast, and dry  brushing the  small rocks was easier.

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You’ll notice the base curling up.  Used thin card.  Mistake.

After all this work, the question is “What is It”?  When started, I thought it might be a deteriorating desert citadel.  It also looks like a cheap Sci-Fi special effect from the ’50s, or a crude (and discarded) mockup of a set for “Dune“.   Too big for DBA, too small for a siege scenario, but maybe a nice item to PUB my Irregular Wars battlefields.

Dunno. Whatever happens it was an interesting little project and it’s finished.