Friday, 9 May 2025

Wargame Butterfly? Me? Hmmm....

While the blog has been quiet for a few weeks, I have been anything but quiet when it comes to the hobby. However, I have to confess, I've been massively distracted and wandered off down a few different paths. That said, in my defence, it's not been a matter of new projects, it's been more a matter of taking several projects to the next stage.  

Having said that, one of those probably qualifies as a new project. Why? Because I bought the figures to start something new, even though they don't qualify as a recent acquisition. In time honoured fashion, they were bought on a whim and by the time they arrived my ardour had begun to cool. No longer, I'm pleased to say.

So, what happened? Well, my regular opponent Dave was eager we should give Infamy, Infamy a try. Fine with me, but I have to confess that my knowledge of the broad scope of time that falls under the banner 'ancient period' is not a slice of history I know much about. Naturally, it follows that I don't have any figures for the period in my collection. However, the idea of asymmetric warfare on the borders of the Roman Empire had some appeal. It also coincided with a sale at Victrix. 

That was convenient, because one bag of their Germanic Warriors includes 60 figures, probably just enough for a force for Infamy, Infamy. Order was duly placed; figures arrived; I made up about six of them; became distracted by another project; put them aside, and, there they remained for almost a year.

Jump forward to recently and Dave and I played a game, finally. Dave had Romans, but no Germans, so we proxied some of his Saxons. We both enjoyed the game and needless to say it was the impetus I needed to get moving with those Victrix Germans. In the end it has been a remarkably quick project that is almost complete. It's the 'almost' that's held me up blogging about it, but I thought I'd not wait any longer.

I gave some thought to how I wanted the figures based. The most versatile option would be to base them individually and use sabot bases to move them around in groups during a game. My only issue is that I find sabots have a habit of making the units look too regimented (and yes, I know, you can get sabot bases with the slots in irregular patterns, but there's something about the fact the whole sabot base is square or rectangular that still creates the illusion of a uniform shape. Call me fussy). 

I decided to go down the same path I did for my Mahdists for the Sudan. I would base the figures in 3s, 2s and individually. That way I can remove casualties; keep an irregular shape to the groups, but also have the convenience of multi-based figures to aid movement. It has worked well for the Mahdists.

It wasn't until I'd painted most of the figures that I realised I had run out of suitable MDF bases for the multi-figure basing. Order has been placed and I'm now waiting on delivery to base those figures. In the meantime at least the individually based figures are finished.


The Victrix set gave me enough figures for five groups of ten and a number of leaders, which pretty much gives one of the forces recommended in the army lists in the Infamy, Infamy rule book. Of course, the key phrase here is 'pretty much'. I think we all know what that means.

I needed a few small additions. Groups of skirmishing/missile figures are useful and these can include slingers, archers and javelins. I thought I could solve the slingers quite simply and without purchasing more figures. 

I had a box of Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors and the set includes lots of hands with slings. The easiest solution seemed to be to use the bodies and sling hands from Gripping Beast. To help them blend in and match the other warriors in the force, the heads would come from those left over from the Victrix set. It seemed like a good idea, but it didn't work quite as well as I hoped.

Two things bugged me. Firstly, the Victrix heads appear too big for the Gripping Beast bodies and, secondly, the Gripping Beast poses lacked the dynamism that is so apparent in the Victrix figures. Looking at the Victrix set I could see how several of their bodies would lend themselves well to representing slingers. The solution was to buy a spare sprue online and just make use of the Gripping Beast sling hands. As it happened I thought a few of those GB heads would work okay on the Victrix bodies, which they do. It was the simplest of conversions. By turning the heads on the bodies so the figures were facing side on, it was easy to create an entirely new configuration that gave me the dynamism I was after.


Once painted I was much happier. These looked the part.


I also thinks this speaks to the versatility of plastic figures. I understand completely why some people dislike them, but as someone who has made plastic models all his life, I don't have any issues. In fact, quite the opposite. 

The two figures below are based on the same Victrix torso/body. Aside from the option of using a different head, the only real difference is how the heads are angled. As I've done with nearly all the slinger conversions, the heads are adjusted to face sideways rather than forwards. The end result, a very different looking figure, without the need for complex surgery.


In terms of basing, aside from the 3,2,1 scheme for the main body of warriors, the leaders are on slightly larger bases that will line up with the larger bases I'll use for three figures. To these I've added rocks, these are to help identify which figure corresponds to which leader card while playing the game.




So, that's where I'm at with the Germans. Hopefully I have the remaining figures based soon and ready for a game.

At the same time I've been diverted to painting up a few more figures for my Hundred Years War collection. These are all based on Perry Miniatures plastic sets. I put these together a few years ago to play simple skirmish games like Lion Rampant. To be honest, they don't see much action these days. Lion Rampant works well enough as an introductory game or a quick game on a club night, but it feels too much like a squad based action than something from the medieval period. 


More recently, I've joined in several big games set during the Trojan Wars using Midgard which I've enjoyed. By good fortune I stumbled across army lists for the HYW that the rule's author James Morris had put together. 

I don't have enough painted figures for a game, but I do have quite a few unassembled plastic frames of various Perry sets in my stash. They've been sitting there for far too long and this was a good reason to pull them out and get painting while my mojo was raging. I probably needed to paint up about 30-40 figures to give me what I need in extra figures for various types like archers and men-at-arms.

First to be completed were three bases to represent English leaders/heroes and another dozen men-at-arms. To distinguish the commanders I've based these in twos on a round base and made use of a set of flags I have for the period from Battle Flag.






Having used some of the Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors in my attempt to create slingers for my Germanic warriors I've also been inspired to try and do a speed paint job on a couple of dozen of those to give me a rather generic force that could be used to represent anything from peasant levy to tribal warriors to armed serfs. So, in short, a very busy workbench at the moment, but too many works in progress and not enough completed projects to warrant a blog post. More to come!




Friday, 4 April 2025

That's a small orchard...actually, it's not that small...in fact, it's quite large

So, I'm perusing various online sites, like eBay or Aliexpress, thinking about finding trees to improve my orchards. There's quite a bit to choose from and, in particular, I liked the look of those with fruit on them.


It's not that I don't have trees for orchards. I just don't seem to have quite enough.

Those I have, work well for somewhere like Normandy. Although, while perusing the various online sellers, I couldn't seem to find more of the same. Hence, looking at other options.

The trees with fruit had an advertised height of approximately 4cm. That's twice the height of one of my 20mm figures and probably a decent scale height for an orchard tree. That said, their exact height was not clear from some of the pictures. It may say 4cm, but that's not what I'm seeing on the ruler....

They weren't expensive and so I took a risk and ordered two bags of twenty. A couple of weeks later a very small packet arrives from China. What could this be? It's those trees, but they are small....very small. 

Technically, yes, to be fair, they are probably 4cm tall, but they did feel very much on the puny side. 

It wasn't what I was expecting. So, I put them aside in the terrain tub until I could decide what, if anything, I could do with them. Not much, it seemed. That was until I rekindled my interest in O Group and, in particular, playing it with the 12mm Second World War collection I've put together. Perhaps those small trees could work here, where, if anything, they might actually be too big? How we come around in circles.

I based the trees on strips of MDF about 150mm (6") long, with four trees to each strip. I didn't feel the need to do anything to the trees themselves and the bases were textured and flocked as per my other terrain.


When arrayed like this I started to see how they could work for my games.



The more I looked at them, the more I began to think how versatile they might actually be. Perhaps they are slightly large for 12mm, but, not ridiculously so. I'm certainly happy to use them like this. Here they are with a few of the Victrix 12mm range.



The trees are not too tall, although the 'fruit' is on the large size.

That made me wonder. Would they make good fruit trees for my 20mm figures? Well, imagine that, they actually work very well. In fact, much better than I thought. That was an unexpected outcome. 


So, could I push the boundary and have them work with 28mm figures? That seemed like it might test the friendship and to some extent it does. However, not quite as much as I imagined. In fact, I think these might work okay for a small, backyard orchard, or something similar.

Suddenly, the trees that appeared to be a waste of money, now look very versatile and likely to find a use in a number of different contexts. There's a lesson in here somewhere.

Friday, 28 March 2025

Making Pine Forests

There is something about having large trees as terrain pieces that really lifts the look of a table. In the real world, trees tower over houses and other buildings. They often dominate a skyline. If I can achieve something of that with a game table then I think it goes a long way to giving it a more natural look. Sometimes, it doesn't even require that many tall trees.

On other occasions, it can require a lot of trees, especially if playing in the Far East.

So, when it came to starting a Chain of Command campaign set in the Hurtgen Forest, I needed to give serious consideration to how I wanted to represent those pine forests. 


I never planned to achieve a look this dense, but I wanted to at least capture something of the visual aspect. After all, it is such a distinctive feature of contemporary photographs from the battle. 


A few years ago I created several bases of pine trees for the Bloody Bucket campaign, which is set in the Ardennes. Pine trees are a feature of many European landscapes, be it areas like the Ardennes and Hurtgen Forest, or further east in Prussia and western Russia. It's not as if I wouldn't find a use for them in other settings.

Originally, I bought a box of relatively cheap trees of varying heights from a seller on eBay.


I lightened their colour and based them in groups of two and three.

They served their purpose well enough for our Bloody Bucket games.

That was all great, until someone at our club (yes Mac, I'm looking at you) turned up with pine trees with much longer trunks. What a difference it seemed to make. They had the extra height, which I think is so effective, but more importantly, they really looked the part. That's the look I wanted for the Hurtgen Forest games, so down the rabbit hole I jumped.

There's nothing out of the ordinary here in terms of their construction. It really is just a matter of adding a top piece of pine foliage to a straight piece to represent the trunk and then putting them on a base. I decided I would do this with the existing trees I had, but I would also need to order more. 

The thing about trees is that, in most cases, they are scale agnostic. A tall tree for a 20mm figure.....

....is a not so tall tree, for a 28mm figure.

As always, storage is an issue and so I figured this into my plans. Construction is straightforward enough, given the trees arrive ready made.

I find the tree colour a bit dark and I like to break up the single colour tone with a highlight. I do that using my airbrush and lightly spray Yellow Green. I spray at an angle, always pointing the airbrush down when spraying from above. The idea is to only cover the lighter, upper surface of the foliage. 

 

I'm adding only a single colour, but it does a great job of giving some tonal variation to each tree.


The trunks were made from different thickness of wood dowel, bought in bags from a local craft store.


I cut them to size using The Chopper, my trusty cutting tool that is perfect for terrain jobs like this.


To make the most efficient use of storage space, the trees won't be permanently attached to the bases. Those bases were made from MDF, cut in random shapes and with their edges chamfered for a more natural look. 


To make a simple plug to attach the tree base I used pieces of round toothpick. I used a pin vise to drill a suitably sized hole in the end of each piece of dowel and in the MDF base where each tree would be located.


I did this at both ends because that is also how the tree foliage will be attached.


I have a ready supply of toothpicks on hand for many jobs, I find them very useful.


It's then just a matter of using PVA glue to attach a small length of the toothpick into the end of the dowel.


The wood dowel is a little too perfectly round for my liking and so I roughed them up a bit with a craft knife.


In particular, I slightly tapered the ends, where the foliage will be inserted.


Next, they were all painted with a brown acrylic paint.


When dry they were washed with Citadel's Agrax Earthshade, but to be honest, any dark brown wash would do. 


At this point the natural wood grain of the dowel shows up, as does the work done with the craft knife.


The final stage is to glue in the top foliage and give the trunks a gentle dry brush with a pale grey colour.



The bases were textured with sand and then flocked, in the same way as I do all my basing, so that figures and other pieces of terrain can also sit comfortably together - be they in 20mm or 28mm.


Despite the extra box of trees, I found creating a convincing forest on a 6x4 table was still a challenge. I needed to pad it out with various other trees from my collection to achieve a convincing density. While I don't think I quite captured the appearance of the photographs, I think it gave a good impression.


I felt it worked particularly well from a figure's perspective and was suitably atmospheric. As it turned out, and this was something quite unintentional, these taller trees actually helps with figure placement, so they have proven functional as well. That's a good result in my book!