Fallen jungle trees

Posted on May 31, 2017 by seeker

After my last game, I realized I needed some fallen trees to serve as linear obstacles and break up the ground a bit. I made these from balsa.

I used some 12″ long pieces of 1″ square balsa. I cut each into two pieces with an angled cut, and trimmed the other end to a similar angle. I then used a small block plane to shape the tops of the pieces into a suitable log shape. The bottoms I only rounded slightly to give the impression of a curve while making sure they would not roll around on the table.

After rounding the pieces, I scrubbed them lengthwise with a wire brush to add a bark texture to the wood. Just keep at it until you like how it looks.

Then I used an old pair of wire cutters to cut and tear out the ends of the logs as if it had rotted away. Don’t worry about breaking the edges, that adds to the effect. If you break off too much, you can easily glue the piece back in to place later.

I painted them with a mix of dark brown and grey paint. Once that dried I gave them a heavy dry brush of grey.

Last I dabbed on some glue and covered it with green flock. With that dry, they are ready for play.

And last, an action shot of some Navy boys getting into trouble in the jungle.

The Escape of Dr. Lashwood

Posted on May 15, 2017 by seeker

Last weekend, local gamer Marc Fluitt and I got together to play a game of FiveCore using my pulp adventure figures.

The setup of the game was pretty simple. Soldiers of a local Chinese warlord captured Dr. Lashwood on site at his most recent archaeological dig. They are dragging him and a crate of priceless artifacts through the jungle and back to their leader’s stronghold. Several US Marines managed to outflank the Chinese and cut off their retreat. To win, my Chinese must carry Dr. Lashwood and the crate of artifacts off the north table edge beyond the Marines. Marc’s Marines win if they rescue Dr. Lashwood, capture the artifacts, and carry them off any other table edge.

My Chinese soldiers started at the south (bottom of the picture), ready to push forward. Marc’s Marines are at the north end of the table. One is hidden behind a tree.

I moved to the west in my first activation, hoping to flank the Marines and deal with them a few at a time. This didn’t work so well. Marc moved over to intercept me.

I took the first casualty, the soldier in charge of Dr. Lashwood was gunned down by the marine at the top center of the picture. The good doctor, now free, fled the gunfire and took cover to the south.

A convenient Scurry result let me shift everyone left into cover and chase down Dr. Lashwood again.

But this let the Marines move to cut me off, too.

I pushed forward into some of the thicker growth, but took fire and lost another soldier.

At last my men figured out how to shoot straight. They killed one of the Marines and knocked another down. Things are starting to look up.

I continued my flanking maneuver, but it just wasn’t working out.

So I reversed direction with another Scurry, going back to the east while his men were out of position.

Marc chased me down, of course.

He charged into close combat, driving my men back. I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, and he drove me back.

He tried it again, but this time we found the good bullets. We left one dead and scared off the other.

With the Marines in disarray we tried to get moving to the far end of the table.

But Marc rallied his Marines and charged me again. This time he succeeded.

Marc collected the artifacts and Dr. Lashwood, and quickly exited the battlefield.

Failed recovery rolls left me even more out of position as he pulled out of contact.

The triumphant Marines.

We we had a lot of fun, and the advantage shifted several times. There were a few points where I was sure I was home free, only to have it go wrong again.

I am panning to run a pulp game at Bayou Wars this year. I have some terrain work to finish up and then I’ll be ready to go.

Seven Years War [4]: A New Distraction

Posted on September 10, 2016 by seeker

Progress on the Seven Years War project has been slow. There has been a lot of housework getting ready for our newest family member. (Who arrived Friday! And he’s the best son ever!) And when I’ve found time to work on hobby projects, I keep going off on tangents.

For this project I finished up a single unit of Kurassiers and worked on some houses for a town. I’m happy with the basic construction process, but I can’t paint fine lines to save my life. I’ll have to cut out the timber framing and glue it in place to get these to look any good. Once I work out a good process I’ll write up a how-to. ANever if you’re lucky, I’ll make templates too.

My latest distraction is in that picture as well, but I’ll save that project for another post.

Seven Years War [3]

Posted on July 16, 2016 by seeker

I’ve finished up the two grenadier battalions, based them, and finished up the basing on everything else as well. Here are the grenadiers and four previously completed line infantry battalions.

Next up, Austrian Kurassiers.

Seven Years War [2]

Posted on June 26, 2016 by seeker

I’m back to working on my Seven Years War project after far too long away from it. To keep myself honest I’ve joined in the 2016 army painter challenge over at the Lead Adventure Forum. My goal is to finish at least two units a month. This week I finished half of one converged grenadier battalion and two of three stands for half of another. The rest of the two units should get finished this week. These are for the as-yet unnamed Imperial-allied army.

Another Little Brush War

Posted on June 18, 2016 by seeker

I got bored with my 6mm Seven Years War project, so I sidetracked on my old 15mm AK-47 Republic project. I set a goal to use FiveCore Company Command to run the game at Bayou Wars. It took a lot of work (and no photography or posts, sorry) to paint up enough troops and prepare terrain for the game, but I had everything ready with a whole day to spare. So here’s the first game in Ng’Umbo’s war to take back several provinces occupied by neighboring Lomosia since their last war. As always, click on the pictures for a larger version.

The situation at the start of the game. Lomosian army on the left (north), Ng’Umbo forces on the right (south).

The Lomosian Army believed that the Ng’Umbo army firmly held the bridge across the Ng’Umbo River. They sent an advance unit into the area to capture the town of Dunlikus in preparation for an assault on the bridge, vital for them to press across the river. At the same time, Ng’Umbo intelligence believed that Lomosia held the town, a key part of their attack plans. Ng’Umbo needed to capture and hold the bridge while more troops moved down on the far side of the river. Both were to take advantage of any lapse in the enemy’s control of their ultimate objective.

The Players

I had two players for the game: Jim Pitts had the Lomosian forces on the left and Addison (whose last name I didn’t catch, unfortunately) had the Ng’Umbo forces on the right. Fortunately, the FiveCore rules are very flexible, and while I had planned for up to 4 players on a side, it worked just fine with two.

Dunlikus

Both sides moved toward the town, with Jim rushing the Lomosian technical forward and Addison doing the same with the Ng’Umboan Fox armored car. The a/c could only be hurt by RPGs, but the Lomosians had plenty of them to go around.

Ng’Umbo River Bridge

Addison’s Ng’Umbo regulars secured the bridge approach first thing. The Lomosians approached it more slowly.

Dunlikus in Lomosian hands

Lomosian regular and milita squads take control of Dunlikus. Ng’Umbo troops moved more slowly here as their commander focused on the bridge first.

Jim moving his troops toward the bridge

Over by the river, Jim moved several squads into the tree line near the bridge. This led to an ongoing firefight on this side for the rest of the game as they each tried to get the advantage.

Ng’Umbo attacks Dunlikus

Ng’Umbo militia tried to push into Dunlikus from the south, but the Lomosian squads kept them in the trees on the edge of town.

Lomosian technical destroyed

After driving it into cover several times, Ng’Umbo squads in the woods finally manage to destroy the Lomosian machine-gun armed technical. Meanwhile, Lomosian regulars push up the hill to finish securing the town.

Lomosia takes the hill

Lomosian regulars pushed up the hill (the plain black markers show that a squad fired on its turn, and so can’t reaction fire on the opponent’s turn). Between Lomosia’s good dice rolling and two mortars, here is where the tide turned against Ng’Umbo.

Fox armored car destroyed

I didn’t get many more pictures, and most didn’t come out well. The Lomosians secured the terrain around Dunlikus and then began moving toward the river. They managed to catch up to the Ng’Umbo armored car and destroy it in an assault. In the end, the game was a resounding win for Lomosia.

Painting in the new house

Posted on November 1, 2015 by seeker

About a year and a half ago I moved out of my house and into my then-girlfriend’s (now wife’s) condo. It’s a small place and there’s three of us, so I don’t have room for the big painting table I was using at the old house. After some false starts, I’ve come up with the following solution for an effective painting station that I can easily store out of the way when I’m not using it and can start painting with a minimum of fuss when I have the time.

It starts with a mobile laptop cart I got at Office Depot. It is made to allow the table to tilt side to side, which I don’t need. I used some steel mending plates and screws to fix the table flat. This gives me a solid stable work surface that can be moved easily.

The table and its contents

On top of that I have a couple boxes I bought at Michaels. One holds my paints, the other holds miscellaneous supplies, brushes, a plastic box with the set of figures I’m working on, etc. At the “business end” of the table I have my wet palette, jar of water to clean brushes, and a paper towel. I keep a notebook to record paint selections, etc.

The author hard at work on his Seven Years War project

I also have a floor-standing Ott lamp with a clip-on maginfying lens for light and to help out my eyes a bit. The setup works well and I have a convenient corner to store it all in when I’m done for the night. Now I need to spend more time actually painting. 🙂

Planting Trees

Posted on July 2, 2015 by seeker

I’ve been looking for a easy way to make good tree clumps for my 6mm games. Individual trees don’t look right to me at that scale. The tutorials I found were either too much work, fragile, or downright dangerous. So I stole the good ideas from the last two and came up with this method. I plan to combine them with felt tree line templates. The felt shows where the treelines are, and the tree stands make them look nice.

You will need:

Clump Foliage in several colors of green
Black foam board (I used Elmers brand)
1″ styrofoam (I got some from the floral department at Michaels)
Craft paint. A dark brown and a light grayish tan.
Hot glue gun and plenty of glue sticks

First, cut out a bunch of irregular rounded pieces from the 1″ styrofoam. These are the tree stands. Make these roughly 2-3″ across and egg-shaped, but make some longer and some odd shapes. I used a hot wire to cut them out, though a knife would work too.

Once you have a large pile of them, cut the treetops from black foam board. Trace each piece of styrofoam, leaving about a 1/4″-1/2″ gap around it. I numbered the tops and bottoms so I could match them up later. After they are cut out, bevel the edges to a gentle slope.

Hot-glue the stands to the tops with hot glue. Get them roughly centered, they don’t have to be exact.

Paint the stand a dark grey-brown color. I used Americana Bittersweet Chocolate craft paint. I mixed it 50/50 with white glue and added some water. Probably not necessary, but it adds a bit of strength to the beaded styrofoam. There’s no need to paint the treetops, leave them black. Leave these to dry for a while.

Paint in the tree trunks with a lighter grey-brown. I used Craft Smart Golden Brown. Keep them thin. Paint most of them from the tops down, but do a few shorter ones too. Keep them mostly vertical, but let a few bend, split, or fall over.

Tear off a small piece of clump foliage, no bigger than the first joint of your thumb. Put a dab of hot glue in the center of the top of a tree clump and stick the foliage down. Tear a small piece of another color, and glue it against the first. Keep going piece by piece, switching colors, until the top is completely covered with foliage.

And after a few hours work, I ended up with several dozen clumps of woods. In hindsight, I don’t think the black foam board is necessary. You could paint the top of the styrofoam dark brown and glue the foliage clumps directly to it, This would save several steps, but lose some of the overhang effect. It’s a question of taste and how much of a hurry you’re in.

Seven Years War [1]

Posted on March 1, 2015 by seeker

I’ve worked out that I need to paint up three units each month to be ready for Colonial Barracks this year. Last night I finished up my third infantry unit for February.

Next up, some cavalry.

A new start

Posted on January 14, 2015 by seeker

So, the old blog got hacked or something. I’ve wiped it and restarted from scratch.

I’m starting off with a new (old) project. Seven Years War in 6mm. I’m going to start out setting things up to use To the Sound of the Guns (with some tweaks, of course) and eventually add stands to be able to use them with BAR.

My goal is to have something playable for Colonial Barracks in November. Let’s see if I can make it.

Velociengineer's Workshop

Miniature Adventures

Author: seeker