"It's a Fair Copse"

Work on terrain continues, and I textured the bases of the tree stands that I posted last week.  Since then I've made some more, along with the first part of what will be a Russian village that I hope will do service with both my 20mm WW2 Soviets and my 28mm  Napoleonics. 

The village unit consists of a resin cottage from Britannia Miniatures, and one of the wonderful Pegasus Hobbies Russian farm houses.  The white patches are glued-down bits of old dishcloths, with the rest of the base textured with a "putty" made of white glue and sand.  Once it has all dried out, I will prime and paint it all.

 

click to enlarge 

The buildings are fine for my 20mm miniatures of course, but they should also do for 28mm as well.  The Pegasus Hobbies building kits in particular are on the larger end of 20mm, and given unit footprints for Horse-and-Musket games, going down a bit in size for terrain pieces does not look out of place.

The pine trees were easy enough to do, and are ready for painting but the deciduous trees will require some more work, as the flocking drops off the branches at a drop of a hat(chet?).  I will just do the messy job of soaking the foliage with watered-down white glue to seal everything together, and adding more flocking to the trees for depth.

Pining away

Yesterday saw the West Tokyo Wargamers hold its first gaming day since the big quake on 3/11, and it was great to see so many people turn out- even if it did mean space was cramped!

No Napoleonics this time, as Achilleas was celebrating the Easter holiday while Matt was playing host to a visiting friend, so instead I took part (sort of) in a fun British vs German WW2 game.  

However, I did get to meet a first-time visitor to the club, Rod, who is interested in doing 28mm Napoleonics and even has his own copy of Black Powder.   So at our next outing it in May it looks like there might be five of us playing Napoleonics! 

In the meantime, here is a work-in-progress photo of a quick and simple terrain project I've been working on.  

I've long been meaning to put some effort into "tarting up" our table with some better looking terrain pieces.  So inspired by an article I was reading in a past issue of Battlegames magazine, I took a hot glue gun and tacked down some old GW trees onto some unwanted CD's (after gluing card over the holes, of course).  

I then took some papier-mâché and spread it thinly over the bases.  When dry the papier-mâché set rock hard with no warping, and this evening I will be adding some patches of sand to the bases for more texture.  

After painting, I'll then glue down some foliage, fallen branches, and flocking around the bases so as to match our table mat.  

These are looking pretty good so far, and when complete I have some deciduous trees ready for the same treatment.

One of the discs is/was an old compilation of country music that somehow managed to find its way into my otherwise-country-&-western-free CD cabinet.  The only decent use I could find for it, in my honest opinion.  Sorry, Garth Brooks, but different strokes 'n all that.

Battle of La Tour Sanglant- the Movie

Back in February I promised that post with details of our last game of Black Powder- the (fictional) Battle of La Tour Sanglant.  I thought I would put together another video gloating over- or rather, I should say, coolly and dispassionately analyzing the events of the day (yeah, right).

I was in the middle of working on it when the earthquake/ tsunami struck on 3/11.  Obviously in the days that followed I had neither time nor inclination to work on it.  

But time is a great healer, and I've recently been finding myself wanting to get back to some semblance of normality, which naturally includes time for hobby activities.  So along with getting in some more painting, a high priority was finishing that video seeing as I had already put a lot of time into it.  

Here it is- see how the 18e de ligne- "le Terrible"- earned itself elite status by performing above and beyond the call.  

The Bonapartist Propaganda Machine at its well-oiled best!  I'm sure Matt and Pete will be disgusted with the triumphant tone- even the editor of le Moniteur may well be blushing in his grave.  But hey, winners write history, losers just keep re-writing it until it starts to look the way they want it to.

Eagle-eyed gamers familiar with Black Powder may spot the error we made- I didn't realize it myself until re-reading the rule book after the game.  Oh, well. 

This month at the club it's WW2 and the Soviets, as Matt and Achilleas can't make it this Sunday.  But our next Black Powder game will be in May, and we're all looking forward to it.