Just for the record I was invited to the excellent Meeples and Miniatures podcast in May-19 to have a chat with Neil Shuck and Mike Hobbs. I had a very good time indeed and I thought I put a link in this blog post to both parts (episode #268 and #269). I hope it is of some interest.
To be honest I was worried about having something to say, in retrospect I feel that there is so much more to cover – however if anything provokes any questions or is unclear, please feel free to get in touch through the blog and I will try to give you an answer.
Neil Shuck & Mike Hobbs are joined by guest Per Broden for part II of this show, as they continue to look at 6mm gaming
00:00 – Our Hobby – We chat with Per about what we’ve been playing, building and painting
32:55 – Gaming in 6mm– Per talks about big battle gaming, converting wargames rules to use 6mm figures and different miniature manufacturers. We also discuss gaming with his son.
2:12:20 – Outro – What has ‘My other mate Dave’ bought this week – plus the continuing story of my Saga Magic Dice
I had the pleasure of attending the wargaming event Operation Market Larden 7 (OML7) in Evesham last weekend. I was going to go to OML6 last year but things conspired against me. Luckily, it was whispered, this one was the best one so far.
I arrived the evening before and caught the end of the drinking session at the hotel where the day would be held and a small contingent of us ended up in a pub for far too long – but good times were had.
OML7 is one of the many Lardy Days that are being arranged by various Lardy Ambassadors in the UK and also in many places abroad. Basically there were 12 games being played on the day and each participant played in two games (one in the morning and one in the afternoon). I did take some random shots but have to admit that I was a little bit like a child in sweetshop on the day and focus on the games. I had none of the stresses of a show where I put on a table or where my compulsion forces me to run around and find new shiny. The only thing to purchase were an excellent collection of old books that were being sold to support the Combat Stress charity – I bought a few.
The games played were, of course, all using the Too Fat Lardies excellent rule sets and although the lion share of the Games were using the Chain of Command (CoC) or Sharp Practice 2 (SP2) rulesets, there were also individual games using; I aint been shot Mum (IABSM), Bag the Hun (BtH) and Dux Britanniarium (DB).
I played in an excellent game of WW1 East Africa action as Lt Beaverton in charge of a supply dump on the Shore of Lake Victoria and a force of some Kings African Rifles, a few regular british and a Vickers Team. I was further supported by a platoon of Belgian Force Publique. The Supply dump was being attacked by a company of German troops. Very well Umpired by Bob Connor and the table looked stunning.
In the afternoon I played a Bag the Hun scenario controlling some mighty machines of the Italian Airforce in a joint German and Italian attack on a convoy (somewhere near Malta in 1942) defended by Hurricanes Our side had B109s and Stukas (with bombs) and Machis/CR42s and SM79 (with torpedoes). It ended up with classic dogfighting, bombs immobilising the ships and some torpedoes in the water hitting home but not on the main objective – the tanker – but it was great fun. This game was put on by Geoff Bond and we flew Mike Hobbs wonderful 1/600 Tumbling Dice aircraft – some excellent decaling going on there.
The day was excellent and I met a lot of people which whom I have had interaction with on Twitter and other social media – I did not manage to have a proper chat with all but I really appreciate the ones I had. I do think our little Twitter corner is a wonderful place. Normally, I judge an event on how many “arseholes” in the allegorical sense I meet, and I have to admit I met none. Just some excellent games being put on and people having a bloody good time playing them.
The evening entertainment offered a nice curry and later some more beer drinking at a local pub with a small but cheerful crowd.
A big thank you to Ade Deacon, his family and friends who arranges the event, and to the Too Fat Lardies crew (Nick, Rich and Sid) and all the other wonderful people – good stuff.
I need a pretty good reason for not coming back to OML8.
I have a lot of trees for my wargames tables and I love the effect they give, sometimes (if suitable) I just add some of them on the fringes whether it has any practical use in the scenario or not. I do think they enhance the overall experience, compared to say a dark green piece of felt (or even worse some 2D wood tiles).
As some of you may be aware, I tend to put on large tables for my games at Joy of Six. I have slowly increased my collection of trees and probably reached what I thought was a peak for my 2107 table showing the Battle of Lesnaya 1708 (more about it here).
Lesnaya 1708 at the star of the battle before all the Russians come marching in. “Oh when Russians come marchin’ in, Oh when the Russians come marchin’ in, I do not want to be part of that Supply line, oh when the Russians come marchin’ in”
However, for this years Poltava table I needed more.
Even at the smaller scale I working with, the cost of buying some wargames specific trees quickly gets costly at the quantities I am looking for. So for my no-pine-tree trees I have gone for the ones you in bulk from china on ebay. This is a typical set of 60 trees at about 15p a tree.
As sold on ebay 12/06/19
You could then base them individually on bases, I tend to use washers, with small stickers underneath to cover the hole , cut the tree trunk and then glue it in the middle with some 2 part epoxy glue, before basing decoration. Do not forget to spray them with hairspray, scenic cement or clear matt varnish to seal the tree cover as this otherwise easily falls off over time.
There is a clear benefit in doing this as the trees individually stores very easily in a box or something like that.
Another issue is that some of the colours are a little bit more unnatural looking than others. You can rectify this at a very low cost by adding some additional colour to the tree. I tend to use some Dark Green Coarse Grass from Javis as well as some of the Mid-Green variety and did a mix – but you may have some other suitable flock in your collection (perhaps avoiding the static grass type).
Not a good picture, but this is it.
I then apply some PVA glue on the tree trying to cover most of it and dip it in the mix.
Let it dry, then apply hairspray/varnish/scenic cement because this will fall off very quickly otherwise.
A few dipped and ready!
This is a comparative shot, before and after (I think it is worth it).
In addition I wanted to make some forest tiles using CDs – most of us have tons of old CDs, or DVDs, and you could perhaps save a few from going to landfill. Make sure they are not your back-ups of old photos or something like that.
Give it a little scratch in the name of adhesion
I made a fair few and although they are not as practical to store as the individual trees they allow a quicker deployment on the table and you can decorate the overall area (e.g. the CD) nicely.
That is about 40 bases with 5 to 6 trees per base, say 220 trees in total. Covering an area of 2 by 4 feet. The trees will knock you back about £30 (based on the prices above) the filler, paint, epoxy glue and sand adds a little bit more. Then adding the cost of the Javis scatter and the spray adhesive, etc – call it a total cost of materials between £40 to £50 for this project depending on what you use. That is £1.20 per base and probably what you would pay for an individual based tree! So if you have no problem doing a little bit of work there are some savings to be made with the added advantage that you can finish them in a way so they work together with your other terrain.
They work well with both my 6mm and 15mm stuff — perhaps not as good for 28mm.
Swedish tanker trying to spot a target (15mm)Great Northern Era Swedish Cavalry Units taking their horses for a spin (6mm) – perhaps more suitable given the title.Swedish WW2 era infantry (15mm)
In addition I bought some N Gauge rock / mountain / outcrop scenery pieces to use for the Poltava battlefield to break down he overall flatness of the kind of mat I will be using. I bought the set shown in the picture below and another slightly more expensive.
As sold on ebay 12/06/19
The work really well in the scales I am using (most of them can just be laid flat on the table). I think it will work wonders in creating that look of a battle field that is not completely flat and saved me some time. They are made from plaster – I guess dental plaster – and painted and decorated as shown in the pictures below.
The full set (2 packs)A few of them had some flat sides – I will make hills sections and incorporate these into them.Full set laid out, I think they blend in nicely on my little 2 by 2 game board that is similar to the colours and look of the Poltava battle mat.Some 28mm miniatures taking cover (yes they are from the Perry Miniatures Chosen Men – 95th Rifles set – and painted in strange colours and that hardly look like the typically Napoleonic Rifle – but in this shape they are part of my Mutant 1984 Post Apocalyptic campaign and soldiers of the Pyri-Commonwealth)
S
Some Cavalry out on a spin (6mm GNW, Baccus)Swedish WW2 era AT team behind some rocks (15mm, flames of war)
Both the trees and the rocks will allow me to create that little extra flair to the battle board that allows that magic immersion to set in.
I needed a few more Villages for the Poltava table and bought some of Total Battle Miniature’s houses and scenic tiles (link to their webpage here). I normally make my own tiles but thought I treat myself. I like the concept of a separate Village tile because it makes the village more defined than just placing some houses in a cluster on the battle mat. The tiles are made in a rubbery material and it is not recommended to use spray primers to paint them. These small tiles costs about £4 each and works well with their very extensive range of houses, etc.
Two of the Sets I bought
I painted the rubber bases with undiluted brown acrylic and then dry brushed them and added some static grass, flock and a few tufts.
Tile without the buildings – the dimensions for the “holes” are aligned with Total Battle house dimensions.The three village tiles I madeWorks really goodThe visiting Dragoons are happy with the result (6mm Baccus)
I really like these. / Hope that was of some interest.
This is the 150th blog post issued on the 3rd anniversary of this blog. Some of the blog posts have been better than others – some of them I am actually even proud of (especially the two that were written by the Little One). Like most of us I have limited time to spend on the hobby and very often the blog updates goes out without too much second/proof reading but I hope they serve some purpose.
The first blog post was Saga in 6mm – Part 1 (16th May 2016) – it seems like a long time ago – it is still being read on a regular basis.
The first picture on the blog – An Anglo-Danish warband. I now have a massive amount of pictures in the blogs media library.
I will have a cake this evening and maybe even a beer. Whether this is the first time you are here of you have been before, thanks for checking it out!
If this is of any interest to you please engage by leaving a comment, follow the blog (you can sign up for e-Mail updates) and engage here, or on Twitter (@Roll_a_one) or Facebook (@rollaonepage). These interactions really makes a difference and it keeps me going! I love this hobby and this blog is my open door to what I am doing with it – use it as you wish!
Thank you!
Enough of that – some time ago I read Iain Fuller’s excellent blog (link here) Tracks and Threads where he had found some interesting looking material from Hobbycraft.
“I’ve recently started visiting some Facebook pages after resisting them for ages and apart from the odd silly comment (usually from people not reading the OP properly) it has not been too bad. The other day on one of the pages, 6mm Miniatures and Wargaming, a lovely bloke called Ricky posted that he had found (or more correctly his missus had) some A4 sized ‘Plush Foam Sheet’ that are perfect for fields whilst in a Hobbycraft shop. Upon checking out their website I saw that they do ‘Corrugated Foam’ sheets too so with my ‘Club Terrain Chap’ hat on I duly ordered some – Beige, Dark Green and Yellow ‘Plush’ and Brown ‘Corrugated’ and they arrived the next day, and they are ace: look good, great texture to the ‘plush’ ones and will drape over hills nicely and seem pretty durable to boot. Oh, and they cost 80p a sheet!!”
From the Tracks and Thread blog post “Nice 6mm internet terrain find”, 1st October 2018.
Note: Following some research Ricky is Ricky Bell who produces some fantastic 6mm Napoleonic stuff and posts frequently on the “6mm miniatures & wargaming” Facebook group. I also think the price has gone up to 99p per sheet.
In the run-up to Christmas last year I found myself at a hobbycraft shop with a gift voucher and bought a fair few of these sheets, I was very excited at the time but then stuck them in a drawer – passing them to the myths and legend of the terrain material mountain – a lighter but more colourful lump of stuff (compared to the lead mountain) that will never transform into nice looking terrain on the table. But faith would have another outcome for these plush sheets.
Last year I incorporated some fields into the terrain mat for the Horka battle, but there were two issues with it: (I) It added to the time to do the mat and (ii) the bushes around it were only indicative as they were built into the surface – it was ok, but I wanted to do something different this year.
The Mat from last year, this year the mat will be 4 feet longer!
So I thought I do some field tiles instead that I could place on the mat that would create a similar illusion to that achieved last year. I remembered those Flush Foam sheets. I ventured to the room of many things, rummaged through the boxes, found a lot of things I had forgotten I owned, some of it I had even bought twice, I even found some of the very rare purple lichen (!?) and then in the end I had the sheets in my hand and work could truly begin.
Here is a series of pictures that I hope will explain how I made some field tiles.
These are the Plush Foam sheets. They could be used to quickly create some fields just like they are.I marked up the tiles I needed on some 6mm mdf sheets I had lying around (these were 2 by 2 feet square) from some previous projects. I used to make my tables from 2 by 2 boards but have now gone over to the mat concept.I then made sure I had enough material and that all the fields would fit in a A4 size (the dimension of the foam sheets) sheet.Then I cut out the tiles, sanded the edges (to avoid the flat 6mm edge on the boards – this will further be off-set by adding the clump foliage – as shown later), and cut out the pieces of foam and glued them on (using Grip Adhesive), trying not to have the same colour on two adjacent fields (note the darkest brown is a corduroy type of floor tile I had left over from another project, this sheet is slightly better than the corrugated sheet produced as part of this series).It ended up looking like this – a little bit to artificial for my taste.I started dabbing in some colour in straight lines, that would match the original colour to create some depth.Creating a little bit more depth, but some of the old colour shining through.Then I added some clump foliage to the sides and I think the aerial shot has wastly improved. Dabbing on the extra colour in lines gives the illusion of depth and the sheets more looking like fields. I made the clump foliage myself a few years back for the Saga project and had a fair amount left. I basically bought a large bag of foam off-cuts, put them with water in a blender to shred them into small pieces. Mixed them with PVA and green paint, spread them out on a flat surface and let them dry. Then, when dry, I ripped them up smaller pieces. You could use some off- the shelf foam, but the method I did creates “firmer” form due to the PVA glue.At ground level it is not looking bad either. Here we can see some Russian Dragoons spying on some Ottomans riding through the Country side. Maybe it is during the Pruth campaign in 1711. (6mm Miniatures from Baccus)The dark brown part being the floor tile mentioned above, the others the Plush foam.Really happy, with the benefit that I can use these for a lot of other situations. Will add a little bit of static grass here and there on the edges and drybrush the bushes before finalising them and then add some matt spray varnish. But this more or less battle ready.
The accounts of the Poltava Battle and the Siege of the town itself states that the houses/village outside the city were burnt down in a measure to avoid them being used as hiding places for the Swedes as they laid Siege to the town (the rather big model of the Poltava itself can be found here). This was a very common measure as a clear area was needed in front of the defensive walls.
Poltava Town
I wanted to mark this on the mat for the battle by doing some ruined/burnt down buildings. I checked quickly what was available to buy from various sellers but found mostly WW2 biased stuff in the scale, like bigger buildings and in general two storey buildings – it did not really fit my 18th century rural Russian theme. I reckoned I could have a go at building something myself that would do the job, here is a rough guide showing how I made them.
This is a very simple project and I hope it is of some use! It is very quick to do! – provided you have some glue and matches. You could of course use tooth picks as well.
I took some bases and basically cut some matches and used some PVA glue to build these kind of structures. I did the first level complete but then proceeded to some random parts.When it was dried I put some black ink (mixed 50/50 with water, the ink works better than paint giving that kind of coal glow – if you know what I mean) on the wood and some brown sand (or any sand just painted brown) for ground cover. I also added some additional matches, to represent collapsed beams etc.Grey dry-brush and a little bit of dead grass. I guess I could have added a little bit of more grey here and there to add to the effect.I then added them to some tiles that I decorated to blend in with my normal ground cover.Good enough! – no Swedes will hide hereI also made a few tiles for the Villages not burnt down. The buildings are from Timecast Miniatures (http://www.timecastmodels.co.uk/) and the Churches from Battlescale (https://battlescale.com/). Both companies doing some really nice 6mm stuff.
Some Riders from Nylands Cavalry Regiment! (these and the other miniatures are of course from Baccus, https://www.baccus6mm.com/)
That was all for now, Please play with matches carefully!
By the way, you can use them for other periods too 😉
In an earlier blog posting I showed my prototype Russian redoubt for the Poltava Battle (see link here, that also describes how they were made). These were hastily fortifications that caused the Swedes a lot of trouble during the march up to the field where the main Battle was fought.
You can read more about the redoubt battle on the eminent Tacitus webpage here.
Screenshot from the Tacitus page (link above)
In this update we will cover:
The finalised redoubts
Some casualty markers to show whether a redoubt has been taken or not.
A few Swedish Siege Artillery pieces
All scratch built with Baccus 6mm miniatures, using a lot of their dismounted dragoons and casualty figures from the WSS and GNW range.
Here are the final Redoubts, note that one is empty as the units were on a toilet break at the time.Some of the redoubt were not completed when the Swedes attack, I have added digging engineers to these.Another angle.Each of the redoubts comes with two markers, this one showing it having been taken. In essence a glorified casualty marker.…and the one showing it fully defended.Some more casualty markers.One with a Dalregiment solder waving the regiments standard. This one actually not a Baccus miniature but a converted Peasant from Microworld Miniatures (I have since rectified the chocolate cake look around his mouth).The first six, these are 40 by 40mm bases.Some additional ones done from left overs, 60 by 30mm bases.The last four, 40 by 40 mm bases.Another close up of one of the bases with a Swedish Officer, perhaps reflecting on the horrors of war.I also did some Siege Batteries for the Poltava SiegeGuns and MortarsClose-up of the Mortars
Hope that was of some interest!
Let us see that Dalregiment gentleman again! – the flag with the Dalecarlian bolts is waiving in victory. Wish it had gone like that on the day though!
