Yet more cornfield improvement and terrain tiles for Battle Cry!

During the week I decided that I was still not happy with the re worked Cornfield for the simple reason that it bore little resemblance to the real thing and looked more like my late old Nan's privet hedge. Much as I'm taking a stylised approach to this project I feel that more can be done. So I did a search for 15mm scale metal cornstalks thinking maybe the Model Railway world might offer up a few ideas possibly. The search threw up a video showing such made from individual plastic bamboo aquarium plants with corn cobs added. I'm going to have a go at something similar but based on 2mm drilled MDF removable sections and will try to achieve small cobs of corn more in scale. So, I have on order plastic bamboo stalks from eBay which should be arriving this week and I plan to have some fun with it! I'm honestly not obsessed with cornfields but it's a common feature of Civil War battlefields. 

Lets see what can be done with these!

Also been making more hill toppers as you can see and will now start to cut the 5mm foamboard hexes that will be sandwiched between 2mm MDF to form the 16mm tall hills. The edges will be textured with Vallejo earth texture and then painted or possibly flocked.

Sharpshooter on a hill.

Also planning road and river tiles, first standard 'rough road' experimental road below. 'Plank Roads' offer faster movement than rough roads in the variant rules so that will be another interesting modelling challenge.

Sharpshooter markers - The Battle Cry Sharpshooter card allows a player to select any enemy general on the board as a target when played. I want something a bit more specific than this so decided that when this card is played a sharpshooter marker may be placed WITH ANY FRIENDLY UNIT IN RANGE OF AN ENEMY GENERAL. The shot is then taken with a crossed sabres required to remove the general for a Victory point. This reduces the 'bolt from the sky' effect and of course will be affected by line of sight rules. Just a touch more realistic I think.

Couldn't hit an Elephant at this range!

I have been making labels for the rear of the unit bases and small casualty markers that will be placed on the strip to show casualties as current strength. The markers are fairly unobtrusive I think and I decided that for those units reduced to a single point a red marker would make it clear that the unit is at the point of wavering and about to break. A big part of the Battle Cry game play is to pull back such vulnerable units and replace them with fresh troops to prevent the loss of another victory point where possible. I discovered a nifty little old tin for the bits and pieces when sorting through some old boxes, it might possibly have been,  (Ahem), a stash tin at some point in the dim and distant past! It was a nice find and perfect for this project.

Finally an example of the labels. It's been a very long time since I have felt such a strong connection with units of model soldiers, somehow the label helps me to really identify with individual Civil war units and will I think greatly improve the narrative when battle commences.

Right then, next step will be planting some Corn.

Cornfield improvement and Commission work - A big ECW bash!

I have just finished painting lots of ECW cavalry, 24 Peter Pig 15mm's for customer John, (I refer to him as 'Young John' so not to confuse with 'Old John!), and 58 Epic ECW's for Noel. Really enjoying working on all of these and if you may be interested my latest short video on my YouTube channel takes a close look at both and how they match up for scale (link is up now on my 'channel link page).

Below: Epic ECW - 4 regiments of  'Horse' a unit of Dragoons and a regiment of Cuirassiers.

Below: 2 Regiments of Peter Pig ECW's.

 

Below: And a few more for Old John!

Battle Cry.

As it's been quite a bash I'm going to take it easy over the weekend as work on terrain additions for my Battle Cry project. I have the cards printed now on nice Buff card and am waiting for plastic sleeves for them. The 'printer friendly' downloads are rather nice I think with crisp clear text (see pic). I wasn't happy with the cornfield that I made as a test as thought it just looked like the troops were standing behind a low hedge so I knocked up a print version (below) which was better but needed some texture! So far I'm happy with the result and will make a matching insert that can be removed when troops are placed inside. Must say I'm enjoying playing around with the terrain hexes.

I would like to add more artillery and cavalry to the armies in due course and it came to mind  the other day whilst watching a YouTube game of 1st Bull Run that I'd like to paint up some of those early fancy uniforms, maybe using the Epic Iron Brigade set (if I can get my hands on any).

'Battle Cry' Epic project is about done!

 This has all come together fairly quickly and with the completion of the figures, (save for a few little extras), the arrival of the PVC battle mat and the terrain hexes in progress I'm almost there. I have the card on order to print a set of command cards using the printer friendly files from the C&C/Battle Cry website and rules printed from the same site.

'Battle Cry' - 24 infantry, 4 guns, cavalry mounted and dismounted plus Generals.

Terrain tiles. 

As mentioned previously I had intended to simply print these, but having done a few trial prints and placed figure bases on them it did not look right. I think what struck me most was the inability to identify line of sight, so I thought about ways of making terrain tiles that remained in keeping with the overall 'game look' that I wanted but enabled me to feature trees, hills, towns etc without going down the whole realistic terrain build. After a lot of thought I decided to go with what you see below and I think it's both functional and effective and I think works well on my PVC mat. 

The trees are functional rather than pretty!

Hill topper tile, needs some grass adding to finish.

Can't get a decent photo of the mat yet!

Cheap and cheerful was the plan for this project and so in keeping with that the trees are simply pieces of Javis clump foliage dipped in watered down PVA and based on 1p coins. They are more functional than realistic because I wanted to be able to place three trees in each wood/forest hex and place them around my 60x35mm bases when occupied. I'm happy with the look of them. 

I spent a fair bit of time trying to represent corn fields, firstly just printed and then using cut down trips of washing up sponge. But I wanted a base of figures to be to stand in them and not on them and eventually came up with this simple solution below, again not perfect but keeping with the overall low relief look whilst clearly showing blocked line of sight to those within or behind. The next issue was representing towns and again I started with printed hexes then tried to make something that features top down buildings which just looked plain silly! My solution here is to use some of Steve Clays wonderful 'Battlescale' 6mm ACW models, selecting only the taller two story buildings that come in around 35mm tall and will do what I what them to do nicely with the 13mm scale Epics. Larger scale 10mm options would just not work with the 75mm hexes and look out of place in the overall low relief look. I'm just waiting for them to arrive. Hills will be 10mm foamboard topped with a hex.

Below: A short pan across the ranks!

More 7th Cavalry and Epic ACW's!

Another two troops of 7th US cavalry - B Troop and L Troop - have been painted for Mark bringing the total so far to four with a further two to paint plus the dismounted figures for all six troops. I have tried to add a touch more contrast to the general Blue shades with some slightly more faded shades and overall I think they work well. B Troop were mounted on Bay horses as were L Troop but Mark requested that L be mounted on Black horse for a bit of contrast. The remaining troops will ride Sorrel horses and of course the famous Grey horse troop E. In front are the mounted and dismounted versions of General George Armstrong Custer, the latter with repainted blue battle shirt piped white. There also remains a further 100 mounted Indians plus lots of civilians/cowboys etc so still a fair way to go yet.

Qualiticast 20mm's and Satin varnished.

My own Epic Battle Cry project is also coming along well with 22 infantry bases now completed of the planned 24. I'm starting to print and fix the rear unit labels now on the black strip. Also made a start on the 'top down' terrain tiles and will be printing a set of command cards this week using the printer friendly version that is available as the wording is much sharper and easier to read.

Still waiting for the printed mat to be shipped from Tinywargames as they seem to have a bit of a backlog on orders.

Royal Mail meltdown and Ariel landscapes !

I feel the need to have a bit of a rant regarding the current state of the Royal Mail postal service! I don't know how reliable it is for you chaps but around here in the Medway area of Kent it is appalling, no other word for it. I'm not knocking the individual posties for one moment, but the  reliability of the service is very patchy and they will admit that they are unable to maintain a daily delivery service and that agency and courier staff are employed to cover some weekends. I have had several examples of poor service in the last couple of weeks alone. Firstly, a 10 day wait for a first class signed for package posted to me by Old John and containing a Graham Farish 0-6-0 tank locomotive purchased on my behalf from John's friends shop. When it failed to arrive I checked the tracker which showed a failed delivery attempt on the Sunday (!) with no card left. I was in all day that day and mostly sat painting by the window and with Poppy the dog in the room who always barks when the door knocks. I  duly booked a redelivery for the Thursday, waited in and again it failed to arrive. This left me having to wait over Easter thinking it would be delivered on the Tuesday but again nothing. On Wednesday I managed to catch the postman who suggested I rebook again but said he would check at the delivery office. On Thursday he pulled up in his van at 3.40pm and knocked on the door saying "I think this is what you have been waiting for". This was a great relief to me and also to John and his wife Cynthia (who had posted the package), and I know it caused them a lot of stress and worry. 

In addition to the above a package from eBay due to be delivered on a Thursday arrived on the following Monday and this last week a 1st class letter posted to me on the previous Wednesday was delivered on Monday. I think you will agree this is a rather shoddy state of affairs.

Creating terrain tiles for 'Battle Cry'.

With the PVC game mat now on order from Tinywargames I have been thinking about putting together other components required for the game. I have sourced the  rules from the 150th Anniversary Edition, a printer friendly set of replacement command cards and even printable patches for the dice. Now to the question of terrain tiles. My idea has been to print the tiles and glue to 75mm MDF hexes, it is possible to find the original tile designs but I want to make my own using satellite or drone images. I have had some success in this, a few examples/ideas you can see below including woods, corn and wheat fields etc. I also have hilltops and roads rivers etc. It's a fun exercise and I hope to have something ready to print by the weekend. My main issue is finding a suitable town hex design but I have some ideas. In sharing a few example images I should state that all are readily found on Google and will only be used for my personal use.

Wheatfield?

Cornfield?

'Unofficial' BC tile.

Unofficial 'Dunker Church'

I like this for woods.

'Peach Orchard'

Wheatfield.