Sunday 28 April 2024

'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!

17 comments:

  1. Nice job lee, a very bespoke solution to fit in with your ‘vision’ of how this was all going to work. I cant believe how this has all been done in double time - impressive.

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    1. Thank you Norm. I'm sure it was your good self who got me hooked on the small space concept! I'm pleased so far, especially as I wanted a game I could sit down at a table and play as I do suffer from back issues when standing/bending for too long a period.

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  2. They look fantastic Lee - great work!

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  3. A great looking little project, but can you resist the urge to add more guns and especially cavalry - with only one per side it's hard to give one side an edge without the other having none.
    I like the pre-soaked 'Jarvis clump foliage' look - I always have trouble with shedding foliage but this, draped onto a tree frame should do the biz - I shall look into getting some.

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    1. Thanks Rob. I'm not ruling out adding more 'bits', certainly more guns needed but with just the one model per sprue I might need to look at Kallistra 12mm possibly and maybe for cavalry and Generals too.

      The Javis clump foliage is a very good product and cheap at around £3.15 per bag. I used just 2 bags to make 24 trees and I agree would be perfect for making larger wire armature trees. It's Javis Number 2 Mid Green tree foliage.

      Lee

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    2. Thanks for putting me right (Jarvis => Javis) and details of the product you've used - ordered some today.

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  4. Superb project, it's been great to see your work on this, really enjoying it. The terrain has turned out really well, looks the part.

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    1. Thank you Donnie :) Still working on terrain ideas, I'm not keen on that mark 1 cornfield!

      Cheers,
      Lee.

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  5. Excellent job, thanks!

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  6. Very nice Lee. Your project has come together really quickly, yet is a decent size. 👏👏
    Cheers,
    Geoff

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    1. Cheers Geoff. Please bear with me and I'll get back to you over this weekend with hopefully a bit of good news :)
      Lee.

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