Battle in a box 2mm scale

I have finally made some progress on my battle in a box project, first mentioned as an objective for this year in my Christmas post from last year. At that time I was looking a using a cigar box to hold the terrain and units in. This idea didn't work out, but as Lady Mary went off to university last September, she had a big clear out, and one of the items she disposed of  was a cheep art box with a selection of paints, pens and other bits. The type of thing you can pick up from The Works for about £5.

I removed the plastic trays from the inside of the box, and then painted the inside matt black. The Battle boards are made from 5mm thick foam core, divided into 30mm squares, 8 by 10 in total. The bottom three pictures above show the basic boards resting on the box, with a copy of Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame rules They are second from bottom on the linked page. I have always admired Bobs elegantly simple rules. The only issue that I have with them is an aesthetic one, the use of gridded terrain has always struck me as being to close to a board game from a visual perspective.

My aim with this project is to see if I can create a portable gridded wargame which doesn't look like it is one, if you get what I mean. The top picture is a sketch I made on my iphone, it gives a very rough idea  of how I hope the terrain boards will look.

TTFN

Airhead

Finished Mosque

I started this project last November, so not bad going for me at under 12 months from inception to completion. The bottom three pictures show details from inside the court yard of the Mosque. The ceramic planters with the trees in are made by the simple step of gluing two kid's beads together. We have an old Quality street jar in the garage full of them, very handy. The shrubs/small trees are made from scouring pads cut to shape. The trunks are made from cocktail sticks.

The minaret is not permanently stuck in position, it can be removed. The original idea being to create a bomb damaged version, with the top section blown away. This is still in the pipeline, and hopefully before the full 12 months is out I'll have got it finished.

TTFN

Airhead

Making smoke 2

Finished of the smoke shell markers, with a light spray of cheap Wilkinson grey primer on the outer ends of the smoke trails and then some yellow - orange - red paint to give the impression of an exploding smoke shell. They were then based on 1p coins with some sand pva'd onto the coin and painted up in my usual ground work colours. This is just a quick update, but I've got quite a few pictures in the bag for the next few posts.

Thing on the wargaming blog front have been quite quiet out there over the past few months, myself included, must be a combination of the first true summer for what seems like decades and summer holidays, just my impression of things.

I will put my next posts up over the weekend.

TTFN

Airhead

Making smoke

I've just make some smoke markers from traditional pipe cleaners. The bottom picture shows how I've twisted the pipe cleaners around each other, I then twisted another around the base of the arms. This was then supper glued onto a 1p coin to act as a base. I'm not sure about painting them yet, they look good as smoke markers as they stand I think, but as they are so cheep to produce I might have a go at using some grey primer spray paint on a couple and see how they turn out. As for scale, I think they should work with my 15mm and up to 28mm scale should be fine. They might be a bit over scale for 1/300 scale, but you could scale the size down a bit.

TTFN

Airhead

Fire base Buddha 8

Mr Buddha is finally finished, having been jungled up with green flock added and some hand made jungle added. Made with masking tape and paper clips. I still need to get some 2mm MDF for the base board. Things have been quite hectic over the past few weeks, unfortunately not leaving much time for hobby fun.

I have however bought Wargaming Nineteenth Century Europe 1815-1878 which I can thoroughly recommend. I'm planning on using the rules from the book for my Franco Prussian set up. I have also been exploring my 2mm Battle in a Box project, which involves a gridded terrain board and I've been thinking about how I can create a gridded terrain board which is not gridded. I know that last sentence makes no seance at all but it will when I finally get round to making the thing.

A blast from the past, the original Mr Buddha from way back in January 2009.

All the best for know, TTFN

Airhead

Fire Base Buddha 7

Bunker action at Fire Base Buddha. Picture showing two of the corner bunkers nearly finished. The one on the left is one of the double height ones, with the firing platform built up. The base bunkers are intended to represent pre-cast sectional concrete bunkers. Not sure if these were ever used in Vietnam or if they even ever existed. But they work for me.

Next up, jungling up Mr Buddha some more, and painting the blast walls and sorting the base board out.

TTFN

Airhead

Fire Base Buddha 6

The Buddha with a lick of paint on. The jungle vines have been picked out in bright greens and have had some masking tape leaves PVA'd to them. in the top picture you can see two of the corner bunkers also painted. Still need to put some green flock onto the base of the Buddha and some bigger undergrowth. The metal cladding on the firing platforms on the top of the bunkers has had some rust painted on and some random battle damage (holes) added.

Next job is to sort out a base board for the fire base to sit on. I will probably keep the Buddha outcrop as free standing, so it can be used in other settings and scale, but will fix the bunkers and blast walls to a base so I can model a ditch around the outer wall and other terrain feature.

TTFN

Airhead