Happy Christmas 2013

Apology's for my total radio silence for the pasts two months, my 82 year old Father passed away early in September and real life has kept me at full stretch for the pass few months. Things are unlikely to quieten down in the near future.

A big thanks to all the wargaming bloggers out there, who's posts have kept me interested, motivated and entertained over the past months, during the little time I've been able to spend relaxing.

All the best to you all for Christmas and here's looking forward to a prosperous and productive 2014.

The pictures above show my 2mm scale Battle in a box project terrain boards in their wooden case, just need to build up some retaining card bits to keep them in position in the box when the lid is closed.

I'll do my best to up my posting rate over the next few months, so keep your fingers crossed.

All the best

TTFN

Airhead

Battle in a box 6

Some more pictures of progress with a small village and a walled farm, the buildings have been made from very dense polystyrene, the centre of the village is based on a 1p coin, a church and 2 small cottages. Which can be removed when the village is occupied by troops, which are all based on 1p coins as well. The farm and village are based on 30mm squares of art board.

The top picture shows one of the Austrian infantry battalions painted. The second one shows the battalion giving fire, which I've represented with a small piece of pipe cleaner for the musket smoke. The are two unpainted cavalry squadrons in support. Next steps are to paint the village and farm and look at fitting the boards into the wooden case.

TTFN

Airhead

Battle in a box 5

More progress on the painting of the terrain, at this stage I've started to create some fields using different kinds of scatter material. I think the over all effect is working well, also glued on some clumps of foliage to stand in as trees.

In the bottom picture top left you can see some additional stands for woods and the start of a small village. Next up will be looking at how to secure the base boards in the wooden case.

TTFN

Airhead

Battle in a box 4

I've painted the two boards with a base coat of black paint, then dry brushed over with my normal terrain colours, using the mid tone to pick put the road network. The 30mm square network of fields can be made out in the photograph above. The next stage after finishing the painting will be to add the vegetation.

As for the troops I've decided to base the two armies on the French & Austrians from the Franco Austrian war/Second Italian War of Independence The driving decider on these forces was the colours of the uniforms, the French in their red hats and trousers and dark blue jackets contrasting nicely with the Austrians white coats and sky blue trousers. Being fought in 1859 the war is also the right side of the 19th century to fit with Bobs rules. 

TTFN

Airhead

Battle in a box 3

A selection of pictures showing the development of the two boards with the road network being high lighted by laying ribbons of PVA glue to create verges once they are covers with sand. The bottom photo also shows the tea leaf vineyards quite well. I'm starting to think about how I can create some villages and farms to go on the boards and also woods, they will all be based on 30mm squares of card, so they can be used anywhere on the boards.

Next stage will be putting some paint on the boards.

TTFN

Airhead

Battle in a box 2

Progress on the Battle in a Box terrain, I marked out in white china-graph pencil the grid lines and also the road network. Then it was a simple process of painting PVA glue onto a selection of squares, to add some variety to the surface, I have used tea leaves on some of the squares and on a couple of these I have scraped the tea leaves into rows while the PVA was still wet. Hopefully creating a cultivated appearance of vin-yards. On the slopes of the hills I have used some small gravel to show broken ground. In the top photograph you can make out small mounds of stones positioned to mark the centre of 4 grid squares that are otherwise blank.

TTFN

Airhead

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