Sarissa Precision's European Timber Framed Town Set

 I have some more 15mm structures for my Napoleonic terrain collection; this time from Sarissa Precision, their European Timber Frame Town set.

This set is more complex than the Battlefield Accessories buildings in that all the buildings are at least 2 stories and have the necessary etched timber framing. Like the Battlefield Accessories buildings I textured the walls with Polyblend grout. 

Even though I was careful, I still got grout in the lines, and had to go back over the buildings after texturing to scribe out some lines.

I decided to do all the texturing and glue the card shutters onto the walls before assembly and priming; it was definitely easier to do that on the flat. 

The way the chimneys are cut means that two sides have no scribed brick texture. I scribed some bricks into some .5 cm foamed PVC for the exposed sides.

Handsome little buildings even before paint is applied.

2 of the 5 buildings in the set are urban town houses:

One has a bar or shop on the bottom floor:

The other is a typical town house:

There are also two larger buildings, a little more rural but still suitable in a town:

One is a barn:

...and the other a farm house:

For the church I chose some fish scale tiles from Slater's Plastikard for the roof. I also filled in the MDF of the dome with wood filler to smooth it out, and added strips from styrene.

I like my buildings based so I plumped them down on some MDF and added pavers scribed into some foamed PVC sheet to give the buildings a bit more a urban look.

I paid a little more attention to the rooves when painting as that is what we will be looking at the most when war gaming. 

Due to various embellishments and the more complex nature of the assembly and painting, these kits took quite a bit longer to do than the Battlefield Accessories kits. Between the two sets I imagine I will have enough buildings for most games as most towns and villages will consist of two or three structures. Having said that, I still have a couple more buildings I would like to add. Thank you for looking.

Battlefield Accessories 15mm House Pack

Continuing with my plan to expand my collection of 15mm terrain for our Napoleonic games, I wanted some simple, small buildings for farms and villages; so I bought two Battlefield Accessories' 15mm House Packs. 

These are perfect for rural houses in villages and hamlets throughout central Europe. I added texture to the walls with sanded grout. Although a little coarse for the effect I was after, it turned out well enough. 

I also cladded the lean-tos with scribed foamed PVC to represent wooden siding and doors (added after the pic below was taken).

As there are 3 buildings in each pack, I chose to base a single building, a pair and a trio. The single structure can represent a farmstead or tiny hamlet.

The pair, a more substantial village.

The trio could be a proper village or small town, depending on the rule set.

Altogether they make a substantial town.

These were so simple to glue together and embellish that I am thinking of getting another pack and doing them up with thatch rooves as that would have been more common on rural lowland houses

Customised Sarissa Precision Bridge

 Our Wagram game called for a number of  buildings and bridges (9 in total) and we were able dip into various peoples collections to get the required number, including a few scratch built specifically for the game. While building the terrain boards I realised that I had very few man made structures of my own for 15mm gaming so I ordered some MDF kits from a couple of different manufacturers; including 4 bridges from Sarissa Precision . One of them I spent a little more time on:

I love assembling MDF kits but the nature of the material and the way MDF kits have to be made means details and textures are hard to achieve. Fortunately for me, I love embellishing the kits as much as I like assembling them. One of the first things I noticed with these bridges were they are a bit large for 15mm. For big battle games like Wagram I like my structures to be a bit on the small side; the bridge would be perfect for skirmish gaming but a little long and wide for my liking. The first thing I did was cut down the bridge deck to 55 mm width. It would have been quite a bit more work to cut down the length so I left that as is since it was less important:

 

This meant that the bases the bridges come on also had to be trimmed:

My initial thought was to put texture on the sides of the bridge to represent plastering but I could not find any support for that having been done to medieval/renaissance bridges so I decide to use some Plastruct textured styrene (O scale Random Cut Stone 91560) to sheet the sides:

O scale is over-sized for 15mm but it doesn't look ridiculous here (the card arch comes with the kit):

Next up, were the coping stones that run along the top of the bridge sides. I used two methods: green stuff and 2mm foamed PVC (Foamex):

Although the greenstuff was probably a bit faster, as it took a bit more time to texture and scribe the PVC, I like the foamed PVC better. On top of that, there were lots of bits of the yellow epoxy that were already set and didn't mix well with the blue epoxy. I pressed a small rock into the PVC to get a nice, natural texture.

Another change I wanted to make to the bridge was the deck; I wanted a stone bridge deck, not a wooden one which the card best represents. For this I turned to 1mm foamed PVC and scribed stones into it and textured it in the same fashion as the coping stones.

This took quite a bit of time, although I did find it oddly satisfying and I have only done it for one bridge.

With that done it was ready for paint:

The bridge deck is a bit darker In Real Life. The scribed Foamex is fairly deep so I was able to use un-sanded grout in the joints after painting and sealing the bridge to represent mortar 

 As there are 4 bridges in total I am going to use some Tamiya stone sheet I have had for a decade for the other three to save time; it will go on after priming. I may come back and redo those bridge decks in the future as I am currently looking to buy some flexible epoxy resin for roads and it would work for these arched bridge decks as well. 

The Battle of Wagram: Part 2

 Here are a few pictures of the Battle fought over the weekend of August 23rd-25th. Set up was Friday afternoon with the initial two turns played that evening. Rules used were Napoleon's Battles, figures are 15mm by various manufacturers provided by several of the participants. 

The battlefield before troops were deployed. 

Massena's Corp on their starting line on the French left:

Rosenberg's IV Korps is deployed around Markgrafneusiedl with Hohenzollern's II Korps on the plateau in the distance:

Von Bellegarde's I Korps ensconced in Wagram:

Klenau's VI Korps starts the game threatening the French left flank:

View from the East; first turn (06:00) under way:

Davout's Corps rumbles forward:

The village of Baumersdorf in the middle of the photograph, bracketed by the French in the upper left and the Austrians in the lower right:

Either Boudet's or Molitor's (I can't recall...) twiddling their thumbs in  Raasdorf:

The Austrian III Korps joins the VI in attempting to outflank the French on their left:

The Austrians stream out of Wagram to meet the French head on:

Austrian cavalry cross the Russbach to threaten Davout's flank:

The Austrian II Korps congregate around Baumersdorf expecting a French assault:

Prochaska's Division parks itself outside Alderklaa before the French get there:

Elements of the Austrian 1st Korps under Fresnel face off against Oudinot's on the plain outside Wagram:

The French Imperial Guard, under Napoleon himself, advance quickly onto the battlefield, headed for Wagram:

The Austrians are expecting an assault on Markgrafneusiedl;

Prince Eugene's Army of Italy comes on in support of Massena on the left flank at Raasdorf:

Here we are mid-morning, Napoleon observing the fighting at Wagram from the enemy's perspective:

Same view from the east end of the table:

The Austrians have pulled back into Alderklaa as Bernadotte's IX Corps advances slowly on the town:

Napoleon observes the battle from a hill just south of Wagram and east of  Alderklaa:

Battle breaks out on the plain south of Markgrafneusiedl and the Russbach:

Massena's effort to hold the French left flank goes very well; some of Lasalle's cavalry (on the left) can be seen behind the Austrian line, looking to run over some Landwehr to get to the cannons:

This is where I left the battle, as I was unavailable for Sunday. Bernadotte's infantry close in on the Austrians holed up in Alderklaa on the left and the battle for Wagram gets more troops fed into it at the top. 

Just a few photos from Sunday morning as the new commanders take over for those of us who could not be there for day two:

A fantastic weekend out - a great way to end the summer. We are already think of our next massive battle for next summer.