Terrain For Leipzig: Part 6

 With so many communities on the battlefield, providing buildings to represent them is going to be a collective effort. I have approximately 12 of my own already, but I picked up three more from Warbases. Specifically a few of their rural German buildings from their 15mm Buildings range:

As usual, I made some modifications to the structures:

 I used some Lepages Plastic Wood Filler to texture the walls of the farmhouse and some Gorilla Glue Wood Filler (natural) on the barn and outbuilding, including the daub infill:

The farmhouse got a roof of Platers Plasticard, fish scale tiles: 

All the siding, beams and thatch rooves were primed with Vallejo's Parched Grass primer; the tile roof got hit with a coat Rustoleum Paint &Primer spay, brick red:

The walls of the the barn and outbuilding were textured with Gorilla Wood Filler and the thatch rooves were made from the same. I then brushed the thatch with a moist coarse brush for texture:

I used the Parched Grass primer as the basecoat for the thatch; I am pleased with both the texture and the colour. It is probably the fastest and simplest thatch roofing I have ever done.

Normally I like substantial bases on my buildings that I can add some landscaping to but I left these as is;  the base they come with has a small lip.

These are larger buildings than the Sarissa Precision and Battlefield Accessories products; I think they are designed with skirmish gaming in mind as the rooves and second stories are removeable.

I loved working on these and I am tempted to get a few more.

Terrain For The Battle of Leipzig: Part 5

I was able to take my foot off the gas on this project as the due date has been bumped from last weekend to sometime in May (most likely). At this point, the six new panels are finished and the older panels have been touched up and would have been ready for last weekend. 

I lined the Elster and it's tributaries with shrubs made from Woodland Scenics Clump Foliage (medium green, light green and burnt grass).

The swamp area to the west of the Elster was also lined with clump foliage and some home made shrubs:

... and filled in with a lot of Army Painter tufts (Highland and Swamp).

The swamp and minor tributaries of the Elster are just three or for layers of Golden Gloss sealer over the grout base:

Overall, I think the result is effective. 

The extra time has allowed me to add some details that I might not have otherwise been able to do such as make a large batch of trees in autumn foliage (this is about a third of them):

As well as more roads (we will need about 60'!):

This weekend I got started on some buildings I ordered from Warbases (rural farmhouse, barn and outbuilding) which I have upgraded with sheet styrene and Lepages Plastic Wood Filler:

This week I expect to make headway painting these as well as another Sarissa Precision building and bridge that have been started for a while now. 

Terrain For The Battle of Leipzig: Part 4

 With the grout sealed and the resin river sections poured it was time to move onto adding greenery and foliage to the boards. For the sake of consistency I followed the same process as for my Alma and Wagram boards. First up was a base layer of 2mm Woodland Scenics static grass; mostly Medium and Light Green with a pinch of both Harvest Gold and Straw:

I varied the mix slightly in each load so that it wasn't too homogenous. After the base layer was set, I did quick patches of 4mm Peco Summer mix:

For variation in texture, I sprinkled some Scenic Express SuperLeaf (a mix of medium Green, Light Green and a lesser amount of Moss Green):

For some scattered shrubs I used Woodland Scenics Bushes in Dark and Light Green, as well a few homemade ones:

The end result:

The 6 river section boards and the 4 new plain boards got this treatment. The bulk of the hard work is done. I just have to paint some resin onto the swampy areas and the minor waterways. If I had been more on the ball and paid more attention I could have done the swamp areas and minor waterways at the same time as the rivers as one of the boards got it's swampy section flocked over. So the next step is to remove some of the static grass and paint down some resin followed by tufts to represent boggy ground. 

Terrain For The Battle of Leipzig: Part 3

 With the grout laid down and sealed it was time to pour the resin for the Elster. First things first, the ends had to be dammed. 

I used 2" by 4" styrene, held in place with masking tape and Lexel multi-purpose sealant. 

I added a second layer of masking tape, covering the bottom of the styrene dam after these photos were snapped.

I brushed a thin layer of resin onto the river bottom to pre-seal it before the proper pour. Any sealer would do (grout sealer, Mod Podge, ETC),it insures that the poured resin will not leak through the base.

Once the seal coat was dry I poured all the river sections over the course of two afternoons.

I used Golden High Flow acrylics Sap Green to colour the resin; I should have added more as I would have preferred the river to be a darker but it looked perfect while I was mixing. Next time I will know to make it darker than I prefer as once it is poured the shallow rivers turn out lighter. 

The dark spots on the banks are places where the resin either dripped or overflowed slightly before it levelled out. That's no bother as I can put swamp grass tufts in those locations. Out of the 16 dams, 3 leaked a little but the loss of resin did not make a significant difference to height of the river. 

My preferred resin for this kind of thing is EcoPoxy Flowcast SPR:

I love this line of products: easy to use, mixes 2:1 by volume, can do pours up to 1" thick, cleans up with isopropyl alcohol (before it is set), and has plenty of working time. The fumes are not intolerable but I keep a window open anyways. 

Terrain For The Battle of Leipzig: Part 2

 My intention was to start adding grout to the new river panels but decided to finish building the extra panels. I laid out all the new, unfinished panels along side both the old panels and the proposed panels ( the raw foam in the upper left corner) to get an idea how much more materials I will need:

All the old panels needed 1" by 2" frames built for them as well so I picked up another 100' of 1" by 2" boards, another 3 sheets of 1/4" plywood and one more 2' square piece of 1" foam. I think after this I will have enough panels for just about any battle we want to fight!

Once all the panels were done, I used Polyblend's Sanded Caulk (Coffee Bean) as a base in the river bottom:

I then started the process of gluing down a layer of Polyblend Sanded Grout (Coffee Bean again) as I did with the Wagram and Alma boards:

For those that are curious, the Sanded Caulk comes in a tube and requires a caulking gun, the Sanded Grout is a powder that comes in a box, which is mixed with water when used for it's intended purpose. You could easily mix it up and apply it wet but I like the effect you get sprinkling it on as a powder over thinned white glue. 

Another piece of the Leipzig puzzle I am responsible for is Napoleon's 'Pygmy Cavalry' - The Krakusi:

These figures are from Boki Miniatures in Estonia. 

The miniatures are nice, but I feel the casting has let the sculpting down a bit. Some quite fine detail is a bit obscured, mostly around the sword hilt, scabbard, stirrups and irons. 

Over the Christmas break I expect to get all the grouting done and sealed. After that, it will be time to pour the resin in the river sections. 

Imaginations: The Wars of Stagonian Aggression

 This past Sunday Murdock and I got together at a local hobby store to play a game of Black Powder with Jeff's collection of 18thC Bloodaxe Miniatures. The scenario was Crossroads, from Charles S. Grants Programmed War Games Scenarios.

Advanced forces of the Armies of Stagonia and Saxe-Bearstein arrive in column on roads from diagonal corner. They converge on village at the crux of 4 major arteries, that is - apparently -  of great strategic importance. Initially troops arrive piecemeal:

Stagonian light horse are the first to make it to the village:

The Army of Saxe-Bearstein moves with... less purpose, shall we say...

This allows the oncoming Stagonians to move their main body forward without hinderance:

Eventually Saxe-Bearstein manages to assemble something more like an army on the table although the force has become bottlenecked:

And yet more Stagonians stream onto the table:

A series of enthusiastically followed commands finds them in an excellent position on the left flank of Saxe-Bearstein:

This picture shows the Stagonians hemming in the rudderless forces of Saxe-Bearstein:

A small victory for Saxe-bearstein as, after losing their own light horse, they have pushed back the Stagonian cavalry, and broken the brigade through musket fire. Their own brigade of horse has just started to enter the field of battle as the picture shows (the Eldebrau Dragoons in the lower left):

Not long after however, both of Saxe-Bearstein's foot brigades were broken, and the orders to withdraw were given, leaving the crossroads and village to Stagonia:

The rules used were Black Powder, with period specific rules and unit stats from The Last Argument of Kings supplement. We did not use the rules for blunders and we halved movement distances since we were playing on a 4 x 6 table.