Rocky Wasteland Terrain

A new-ish hobby store in our area just recently moved to a new, bigger space and has an eye towards hosting miniature wargames. A buddy of mine made them 4 gaming tables, complete with storage space underneath and recruited me to make some terrain for them. Although not strictly historical, in fact, most of the games played will probably be 40K, possibly also some Star Wars Legion, Warhammer The Old World and others, I am sure somewhere on our planet, at some time there was a rocky, barren wasteland like this.

The store owner bought 4 mats from Mantic Games; this scenery is for the Hellscape Battlemat:

Clearly, somewhere with serious volcanic activity. I chose to go with standard grey rocky out crops with little vegetation. I saw the mats briefly before starting this project and In Real Life this mat is neither as bright or as brown as this photo suggests. I may have to adjust the colour of the pieces once I have seen them on the mat.

The bases are based on Games Workshops recommended guidelines for tournament terrain. There are 6 , 6x12 inch pieces, 4 4x6 inch and 2 5 x10 inch pieces. 

All the rock is insulation foam, with chunks tore off with a pair of very rough nippers. 

The torn foam has a nice texture to it that I would not have got if I had used a knife or a hot wire cutter. The texture was enhanced with Sculptamold which was also used to blend the larger pieces into the base and each other.

A mix of mostly sand with some Woodland Scenics Ballast (both fine and large) was glued down and sealed with home made sealer.

After priming with a light grey, I sponged white paint, yellow ochre and burnt sienna over the rocks before spraying everything with Golden Acrylics High Flow Shading Grey:

The Shading Grey darkens everything and blends the sponged colours into each other and the base coat. After a couple coats of mat varnish, I added some 6 mm dry grass tufts and called her done:

I may have to revisit the colours once I have seen the terrain on the mat. For the next three tables the owner would like me to use Games Workshop's 40K terrain kits with the basing themed to specific Battlemats.

Bloody Miniatures: A Thunder of Hooves

 After spending quite a bit of time this past twelve months working on 15mm terrain for our Napoleonic and Crimean War games, I have returned to painting Bloody Miniatures. A Thunder of Hooves was the first batch of mounted figures from Bloody Miniatures. 

Pack BM 042 is The Troopers. Well armed and uniformly equipped, these would be great for representing horse of the New Model Army: 

Pack BM 043, The Flashing Blades, do look a bit dandy with their lace and feathers:

Pack BM 044 are The Lobsters. Hesselrig's is what obviously comes to mind when looking at these figures but they could easily represent a General's or the King's life guard: 

The final pack in this tranche is BM 045, The moss Troopers. Festooned with firearms, they would make great harquebusiers, bandits or even dragoons:

The mounts are modified eBob horses. The original mounts had large, thick draft-like necks with skinny, under-muscled haunches. Sculptor Nick Collier has bulked out the hind ends, making more  accurately proportional horses and modified the saddles. The double reins are (probably) anachronistic but I am not much bothered by that.

Battle of The Alma; The Game

 This past weekend was the Trumpeter's Salute gaming convention in Burnaby British Columbia; our game - The Battle of The Alma - was Friday night (which freed us up to play games over Saturday and Sunday).

The Battle of the Alma was fought September 20, 1854. The Allies, led by Lord Raglan and Mareshal Jacques Arnaud, landed troops and supplies over 5 days from the 14th to the 19th near the port of Yevpatoria, 45 KM north of Sebastopol. The Russian Commander, Prince Alexander Menshikov was suprised by the allies, he had not expected them to attack so close to winter and therefore had not reinforced the Crimea. What he had available, he rushed to the ridge above the Alma, a naturally defensible position, where the Russians deployed numerous guns in two hastily built redoubts. The force was intended to delay the allies as they headed towards Sebastopol, however, preservation of the Russian force - especially the guns- was utmost in Menshikov's mind. 

Our game focuses on the British attack across the Alma, and up the ridge towards the redoubts, with the French potentially appearing on the western flank (as they did in reality). The British are deployed north of the Alma (the left of the photo), with the French in reserve (unbeknownst to the Russians) and the Russian forces are on the plateau, top right of the photo:

Our host, Nate briefing the players on their objectives and the rules of the game:

The Allies objective is to claim the heights so they can continue their march on Sebstapol.  The Russian objective is to extract a heavy toll from the allies, though not at the cost of losing the artillery, which the Russian commander, Menshikov considered invaluable. 

The Russian defenders in the greater redoubt (the red beads denote that the Russian guns start the game a little spooked; the green dice are the command pips available to the commanders).

The British line becomes somewhat disjointed crossing the Alma:

The Highlanders on the eastern flank make good progress, leaving their compatriots behind:

Gunfire from the 42nd sees off one Russian battery but pays a heavy price. The 2nd Division on the right struggles to catch up:

As the 2nd Division cross the Alma near Bourliouk, the Russians prepare to attack . They were ultimately successful, pushing the British back across the Alma.

A second wave Highlanders reaches the lesser redoubt...

... with predictable results for the Russian gunners:

Almost too late to be any use, the French have scaled the cliffs and appear on the Russian flank, catching them by suprise:

With the arrival of the French, the Russian forces - despite their success in holding off the 2nd division- find themselves outflanked. The lesser redoubt was lost, and the greater redoubt found itself between two enemy forces: Nate called the game as an allied victory, much like the historical battle.

The rules were Nate's own, the figures are all from Eureka's 18mm Crimean War range.

The Battle of The Alma; Part 2

 I am very happy to say I will not be up late Thursday night, struggling to finish the terrain for next weekend's convention game Friday evening, as I have managed to finish this project well ahead of time!

With the panels done, I just had to make some emplacements to represent the Russian redoubts and a few vineyards. 

The redoubts were made with 15 mm gabions from Maverick Models and Evergreen Styrene strips, buttressed with insulation foam and then textured with a mix of ballast, sand and sanded grout.

The vineyards were fairly straight forward: Bachman Wire Foliage Branches in medium green, gently pulled apart laterally to give the impression of growing along an arbor.

I wish I had ordered more gabions. They are perfect and I could have made a proper, well fortified redoubt.

My Battlefield Accessories buildings will do for the village of Bourliouk:

The northern edge of the battlefield from which the British will assault the heights.

From the behind the redoubts, where the Russian reserve will wait:

Just a little more tidying up and we will be ready for Friday evening.

The Battle of The Alma

 One of our group is hosting a game at the Trumpeter's Salute convention next month and we decided to repurpose some of the panels from our Wagram game as - like Wagram - the Battle of The Alma, features a small river (the Alma) at the base of a hill. 

This is the map I am basing the panel layout on:

For this game I needed to make three more panels to extend the heights beyond the Alma as Russian reserves will be parked there, along with two redoubts (the goal of the attacking allies). 

The boards were covered in sanded grout and sealed with white glue:

.As part of the hillside was steep and rocky, I made use of some Woodland Scenics rock moulds:

Two layers of static grass (2mm Woodland Scenics and 4mm Peco), followed by scrub brush (Woodland Scenics foam bushes and Scenic Express SuperTurf) matches the new panels to the old ones.

The village of Bourliouk will be placed where the road meets the Alma, utilising the Battlefield Accessories buildings I made earlier. Although I am tempted to extend the roads as on the map, they do not play a key part in the battle and limit the new panels. 

There is still a bit of tidying to do of the original panels, and the redoubts and some vineyards to make before the battlefield is complete.