Aspern-Essling commission. Building base 2 part 2

Just a quick update on this one. The stone work for the smaller rear building is done and I think I'll carry on with the rest of the stone work on the other buildings first before starting the timbering.

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A Scottish castle - part three

Now to the final part of the Scottish castle commission, a small stables block that can be attached to the main keep.

The idea was to have a couple of stable blocks on a separate base but with some loose walls (with magnets) that can be put between the two bases but also there's a small wicker fence that can be placed between the two stable blocks so it can be a separate base all on it's own.

All the walls for this were from Wills sheets and the quoins are styrene strip. The thatch is the dreaded teddybear fur that had a bit of work with glue and a comb and hasn't turned out too bad (I am still looking for the perfect thatch but it's been a long slog and I ain't there yet).

The doors are normal balsa wood given a bit of distress which helps with the drybrushing. Ground work was per the castle itself. The walls and thatch were sprayed but finished off in a more traditional manner (wash and drybrush).

Of course, for me,  the enjoyable part is the growies. Same as before but with a few more heather bushes and some longer bits of grass.

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A bit of SP 2

Well, had our first game of SP 2 (Sharp Practice 2) the other day and although we had a good day, that was down to the company rather than the rules.

I'm not going to be too harsh, as it's a first outing, but there seemed an awful lot of 'stuff' to remember as the game went on. Apparently it's called 'friction' and that to me does not a smooth game make. I think the biggest thing in my mind was the fact the rules didn't know whether they wanted to be skirmish or larger scale, or cinematic or historical.

When I play skirmish games of this nature then it's pretty much a 1:1 figure scale but there were certain elements in the rules that seemed to suggest that a 1:20 game (or thereabouts) was being played.

Deployment points were interesting but a lot of faf for such little gain. The command cards were a good addition, specially when the tiffin card comes up and there were a lot of similarities between this version and the previous.

I also don't like 'lists' for games but that's just a personal preference, not specifically aimed at this particular rules set. I would like to play it without a list and just have some stats and see what happens.

As mentioned, this was a first outing and I' sure that when we play it again it'll run more smoothly  :-)

Here are a couple of pictures of the game, as we were playtesting for our group there's only a few but I'm sure that as we progress I'll get some decent battle reports.

Terrain was a mix of my own and another lads, figures from all our collections (albeit very small for me lol) and were primarily a mix of Front Rank, Warlord and Brigade Games.

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Nappies

Real quick one tonight. Got a Napoleonic game tomorrow and I've been persuaded to get involved with a Portuguese force.

They are the Warlord plastics and unfortunately are a bit soft in the detail. They could probably do with more elements to reduce the softness but they'll do at a pinch. I've got some Brigade Games Cacadores winging their way from the states so should have some more painted at some point.

There's also a Cacadore officer I did a while ago.

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10mm Aspern Essling build

After seeing the larger 28mm version of building base 1, one of my regular clients has asked for me to replicate it in 10mm to match the existing ones I've already done for him (see the 10mm Napoleonic labels).

Quite the challenge as 10mm is a lot smaller than 28mm so some of the details will have to be reduced somewhat and I've had to do the timbering in a different way. Basically lasered 0.5mm acrylic following the same sort of arrangement as the last one.

Just the rear building for now but the others are drawn up and will be cut out, hopefully this coming week.

The glazing is back sprayed acrylic with the transoms/mullions scored on (with the laser) then filled with acrylic paint which is scrapped off leaving paint in the score lines.

The basic layout is shown in the first picture and for those that don't know, the coin (20p) is just over 21mm from base to tip.

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Keeping it Old School

Having grown up with GW many years ago I am quite keen on the older style figures, particularly the Jes Goodwin Skaven, Mark Copplestone Imperial guard, the orks that went with them and the older metal Empire figures.

I have plenty of these (enough for very large armies of each) and I feel that my painting skills are up to the task of doing a decent job on them.

Here's a selection of said figures from all four ranges but hopefully in the near future I'll do dedicated posts to each 'faction' as and when it gets added to.

The steamtank was scratchbuilt quite a few years ago but I've got two of the original kits somewhere waiting to be painted

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Let slip the Dogs of War

Was unfortunately working at the weekend and had a heavy week last week hence the lack of posts but here's a little one to keep you going until I can catch up :-)

I do have a bit of a soft spot for the Perry sculpts of the GW range of Dogs of War. A lovely collection of figures (just the Perry ones though, wasn't too keen on the others).

I have amassed quite the collection of them and will be slowly working my way through them.

Here are some taster shots of the ones I have done so far.

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More Boxer Japanese

I am pleased to say that we have some more Boxer Japanese greens ready to go to the casters. This time we have a firing line. Four poses as with the normal packs and as soon as I get them back I'll paint some up. These figures can also be used for the start of the Russo-Japanese war as the uniforms didn't start to change until later in the war.

They are to go with our existing Boxer Japanese figures that are pictured below. There are also plans to have a pack of casualties and armed naval troops then it'll be moving onto the first Chinese packs.

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Aspern-Essling commission. Building base 2 part 1

On to the second Aspern Essling building bases.

The first one was a lot of fun to make and I'm really looking forward to this one as well. The basic design had been sketched out along with the first one and the build principles will basically be the same although there will be more wip posts with this build because (as I mentioned earlier) I will be documenting more work here.

The plan for this one is a bit grander in st than the first and subsequent ones will be simpler. I'm also going to be having a clock tower on the corner, mainly because I fancy building one :-)

These builds all start with a set of elevations, cut from card and use an extensive collection of suitable reference photos that I have gathered over the years. These are all cut by hand because even though this style of building is rather regular, doing it by hand does help to give a more realistic look, rather than a box with right angle corners cut on a laser.

All the basic forms are made and put together with the exception of the roofs which will be kept separate (to help with painting etc). Certain details are also left until later depending on how integral they are to the main build.

 The next phase will be the timbering and although it will take a while it is quite relaxing.

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