My Favorite Terrain Piece

Back in ancient times of lore, when Warhammer was Warhammer, the 4th edition of the boxed game came with two card stock terrain pieces; a cottage and a stone tower. I still have both of them and the cottage has probably been in more of my tabletop battles than any other piece of terrain.

The classic Warhammer cottage.

Lord of the Rings battle.

Continental Firing line to the side of the cottage.

Another LOTR battle. 

Prince Rupert leads the War Poodle's own Regiment of Foot during the English Civil War. 

Green Regiment of the London Trained Bands. 

Action in the Peninsular.

World War II British Paratroopers.

The Wild West. 

 The Doctor and Sherlock Holmes.

Colonial Action. 

Lord Essex.

More Inexpensive Rocky Terrain

 

As a gamer on a budget (who isn't?) I like to save money with my hobby whenever I can. This year I have really been focusing on making terrain for my tabletop as my two new periods are the British Raj and the French and Indian War. Coincidentally, the rules I am using are both from the talented Dan Mersey, The Men Who Would be Kings, and Rebels and Patriots from Osprey Games. Since both rulesets are "large" skirmish games, terrain plays and important part. In addition, one of the major of appeals for me in miniature wargaming is the aesthetics of the table top. So lets make some more rocky terrain to break up formations and to hide behind for excellent cover.

First step for me is to find some real rocks! One of my past times (and how I get my exercise) is walking in the woods of the Southern United States. When I was working this project, over a period of days, I found some interesting rocks to use. I know what some of you are thinking: "Aren't that heavy and require storage space?" Well, they are really not that heavy, and now that my children are grown, I have plenty of storage space.

Hobby Lobby is a store in the United States and for US $5.99 I bought a pack of six, 6 inch diameter round craft plywood pieces. I use gobs of white glue to glue the rocks to the wood; but, before I do, I position the rocks with figures to make sure that are positioned correctly to use on the tabletop battlefield. Pictured above is a 28mm figure from Perry Miniatures mounted on a 25mm mdf stand from Litko Game Accessories.

The rocks are glued in place and left to dry overnight. You may notice that four of the bases have painted brown borders and two of them don't. Yep, I started applying glue and rocks and suddenly realized that I forgotten to paint the edges after I did two. I highly recommend painting the edges first! It can be challenging (yes it can) painting them with the rocks already on the bases. The base edges were painted with inexpensive (US $2.99) Burnt Umber craft paint.

I use Railroad hobby ballast for my basing needs as it is less expensive than buying hobby sand that is marketed for miniature gaming. I use gobs of glue and water it down to affix the sand. Since these bases are considerably larger than my figure stands, I used a large plastic container to put the sand in so I could easily dip the bases into the sand. Don't worry if you miss a few spots - that can easily be filled in with static grass. Make sure the sand is fully dry before moving onto the next step.

Once the sand is fully dry, pour some more white glue over the sand and use and old brush to water it down and spread it out evenly over the sand. When dry, it acts as a sealant and gives extra protection to your sand to it won't fall off.

Save those old, worn out brushes for jobs like this.

Remember that Burnt Umber craft paint. Once the coating of watered down glue is dry, I water down the Burnt Umber and spread it over the sand to let it seep in. I've gotten lazy highlighting my terrain and this is a quick, and I think looks good, alternative.

After the paint dries, I randomly put some white glue on the bases and water it down with that same old brush. Then I add some static grass and let it dry.

I added static grass on this rock as there was some white glue that spilled on the rock, dried and was noticeable. The stain around the grass is just watered down glue drying.

Ta Dah! All done. I'm am by no means a modeling expert and I find this technique quick and easy to do. I failed to mention that I used photographic references of the areas I'm gaming to help me with the positioning and modeling of the terrain.

As you can see, the rocky terrain works for a multiple of genres. One last look at some of the rocky terrain I have built this year.

My (Semi) Historical Late 19th Century Indian Army (Part Four)

 

"True to his salt."

The Corps of Guides was raised at Peshawar on 14 December 1846 by Lieutenant Harry Burnett Lumsden on the orders of Sir Henry Lawrence, the British Resident at Lahore, capital of the Sikh Empire. Initially composed of a troop of cavalry and two companies of infantry mounted on camels, the Guides were organized as a highly mobile force. The corps was ordered to recruit: 

" . . . trustworthy men, who could, at a moment's notice, act as guides to troops in the field; men capable, too, of collecting trustworthy intelligence beyond, as well as within, our borders; and, in addition to all this, men, ready to give and take hard blows, whether on the frontier or in a wider field."

The Queens Own Guides, Infantry, Punjab Frontier Force was my next infantry addition to my British Indian Army that I game using the rules The Men Who Would be Kings. The figures are all by Artizan Designs and this unit was the first unit that I tried to use mostly Games Workshops Contrast Paints. Contrast Paints are not for everyone; you have to paint faster than I am used to doing. Also, the recommended time for drying is 30 minutes before using another color.

There are many tutorials on YouTube and I have discovered, within reason (mine that is) that there are some advantages to using Contrast Paints when you are used to a different style of painting.  In addition, the Contrast Paints cost more and I noticed that you tend to use quite a lot! Still, I am happy with the results for my Guides. The Guides were perfect as they are primarily khaki with various browns. Here are the paints I used:

Uniform and Pagri (turban): Contrast Skeleton Horde (BWAH HAH HAH!).

Kulla (the pointed skull cap): Vallejo Flat Red. I painted the tip Vallejo Gold for the tip to denote the officers.

Poshteen: Contrast Nazdreg Yellow.

Fur Trim on Poshteen and boots:  Contrast Cygor Brown.

Skin: Contrast Snake Bite Leather. By varying the amount of the paint on the brush you can make the skin lighter or darker.

Webbing: Contrast Gore Grunta Fur. I have recently discovered that a Gore Grunta is a large Ork War Boar.

Haversack and Puttees: I painted Vallejo Ochre Green over the Contrast Skeleton Horde  (BWAH HAH HAH!).

Rifle: Wood Vallejo Mahogany Brown. The metal parts are Vallejo Gun Metal dry brushed with Vallejo Silver.

Bayonet Scabbard and Hair: Contrast Chaos Black.

Jemadar (Captain). Note the gold tip on his red kulla which denotes commissioned rank. He would also have his rank insignia on his shoulder epaulets but these are hidden by the poshteen.

Next unit up for my Indian Army for The Men Who Would be Kings is the 20th (Duke of Cambridge's Own) (Punjab) Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry with all figures from Artizan Designs (UK/EU link and US Link). I feel I have my "speed painting" method down using GW Skeleton Horde Contrast for the khaki uniforms. As you can see above, for this unit I went with the alternative basing of "3", "2", "1". Of course they can be used for other popular Colonial rules.

One of my favorite figures from the Artizan Designs 2nd Afghan War range.

There were two reasons I choose to paint this unit: (1) They played a significant role during the Frontier Uprisings of '97 - '98 and (2) they have green kullas on their turbans to add color to the waves of khaki.

After my first game of The Men Who Would be Kings, it became apparent to me that it was time to paint the Indian Army Maxim Gun based on the devastating performance of the Imperial Russian machine gun. Not only did the Russian Maxim perform historically, it was extremely effective due to its high rate of fire of causing casualties amongst infantry that had cover bonuses from Hard Terrain. Yikes! I decided to paint them as a detachment from the 20th Punjabis.

"Whatever happens, we have got The Maxim gun, and they have not." - Hilaire Belloc in the words of the figure "Blood" in his poem "The Modern Traveler".

My Indian Army Maxim machine gun is another blister pack from Copplestone Castings' Back of Beyond Range. In fact, the pack comes with two machine guns: one Sikh and one Indian Muslim. When purchasing, since I live in the USA, my go to for Copplestone is either eBay or Brigade Miniatures (no Lon Weiss did not pay me to write that!). If you are in the States, Brigade Miniatures has inexpensive and fast shipping - I highly recommend the store.

That's my Indian Army for now. In the future I plan to add the Gordon Highlanders, a Sikh unit, a Ghurka unit, a regular British Infantry unit and some Mountain Artillery.

My (Semi) Historical Late 19th Century Indian Army (Part Three)

"I say. Get on with the typing. Jolly good. Quite."

As I decided to focus my Indian Army during the period of the 2nd Afghan War and 1900 using the rules The Men Who Would be Kings, I started doing some research on units, uniforms, etc. I'm a Military Historian (hmmm, where did I put that framed diploma?) but I am not a serious stickler for 100% in how my troops look. In fact, also as a retired Infantry Colonel, I can tell you from experience, what is in the regulations is not necessarily followed by all in the field. It still cracks me up when I first saw a uniform guide for Desert Storm with the soldiers of the US VII Corps, particularly the 1st (US) Armor Division in the "Chocolate Chip" desert uniforms. Well . . . we were issued them after hostilities. 

In the scales I play, I go for gaming distance in how my figures look on the tabletop. Close enough is good enough for me. Enough of an editorial. I choose the next unit to paint because I think there is a rule that you must have at least one Bengal Lancer unit in your Army.

The 10th (The Duke of Cambridge's) Bengal Lancers (Hodson's Horse).

Before I started to paint the 10th Bengal Lancers, which are all Perry Miniatures, I decided I was going to experiment first using GW's Contrast paints to see if they were a viable option for painting the figures. What I refer to as "The Great Indian Army GW Contrast Paint Field Study" was an outstanding success and worth the requisition from the Ministry of Finance. The entire Study is on the link above.

I decided to paint my Squadron of the 10th Bengal Lancers as they would have looked during the Frontier Uprisings of 1897 to 1898. They carry no pennants on their bamboo lances as they are on active field duty against the enemy. The 10th also had black puttees while most cavalry units had blue. I also added trailing scarfs from the Perry Miniatures Afghan Tribal Infantry box to their pagari (turbans). Hey, if you are going to have Bengal Lancers, they need to look dashing! I also attached one of the trailing scarfs to the cummerbund of my dapper British officer.

"Save those bits!"

If we are going to be in India, we must have some Kipling! One of the greatest English novels of all time is Kim, written by Nobel Laureate Rudyard Kipling. For my army, I decided to do some characters from the novel. You can view my suggested rules by just following the links. All of the figures are conversions primarily using the Perry Miniatures Afghan Tribal Infantry, a D&D figure from the Nolzur line from WizKids and my handy dandy bits box.

Kimball "Kim" O'Hara AKA "Little Friend of all the World."

Mahbub Ali "The Red Beard."

Teshoo Lama

In addition, again doing a conversion from the Perry Miniatures Afghan Tribal Infantry box I did a real life Political Officer: Colonel Sir Robert Warburton, KCIE, CSI.

Next:

1. "How about some Infantry?"

2. "How about some fire support?"

3. "Colors? We don't need no stinking fancy colors!"