The Old Church

The centerpiece, so to speak, of my "big battalions" battle on Saturday, Sep. 19th, was to be Der Alte Kirche (or the Old Church in German). In fact, it gave its name to the town and the battle -- Altkirchendorf.

The church itself is a paper construction that I glued to foam board to give it some additional strength. It was then mounted on a base of Masonite (a type of hardboard developed here in Mississippi - link). the final size of the base will be about 10" square.

The following pictures show the church and its yard from several different angles. As usual, please click on the pictures for larger versions.


A good look at the church yard with its small number of graves and a few 28mm figures for size comparison. I had the images of the church enlarged to 135% of the original so that it would look more in scale with the 28mm figures I use. I haven't cut the Masonite to size yet on these pictures.


A higher angle showing on of the unfinished wall sections. I tried to match the wall's color to the colors used on the church. The walls are pieces from an Italeri set called Stone Walls. Although they are 1:72 scale (and are thus undersized) they do match fairly decently with the church. The graves are from Tactical Conflict Simulations and have been mounted on 40mm x 20mm steel bases.




Once cut to size, the Masonite base will be painted green and the walls will be glued down to the base. The church will be left loose to allow easier storage.


And a final view of the church set on the battlefield on Altekirchendorf and defended by the Carpanian Braun Standing Grenadier Battalion and the Carpanian converged pioneer battalion.

Later I made a foam core base for the church that I glued to the Masonite and upon which I will mount the church using toothpicks as guide pegs. The rest of the Masonite base will get a terrain treatment over the green paint.

"True" 25mm Figure Comparison

On Friday, poster "FirstBrigade" was asking about what metal figures would match with 1/72 scale plastic figures. He was primarily interested in Napoleonic figures. You can read the thread here:

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=148784

I've been wargaming long enough that I have a good selection of what is referred to as "true" 25mm figures - Ral Partha, RAFM, MiniFigs, Scruby, etc. This picture shows a small selection of those figures compared with Italeri and Revell/Accurate plastic figures.

From left to right: RAFM F&IW Highlander, Italeri Napoleonic Russian Pavlov grenadier, MiniFig Napoleonic Prussian fusilier, Scruby (now produced by Historifigs) Napoleonic Prussian musketeer, Revell/Accurate AWR British infantry, and Ral Partha Colonial British infantry.

The black line is 1" (25.4mm) from the base of the background, giving a rough comparison of figure height. As you can see, only the Scruby figure comes close to the height and heft of the two plastic figures. But all of them will match well in separate units on the gaming table. Our group here in Jackson, Miss. (USA) utilize these brands (and others, such as Hinton Hunt/Der Kriegspieler, Warrior, Custom Cast, and Hinchliffe) in our "25mm" medieval, horse and musket, Napoleonic, and colonial armies. You can see how they look on the gaming table by visiting our web site: www.angelfire.com/games3/jacksongamer , clicking on "Pictures of Games," and then scrolling down and looking at the various battle reports.

I hope that this has helped.