The curse is ended!

...maybe. But this is a good sign in any case.

I haven't mentioned the curse before, but it's true. All too true. I don't know how or why, but I have a curse. Whenever commercial products appear on the market that I really like, they disappear at a speed that's in direct proportion to my liking of them.

I have experienced this curse mostly with pre-packaged food products or restaurant menu items. I'll find something I like and then suddenly it can't be found in any store. Or, I'll eat something at a restaurant a few times until it becomes my favorite menu item, then *poof* it's off the menu or it's "there" but the actual item has been transmogrified into some inedible golem of its former self.

All I can do is scream out my woe.

But it hasn't always been black despair.

Some time back I got a yen for expanding my Grenadier Miniatures collection. The minis were widely available years ago and then, you guessed it, *poof*. After searching diligently on th'Interwebs, I discovered that Mirliton in Italy now owned and produced the range. But shipping from Italy almost requires taking out a second mortgage to pay for it. The curse taunts me. But then, I discovered that Noble Knight Games in the good ol' US of A carries them.

The curse weakens.

A fews years ago Troy Wold showed up for a Pike & Shotte Game at The Panzer Depot and started setting out some very nifty Medieval/Renaissance style buildings, which I came to learn were from Conflix.

The Conflix buildings are very cool. They come pre-painted (no work for me) and are perfect for the discerning 28mm gamer to use as tabletop terrain from the Medieval era to the 19th c.

They're just the right kind of building to make a game pop.

So, I had to have some, but the curse...

The buildings were no longer being produced. I looked all over th'Interwebs and finally found a place in the UK that had some. I ordered several and then held my breath until they arrived on my doorstep. Another win against the curse.

Curse: 321, Dave: 2.

But that's only a tentative win. Conflix were still out of production with no hope of returning. I hadn't bought every building and now I wanted more.

And then today whilst browsing th'Interwebs for Conflix I found this: http://news.bachmann.co.uk/2018/01/conflix-range-relaunch/

Bachmann, the model train people who produce the Conflix range, are relaunching it in 2018. According to the schedule, some of the buildings should be available now; others will become available later in the year. I'm not sure if there's any new items, but even if not, it's a welcome event and I plan to pick up some of the items I didn't get before and double-up on some others.

I won't call this a win until I find an online seller that has 'em in stock, but I'm hopeful.

I wonder if I stop by Starbucks whether they'll have cherry tarts again? Or, if BJ's has brought back their thin crispy fries? Or...

No, I won't push my luck.

Redoubtable resin

Arriving at my door last week was a wee package from Paul's Modelling Workshop in the UK. I first saw Paul's work when Troy Wold set up a line of breastworks for a Pike & Shotte game using Paul's models, which are sold fully painted through Warlord Games. (Troy: They're £28 cheaper if you buy the fully painted ones directly from Paul.)

Last month, I finally got around to thinking that I wanted some kind of field fortification to use in The Pikeman's Lament games. I crawled the 'Net and found Paul's products sold through his own site.

I instantly wanted all of it, but limited myself to a ravelin and a lunette. Both will make handy standalone field works that are ideal for skirmish games.

In my correspondence with Paul, I found that he was a Seattle Seahawks fan. Who knew there were American football fans in the wilds of Hampshire? Though, to be fair, there are plenty of European football (i.e., soccer) fans in the wilds of Seattle.

Go Hawks!

Paul sells the fully painted pieces through his website, but he also sells the unpainted resin too. I opted for the latter because I can paint and flock to match other terrain I've done.

The pieces are large and sturdy. The lunette measures 9 5/8 inches from end to end (or 24.5 cm for those who can't manage fractions) and will easily provide cover for one or two TPL sized units. The ravelin  is 5 1/2 inches deep and 5 inches wide. It's great for a gun  and crew, but any unit could fit.

The raw ravelin

The pieces cleaned up nicely, there wasn't any kind of flash that needed trimming and no assembly required. I just gave 'em a wash with hot water and dish soap and they were ready to rock.

I used white primer on them. I've used Rust-oleum brown primer on some terrain pieces in the past, but with all the wood bits. I thought I'd stick to my standard substrate.

The wood bits on the pieces were painted with a  base coat of Vallejo Light Brown (Marron Claro) 70.929. This is my go-to wood color. I use it for pike/spear shafts, gunstocks, peg legs, etc.

Base wood coat — kinda orangey

I then went over that with a scrub of  Vallejo Cork Brown (Marron Corcho) 70843, which is a bit lighter in color. Then, to get a weathered look, I drybrushed it with Vallejo Deck Tan (Marron Cubierta) 986. Finally, I went over it all with a wash using a matte varnish with Vallejo Game Ink Sepia 72091 added, then watered down.

Wood bits complete — less orangey

Once the wood bits were done, I gave it a spray of Krylon Matte Finish, and then on to the dirt bits.

I used my standard coat of Vallejo Model Air Mud Brown (Marron Lodo) 71.037. I use this color as the base color for all my basing. After that, I did a drybrush of Vallejo Yellow Ochre (Ocre Amarillo) 70.913, which is also standard for most of the basing, namely for figures that aren't desert types.

I then pondered the question to flock or not to flock? The completed models that Paul does have a flocking that runs raggedly across the bottom. I like the look, but I also liked the plain dirt. In the end, I flocked. I am not sorry.

Murderin' Meg protected by dirt

These little lovelies turned out well and I'm eager to put them to use in a game. They're good for pretty much anything from the Renaissance through 19th c.

Lunette manned by ECW dragoons

Until someone comes to take it away

Of course, I'm also ideating on other Pauline purchases. There's a very nice Large Gun Bastion I have my eye on...

Mind the gap!

Hosting several games of Queztalcoatl Rampant, the Lion Rampant variant Kevin Smyth and I created, got me thinking about how to better enforce the rule that requires all units to maintain a 3" gap between themselves and other units. Players tend to want to mass their troopies as tightly as they can and I found myself many times reminding them of the 3" gap rule.

Back when I was playing DBA and DBM, we all used some form of "Barker marker," a 40mm square marker that we used to ensure that we stayed away from the danger zone that extends out from a unit's front. For DBM, there were template sets you could buy that provided a handy way to stay outside of distances that affected your movement, etc.

I wandered as I pondered and chanced upon a pack of Litko 3" circular bases, at which point the volubly loud exclamation "Aha!" escaped my lips (scaring the cats and alarming the neighbors). Those 3" bases were perfect for templates that players can use to gauge proximity to other units as they move and thus escape the gamemaster's chiding and condemnatory gaze—although it won't correct "conga-line" tactics.

The bases are 3mm thick, so easily picked up by their edges as they lie flat on the table, but I wanted some kind of "handle" that made placing them and picking them up a bit easier. I also wanted to terrain them in some way to harmonize with the bases on the table. For the Elizabethan Irish project, I thought something like an old, weathered Celtic cross slightly askew would look nice—although I have yet to find a suitable 1.5" to 2" high Celtic cross to use [dear readers, suggestions are welcome]. I also thought that for the ECW, something  like a lonely gibbet—with or without the hanging corpse of some malefactor—would be nice. Such can be acquired (e.g., from Irregular Miniatures) but I haven't ordered it yet.

In the interim, I wanted something generic that I could use for any X Rampant style game: Lion Rampant, Dragon Rampant, The Pikeman's Lament, etc. Poking about at Hobby Lobby recently, I came across a packet of 1" wooden drawer pulls. I suppressed another "Aha!," but was quite glad to have found them. They would make the perfect handles for generic templates.

Pulls and bases pre-assembly

I started by roughly determining the center of the 3" base and gluing the pull to it. After the glue dried, I stained the pull using the Minwax Tudor stain that I use for dipping my figures. I didn't let it sit long at all before wiping it, so the stain effect is fairly light.

When the stain dried, I spread some of my beloved Golden Course Pumice Gel medium on the bases as the foundation for terraining them. After the gel dries (I gave it about 48 hours), I trimmed off the excess and glued some model railroad ballast to make rocky bits.

Twin bins of rocky bits

I paint the gel medium and rocky bits with a coat of slightly watered down Vallejo Mud Brown from their airbrush range (which is already a bit thinned). Then I drybrush the lot with Vallejo Yellow Ochre. After that, I drybrush the rocks with a Vallejo Deck Tan and then highlighted with Vallejo Bone White.

Looking muddy

I flocked the bases with patches of Woodland Scenics Earth Blend Blended Turf. I go over the patches with a second application of the blended turf using diluted Mod Podge. The double coating gives a bit more texture to the flocking.

I follow up the turf with an application of Woodland Scenics Coarse Turf. I make a mix of the Light Green and Yellow Grass colors. It breaks up the monochrome affect with the coarse turf the way the blended turf does for the fine turf colors.

When the glue has dried for the coarse turf, I take a small tweezer and pull out the fluffier bits of the coarse turf. I like to trim it down, otherwise it looks a bit much. I really just want it as additional texture and color, so I don't want it overwhelming the surface like kudzu.

Kudzu: The vine that ate Alabama (there's a house under there)

Finally, I added a few Scenic Express flower tufts. The final product turns out quite nice and is usable for any of the Rampant family of rules.

Handy-dandy gap-minder units

Land Ho!

In the midst of all the other things I'm doing in my week off, I'm landscaping the sea. More specifically, I'm creating island and shore terrain for my Row Well and Live! ancient naval rules. I've had doing this in mind for some time, but with ships (and the rules) still to finish, I've put if off until I had more time to devote to it.

I tend to hover on projects. I never sit and paint for hours. Instead, I paint a bit, do something else, come back and paint a bit more, do something else, etc. This means that over the course of an evening, I may get an hour or so of work done. On a weekend, I may get several hours.

Another factor in my hovering, is that some tasks in a project require long drying time, so there's an interval between, say, a first coat of paint and a second. During a work week, the standard intervals are a) overnight and b) while I'm away at work. These intervals usually mean that I don't get a lot done quickly. Now that I'm home, the intervals can be an hour or two, so I can do in a day what might tale several days during a normal week.

This is how it's been this week so far and I've definitely done something on everything and seen decent progress (except maybe on the cold fusion thing—perpetual motion I've delegated to Maebh, who seems to never stop).

Store-bought stuff

First the stuff that comes ready-made: A short while ago, I was at The Game Matrix in Tacoma to play some Victorian Sci-Fi and I picked up a pack of rubble piles from War Torn Worlds. These are very nice terrain pieces made out of recycled rubber.

The rubble piles are intended for 28mm scale, but when I saw them, I figured instantly that they would be perfect as rock formations poking up out of placid seas: a convenient place for sea birds to poop and an inconvenient place for ships to wreck themselves.

The rubble piles come pre-finished and flocked with mossy bits. War Torn Worlds produces other pieces that may also be useful, but this pack of rubble is the only pre-made terrain I have so far. Everything else is up to me.

Hand-made stuff

I mentioned earlier that I procured a stash of 2" pink foam insulation, which I had to cut down in the Home Depot parking lot to fit in my car. The high-density foam can be shaped to form hills and islands, provided you have the right tools. For our land-based games, we typically use unfinished, rough-cut foam board over which we lay a felt cloth. For naval gaming, you need to go a bit further and actually terrain the foam. I have done this once before when making hills for DBA/DBM.

For this project, I started by creating 2" hex-grid templates in Adobe Illustrator, which I printed on tabloid paper (11 x 17) and glued to the face of the pink board.

After that I cut out the pieces using a keyhole saw, which has a fairly rough blade. I initially imagined that I could cut close to the grid so that the pieces would exactly fit the grid on the mat. However, I found that once I started sawing, the template didn't stay attached. I made do with getting a shape that is approximately aligned to the hex grid.

I first thought that I could rough-shape the foam using a coping saw and some wood-shaping tools. However, the foam tends to chip if the tools used to shape it are too rough. So I bit the bullet and bought an expensive hot-knife foam cutter at The Panzer Depot. I've had my eye on it for some time because it has a nice heavy blade, unlike other heated foam cutters that use a thin wire.

After getting used to the hot-knife—and getting a respirator mask to avoid giving myself brain damage from the fumes—I roughed out the islands. The result is sort of a melty, blob-ish, burnt lump of pink.

I then took a wood rasp and smoothed out the hot-knife cuts followed by more smoothing with medium and fine sand paper.

Once the island pieces are smoothed, I slathered them in Mod Podge  as a sealer. The islands will eventually get sprayed with dullcote, which will eat into the foam if not protected. The sealing also stabilizes the foam and helps prevent chipping. It also serves as a better surface for subsequent coats and painting later.

After the sealer coat is dry, I did another coat of Mod Podge and sprinkled coarse and fine model railroad ballast on it for texture.

 

I let the Mod Podge and ballast dry on my kitchen island overnight—trusting that the cats won't get to it. By now they're used to my projects taking up space in their home and tend not to molest my works in progress. Although every now and then I'm awakened by a bit of clatter in the night and come downstairs to find three cats looking like they ate the canary as they watch me mitigate whatever disaster has befallen. Little scamps.

In the morning, I applied two thin coats of a brownish Apple Barrel craft paint as a base color.

I discovered that I don't like the larger ballast that I used. It sticks out too much and may only serve as raised bits to get caught by butterfingered gamers (or, more likely, by me) and cause chipping when it tears off. However, they seem to adhere sufficiently and haven't become detached through the process. The use of Mod Podge rather than white glue also helps. Mod Podge retains a great amount of elasticity after it's dry. Bits that are glued on will give a bit before they break off.

I dry-brushed over the base color with the same color lightened by yellow. I also painted the cliff part of one island using Vallejo Iraqi Sand (which is the same color I use for my ship's decks).

Once the dry-brushed color is dry, I started applying the flocking. For the initial flocking I used Woodland Scenics Earth Blend. After that flocking is dry, I watered down the Mod Podge and daubed it over the Earth Blend-flocked areas to apply multiple coats of Woodland Scenics Green Blend. I always use multiple applications of flocking on my miniatures bases and I find that if I try to brush on a second coat of Mod Podge on top of already flocked areas, it brushes away the flocking already there. Daubing watered-down Mod Podge uses the already flocked surface as a catch (so it doesn't run) and puts a lot adhesive down. Watered-down Mod Podge uses capillary action so it actually creates a thicker covering because the adhesive moves up into the flocking that doesn't actually touch the surface.

I've got three pieces done now. These pieces will feature in my Labor Day game. I have templates glued to the foam board for another two larger islands. I'll get started on these, but go slower. I won't use the coarse ballast in the future. I don't like the look and worked to cover it with flocking.

I still have about 6' of foam board, which I can use for hills or for more islands and shoreline. However, I'm worried about storage. The number of galley games I'm going to play over the next years is nothing compared to the number of days these pieces will sit in my garage, which is already full. If only there were storage options outside the normal bounds of time and space...