Yet more Woebetides scenery

Over the weekend I built a barracoon (slave pen) for one of the groups of Arab trader/pirates in the Woebetides.

The walls are made from lengths of wicker rescued from a small basket that was going to be thrown out. Lashings of hot glue gun glue were used to keep it together and provide strength.  The roof is sculpted from Milliput laid down in "worms", squashed and sculpted with a knife.

I also made a small marker to indicate the presence of a stash of Woebetideus weapons taken from captured tribesmen.

Finally, "Grab a weapon and run!"  

I used some spare bits to create a mixed group of escaping captives. One of the younger players may start off running this group at Crisis Point.

More Woebetides Scenery

The latest piece of terrain for the Woebetides is this little river island, an eyot if you like. It's made from one layer of foam-core on my usual PVC base material.  A couple of stones from the garden and some tile-grout add the ground cover.

I've added plenty of tufts. One of their purposes is to disguise the presence of a surprise...

The chained-shut coffin is one of two I got a few years ago. They are from the Malifaux range by Wyrd Games. I'll leave the detail of what's in the coffin for the players to discover.

On the workbench - Some Woebetides Additions

My painting production line has slowed a little of late but I continue to push towards getting terrain done for the Woebetides Islands. Recently I completed a few additions that I then photographed while they were still on the workbench.

Above is the Renedra American colonial church built straight out of the box and simply painted with successive layers of dry-brushing.  It's not too difficult to put together.  I have a couple of doubts about the west end (not shown in the pic above) - should there be a door directly behind the altar and what's that little window high up and to one side? Whatever, this will do nicely as All Saints' Church, Fort James.

I keep painting civilians for the islands too. These three are from Perry Miniatures' Carlist War range. The clothing styles are probably wrong for the period but I don't think too many people will complain.

I've been using off-cuts of basing material, with flock and tufts, to make small scatter pieces. These serve the twin purposes of disguising joins between base boards and reminding players that the open, flat areas of the table may not be featureless lawns.

Finally, scraps of artist's mounting board and bristles from a yard-brush made these clumps of elephant grass. Again, helpful for reminding players that we aren't in Kansas any more.

A few more Woebetides pics

I thought I'd post some more of the photos I took during last month's Woebetides game "A Bridge Too Far Up-River.

In the pic below we can see the French arriving on the banks of the Borno River, right next to the British bridge. Kulwin Bey's sepoys have landed on the near bank whilst the larger group, under de Frou-Frou are making their way to the bridge on the far side. 

"Longue" Jean Argent can be seen in front of the mast of the lead dhow.

 

This later picture shows the bridge demolition under way. Well underway, in fact; the two dice next to the bridge mark the French sappers' progress with their task.

In he foreground, the French marines under Lt Perbais have fallen back on their boat with a lot of Shock.

Finally, and I'm not sure why I omitted it from the original post, here are Ensign Tom Laine and his chaps scaling the western crag.  Sadly they were too late to prevent the French escaping!

Adobe Finished

My latest adobe house for Mexico or Pavis (or possibly the Woebetides) is now complete.  It's another based on the skeleton of an iPhone box, see the previous post for construction details.

 

More adobe housing

Tidying up the piles of crap in my workshop on Friday evening I came across a nice, strong box that was just crying out to be used to store a 28mm scale building. In a rush of creativity I cut out and chamfered the edges of a sheet of PVC board to fit in the box and super-glued onto it a building I'd started weeks ago.

The  building is yet another adobe house made from a no-longer-needed iPhone box. These boxes are strong with clean lines unspoilt by visible folds or seams.  I added a small foam-core wall around the roof.

As you can see, I also scored planks into the roof, added a courtyard wall from more foam-core and coated the whole thing with Tetrion filler coloured with acrylic paint.

The courtyard door I made from plastic card because both sides would have to be visible. The other doors are thin cardboard with coffee-stirrer jambs and lintels and twisted wire handles. Lengths of bamboo skewer form the roof beams.

To provide some visual interest in the rear courtyard I built a well out of foam-core, thin card and leftover bits of MDF.

I'm now underway with painting the thing. More pics when I'm done.

Virtual Lard 2

Yesterday I took part in the second Virtual Lard event organised by Jeremy Short. As with the first it was a great success. Both games I was involved with were played in an exemplary spirit.

In the morning I played in Mike Whitaker’s “Dawn on the Gothic Line”, which involved three of us commanding a British force attacking a German-held village in Italy. Mike ran the game using I Ain’t Been Shot Mum. Mike knows these rules really well and was able to provide us with a pretty seamless command experience.

It was my first time with IABSM and it tallies with my expectations - every forward move was made with the expectation that it might trigger a devastating German response! Mike ran the game using low camera angles so we could only see approximately what our commanders could see from their battlefield locations.  This added tremendously to the atmosphere and to the sense of paranoia.

Thanks Mike and to my fellow players Henry and Noah for a terrific experience.

I don’t have any pics of Mike’s lovely models but I’ll edit in a link to Mike’s blog if he posts any. Oh and I think there might be a YouTube video too!

After lunch (homemade soup and Tesco’s sourdough bread) I ran my first non-solo Woebetides game "A Bridge Too Far Up River".  I didn’t go with the point-of-view camera approach as to me the Sharp Practice rules are about the story-telling approach and I wanted my players to see the story as it emerged.

In this game Mike Wilkins and Tom ran a British force tasked with escorting a waggon-load of rum across the table. Mike Whitaker and Jim, meanwhile, were  in charge of a French force tasked with destroying the bridge the British planned to use.  In retrospect maybe I should have put both Mike Ws on the same side!

I’d built not one but two new bridges for the scenario. As well as the main road bridge across the Borno river, there was a rather worn-out-looking rope bridge between to perilous crags. 

The French arrived by boat in the form of two Arab dhows and two longboats. Their players had to decide on the positioning of these boats which would be both their Deployment Points and their means of escape. Each dhow could carry two Groups and each longboat one.  

This was a very asymmetric action with the British attempting to drive of the French with fire while the French had three tasks to complete - demolishing the bridge and getting the two dhows successfully turned around in the narrow river. 

As usual, the vagaries of the Sharp Practice activation system led to some interesting command problems for the players. The French struggled to get their larger formation of Sepoys across the bridge and into action, having deployed them from a dhow on the far side of the river from the British. However, by careful play of the flag chits they were able to get their sappers into position and working on the bridge demolition from early in the game.

The British did manage to form a nice, straight firing line along the edge of the woods and caused some significant casualties to the French troops but this was not enough to prevent them completing their mission. By the time Ensign Tom Laine led his group of civilian skirmishes forward towards the crag it was too late; the French had mostly reembarked  and were making their way down-river leaving a demolished bridge behind them. 

When time for the game elapsed there was only on outstanding question. Could M. Choufleur the engineer pick himself up from the dirt in time to catch the last dhow for Fort Charles?

The British, I think, became hypnotised by the effect of their own firing.  Their chances of victory would have been higher if they had engaged the enemy more closely but then they had gone into the action in the first place not knowing what the French intended to do.

Or were they perhaps fooled by Mr Whitaker's insistence that the French engineers were just there to inspect the bridge for the purposes of planning permission?

I really enjoyed the game and I think the players did too. The spirit of the game was honoured throughout And the few rules issues we encountered were resolved amicably.  Thanks Mike, Mike, Jim and Tom for making this such fun.