Yet more Woebetides stuff

I've finished the last remaining 28mm metal figure for the Woebetides!

This guy is from the Foundry Last of the Mohicans range. I've painted him as a mounted version of the Comte de Frou-Frou. He's not a perfect match with my dismounted version but he'll do.

The other recent addition is this rocket launch template.

Rockets in Sharp Practice work on a system (I've seen it before but I'm not sure in which other set of rules - something by Donald Featherstone?) whereby you roll a die for each 6" of flightpath. Depending on the score on the die, the rocket may diverge from its path or explode prematurely.

This marker has a base 6 inches long so it can be used to track the rocket's course across the battlefield.

I made the rocket just like for the rocket-launcher guy, out of a spear and piece of cocktail stick and then glued it to a length of pipe cleaner. The pipe cleaner was glued to a base and then I added clump foliage as smoke.

More Woebetides Toys

Richard Phillips very kindly sent me an Empires At War MDF kit of a caravanserai for my birthday.  It's been completed for a while but I've only just got around to photographing it. You can see it here on my new Deepcut Studio cobblestones city mat.

As you can see from the 28mm figures on the walls, this thing is huge. It will serve as the Wali of Smut's palace at Crisis Point but even so I might leave some of the sections out and/or have it on the edge of the table with only the front and side walls actually used. Available space will determine this when we start to see things set up.

Thank you Richard, this is a marvellous addition to the Woebetides terrain!

The Wali is a non-player senior commander in the campaign. It's not fair to have a player have to sit by and defend the palace just in case it's attacked so I'm not going to "waste" a playable force for the role; just have a few spare figures to represent the Wali's household troops. 

I was keen to try and include some Indian rocket-armed troops in the game if possible. The Sharp Practice rules for rockets are such fun. Having some rocketeers on the walls of the palace to shoot at any foreign forces that come too close seemed like a good idea.

I'm out of suitable 28mm figures (in fact my 28mm leadpile is now negligible) but I do have some odd fantasy assassin/ninja types that look vaguely Middle Eastern. They came from the Box of Delights that reached me from Tim Gow before making its way onward to Richard P.

I decapitated one of the figures and chopped off his oversized (and empty) scabbard before adding a spare plastic head from the Perry Mahdists box. I made a rocket by attaching a length of cocktail stick to a spear. I added straps from paper and a fuse from a length of black thread. At the time I took the photo I had yet to paint the base.

Ideally I should have five figures in an artillery unit. I'm not sure I can be bothered creating four more such guys but I've got some additional rockets on the production line. I might just bulk out the unit with some generic Middle Eastern types to remove when casualties are taken. Actually, I wonder if I could create a base with a brazier? They'll need something to light their fuses from!

Woebetides Terrain Test

I thought I'd get some of the Woebetides terrain I've done so far set up for a photo shoot.

The Borno River seen from above AlHuq.
French naval landing force in the foreground.

French sailors storm up the beach having landed
from their longboat.
Their sharpshooters are already ashore heading 
for the rock outcrop beside the river.

French gunners have landed their piece from
a hired dhow. They haven't spotted Lt Streete
and Sir Warwick Bimble on a nearby rooftop.

A British waggon comes under attack as Woebetideus
tribesmen suddenly emerge from the elephant grass.

Who are these mysterious types emerging from the forest?

Some More Woebetides Characters

It's a lovely day outside so I thought I'd take a pic of some of the more recently finished denizens of the Woebetide Islands.

On the left we have Josephine de Pommefrite, the daughter of the French comptoir. She is a spirited young lady not above getting herself into trouble. Fascinated by the stories told by the Arab merchants visiting Port Charles, she has taught herself the local dialect of Arabic in an attempt to extend her knowledge.

In the centre we see Constanza, Countess Czerwinska. This Polish noblewoman was widowed on the voyage home from India. She finds herself stranded in Port James. She is vivacious and witty and has become a strong favourite among the local officers of the British East India Company.

Finally we have Sir Warwick Bimble. He has been described as "a man of no discernible talent".

All three of these will be available as support choices to forces of the appropriate side. They may (or may not) prove useful when the respective councils of war allocate tasks between the available forces.

Woebetides Terrain Update

I drew a map. It's not to scale but it shows the minimum major terrain items needed for September's Woebetides campaign weekend. The coloured in items are done.

The half- (or three-quarter-) hills around the void in the middle of the main table don't need to be exactly as portrayed - I just want something that will indicate to players that the centre of the main island is mostly impassible highlands.

A couple of days ago I decided to make a start at building something suitable:

I decided to make three 90 degree corner hills with profiles such that they can be combined to form a single 270 degree outside corner.

 

I tried different ways of building up the slopes with off-cuts of polystyrene. In the end, the best method (sadly not shown above) was progressively smaller slices alternating at 90 degrees to each other. Hot glue worked OK for attaching the polystyrene as long as I didn't leave the glue gun switched on too long. If the glue got to hot it melted the polystyrene too much.

I've now started covering the polystyrene with kitchen towel soaked in watered down PVA. I added a bit of cheap brown acrylic to the water/glue mix.

I've also tried a bit of filling with my usual tile grout mix and also some scrunched-up kitchen foil that might serve as a rocky outcrop.

I may paint the longer ridge (on the left in the picture below) as a pathway - for plot purposes I want three or four routes into the highlands.

Update when the first layer of groundwork has dried - it's scorching in Yorkshire right now so hopefully that won't be long!

On the workbench

Most of my focus recently has been on getting terrain finished for the Woebetides. I've got the Wali of Smut's palace done - it's an MDF caravansaray very kindly sent me by Richard Phillips. Pictures when I can arrange a suitable photo session.

In between sessions on the palace I've managed to get finished some other 28mm stuff. The Crisis Point big game will need lots of Deployment Points and Plot Points and the latest are just completed:

This first one is obviously best suited to the native Woebetideus but might pass for Arab if need be.  The jars and baskets are Foundry, the duck is from a farmyard animals set I bought at Claymore (not sure of the manufacturer).

Next up we have a nicely generic scene of a goat browsing on the undergrowth.

Goat again from the farmyard animals set.

Lastly as far as plot points go we have this clump of elephant grass with skull.

The skull is from the same Foundry African village accessories set as the jars and baskets. The grass is from broom bristles.  Again a nicely generic one this.

I took delivery of some Pendraken 10mm models (for a project that'll appear here later) that Tom Davis added to an order he was putting in. When I picked up the 10mm stuff, Tom kindly gave me a few figures he had no use for (and at the same time I palmed off a load of 15mm toys on him). A couple of the figures are already done a couple of weeks later.

This chap with the Nock Volley Gun was already painted up as Sergeant Harper of the 95th Rifles. However the paintwork was a bit scraped and I've no plans to do the Peninsular War in 28mm as I've already covered it in 20mm. 

There is a plan, however, to do the 1812 Riga campaign with Sharp Practice. I therefore carved off the shoulder straps and repainted Harper as a member of a Royal Navy landing party. He'll be transferred to Richard Phillips to aid his Russians against my Prussians (when they're eventually painted).

Another figure from Tom was this Victorian chap.

I think he's another Foundry model. He was a joy to paint and I had him done within a couple of days of picking him up from Tom.  I'm running Cortina at Matamoros in November at Steel Lard - the first time the game's appeared to players not via Zoom link. I think this chap may appear among the civilians in the street to help remind players that 1867s Mexico doesn't entirely match the peons-in-a-village picture of The Magnificent Seven.

More Woebetides Terrain

Among the events happening during the course of the Crisis Point Woebetides campaign will be the need to explore the islands searching for clues to solve an on-going mystery. To support this, I've started to build Plot Point markers (inspired by a mechanism in Pulp Alley).

The latest is this skeleton propped up in the corner of an old ruin somewhere in the interior.

The skeleton itself is from a box that my son Charlie bought years ago but never did anything with. It took a bit of hacking and bending to get it off its original base and into a suitably slumped position but I think it works. I've added a hat from the Warlord plastic War of the Spanish Succession infantry box and a jar from the Wargames Foundry African village accessories. The wall is from foamcore with the paper layers removed and stonework carved in.

Next up we have a magazine from the French fort under construction on Petit Woebetide.

Like the docks seen here previously, the main structure is from Firedragon Games stamped XPS foam on a PVC board base. The earth banks surrounding the structure are from layers of foamcore with my usual Tetrion coating.Door frame and door from thin card and MDF off-cuts.

Finally we have this cave entrance. I think it may have appeared here before but it now has the back blocked up with black card and looks a whole lot better in a decent photograph.