Hearts of Foamcore part 3

As I mentioned previously, the next plan was to add some anchor chains to the pointy end of the ship.  These were made from bits of broken jewellery chain provided by the lady of the house.  The winding gear is represented by a couple of spare stowage boxes from the Matchbox Stuart kit.

I've also had a go at making some hatchways for the superstructure...

... and as you can see, I've slapped on base coat colours to see what the overall effect looks like.

Detail painting and the addition of crew begins soon.

Muletrain!

I've finished another element of the British forces for Crisis Point.  This is part of the logistic train for WoosterForce.

The figures are actually WW2 Indian Army figures from Friend or Foe. They have the wrong pattern of webbing for WW1 but I'm not that fussy.

They've been very simply block-painted and then washed with Vallejo Sepia Wash.

Hearts of Foamcore part 2

More progress on the "cruiser" this evening.

Front and sides of the turret built up from plastic card. I'm in two minds as to whether to add a roof or to leave it open topped.

Then I added portholes to the superstructure.  They are costumier's eyelets set into holes bored into the foamcore. You can also just see that I've added a piece of brass tube in the stern.  This will allow me to swap in different nations' ensigns as required.

Next up I want to find some bits of plastic and a couple of lengths of chain so I can crudely represent the anchor chains for'ard.  Oh and I need to decide how to represent crew access hatches on the superstructure.

On the workbench - Hearts of Foamcore

Over the last week or so I've been gradually building a generic WW1 cruiser in 20mm scale.  It will serve in April's Crisis Point game.  I'm not going to reveal yet whose ship it will be!

The hull is made from two pieces of foamcore sandwiched together.  I glued a plan downloaded from the internet to one piece to give me a cutting guide for a suitable ship-shape.

The superstructure is two foamcore boxes with artist's mounting board tops.  The funnel is a piece of half-inch copper pipe. It's just balanced in place in the photo above.

The gun will eventually be in a partly enclosed turret.

It's the gun from the Matchbox Wespe with the muzzle break cut off.  I've built the turret floor and the gun mount out of 1mm plasticard.  A white metal hand wheel from the spares box added a nice piece of detail.  The turntable under the turret is a 30mm MDF base and a slice of cocktail stick forms a pivot.

Since the above photos were taken I've painted the gun prior to building the sides and top of the turret (it'll have an open rear).

The funnel is glued down.  I packed the bottom of the tube with Green Stuff whilst it was standing on a piece of polythene.  This gave me a flat surface onto which I could apply glue. There was no way simply running glue around the rim of the tube was going to provide a secure attachment.

You'll see that I've plated the outside of the hull with thin card.  I've also added a bit of detail to the deck at the stern.

Next up, build up the turret and work out how to do hatches and portholes.  I may also add some anchor chain detail to the foredeck.  Then painting!

Upgraded Brits

These are a starter pack's worth of Tumbling Dice WW1 British in shorts and pith helmet. I first painted most of them for a game I ran at Gauntlet in 2007. I've now updated the basing, given them a going over with Vallejo Sepia Wash and painted up the previously unused Lewis Gun teams.


This gives us a depleted platoon (or depleted battalion in Rapid Fire terms).

I've rebased the officer and NCOs on 2p coins.  I've started doing that since I discovered Chain of Command - it's a lot easier to distinguish leaders at a distance that way.

They'll form part of the British contingent at April's Crisis Point; probably as part of the WoosterForce flying column.    

Prone Lewis Gun team

Firing and moving Vickers guns - the ammo carrier provides a third
figure in either case

Vapnartak 2017

The three non-student members of the family headed up to York on Sunday to see Jamie and so he and I could visit Vapnartak. This is one of my favourite shows, mainly because I always get to meet loads of friends from across the broader war games community. Hi again to Andy H, Mark K, Kenny T, Colin R and Phil G.

Vapnartak isn't hugely endowed with display or participation games but I did take a few photos.

One of the most prominent games was this 28mm scale Kut-al-Amara game. Lots of inspiration for Andreivia...

It would be good to get some naval support like this on the table in April....

Interestingly this WW1 British defeat was also the subject of another game, this time in 15mm scale and taking a much more strategic approach.

 
British forces in Mesopotamia retreated to a fortified position in a loop of the River Tigris (see the far end of the picture below) and awaited relief that never came.

More random photos...

Jamie spent a little while talking to some late Roman reenactors. As a part-time Viking himself I'm sure he had lots of experiences to share.

Finally, what is a war games show without a little shopping? With birthday money burning hole in my pocket I bought a couple of X-Wing ships (a TIE Bomber and another Z-95 Headhunter) and a bag of WW1 Turkish infantry in fur hats. The latter are ideal for the Caucasus campaign and hence for Andreivia.  The two Saga packs are Gripping Beast Arthurians. They were my present from Jamie.  The Bible Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness came from Charlie. 

Finally there's a pack of Footsore Miniatures Saxons. These will be joining Jamie's Saga warband but after purchasing them he realised that they came without spears and with undrilled hands. We agreed I'd take them away and get them ready for painting. 

Any Star Wars experts out there?

Do you know what this is?

It's been serving as the Stronghold of my matched pair of Battle of Hoth armies for Hordes of the Things for many years.  It's made of heavy grade, grey polythene but there's some kind of mechanism inside. There's a LucasFilm copyright notice printed on it somewhere so I guess it is actually from somewhere in the Star Wars canon.

As the picture below shows, there's a rotating section on top and some kind of ratchet mechanism can be heard inside as it moves.

What the hell is this beast?