This weekend I had the opportunity to try out my gaming boards and new terrain pieces with a couple of old friends. We played a bit of Black Powder but only did two rounds or so before we called it a night. Although the gaming didnt really take off, I was very pleased with the way my new fences, roads, stone walls and trees looked. For Napoleonics, it is good not to clutter the board too much, and thus relatively easy to make enough scenery.
It also became clear that I could easily fit a couple of more board sections in the room. The gaming area in the pictures is 160x180cm, and would be extended to 160×240, which is a good size for Finnish war scenarios.
I have also done a bit of repainting to make as many 20-man units as possible out of the line infantry. At the moment, about half the line units are this size and the rest are still 16-man units. This looks good on the table and with this table size, I think that larger units would take up too much space (my basing system unfortunately gives units a slightly larger frontage than what is typical for Napoleonics).
The latest additions to the 1808 Russians are Grodno hussars and Velikie Luki grenadiers (they will pass for Azov regt as well). These are small units, which will hopefully be enlarged somewhat in the future. Even so, they are a useful addition to the Russians, as they are still slightly outnumbered by their Swedish and Finnish opponents.
The hussars are Perry figures with Brigade Games heads; the grenadiers are Brigade Games figures.
I finished a third panzer III intended for the 1943 setting. The tank model is by Waffenkammer and the commander figure by Empress. I left out the side skirts around the turret on this one, but added some of the hull skirts, which is the opposite of what I did with the other two tanks. I imagine that the commander may have benefited from better vision (the skirts obscured the view quite a bit). I still have the hull skirts for the other two tanks. I might go back and add them at some point, but its not a priority…
The side skirts and the rails on which they are attached are very well made on the Waffenkammer model. It was quite easy to cut the skirts up into smaller pieces and hang them on the rails, pretty much as they would have done in real life. In 1943 in particular these skirts came off all the time because the attachements werent very good. As a comparison, the way this is modelled on the old Warlord resin pzIV, which I did recently, makes it impossible to model loose plates without extensive conversion work.
A quick update on my terrain making. I mounted some trees -i recently bought from a Polish maker, https://drzewamodelarstwo.pl/en/
These trees are rather expensive, but at least they are in the EU, so no import fees (!), something one is becoming used to when it comes to hobby supplies these days. And considering the quality and size of the trees, I would say they are quite a steal. The trees come with just the roots, so the mounting on bases was my part of the whole thing. I built up the bases in places and added texture and gravel in a couple of different sizes. I painted this and drybrushed it in the same way I do miniature bases and other terrain pieces. I then added many different types of Woodland Scenics foliage clumps and their “fine” and “blended” “turf” material. Using several different colored types gives variation and you can almost do a sort of shading and highlighting of the ground. When the pictures were taken the PVA was not wholly dry, so there are some white spots in the pictures that will disappear when it has dried completely.
A recently finished two more badly needed Russian hussars. I started with these many months (even years?) ago. They are a pain because every figure requires a bit of remodeling to fit the period (1808). The base models are by Perry miniatures, but the heads have been replaced with period appropriate Brigade Games heads wearing older type shakos. The tassels are scratch made using wire and green stuff, which is fairly difficult (at least for my skill level!). To make matters worse, the painting process was nearly ruined because of cracking of the AP wash, which is a recurring problem for me. Whether it is caused by shoddy undercoating, humidity (too high or too low?), too short a drying time, I really dont know. Anyhow, I am happy to have finished these, these Grodno hussars were the most commonly seen Russian cavalry unit in the Finnish war together with the ubiquitous cossacks of course. Consequently I will need to do at least 12 or preferably 16 of these. So far, I have done 3…
For my last set of tank riders, I thought of a crazy idea. One of the officer figures I have for my Soviets is a bonus figure that comes with the Warlord Games army book. The bonus figure holds a flag in one arm. I though this was silly at the time, and just removed the flag and used the figure with an open hand where the flag had been. But I still had the flag in my bits box, and when I was working on my tank riders, I noticed that the figure holding a machine gun could quite easily be modified to hold the flag instead. I removed the mg and connected the flag to the figure by sticking a steel spear into drilled holes at both ends. The figure of course was very top heavy, and would have fallen over on its own. So, to balance the figure up I glued it to a base on which I also mounted another figure, so that the flag could rest on that figure. In that way, the base became better balanced, and could sit well enough on the back of the tank.
I will paint the base and add one more figure to it, perhaps an officer. The flag could serve the purpose of marking out an officer group from the infantry squads on the other tanks. The Bolt Action rules actually dont mention officers being able to ride on tanks, but it seems logical, and can easily be house-ruled that way. Of course the idea looks more like a propaganda poster than something that would have happened in actual combat, but its neat just the same. And it makes me want to get all my Soviets on the table all at once for a pic. They are problably 150 men now, with 10+ vehicles, several artillery pieces and numerous support teams.
These are T34/76s of the model 1943 version, and with the commander’s cupola; basically the very last version of the 76mm gun tank. As far as I understand, this version was first used in the summer of 1943, which is a perfect match for the rest of my stuff.
The tanks are resin kits by Die Waffenkammer. Ive done a few of their tanks in the past, but these may be the best of the ones Ive tried. The detailing is excellent and they are pretty accurate as far as I can tell. However, that fine detailing can be fragile, which is the case with the handlebars on these tanks for example. I had a couple of those come off when assembling and painting. Fortunately, they were relatively easy to glue back in place. They do need to be handled with some care though.
The paint job is a very simple one, mostly with drybrushing and doing the “paint chipping effect” with a piece of foam (the kind that is in blister packs for metal miniatures). To be quite honest, the finished tanks probably have too much wear on their paint job and too much rust on them. Considering the fact that they would have been brand spanking new in July of -43, I dont see how they could have become so worn down in just a few weeks! However, weathering like this gives a very realistic look (although it is really, hrm, quite unrealistic…).
I had reason to survey all my finished units of Russians and Swedes/Finns recently, and naturally I took a few pictures. A few new additions have been made in the recent months, but I need to pick up pace with infantry and cavalry (especially on the Russian side) to really get this project into a position to start a major campaign going. Also, the Russians are lagging behind the Swedes. I have done a total of 12 battalions of infantry (three of them are 24-man units) on the Swedish side. The Russians are 9 battalions (two of which are 24-man units), with less artillery and cavalry too. I am currently working on both a couple of more cavalry and infantry units for the Russians. As both armies are only meant to be played against each other, trying to match the strength of both sides is a good idea. In typical Napoleonic wargames terms, the numbers are small (thank God!). But the good thing about the Finnish war is that even the largest battles (such as Oravais in september of 1808) involved only about 15 battalions on each side. I am feeling some frustration that I really only have a few more units to paint until I have a really good selection for a number of scenarios. Its just that I cant quite seem to focus on those must have infantry units that would be really useful, and I go convert a general figure or paint some fancy uhlans instead…
I generally spend much too much time on painting figures, and too little on doing the terrain for my game board. Ive been trying to change that, doing some river sections, roads and railroad sections. I am also working on expanding the gaming board itself, with a couple of additional smaller boards (not seen in the pictures).
The river sections are a type of moulded hard but thin plastic made by a company called Amera. I bought them relatively cheaply from a Swedish online wargames store. The material is similar too the plastic they used to do disposable plastic coffee cups with, but slightly thicker. It comes as plain white plastic sheets moulded in the river shape. I then added a plasticard base to each section to make them more sturdy, and painted the banks with textured paint (regular hobby paint+some sand). I then sprayed a base coat of brown over that, and painted the river itself a green-blue mix. Then I washed the textured river banks with a much watered down dark brown-black mix, and highlighted that with brown and finally, a beige white (Vallejo’s dark sand). In other words, I painted the river banks the same way I do the bases of my figures. On the outer edges I added some flock, a mix different shades of Woodland Scenics materials, to match the look of the table.
The Amera plastics seemed to me very easy to work with. It took very little effort, as I used very simple techniques. In the future, I may add a water effect to the river, but I am pretty happy with how it looks at the moment, so theres no rush. Amera seems not to get a lot of attention – Id never heard of them before I spotted the river sections online – but I must say I think their stuff was pretty good. Doing rivers can be pretty difficult if you do it yourself, from scratch, but at the same time, its one of those basic items youd want for your gaming table.
The roads are also pretty neat. I ordered them from another online source, I think they are in eastern Europe somewhere… Anyway, the road sections are made from latex rubber, which makes them flexible and quite practical when setting up a table. They werent super cheap, but I prefer them from DIY alternatives. I have painted them with Vallejo US Field Drab (again, a color I use for basing miniatures), which was washed dark brown/black and drybrushed with the base color again. If I have the time, I will throw some dust/earth pigments on them to give them a more dust-roady feel.
Both the bridge and the railway sections are mdf kits from Sarissa. Now, these are a different thing entirely. Ill admit, Sarissa do very nice kits. But, they take time to assemble and then a very long time to paint, in my experience. Granted, most good looking scenery items with a lot of detail will take some time in order for them to look really good. The bridge did turn out really well and was worth the effort. Its also a nice thing to have on the board, after all.
The railroads though, they are some of the most time consuming things Ive ever done. It such a simple thing, railroad tracks. How hard can it be? Well, first, the building takes some patience (its a couple of years now, so I don remember every detail, to be honest). I personally didnt like Sarissa’s system of connecting the sections together, that just looked silly to me. So I cut those parts away, but then I had to adjust them slightly, and so on…
Anyway, the painting was the most difficult part. I am still not finished with all of the sections I have put together. At first, I couldnt get the look of the ballast, and I tried a few different sizes of sand and various shades of paint. Having finally managed to get something I was relatively pleased with, on to the sleepers and the track itself. Thats several metres of detail painting, and theres no getting around the fact that you have to paint hundreds of individual sleepers. And preferably, some a rust effect on the track once you have painted it in the dark metal shade that is appropriate. As you can see, I havent done the rust yet, and the sleepers are only done in a single shade of dark brown, which could do with a highlight, and maybe I should do some grass around the edges, etc, etc… In the end, I settled with a “table top standard” paint job – its just so much work if you want to do 2 metres worth! Much better to do the whole thing in a plain but acceptable look so that it can be used than it sitting on a shelf for another year…
Another addition to my very slowly growing collection of WW2 Germans. This is a lmg team and a nco, figures are by Warlord Games. Originally, these were sculpted to look like cavalry, but the only thing I needed to do was remove the spurs on their boots and they pass for regular infantry or panzer grenadiers especially of the 1942-1944 period. The figures are some of the best of the WG range and the camo scheme is always an interesting painting challenge, but it does take a bit of extra time. If I were to have any point of criticism, it would be that the hands are somewhat out of proportion, as often happens in this scale, but particularly with WG figures of this era.
Pancratist 