One Day Build: Command and Colors City Hexes

5 inch hex "city" marker for 6mm Command and Colors

One Day Build:Aspern and Esslin-ish

Well, its convention season again, which means that one of my gamer friends comes to me with a " hey- can you help me make this- like before the con?!" Request.  Don't tell them this, but I actually enjoy these challenges, both as an exciting break to what I'm doing, and that I get to help them out.

On my end I challenge myself on how quick I can flip the request. This was basically a one day build, ala Adam Savage. This particular project was to create a series of hex squares that have a "city" in them to represent Asperg and Essling  for a 6mm Napoleonic Command and Colors game.

The Challenge: 
Create 9  5 inch hexes with representative buildings which can accommodate command and colors stands on the hex.


 The Build: 
 I already have a cache of "stage flat" style buildings from a project that I worked on with Jay Wiley of Wiley Games    which I used as a starting point for making the buildings. I then scaled them down to a 6mm-ish size and made templates on how they would fit and slot into the bases. This worked out to one main longer center piece and two shorter side wings.  Once I had that all figured out, I made some quick variations and then got to cutting.

Not optimally layed out, but remember- one day build!

Buildings are Birch ply, with MDF hex bases.

28mm White walker for scale!

Assembly and Painting:

I pre-painted the MDF with a couple of Rattle cans mixing a Krylon moss green and Army painted Desert sand (?)  to get a bit of variation.  This saved a lot of time especially drying time if I had painted them with brushed on paint.

The buildings are slotted so assembly was just glue in place. Before I did that though I looked on line at some cool period buildings, or models other folks had made, and then went to work getting a paint theme down.  As I would not have time to paint them all, I wanted to create an easy to follow set up that would hopefully read well on the table.   Here are the paints and inks I used.

The color swatch was for my friend to take. I ended up also giving him some ink as I had a spare bottle.

Painting these is very quick and easy. The first step was to pick an angle from which the sun was coming and stick with that. I chose kind of an 11 oclock as the angle. First I painted down the roof colors, then went in with Agrax Earthshade and added shadows across the buildings and on the roofs (once dried) . Next grey was mixed  in the with some blue grey (AV dark sea blue) to create "slate" colors, or to add a stone color to some walls or buildings. the light tan/ unbleached titanium (actually called Menon White Highlight, a P3 color) was used to add highlights to the buildings on edges, cover up some sins from over paint, and added into the roof colors to bring out a bit of dimension.

All told, a set of buildings took about 15 minutes. For fun I added some green to one of the buildings.

A more painted in scene. This was the first set.

A half done version, needing highlights.

Another angle, showing off my Elite Hussars

And yes they stack for storage! 

 This project took me about 6 hours from start to hand off. I only painted 2 of the 9 sets, so figure had I had time to do them all it would have been another couple of hours to maybe complete them. Okay,  call it 3 hours because you know I'd keep fiddling on them, and I didn't do anything to the backs!

I am keen on seeing how they turn out on the battlefield, and look forward to pics from Pacificon!

Cheers!

Wooden Wars: British Napoleonic Mounted Officers

" Who is your tailor, Haye? ."

~ Duke of Wellington

Officers confer over who's Taylor is the best! Infantry painted by S. Stinnett, Esq.

Ahoy me Bloggys! 

Things in Skull & Crown studios have been busy, with three new models coming out this month on my Skull&Crown store!  The first is the much asked for Napoleonic British officer.

As with my other cavalry models, the British officer sprue has extra hands and hats to let you build out many variations, from battalion officer to major general.

Convention Plans
As campaign seasons draws closer, I am working out which conventions I'll be able to attend this year.  On the west Coast I'll be bringing Wooden Wars (and possibly Task force) to Kublacon and Pacificon/Conquest.  I'm working out going to Historicon, and still sitting on the fence about Salute.  It's a lot of ducats to go to a one day convention, albeit one of the biggest and coolest.

I'd love any of your comments on going to these, and possibly other conventions that I'm just missing the boat on.  Remember that I live in California. 

Battle Plans... somewhat revealed

This year's battles will feature two different  Napoleonic's scenarios and Queen Victoria's Robot Wars battle, which I am currently calling, "O'Rourke's Rivets".  One of the Napoleonic's battles ( if I can pull it off) will be a shore landing to take out a fort.  Come on- did you really think I'd stray away from  ships?  This is Skull & Crown after all!

Cheers - next time, British Foot Artillery and Hussars! 

Queen Victoria's coveted Clamper du Guerre medal.

Warmaster Napoleonics: The Battle of PeterPaperinhauf



Top down view of the battle at Turn 2 or 3. Note the Marshal's batons in action!



The French forces March to the village, as the Austrians pour over the bridge.

This weekend I ran a Warmaster Napoleonics game in 6mm (aka Warnappies, or wee nappies to my jocular gaming mates) at my club the South Bay Game Club. http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/southbaygameclub/
The "historic" battle takes place circa1809, between Austrian forces facing French, Westphalian, and Wurtenburg troops. The objective is to capture the two bridges and the key village of PeterPaperinhauf.

The game had 10 players and a corps of infantry ( at 20/1 scale) and a division or two of cavalry per side. Considering that over half the players were new to the Warmaster rules system, the game came off smoothly with a decisive conclusion after 6 full turns of maneuver and battle.

Napoleon's daughters, just before the Austrian Ulan's captured them.

Later in the battle- Austrians well invested in the village

French Left Flank.  Dismounted dragoons skirmishing,  French in square,and all those Austrian flags in the Village!

In this shot you can see the "Paper village". It was a gift by the talented Pete Michaels, so is named after him.  The Statue at the fork in the road commemerates Baron Fossmeisterhaus soundly trouncing the Austrians in the 7yrs war- a game that Pete Ran last year. He was the Austrians in that Scenario too. Pete has the 28mm version (which I presented to him) for his own Village.



Key moments in the Battle
• As the main part of the scenario was bringing your division to the site of the battle on time, each player rolled randomly for the location of entry.
• Austrian Cavalry generals Pete Michaels and John Sullins captured 6 batteries of French guns, ( out of 7 total) many caught while still limbered! Napoleon was not amused...
• General Michaels broke 2 French squares with his Cuirassiers.
• The Westphalian General du Division, Gary Price rolled a blunder, which made him impetuously charge the village with a brigade of his finest- and almost took it!
• The French squares on the left flank, commanded by General IX, obliterated all of the Austrian light cavalry that dared come near it.
• The Village was firmly taken and held by GD McHugh. Much to his surprise as everyone elses!

By the end of the day the Austrians had decidedly won the battle by taking and holding all three objectives, and pulling the teeth out of the French artillery and cavalry!

Thanks to all that played ! As I love my Napoleonics and love to tourture you all with my 6mm troops, we will be doing more battles in the near future!

Warmaster: Marshal's Batons

One for every backpack!



 Front and back views of finished batons. They are marked out in 10cm incriments, with the center line at 15cm. In the end, I went for the "real" gold over NMM style. What can I say, I just love shiny!


The Guard carefully measures its charge!

 These finished up quicker than I thought. I think the trick is to not be too fiddly with exact shapes, like the stars and eagles-  and be more "Painterly". It's much more about the statement. Nuff said.

Warmaster: Marshal’s batons WIP

I am always looking for ways to create a more immersive and aesthetic setting when I run games. In a couple of weeks I’m running a Warmaster Napoleonics battle, and while making some gun sticks for the cannon, I decided to make some measuring sticks as well. Marshal’s batons – kind of a no brainer! I had made a couple previously out of wooden 18” rulers, so kind of have the technique down.

A shot of the wood (basswood), cut to 30cm, with the basic baton paint job; the “caps” are made of matt board and glued on.

Here you can see the flip side with the baton painted in 10cm increments for measuring. I used my back saw to score the sections for easier reading/ painting of the edges. My original plan was to paint just the center section red, but there was some splash over of the flips sides color on the sticks, so I painted/primed them in grey. I will most likely paint over that with white. Note, the caps do not extend past the stick.


I know they don’t look like much yet, but I wanted to share the process. Next step is the detail bits of stars, fleur de lis, laurels, etc, and the end caps. I am currently on the fence to do them in metal (shiny gold) or NMM gold.