#Terrain Tuesday: 28mm Field Fortifications From Paul's Models

Hello friends!

Took me just over a month to get these resin field fortifications from UK based Paul’s Models finished, which is pretty speedy for me.  I now have a massive redoubt and several feet of fortifications. 

 More than enough to cover almost the length of a 6’ table!

 Painting strategy was simply: black undercoat, craft store Folkart umbre brown on everything, then a drybrush of the same brown mixed with Yellow Ochre.  The boards were a mix of yellow ochre and white lightly dry brushed over the black undercoat, and them treated with Army Painter Soft Tone.  I didn’t want the boards to be grey, as they are supposed to be newly cut for the battle I have in mind, Seve Pines.

 Temporarily occupied by a Royal Artillery Whitworth and a mix of Canadian and British troops, who must have read the last blog post here!  These fortifications work well with 28mm figures and could represent any field defences or siege works from the Thirty Years and English Civil Wars up to the early rifle age.

 Good luck to whoever has to take these defences!

Thanks for looking.  Cheers and blessings to your brushes!

MP+

Terrain Tuesday: Resin ACW Field Fortifications from Paul's Models

 Good day and welcome to Terrain Tuesday, which seems to have taken root as a regular blog feature.   

Today's feature is a box of resin field fortifications from a UK company called Paul's Modelling Workshop.   I needed some field defenses for the next stage in my refight of the ACW Seven Pines Battle.  You may recall that Phase One of the battle ended with the Confederates about to advance on the the Federal defenses known as Casey's Redoubt.  I needed some models to represent these field fortifications and not being a talented scratch builder and not having a lot of time on my hands, I decided that I would throw some money at the problem.

 I discovered Paul on the web and found him a responsive and friendly guy to deal with.   After looking at his extensive webstore, I purchased the Field Fortifications Set 1 and the Large Gun Bastion.

The gun bastion:

The field fortification set:

Almost five linear feet of defenses!   These should give the rebs something to think about.

This purchase gives me a manageable project to prepare and paint for my Seven Pines project.   Paul has a wide range of fortifications, some buildings, and other accessories that would look good on your tabletop.  His product was meticulously packed and promptly shipped. He gets the Mad Padre's blessing,

Cheers,

MP+

Terrain Tuesday: 28mm Sarissa Manassas Stone House

It’s Tuesday again and time to show off another piece of scenery for the war-games table.   This is the Sarissa Manassas Stone House in 28mm which was a fairly easy build from the flat-pack, though I did manage to get the root cellar door on the wrong side wall and only discovered that when the glue had set.   One overestimates MDF kits at one’s peril!   It sits beside a stand of pre-made trees which I bought at a show and glued onto an old Windows CD with some ground texture and flocking, so perhaps this counts as two terrain pieces.  Hooray! 

 The house will work for my ACW and alt-ACW battles.  It has a big footprint on the table, so perhaps more suited for skirmish games.   I didn’t apply any texture to the walls.  Rather, I focused on the laborious task of picking out the stonework in every shade of grey at my disposal, to give the impression of an old field-stone farmhouse that one still sees in my part of SW Ontario.

Having the self-imposed deadline of a blog post on terrain gave me the incentive I needed to finish this piece and get it off the work desk.  Hopefully it will feature here soon, as an ACW battle is next in the gaming schedule.

Blessings to your projects!  

MP+

Not Quite Birnam Wood ...

but quite possibly done by a dunce Inane.  

Some of you bright sparks chimed in at the end of October when I showed off some trees that I had made using some twigs found in a garden bed.   Nice trees, some of you (I’m looking at you, Archduke P) said, but they need to be put together in twos or threes, or maybe as a bunch to convey the sense of a large wood that would be suitable either for my LOTR or my ACW figures.

So, through November, I mulled it over, and then cut out a piece of MDF and chopped five holes in it using the smallest circular drill but I have.

Then applied my usual SOP for basing - plastic wood mixed with model railroad ballast, painted dark umbra and successfully dry brushed with yellow ochre and whatever I have to hand that’s lighter (current favourite is a craft paint called maple tan).  Then flocking and whatever I have handy - some twigs to represent a fallen tree, foliage clumps and plants, a rock made from hydrocal and a mould found years ago in a model railroad store.

Like Birnam Wood in the Scottish play, the trees draw near ...

… and take up position in their new homes.  The advantage of this approach is that I can take the trees out, put everything in a plastic tote, and transport it for a game or for the inevitable next military move (still a few left to go in my career).

Legolas inspects the wood and decides it’s good to shoot out of.

Closeup of the breathtaking degree of detail.  I used to hang out with some model railroad guys I got to know through a parishioner and they were always inspiring.  I think they might approve.

Thanks for looking.  This is one project I can call finished before the Painting Challenge starts tomorrow.  A few others are close to being done.   Hopefully this wood will feature in an ACW game coming here soon.

Thanks for looking.  Cheers!

MP+

ACW Splitrail Fences In Progress

I spent a few hours the afternoon of Christmas Day in between company, watching the Dr. Who marathon on the Space Channel and trying, in vain, to figure out exactly who River Song is (yes I know she is Amy Pond's daughter, but not exactly sure how). Oh well. It gave me a few hours to put some more fence rail sections together for my American Civil War 28mm collection.

My idea for these was to make modular sections on large, flocked bases that enhance the look of the table. I had made four sections two years ago, and always wished I'd bitten the bullet and made more at the time, since in a large ACW game you can never have too many split rail fences. You can see these earlier sections on the left of the photo below.



The fence sections are made of cedar shims bought in packs from Home Depot, split up with an axe (very authentic, I think) then trimmed with a hobby knife and glued together on the base. The bases, as mentioned above, are sections of MDF board, covered with wood putty mixed while wet with different types of model railway ballast for texture, then painted and drybrushed, my standard recipe for bases. Once the fences are painted, I'll flock the bases and add some accent pieces such as rocks, strands of taller grass, etc.

When I get these new sections finished I'll post some shots of them next to some figures. The fence sections are probably too thick and long for real life, but I like the substantial look of them. It's always nice to have these nice big fences between you and that enemy firing line, if only for pyschological benefit!