A couple of weeks, almost, since my last post. I missed out on this week's MNG session as Mrs T and I were playing boardgames with some friends for the day so there's been no games to report. I've not been idle on the hobby front, however, doing background reading on my next major project, and fiddling round with odds and ends.
I've been working on some purpose built scenery for DBA. I normally rely upon dragging stuff out of my standard terrain box, but I thought that given the number of games I've played in the last couple of years maybe I should pay heed to what the actual rules say. As ever the relevant paragraphs in the rulebook are a mess and could much easily be explained with some bullet points, a simple table and a single diagram. I've come across some really convoluted logic where it is obvious that people are purposely misconstruing what has been written in the pseudo-legalistic way that shows no none in a good light.
First off I thought it was about time I did something with a trinket I bought from a market stall in Myanmar. Or perhaps Cambodia. Anyhow, some time pre Covid. It was a hollow beaten model of a stupa or similar constructions of which there are many in South East Asia. In real life they look like this:
My model is a bit more pointy, as you can see below.
I've mounted it on a base and given it some flocking and fake flag stones. Capturing the colour was a bit hit and miss, as they are often a reddish brown brick with grey weathering. The base is only slightly bigger than 1BW x 1BW, so DBA allows me one such item on the table (it was whilst researching how small a terrain piece can be that I came across the nonsense mentioned above). Its classification I reckon is as a BUA Edifice. So it can actually be used on the table, the middle bit is removable:
The stupa piece is on a 1BW x 1 BW base, so it can be used as a Barker Marker.
Next I made some gullies, because I don't have anything that is really usable for DBA.
The edges were made from MDF offcuts from a laser cut model, covered with polyfilla (spackle) and dusted with sand. The middle has loose stones held in place by a liberal portion of gloss varnish to give it that "I used to be a water way" type of look. The top one is 7BW long, the bottom 3.
Finally I made some "Difficult Hills"
These are made from cut up boxes from board game expansions. Dominion, if you're interested, as I've fitted the base game and five expansions in the original box by discarding the insert and printing out dividers:
The hills were covered with PVA then sand before painting.
Okay. They don't look very difficult. The main aim was to build something that looks different from my green "Gentle Hills" and still allow for figures to stand on them without falling over.
I then realised I could do with a camp for my Medieval Germans, rather that persist with my generic palisade.
Like most of my camps it is based on an old credit card. I trawled the web looking for a paper model of a pavilion, and the best I could find was a free model of George Washington's command tent from the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia. I modified it slightly to give it a roll up entrance flap, and stuck in a couple of flag poles so I can fly some appropriate standards. Obviously it isn't finished yet, but it'll get a coat of paint this evening and will be more colourful when it is done.
I then spent the afternoon sorting out my latest figure delivery from Irregular Miniatures:
With metal figures I always take the time to sort them out into units for painting, and label them up so I know what I'm doing.
For companies like Irregular and Essex that sell figures loose it's a good opportunity to check the order is complete. These guys are the Native Infantry used in the 1840-2 China Campaign.
I put unit labels in the bags which cross reference to the spreadsheet I used to work out the order (see above) which also contains details of facing colours so I don't have to keep looking them up as I'm painting.
They'll keep me occupied for a week or two, I should think.
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