Whilst I enjoy making terrain, it's nice to get back to painting miniatures sometimes. Especially when faced with a long slog of sticking on hundreds of roof tiles... So obviously with this renewed period interest I have been scouting around for suitable miniatures.
This first pack of Reaper miniatures arrived first, and has accordingly been painted up first.
Strumpet
A wonderful strumpet. The first of a small group, I am just awaiting a replacement pack from Reaper for the others due to a miscast in the pack. She's a great figure, one that I first saw on Elhion's blog via the Lead Adventure forum, so that was a cool find! I have to say she was a serious change to the more usual battle ready wargames figures we use in gaming. After all, I don't often get to paint bright blues, yellows and pink! Plus I am always a little wary painting female figures as I find the skin shade and highlight needs to be done a little more subtly than male warrior types, otherwise the heavy brown base tone can wreck the look of the female figure. I am rather pleased the way she has turned out.
Also, you wouldn't believe the angst this has caused the Bowman household. My wife immediately took umbridge at the fact I painted her blonde.... Jeez, the green envy monster came out to play that day! How can you get so reactionary over a 1" metal figure? Go figure... ;-)
Anyway if she caused that much of a stir there, lets hope she distracts my male opponents suitably on the games table ;-)
The next figure is a beggar, down and out, tramp like figure. Bound to be a few of these hanging around the port.
Beggar
And last a huge blacksmith. This guy is very large indeed. Reaper are slightly on the large side of '28mm' scale figures, so this guy is a giant compared to my poor Foundry pirates. Still, working that anvil and furnace all day is bound to make a big strong boy... not some wimpy looking blacksmith portrayed by dear Orlando. Interesting - he's been a blacksmith twice now, in PotC and Kingdom of Heaven.
Blacksmith
Final shot of today's montage, just messing about with my batch of jungle plants and a large hill I made some time ago, together make a nice jungle isle, although it could do with a sandy beach perhaps...
Jungle Isle
That's it for today, must press on with those roof tiles for the Governors mansion.
More horticultural work continued this week, and I have completed three copses of bamboo, along with more jungle flora clumps.
There's about enough now to cover a 2' x 4' area as you can see, and its used up about half the plants I bought.
I still am awaiting delivery of a whole bunch of plastic palm trees I bought for model railway use from a Chinese based ebay trader, so fingers crossed they arrive OK!
The bamboo, again was on 3mm mdf bases, which were covered in a layer of DAS sculpting clay. This gave some depth to insert the bamboo trees into. The bamboo was just wooden BBQ skewers painted green, and then woodlands-scenics clump foliage hot glue gunned on. Then bases were then flocked with the tea leaves and green static grass as before.
I'll wait till the palm trees arrive now before doing more.
I have now gone back to doing the governors mansion. I have added the cornice large brickwork and have added the front and rear arched doorways. If I get time today I'll add chimneys and start cladding roof.
Still awaiting some ships supplies from Games-of-War to finish fitting out my Brig, then that will be done as well.
The first batch of jungle like clumps of undergrowth for my adventurous pirates to explore as they go ashore and search for heathen treasure from pagan idols, and try and avoid getting eaten by the cannibalistic natives!
Since a few other building projects have stalled as I await parts from the shipwright, I turned to horticulture this week and have thrashed out the above jungle terrain clumps.
3mm mdf off-cuts, trimmed and edges rounded off. Hot glue gunned the clumps into place. Then using PVA glue and brown paint 50/50 mix coated the bases liberally avoiding foliage where possible, and covered in brown sawdust flock (actually my own home production stuff - used dried out tea leaves). Once dry glue on static grass again with thinned PVA.
And voila!
The tall grass and light green leafy plants were in sheets from an aquarium store. The shorter dark green spiky plants were in sheets from $2 dollar store.
More to follow. I've made a bunch of bamboo 'copses', using wooden bbq skewers and sponge clump foliage. Once dry I'll put up some more pics.
Then I might have a go at an Aztec step pyramid type temple. Oh and some round native huts...
A little bit of effort this week has seen me finish my Port Guard Tower. The basis of this tower has been kicking round my games-room for a couple years...started but unloved and left... It was originally going to be the front tower of an ECW church I was planning on making. It then got tweaked a while back by sloping the top battlement edges, in a Lord of the Rings Helm Deep style. But having played through those Helms Deep scenarios already, I found the tower still unused, and the body of the church has already been converted to the Gondorian building I did, shown in a prior blog post.
So the tower still sat forlornly looking at me.
Then I started the Governors mansion. I am still part way through this. I started adding the big corner stones to the Mansion, and glanced at tower and thought I can do the same there. What's better, I can finish the tower quicker than the mansion, just to check it will look OK once finished. So I pressed on and completed the tower.
I even added a little flag-holder so I can raise the colours and show which country the port belongs to.
Sadly looks like that notorious rascally pirate captain has already sneaked in and overwhelmed the guard, no doubt by some nocturnal trickery! They now fly the Jolly Roger to show all is clear for the rest of the ships company to come and sack the town!
Enjoy the pictures...
This weekend I also had a trip down to the local Spotlight store (a giant haberdashery and craft store here in NZ for the international viewers of this blog) and grabbed several items to make some more scenic items.
I got some more of the plastic mesh grid (used for crochet I think) for window making and ships cargo grates.
I also got a finer mesh that may do for lead-light windows.
In addition I got some material for making wedding dress veils, this I plan to use to make fishing nets, hung on the docks for repair.
The packet of ubiquitous matchsticks, and and bunch of lucky charm type items to add interesting effects to ships and buildings.
Sadly I didn't find what I was really hoping for , some dolphins or cherubs to make a coat of arms type crest for the Mansion.
I'll still have to keep hunting for something suitable.
After that a visit to the local aquarium shop netted me a whole pile of plastic plants to make jungle terrain. Finally a trip to Macks Track to grab some clump foliage. I am going to use this to make bamboo trees, out of wooden BBQ skewers, painted green with horizontal stripes.
I am still trying to track down a supplier of Palm trees for this NZ based customer... I may think about making my own...
So lots to do. So what am I doing sitting here typing this...? ;-)
I am tempted to have a go at making some similar looking tentacles on individual bases, to use for wargaming with, maybe also a kraken head coming out of the water!(Ok I'm probably dreaming, but it would look cool!)
Arr Ship mates, have at 'em, look'ee, belike, shatter the main brace , clean the poop deck and prepare to board!
Play the video while reading the blog, stirring stuff, I love this music, has me reaching for my rulebook and dice every time...
(if you wish to continue listening to music while you wish to view the pictures enlarged, right click on picture and open in new tab or window)
Well all this frantic pirate making activity has paid off today. After I finished my sloop the Becky Boo, a couple of weeks back, and having previously painted up a crew for it, and having now made several suitable buildings, I realized one thing was missing from having a good platform for a game - a suitable looking gaming board. So last weekend, I went and got more 3mm MDF sheet and set to with it and the 50mm polystyrene sheet I had previously bought.
So all this week I have been busy making the port, with dock and town square areas, and finally got finished just in time last night, with the help from the electric fan heater to get the paint dry in time! But work well worth it I think.
So the call went out to Roly and Brett that our campaign was ready to start.
Roly brought some extra terrain including fields, windmill, well, carts, walls and more buildings. Also his excellent ships. Roly also had a great many period civilians types, that added the feel of a bustling port. Things were looking good. Brett brought a great selection of barrels, crates, sacks and general cargo type stuff. It all came together excellently.
A view across the bay to the port town, with Roly readying his crew
A closer view of port, with Roly and Monique checking crew roster on laptop
A view from port out to sea, with Brett finishing his crew roster.
My crew, led from the rear by Cap'n Jim Blackblood, leaving the dock and heading towards the town.
Brett's crew come in from the side of town. They were to have a little bit of a rough time of it as they were sandwiched between mine and Rolys crews, but they acquitted themselves well.
Rolys crew came in from beside the Church in two groups
The first exchange of fire between my Ol' Ned, and Bretts Jack Hawkins
A grander view of docks and my musketry forcing Bretts crew to retreat
My crew leaving the dock, passing the Chandler building, now with Cap'n Jim at the fore
My greater grouped number prevailed, and Bretts crew retreated back along back alleys and paddocks, allowing my crew to press on past a rather startled gent, heading towards the action in the town centre.
The vanguard of Rolys crew enter town square
Street level shot.
A surprise from Bretts crew; a grenade! Flattened by this blast was one of Roly's poor crew - who actually did quite well from it - although put out of action during the game, he gained extra experience from the event, in the post game sequence
The skulking 'grenadier' - he became a marked man!
Another video interlude ...
Rolys and Bretts crew still at it in the alleyway
The town square, Rolys Captain is just entering centre top
These guys are still fighting, this one lasted several rounds
An overall shot of port activity
Rolys and Bretts crews mixing it up it up. This alley way saw several bodies pile up.
Rolys crew enter town square with Bretts crew emerging from the distant paddocks
Its all happening - Roly and Bretts crew are mixing it up already as my crew appear. They quickly realize they can shoot into the combats, not caring which side they hit. My late arrival to town square was paying off in a way I hadn't foreseen
Melee, my crew and Bretts; Muzza ( big black guy) thonks Mistress Gray over the head with his club. I thought he wanted to do off with her back to the ships bilges, but the post game sequence revealed he hit her just a little too hard! Sorry Brett! In the background my 2nd mate Dandy Jack and Jack Hawkins go at it
Distant musket smoke
Final shot of game, the civilians come to implore peace from the victorious crew! Ahem...
A thoroughly great game with good companionable players, and fun light hearted way to start our campaign.
Brett got ahead early with his crew taking out 2 of Roly's crew (the first one with a grenade that spooked the bejesus out of me and Roly, as we'd never played with one in a game before, damn thing is Strength 5!) and one of mine (yes you guessed it, the newly painted model that was having his first game, ain't it always the way...). Roly and Brett continued gamely to go at each other, and it wasn't until I managed to rush into town and set up a 'firing line' facing the fighting protagonists, and felled two of them with one round of shooting that discretion seemed the better part of valor...
So I emerged the victor, after Bretts and Rolys crew had fought each to a standstill, and they voluntarily routed as I piled into the town square taking pot shots at the melee combatants. I can't say it was a plan from the outset, but that's the way it played out.
I look forward to more of these games, and making more terrain and ships for the game.
