Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => The Great War => Topic started by: James Morris on May 22, 2015, 10:37:57 PM
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With 9 days to go til Partizan I thought it was high time I started getting the scenery for our game done. We're hoping to do a small section of the German attack on the French positions in the Bois des Caures on 21st and 22nd February 1916; the start of the Battle of Verdun.
Having now spent a few months reading about the battle, I find the terrain required quite haunting; the shattered woods in particular have grabbed my imagination. The accounts of the bombardment are, naturally, harrowing, and the destruction in the Bois des Caures was huge and to many soldiers' eyes, unnatural. I remind myself that the descriptions of Tolkien's Moria probably took shape in the trenches of the Great War.
Anyway, enough waffle, here's some of my inspiration:
Images of the Bois des Caures during the battle:
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/Bois%20des%20Caures%208_zpsidw7a3cl.jpg)
Quite reminiscent of John Nash's 'Oppy Wood 1917':
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/Oppy%20Wood%201917%20by%20John%20Nash_zpsjzk4evvw.jpg)
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/Bois%20des%20Caures%205_zpsso0rzz04.jpg)
The first step was, unsurprisingly, several walks round the woods with the kids, though it's unusual for Dad to bring home quite this many sticks! After some selective chopping and breaking I ended up with enough wood to make around 50 trees and some stumps. Armed with the trusty hot glue glue I set about gluing these onto rough bases:
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3386_zpsmz2jbf3j.jpg)
Shell holes have been added from the sheet sold by Early War Minis. I also used numerous washers and coins to help weight down the trees; in my experience tall trees have a habit of crashing down in an unexpected manner.
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3387_zps2lrduf3v.jpg)
Having done all this, I plastered the bases with filler and glued on sand and cork chippings for some extra texture:
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3391_zpsdwxxg6sc.jpg)
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3393_zpsykcqrq9v.jpg)
Next up: painting. Brown, brown or brown? ;)
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A nice start. Definitely giving me ideas to get away from the typical trench table.
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You are off to a good start.
Look forward to what is next.
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I like this. :) Waiting for more.
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Indeed. Very interesting and i will watch this one closely. ;-)
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Looks great so far!
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Good start. Love the Nash painting. If you can capture that feeling in your layout, you'll be onto a winner.
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I'll keep a lookout for it at Partizan.Any idea which hall you'll be in?
Mark.
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Intriguing start :)
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A lot of John Nash's sketches from WWI have survived James. I've seen them in a gallery but I suspect that seeing as Nash's art is seen as such an icon of WWII in the UK that they may well be worth looking for online.
Just a suggestion old bean :)
Darrell.
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Looking good.
Shattered and very convincing.
Hope to see more.
Regards,
Sendak
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Really looking forward to seeing this game this weekend :-*
Darrell.
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Thanks for all the kind comments. I'm now working on painting up the bases of the trees:
Before and after shot. The base has been given a rough dry brush over the original brown; shell hole painted in Vallejo Flat Earth, then some black wash applied to add depth, finished off with a coat of brown ink, then finally a coat of yacht varnish.
It's not exactly modelling masterclass but it does look effective en masse.
I also added a few splashes of black wash to the tree and the base to add a bit of variety.
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3465_zpsnfv3upl0.jpg)
To take a break from the trees, I had a go at some of the vacformed pieces I bought at Salute. The fortifications in the Bois des Caures were not continuous trench lines, but a network of mutually supporting dugouts and bunkers, so thes eneed doing for the weekend's game anyway. I wasn't happy with my (rather rushed) paintjob on the Amera bunker that featured in one of Scrivs' battle reports and spent a bit of time trying to get a better finish. The vacform is cheap, but by its very nature, very smooth, which means you need to put a bit of work into adding texture or painting it on. I sponged on a couple of highlighting layers and am happier with the result, as well as lining the edge with some black.
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3458_zps5zdnm3ni.jpg)
Where I am really struggling here is with the lack of foliage I have committed myself to using - in a usual basing job I'd be adding all kinds of tufts and bushes which add another dimension to the texture. I may visit Arcane Models tomorrow and see if they have any brown flock and tufts I can add to make myself happier with this.
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3460_zpsl6h6xr0v.jpg)
I do need to remember that these will be appearing under a dusting of snow at the weekend too!
I also had a crack at improving a hill emplacement, again another bargain from Amera. Like the bunker, I added texture to the groundwork using filler and sand, and raised the level of the emplacement to allow my Hotchkiss team to be able to fire out, before painting. The sandbags had come out very flat in my initial paint and wash, so I decided to paint them in using layers. They're slightly cartoony but certainly have more definition now. Like the bunker, this is waiting for a final layer of flock/weathering/tufts, whatever comes to mind before Sunday!
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3461_zpskqo3lpeh.jpg)
Coming next will be some other vacformed bits & pieces from Salute; all these I have only textured and undercoated so far.
New from Kallistra, the largest piece in their 'non-hex crater set'. This is a monster!
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3474_zpsadwh0fyu.jpg)
Amera's craters:
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3473_zpsj2e6hm08.jpg)
And a dugout from Early War Miniatures. This is a thinner plastic than either Amera or Kallistra so it does have more surface detail - the wickerwork seems very appropriate for trenches of this period.
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3476_zpsxpeoklht.jpg)
Finally, one more from Amera:
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3475_zpswbnjvxmz.jpg)
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I need some of these. :) I think a little more wash, drybrushing, and flock and these will do the business. :)
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For adding texture, would stippling a plastic bunker with tiny amounts of plastic cement melt a concrete texture pattern?
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For adding texture, would stippling a plastic bunker with tiny amounts of plastic cement melt a concrete texture pattern?
If not, you could probably stipple a little Tamiya putty, thinned, or Mr. Surfacer. :)
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Thanks for the good ideas on texturing the bunker. I might do it next time!
Woke up today and realised I hadn't really thought about checking we had a suitable figure for Col Driant (the heroic French commander at the Bois des Caures who was killed in the withdrawal.) After rereading the Bois des Caures chapters from Alastair Horne's classic 'The Price of Glory', the lack of a Driant was really bugging me, so I went digging in my (quite shallow) WW1 French bits box. Fortunately I turned up the communications set from Scarab Minis which features a very characterful officer in a kepi wielding a cloth and gesticulating heroically. I liked the head (and it had the obligatory moustache) so I kept that on and dug out a spare Adrian helmet from Empress Minis.
Here he is sans kepi and with Adrian ready to go:
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3477_zpsvbgpfx2j.jpg)
In the battle, Driant took a rifle to help defend his position, so naturally I wanted to add one in. With more good luck, I discovered the Old Glory French casualty pack had a spare rifle, so in it went. With a bit of guidance from the Osprey Verdun book, some period pictures and green stuff, I hastily reconstructed a rough version of Driant with his medals and uniform. My kids were unusually cooperative at this point (though I did let them watch 3 episodes of Postman Pat back-to-back to achieve this...)
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3479_zpsb8meca6d.jpg)
Hopefully I can get him painted up by Sunday!
I spent a large part of this evening on the repetitive business of painting tree bases, but was pleased when my order of Woodland Scenics 'soft flake snow' arrived. I remember being very impressed with this stuff many years ago when Gripping Beast ran a skirmish in a snowy Roman fort as part of one of their WAB events at Warhammer World. It's not amazing when it comes out of the pot but I managed to get a few trial shots to see how it worked with the terrain. These are very rough, taken without a tripod or proper lighting on my kitchen table at 8pm, but hopefully you get the idea!
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3489_zpshck8jsc6.jpg)
The snow was less 'sticky' than I was expecting, but I did discover that painting the tree branches with water helped it to stay on. I should have said that we are after a temporary 'dusting of snow' effect; I don't want to have this terrain permanently painted with snow, although I know it might look better.
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3490_zpsldjflfav.jpg)
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3485_zps2fzfgs0v.jpg)
Tomorrow night Scrivs and I are going to meet up to put the trial game together, so it'll be interesting to see how it looks. :)
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definitely comeing across at Partizan,for good neb and chat.
Mark.
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Col. Driant looks Briliant. :)
I love Woodland Scenics snow, too. I use quite a bit of it. :) Things look awesome. :)
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Great stuff James!! :-* :-* :-* :-* :-*
Very much looking forward to seeing the game this Sunday 8)
Darrell.
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Met up with Scrivs and Dave for the pre-Partizan meeting and trial game last night. Not all quite finished - indeed, I need to paint a slightly greyer backdrop with some snow for that February look - but was pretty pleased with the first impressions. We used less than half of my Woodland Scenics snow so will probably be going for a heavier snowfall on Sunday...the game clear-up ended with the comical sight of a computer programmer and a teacher trying to get large amounts of white powder off the floor of a bowls club and back into its original container... ;)
The real thing - slightly chilly out!
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/Bois%20des%20Caures%204_zpsu6hh8bkq.jpg)
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3502_zpsxczdisr0.jpg)
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3500_zpslawn99xf.jpg)
Nice day for a walk if the woods weren't full of les Boches!
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3504_zpsdsmtqte7.jpg)
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3499_zps36nogqre.jpg)
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3501_zpsn2yzbije.jpg)
(http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w366/jamesmorris17/DSCF3510_zpsctgbe2au.jpg)
Col Driant has been sent to Scrivs - the fastest painter in the west - so I imagine he'll be on the Scrivsland blog by Saturday teatime! :)
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Very nice! The snow is especially evocative.
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I love it when a plan comes together!
Colonel Driant has already been base-coated and washed - maybe this teatime :)
Almost a Breaking Bad scene yesterday evening though when myself and James had to clear up all the suspicious white powder we had spilled.
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Those practise run game shots look great! :-*
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Chillingly evocative.
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Goodly. Does the job very well.
Think I'd go heavy on the loose snow to conceal the bases of all the various terrain pieces as much as possible.
But the overall effect is pretty convincing.
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Chillingly evocative.
:) pun
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:) pun
A cold sounding comment ;) :D
Darrell.
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Just in time for the game, I have speed-painted up the lovely Émile Driant that James made.
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-11Xu_KaU1yw/VWmNQ-O37gI/AAAAAAAAPUA/61GIq9UIIEs/s1600/DSCN0290.JPG)
He is depicted having just burned the paperwork as they evacuated the Bois Des Caures command bunker.
As usual, more pictures and commentary over on Scrivsland.
http://scrivsland.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/partizan-painting-update-emile-driant.html (http://scrivsland.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/partizan-painting-update-emile-driant.html)
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Thanks Paul! With my schedule this weekend there's no way I'd have got him done in time. I've finished off all my bunkers & entrenchments, and painted a new 8 ft backdrop for the game, but need to do some work this evening so photos will have to wait til after the show.
Hope to see some of you at Partizan tomorrow. Don't know which hall we're in but looking forward to the show. Cheers!