Starting Portable Wargaming - First based units on pg 3

[AndrewBeasley]

Two coats of W&N Galeria Pale umber now on the board (why did I buy 250mL - have 2/3rds the pot left) and all gems are still stuck on  

Looks like it has covered the running gem colour fine but has not dried hard today so it will be next week before I can spray the sand coating unless I can get up early in the morning (dark by the time I am home)...

I have ordered some 35mmx35mm and 35mmx70mm rounded bases from Warbases today to give me a flat area for hills / plants to sit on as this size will fit between the dots and may become the standard size for the figures - though I think 35mmx20mm may be better.

I am not the fastest figure painter in the world (sold some 20yr old figures last year - still unpainted) and am dreading the pile of lead growing more without a lot of time for painting so two things will be done:

• Take a days holiday and lock my self away for a 'me day'

• Start the games off with paper figures from The Junior General

Who knows - I may even put up some figures for sale - just to stop the lead pile crushing the house foundations as it grows again…

Though the paper figures lack both the weight of metal and detail, the idea of using paper cut outs for the game sits very well in my mind and a few of the sets (esp the Belgian Troops - Top Down would give me all the figures to have a generic blue vs green battle.  I have both picture mount card and foam core around the house and even paper glue (from my Ebbles Paper alien games) so ti looks like a go'er to start.  Christmas is still reachable for the first game.

[AndrewBeasley]

Not a great deal of progress but I'm please with the results so far:

The round bases have arrived from Warbases.  The small ones are perfect but the large ones are too small - more thought on my side was needed (or a bit of paper and scissors

This pic shows both the bases and the next stage of the board.  It has had two coats of pale umber and one good spray of sand.  This is given it an odd texture but I like it.  A dry brush and a little flock will complete this.

Now the mountains are set on the correct colour board they sit a lot better.

Despite liking teethe buildings loose, I think they will have to be based - darn small for my thick fingers…

[AndrewBeasley]

Well after 8 months pause I made myself get back into the swing of this game 

A few little bits had been progressed over the interim - I got the 'correct' bases from Warbases, I picked up a few dice 'boxes' and decided that the figures where too small to loose lay so made myself a small town:

The bases was simply sprayed with the 'stone' spray used on the main board and the buildings stuck down with superglue gel.

I did make one key mistake though - I decided to add a bit of flock and grass tufts to break up the bare patches but I should have kept it simple not added these on.  The tufts are the smallest I could find and dwarf the buildings (need to trim them down) and the flock colour ran within the super glue.  I'll leave this on for now but not happy over the result - maybe I should add more detailing in to 'hide' the bits but to be honest it should have been plain all the way.

At the Scarborough show I found a set of laser cut squares and small dice on the Pendraken stand from Minibits designed for hit markers.  They come with three colours of die (white / red / blue) so I can have red = attack, blue = defence and white for troop casualties.  Looking at the result of using the unpainted wood I may paint these black as spraying them stops the dice sitting correctly as it is so gloopy / thick.

I know the pic below is not sharp - its either flare / reflection or blurred 7mm dice today!

Before anyone asks 'how are these going to sit over the corner markers?' - I have dig a small hole / indentation in the centre of the board with a knife and wiped white glue on the area to seal it. This then goes over the gem and the board sits reasonably flat.

I decided that I will base the mountains using half square sized bases (OK rectangular is the word I should have used) and am currently waiting for the stone paint to dry solid over the next 48 hours.

Items that I still need to resolve are:

1) Roads and rivers
2) Trees - thinking of cheap plastic palm
3) Low hills - still tempted to use foam / felt as discussed to try it out.

[AndrewBeasley]

I managed to get a few more scenic items sorted this weekend:

First up some rough terrain split into two main types - the first being low cut grassland that will just slow down a unit if they enter or cross the area, the second being heavy bush that will really delay a unit:

The grassland is simply Army Painter Highland tufts with a sprinkle of static grass.  The static grass has been a bit of a pain - not having a 'fly swatter' device I tried a small puffer bottle - it may work for smaller patches but not for the large squares very well (had a habit of blowing patterns into the grass) but at least it stood up!  I would tell you the maker but the hoover swallowed the bag while getting rid of the mess left behind by the bottle (I still itch) 

The second is just white / grey reindeer moss hot glued to a wooden base.  I've managed to pick up a bag of this now as it will come in handy for my Inuit / Eskimo ice games.

Next up are the palm trees currently drying having been sanded and stuck to 1p coins (tail side of course so the head remains clear).

Then just low hills (possibly foam) and roads and I should be ready for troops.

[Golgotha]

Looking very good do like the portable wargame rules - fun and fast see: http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~warden/portable_wargame/archive.html
and http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~warden/portable_wargame/downloads.html
 

[AndrewBeasley]

Looking very good do like the portable wargame rules - fun and fast see: http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~warden/portable_wargame/archive.html
and http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~warden/portable_wargame/downloads.html

If anything this site and Bob Cordery have been the inspiration for this game more than any other idea or article.  It's a shame that the site is not updated with battle reports as they can get lost among cruise trips and holidays on his normal site http://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.co.uk/ (though the current finds in his shed are interesting)...

[AndrewBeasley]

1 year and 4 months later I've finally got the troop figures stuck onto some bases - pictures coming soon 

[Puuka]

On Etsy, they had some 3D printed building and "roads" for Catan that might work with this.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/Build3D?ref=listing-shop-header-item-count

[AndrewBeasley]

Thanks for those pictures and link Puuka.  I originally decided to go with the Arab style buildings for the start of the game for plot reasons and the minor fact that I am using the Peter Pig 15mm Sudan range of figures for the majority of the initial troops.  I find these cleaner and lacking the striped effect often seen on printed models.  The range has grown since I first started and now has some great classic British and European houses that will get used at some point.

So onto the first set of troop pictures - Regular Infantry (4 to a base) , Camel Scouts (2 to a base) and Dervish irregulars (3 to a base):

(Right one needs a little bend at the ankles looking at this!)

As you can see - these are painted 'high-gloss' style (by Dave Parsons in Sheffield) but still need a little base work - ( and a dust  ) to complete the look - just a touch up on the figures / glue as I will leave the wood painted but lacking decoration for now (as per the old Briton ranges).  Bases are by War Bases cut to order to fit in the squares with space around them and painted to match the base board and a thick black marker to even out the laser cut edge.

Rules and bits will appear soon along with the first AAR - look for that in the VSF section rather than here next year (OK next week is my plan).  I'll keep this to boards, figures and terrain while the other thread will follow the misadventures adventures of the tea drinking troops and the problems they face...

[Golgotha]

Really looking forward to seeing more here - the portable game rules are fantastic and surprisingly quick, fun and addictive.

[AndrewBeasley]

Really looking forward to seeing more here - the portable game rules are fantastic and surprisingly quick, fun and addictive.

Well just for you (OK others may see the link - I hope) these are my version 1 of the rules I plan to build on NEW BLOG RULES PAGE  The blog may not take off - I got to the point with the old ones that updating them was more important than the games    Not letting that happen this time but as a space on the net it will do for now...

[Momotaro]

Lovely stuff Andrew, great to see the project moving forward. 

I still can't believe you painted all the windows on those tiny houses!

[Cherno]

Perhaps you can take a pair of nail scissors and cut away at the too-large-tufts of shrubbery   

[AndrewBeasley]

One thing I had been wondering about was how to represent the fact the guns had fired and needed a PIP to reload.

I dithered over using a dice marker (as per the town), a plastic ring or even knowing together a specific figure or model but in the end fell back on the pre-cut plastic shell from Figures In Comfort:

Handy as I found the Tray #05 fits the standard figure base exactly (Heroquest models by the name) or 35x45mm 

So now my cold has cleared up - painting bases continue (only around a dozen to do) and first game commences.

[AndrewBeasley]

Fantastic service from FIC - foam and markers arrived today.

Anyone ever found any use for the foam blocks that you remove?