Carthaginian Field Camp for Field of Glory in 15mm - Element finished

[Peithetairos]

Hi,

apart from Fantasy stuff I am also very interested in the Punic Wars and have an ever growing 15mm Carthaginian force for Field of Glory. However, it lacks one thing: A field camp. Unfortunately there is not much know about Carthaginian field camps and I had to resort to sources covering the Polybian roman field camp.

I chose a couple of Corvus Belli miniatures to have some nice scenes and made an outline:








The part with the pack animal would be removable and thus the actual camp would conform to the FoG regulations for camp size.

I thought of the following scenes: An Iberian Scutari, Bagarok, and a Numidan, Micipsa, are playing a dice game, while on the other side the guard is changing and a Celt is painting a shield for one of the Libyans (not pictured). It would be cool to have a soldier crawling in the tent, after his guard duty is over.

Then we have all the small details, like the bird and the roasting fish.

If I get some more miniatures I might add a slave who cares for the oxen, and a woman coming down the road.

The left tent will be open and one can look inside. I might place some sleeping soldiers in there.

Today I assembled a prototype to practise some of the stuff I want to use in the final camp.

Tissue for the tent fabric seems to work: it is slightly translucent, is not to rough in structure and reasonably sturdy after the PVA tried.

Problem: I don't get as much tension as I would like. I applied to layers of tissue and while the first one was reasonably streched the second one got really folded.

I'll add some supportive wire at the bottom of the tent, so it won't sack.

The nails are too long and I am not sure about the nail heads. They might be to big. Any ideas what I could use instead?

The guy line looks the part, but I have to think about the ends.

The inside of the tent is lined with straw, but I would wonder how plausible that is? Maybe leather or linen is more probable?

The piece of linen the guys will be play on and the cloak of Micipsa turned out ok, even so the cloak might be better done in greenstuff.

New is the covered shield, but I think the tissue is to thin and needs more layers to make it look like heavy leather.

I might also make a lean-to for equipment and weapons.

Do you guys have a good idea how to glue wire fast? Hot glue might be an idea.

However, here are some pics of the prototype and maybe someone has some good ideas regarding the problems:

[Nysse]

Hi, looking quite nice already!

I find hot glue being a bit messy and hard to handle especially when gluing small parts. If you have access to soldering equipment that could work quite well with the wires?

You could try using some really thin mesh over which you apply the tissue? It would make the whole thing a lot more sturdy and at the same time prevent the tissue paper from sagging. Roll bandage (not sure what it is in english something like this) could also work well and it's probably easier to get it stretched out.

[Mad Doc Morris]

Well, that's an ambitious enterprise. I love it. The setup looks nice, and the little scenes you've planned will add so much atmosphere.

However, I would cut down on detail a bit. For example, unless you add strings to 15mm bows you don't need to actually model tent pegs and ropes. Also, Carthaginian mercenaries probably didn't have such nice and neat tents like it's assumed for the (Imperial) Roman army. It's possible they just slept on their cloaks, and on rainy days they might have built makeshift tents from said cloaks, canvas covers or even branches and foliage – at least, if no civilian housing could be commandeered. So I wouldn't bother too much with properly built tents. (Btw, straw as padding is totally fine.)
That said, if you must, better use plastic card or cardboard as a base for the tents. A simple three-cornered construction will do. That way you loose the 'translucency', but it becomes sturdier, and 'tissue covers' are easy to apply.

Anyway, looking forward to your progress.

[Peithetairos]

Thank you for the feedback so far,

The soldering equipment is a problem, but maybe at my wifes work I could get my hands on a soldering iron .

The wire mesh is a good idea, but my wife jokingly said she would find it awesome if the closed tents would be lit by a LED and you could see some silhouettes inside...I found that idea great and now need transparancy to a certain extend to pull that off.

If people think I am crazy: Yes, I totally would give 15mm bowmen strings , and the idea about the camp was to add some good detail to make it stand out (and it is also the reason why I want it to be good the first time, because I don't feel like doing it all over again, which explains the prototype) given it is as a concept a rather standard affair. So the idea is: Superior detail, gimmicks etc.

Bandage material might be an idea, but I suspect the actual texture is too pronounced in this scale.

The evidence suggests that the Carthaginian camps of Hannibal's force were organised and in many cases fortified. Appian describes a scene were the roman plunder the Carthaginian camp (App. Pun. 4) and some of the tents are set ablaze. I think you are right that in some operations there were no tents or if new troops joined Hannibals course they might not have had tents from the outset, but in general an army of such size would need some form of shelter while on campaign (and if I would be a soldier I would get together with some of my tribesmen and invest in a piece of linen to keep me  dry) and after the total victories in the eraly years of the war it could well be that they acquired tents of the romans as loot.

The real question is if the evidence we have for Imperial roman field camps is also true of Middle Republican ones. Polybios does describe the ideal roman army camp and I think it will have looked different from case to case, but in general I believe that keeping the order makes sense if one wants to deploy fast, so while nobody took out the ruler they surely had a system in place.

In ten years Hannibal will have learned something of the Roman camp system, maybe even got local craftsmen to supply wood and linen etc. so a reasonable amount of similarity could be assumed, but again its a guess.

I think you are right with the tent form, might have been a simple triangle, but as I want to add detail I thought of a more complex form would look nicer. An idea would be to have the Iberians with a triangular tent and the African Veterans with more of a roman style tent. I thought of carboard or plastic card for the tent shape, but then I loose the transparancy for the lighting gimmick.

However, thank you for your ideas so far, that really helps to think the ideas through and reconsider the sources available. I might make a second camp in some point were the soldiers camp rough under a tree or so.

[Peithetairos]

A small update:

I tried only one layer of tissue and it really got rid of all the folds. I also used some pigments this time to color the tent. I like it better than the former version. What do you guys think?

[Prof.Witchheimer]

The painting and the weathering effetcs are awesome. I especially like the second photo, looks damn realistic!

I would recommend to take Mininatur grass and not the static one, it costs not that much and looks a huge deal better. Btw, Mininatur stuff is designed for the railroad H0 scale so it would fit greatly in your 15mm world.

here's the link
http://www.mininatur.de/silhouette_home.php?lang=de

[Peithetairos]

Hi,

thank you for your feedback. The grass does look very sparse in places and is in quite some unorder. I guess with the baged stuff I need a Grassmaster to make it look good. I have a selection of MiniNatur stuff in my drawer, but so far did not only use their bushes, but a combination. Given it is such a small piece I might actually do what you recommend and use them exclusively. Do you have by any chance a picture of a base or piece were only their bushes are used?

[Prof.Witchheimer]

Do you have by any chance a picture of a base or piece were only their bushes are used?

Sure, I place them on every of my minis:



more here:
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?action=gallery;su=user;cat=374;u=3

[von Lucky]

My Carthaginian tents are looking way too white now - yours look beautiful (...because they are dirty). I am going to give mine a wash to dirty them too.

[Peithetairos]

Thank you for the picture. The guy looks great! Very smooth painting and excellent colour choice! I think I hav exactly those bushes, so that will work.

@Lucky: do you have a picture of your tents? I am always interested in other people's work as an inspiration. I would not recommend using a wash. I used one in the first version and it just doesn't look right. Pigments are better.

I did experiment with some lighting effects yesterday. I think the LED is too bright, so I have to diffuse the light slightly:



With some tissue paper around the light source:



I am surprised how transparent the tissue still is, after all that paint on it.

[Prof.Witchheimer]

Fantastic picture, very atmospheric! Now you only need some feets looking out and maybe a sleeping dog before the entrance

[Peithetairos]

Excellent idea! Only catch is, were do I find a sleeping do miniature? I know Xyston makes some dogs, so does Corvus Belli, but the are all running. I guess one could convert one.

[Prof.Witchheimer]

Excellent idea! Only catch is, were do I find a sleeping do miniature? I know Xyston makes some dogs, so does Corvus Belli, but the are all running. I guess one could convert one.

No idea, I'm not that into the 15mm world.

Though I also couldn't say where you could get a 28mm sleeping dog. Seems to be a market niche

[LawnRanger]

Outstanding stuff.
Have a look at irregular miniaturers

http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/indexes/15mmindex.htm

they have all sorts of stuff I have a few bits from them for my FOG camps   You have me thinking about redoing my carthage camp now..
.

[Peithetairos]

Hi, thank you for the link. I had a look around, but there are not that many pictures on the website and the pictures they have - excuse me - are horrible. Can you recommend some of their bits or even provide a photo of painted stuff to give me an impression of quality? Speaking from the pictures on the website I have this feeling all the camp stuff will more or less look like blobs...but I hope I am wrong.