More Forests....

I have been working on improving my forest and woods for my terrain tables.  I think I might have hit the mark with this.

I used to use upholstery foam, plucked to break up the shape and then flocked with spray glue.  This is the development of that idea.  See the below post for my other attempts
Making Tree's I can live with

In Bunnings the other day I came across an almost perfect mat I could use as a base for forests along with a 6 pack of foam sponges, some black primer spray and some green craft paint (cheap).  I have made about 12 pieces of forest now and not used half of the mat and sponges.

I cut a shape in the sponge for the forest canopy then cut the rubber mat leaving about a 1cm lip of foam over the edge.

I then pluck the cut sponge to break up the surface and give it a more forest like shape, nothing straight or flat.

Once I am happy with the look, I glue the rubber mat shape I cut to the foam with PVA, let it dry a bit then prime the foam.

Once dried I dry brush using Woodland Green from my old GW paints, highlighting with a lime green or a yellow would do also.

Last step is to paint the rubber edge brown, this gives the look of tree trunks when viewed from the side.

And in play....

Coast line for terrain boards

Been working on some coast line designs for a commission I have at the moment to develop a land battle board that can be used with my original table design (modular terrain boards) and provide amphibious landing options for Sails of Glory ships.

Side by side connected to show the full coast line. Far edges also connect to create an estuary when the other terrain boards connect to them. 

Battle Report: BIG 9th August 2015

We hit BIG this weekend, Rob and myself and made a new friend, Glen.  Rob had put together a scenario that challenge him to fight a delaying action with 2 Brigades of British Line Infantry with some support from 2 Light Infantry Regiments against 2 French Infantry Divisions supported by a Division of Cavalry.  This was going to get messy.

The Orders were sent out.  Here

The battle was great fun and we took a few shots of our new project now completed and some of the action.  Sorry for the image quality as we were beside a window on a pretty bright day.

In the Beginning....

1st Brigade moves to protect the Right flank and capture the bridge crossing.  Engineers to be used to blow the bridge if needed.

Comments form the Super Coach, Rob shows Glen some nuances of the game

The the Eastern approach screened the French Columns seem unstoppable in their progress to the North.

The Crisis:  the British bring awesome fire to bare on the french crossing the Bridges.  French Artillery move to dispatch the threat.

French Infantry supported by Artillery hold the Bridge while the voltigeurs harass the British Cavalry from the woods.

Sneak Peak of my current Project....

Just a quick peak, more to come, only half done.

Waterloo 2015

With the 200 year anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo this year our 28mm Napoleonics group are looking at a 4 day battle to commemorate the event.

So lets take a look at the board we will be making for the battle.

Firstly it will need to be big enough to fit on our table of 12 feet by 6 feet at a height of 10cm at the the British and French ridge lines.  This would be an expensive build if we used Extruded foam I build the Salamanca project with.  So it was time to find a cheaper material.

Enter KoolFoam who provided a quote for the material I would need (approx 36 feet by 2 feet of foam) for just a little more than $160.  They were able to provide the material at the measures I asked for.  I broke down the table into 2 feet wide panels at 50cm thick to assist in mobility.

Lets start the build.

We first laid out the foam panels to form up the British lines.  Marking a 1 foot grid over the board to help trace out our contours.

First Contour

Second Contour

Once in place we worked off the plan to mark the high line and the low line of each contour.  This is the plan we worked to provided by our groups Map guru.  That said we didn't want to cover the field in 5 layers of contours and so we did have to cut down the design to a build that would allow for a good battle rather than an accurate depiction of the field.

Using just a normal 2B pencil we shaded the contour and started to cut the shapes.

Then placing the contour on the low contour we traced the shape, this provided us with the mark for the low slopes to meet.  

Moving the edge which would be centre field over the table lip so we could cut it all in one pass (or as much as we can)

It was at this point that we counted the number of 1 foot squares on the boards and realised we were missing a few feet.  This was due to a design decision we made in the start of the project.  A quick addition to the British left flank and we are sorted, there is also a panel on the right that is not shown below.

With the important British ridge shaped we started on the French (less important) ridge.

When we finished it I measured and marked a 12 by 6 with chalk on the floor, and pieced both sides with in it.

The spare piece on the British side is so we have somewhere to place our cups of tea.  

The blue foam is a cut off from my Salamanca project to mark the lesser ridge used by the French Grand Battery.  It was lower then the main French ridge and this foam being 25mm was perfect for this.  This piece is the only one we have cut the slope on, the rest will be worked on next weekend.

Oh and we picked up some Faux Fur to help with some coverage, just for giggles I through it over the boards..... what do you think.

More to follow....

Its just not adding up...

For sometime now I have been working on developing Neil Thomas's rules covered in his book "Napoleonic Wargaming" into a larger scale system to play out some of our more grander conflicts.

To his credit I have failed every time, the rules seem simple, fast and balanced.  Sure a few things madden me but I can live with them (until I can and venture off into another fruitless attempt to improve them).  You see he explains his thinking and rule formation in detail through out his book, his book is 160 pages and his rules are covered off in 8 pages (plus some Orders of Battle and Campaign flavour).

Well Neil I think I have you now!

Its the British you see.

Neil has covered off regarding the shooting with British troops that they hit on 3+ rather than the 4+ all other infantry hit on.  This we have played and enjoyed for some time now.  But what has bothered me (despite having a British army) is that they only have two strips of figures to everyone else having 3, naturally this is due to the 2 rank not 3 rank.  But when I place 4 stands of infantry in a line fronting their French counterparts should I not have a 1/3 additional frontage.

Also running the number (sleepy yet?) you end up with this;

4 stands, hitting on 3, will hit 67% or 2.67 each shot (British)
4 stands, hitting on 4, will hit 50% or 2 each shot (3 rank Infantry)

This gives me a 1.33 ratio or one hit in every 3 stand over the 3 ranks not the 1 hit in every 2 that it should be.

It is actually more accurate to add two stand to the British, this gives them more frontage and makes the fire figures more accurate.  The stands now all hit on 4+ as the British didn't shoot better, just had more guns, which is covered by the additional stands.

6 stands, hitting on 4, will hit 50% or 3 each shot
4 stands, hitting on 4, will hit 50% or 2 each shot

This brings my fire ratio to 1.5 and provides a more accurate frontage.

BUT

It does mean that I have 2 extra stands for each unit giving it 8 extra hits.  My thinking is that this is simply fixed.  With the addition of stands to my unit I must water down the hits a stand can take, this will mean that a unit takes a total of 16 hits normally and so the British must spread that out of the 6 stand, this doesnt work out.  so

All 3 rank stands have 3 hits.  All 2 rank stands have 2 hits.  This gives a 6 stand unit 12 hits and a 4 stand unit (3 ranks) 12 hits.  Evening out the hits again.

Adding to this a desire to change morale a little.  Rather than have morale rolled for each stand lost to fire, I have decided to try it with all units having a morale of 4+ keeping it simple so all rolls are made with 4+ (besides Artillery and I have yet to work out what I want to change there if anything).  But morale grade of a unit just determines teh number of stands you can lose before you need start rolling for morale, so Elite can lose 2 stands, Regular lose 1, Conscripts must roll morale at the first stand lost.

Anyway will chew these over in some play testing and see what I come back with.

My Basing Idea....

For some time now I have been chewing over the idea of how best to base my troops for transporting.  After my 20th trip in the car to our games club and the unloading ritual of reorganising my tray of troops I decided that enough is enough.

Previously I would base my 6mm and 28mm with Picture frame backing card and use an adhesive flex magnet fixed to the bottom.  This works well to keep the majority in place but one sudden break in the car or a sharp turn and the fringe troops would start to move about the tray.

The magnet was just not cutting it.

So I contacted a local Aussie MDF shape laser cutter, ordered myself 100 bases cut 20mm squares with a 3mm diameter hole in the centre.

Once I had these I would place a 2mm high x 2.5mm diameter Rare Earth Magnet in the hole and scrap some liquid nails in over the top of the base to hold it in place.

This had a few advantages, firstly magnetism was dramatically improved.  My bases have now become more precise in measure with each base being identical in size and finally the MDF is more durable than the card which would warp during the flocking process if too much moisture was present.

Some finished units on the left and centre (unflocked), the right is the old card base.