Project Salamance Final Post: Field Testing

Finally after waiting longer than I had wanted I took the boards down to the B.I.G. (Brisbane Independent Gamers) weekend.

Played through the Salamanca scenario that we had played before in 15mm and I have to say that the boards were received well by those in attendance.

Design:  Some areas very very few had issues supporting my 6mm stands as I have them on magnet bottom bases making them a bit smoother than Dayle's balsa bases.  Also you can see that there is barely any forces deployed on the right board, this is historically accurate but a rather wasted area.  With most of the french deployed on the left and middle boards the scenario could do with some work to use this fields.

Material: The cloth cover looks great and stands up to close inspection well.  Flocked bases, which all our were did drop loose flock from time to time on the material that required picking off after the battle but that was a minor thing.

All round this was a great battle on a thing of great beauty.  Well worth ever hour spent on it.

Project Salamanca Cost Summary

Well with everything wrapping up I have totalled the cost of my experience and here it is.

Keeping in mind that the tools cost a significant amount of the total cost, the building of my next projects will be considerably cheaper.

The Suppliers I have used during this project were;
(I am including these suppliers here for thoroughness not as an endorsement)

Foam: http://www.foamular.com.au/
Consumables: http://www.bunnings.com.au/
Cloth / Dye / Craft Paints: http://www.spotlight.com.au/
Hotwire / Airbrush / Paints / Foliage & Flock: http://hobbyrama.com.au/

On to the next project...

Step Eight: Finishing Touches

Added the final touches to the first board last night.  I was not happy with the cloth on the back of the boards, it seemed a non-permanent solution the way I had it, drawing pins holding the cloth in place were not solid enough.

I picked up some rubber "grip liner" 1m by 2m roll from the cheapy shop down the road.  Below shows a small strip of the rubber, glued to the blue foam as a test, beside which is the drawing pins that I was using.

I started by placing the board on it face, using foam cut offs to keep the terrain protected.  I should have done this before I painted the board just to be sure I had it all secured.

Next I poured from the bottle of PVA a liberal amount of glue to cover the edge (cloth) and the centre of the board.  focusing on points evenly spaced apart (4 rows of 4 points), with pools of glue which I spread out with my finger to thin out.  Once I placed the rubber down I pushed drawing pins into these positions to help fix the rubber to the foam and provide added strength when all is dried.

Once the glue is dry I will trim the rubber so it sits under the edge and allows for the boards to met even flush.

My big concern is that the rubber mat will add uneven height across the three boards so that they do not sit at even levels when side by side.  I will let you know what I find.

Step Cost = $24.50 ($12 PVA Glue, $12.95 Rubber Mat)

Total Cost = $453.35

Time Taken ~2 Hours (17 Hours Total)

Step Seven: Towns and Roads

On the home straight now with only Towns and Roads needing attention.

I picked up a acrylic paint tube from Spotlight again, J. Burrows Acrylic Paint "Sand" which looked very cream coloured to be to good for roads but I tested it on a piece of cotton first and when dried it turned a nice brown colour that lifts the roads off from the base colours but not to dominating the field.

You decide.  Take note of the path running along the river to the chapel on the hill to the left.

Calvarrasa de Artiba

Yes that is a bridge across the river, cut from a 10mm square balsa rod and shaped with a Ozito Rotary Tool from Bunnings.  Best purchase I ever made, buildings can be made in minutes and look great.  Roof over hangs the walls like they would in real life.  The chapel even has carved recesses for the windows.

Adding on the last of the buildings I use a bit of clump foliage that I have had stored away for ages to scatter about the town ships to give a bit of colour.  Lastly I used Foliage from Woodland Scenics, Early Fall Mix.  This gives me the yellow fields for wheat, two blends so I could mix it up.

And once this is all together we are left with this.

I have built up the towns a little more since these last shots were taken and they now look like this.

Chapel Calvarrasa de Arriba

Las Torres on the Right

Arapiles

Farm near Aldea Tejada

I have yet to decide if I want to put Miranda de Azan in the southwestern corner, I don't want it to be a hold up for battle on that particular section.  I do need to place something down for Azan but might just see how the board plays out first.

Step Cost = $19.50 ($7.50 Acrylic Paint, $12.00 Woodland Scenic Foliage)

Total Cost = $428.85

Time Taken ~4 Hours (15 Hours Total)

Some candid snaps

Time to put out some troops and see how the board looks and feels.

British Lights defend the Chapel

British Divisions formed up behind the ridge line

Facing the French Lines

The steepest part of the board can still handle a stand of troops

Spanish Settlement

Just to see what it looks like with 28mm figures (Dutch Belgium Infantry - Painted by Peter Cross)

Step Six: Forest and Rivers

So now we are ready to work on the forest plan.  For this I am looking at using cushion foam from old chair covers.  I cut the same that I want and then using a pair of tweezers to pluck pock marks in the top of the foam.  Make sure that the base that will lay on the table is the flat smooth side of the foam, let the top be the rough and untrimmed side as it will help keep it looking more natural.

I then 50%/50% some brown acrylic craft paint ($7.50 from Spotlight) with water in a jar.  Cramming the foam into the jar and then shake.  Take out the foam and hand wring the paint back into the jar then set the foam aside to dry.

Now that its dried a light brownish colour its ready for flocking.  I use some of the contact adhesive spray to coat the top of the foam.  Placing the glue coated foam on a clean sheet of news paper so I can recover the flock not glued, I shake green flock over the foam.  Given a few minutes I shake the excess flock off the foam and then respray adhesive again sealing the flock on the foam.

While not fantastic its something.  I am not a fan of the tacky nature the trees have and that they fail to turn hard or stay soft enough to hold their form.  For now it will suffice, but I am working on other ways to do it better.

Lastly I give the river a nice bright blue paint, now I planned on using an clear resin and not using blue for the river but with a whole lot of earthy tones I opted to try and give it a bit of *Pop*.

Step Five: Preparing and Painting

With all three boards covered and pinned I was ready to prep them for airbrushing.

More shopping, Bunnings for some Timber Mate putty (one container is more than you will ever need) and Hobbyrama to grab paints, thinner and an airbrush.

Just a bit poorer but happy that I have 90% of what I need to spend on this project spent now I was happy to get into the last big phase.

I grabbed a NEO/IWATA Airbrush-G for $99.95 which has a double action trigger.  Do your research first before buying the wrong thing.

I grabbed Tamiya paints and thinner as I was comfortable with using them.

A mate lent me his compressor so that saved me $150 which I am grateful for.

First off I applied the putty to the river on board 3 with my finger, no need for anything harsher.

Now I was ready to paint.  I started with the Flat Earth XF-52 as I felt that this colour was the closest to the next shade up from my cloth colour.  I applied a light coating to 75% of the board, keeping the hills and forest areas clear.  (sorry I didn'g grab a photo of that stage)

After I was done there I applied a coat of Red Brown XF-64 to the rises of the hills and across the top in a rough pattern to help them stand out from the base level.

Flat Green XF-5 was then added to the areas that would have forest on or near.  I still had not settled on a foresting method yet but I did know where I was planning to have them.

The last step was to use Hull Red XF-9 on the areas that would be dry and high points of the board, the Greater and Lesser Arapiles.  On this step I think I got a bit carried away but its dry land so I saw it as being more rough and rockier in its terrain.

It looks much better at eye level.

Step Cost = $129.70 ($99.95 NEO/IWATA Airbrush-G, $15.80 ($3.95ea) 4xAcrylic Paint, $13.95 Thinner) 

Total Cost = $386.85

Time Taken ~2 Hours (13 Hours Total)

Step Four: Apply Cotton Layer

Well another trip to Spotlight was in order thanks to Bruce's advice.  Given that my goal was to finish the boards and not worry about getting them perfect first off, it seemed best to at least do it properly so I can learn from the experience.

So picked up some cotton cloth, Combed Cotton Jersey 112cm Width and 4m length @ $7.69/m

The cotton is white so I am going to dye it tan colour so I grabbed some "RIT - Tan Dye" at the same time.

Now the dying process was a eye opener.  I think I miss judged the amount of dye needed as all three sheets, while going in the in close order all seemed to come out slightly lighter than the previous.

Once I rinsed the cloth I spotted red dots where the dye had not dissolved fully in the water.  This would just need some creative painting when the time comes.

Using the contact adhesive again, we worded the cloth over the felt.  It was much easier to work it now the felt had softened the edges somewhat, the stretch in the cotton also helped.  When laying it I tried to keep it as relaxed as possible so that the elasticity in the cloth would be there when i needed it for the hard sections during the felt laying.

This is one of the 3 boards right after the cotton was applied.  I have tucked the cloth under the board by hand but later pinned it up with thumb tacks and dress pins only once the glue had set.

Step Cost = $51.70 (Cotton Cloth $30.76, Dye Powder $7.95, Contact Adhesive $12.99)

Total Cost = $257.15

Time Taken ~4 Hours (11 Hours Total)

The Debate, to cover or not to cover.

For the next few weeks I chewed on how to move ahead with my boards.  I decided to contact the person whom I had drawn my inspiration for the boards built this way from in the first place.  Bruce Weigle

I have confirmed with Bruce that he is happy for me to post our correspondence here, which he is.

First, thank you for you PDF guide for making fantastic gaming boards, love your work.

I have just completed the terraforming of a battlefield Salamanca, learnt heaps doing it but would like to finish it off.

I have added felt to the foam layer and are working out now if to cloth cover or paint the felt, wanting to keep the cost down, but also wanting to do it properly.

My question is more on paint, when I cloth the board, what colours would you use for a Arid environment like Spain. 

I am thinking Burnt Umber is a little to brown when I should be going Grey/Redish.

Thanks in advance

I've never done a Spanish terrain board (the ones whose pictures you saw all represented much more temperate climes), but can at least offer a couple of suggestions.   Maybe more than a couple :-)

I wouldn't recommend trying to paint felt.  Most of the felt available in the US these days (and perhaps elsewhere) is polyester, which doesn't dye or accept paint very well.  And, the fuzzy surface of felt isn't exactly optimum for 6mm figures in my humble opinion, although it could go well with larger scales. 

I always cover my felt layer with a second layer of 100% cotton double knit fabric -- i.e., T-shirt fabric.  It takes dye very well and paints much more readily than felt. 

The cotton upper layer on all my boards (except for snowy landscapes) is initially dyed a very pale tan before it's glued down over the felt with spray adhesive.  The fields and woods portions are then airbrushed on over that, the cardinal rule being: Apply paint in very light layers.  You can always go back and darken up your board with subsequent applications of paint, but you can never lighten any fields which turn out too dark.  A light hand when airbrushing the colors with a subtle mottling texture will generally give the best results.

As for colors -- I use the cheap acrylic  "hobby" paints generally found in craft stores, but have never done an arid environment so can offer no specific color suggestions.  I'd suggest that you take a look at the  Salamanca area on Google Earth to get a good idea of what the actual terrain looks like, then print out a sampling of the field colors you plan on duplicating.  Use this color sheet when you visit the hobby store to pick your most compatible paint shades. 

Once you've got a few likely colors (including white, for lightening) pin up a surplus piece of your pale tan-dyed fabric and experiment on it with toned-down colors; don't paint your game board until you've worked out (and documented) which colors and color combinations best match the color Google Earth view of the actual terrain.   

Oh -- keep in mind too that you'll never perfectly match color photos you've seen of the battlefield, because terrain viewed from ground level isn't the same shade as what it looks like from overhead.  Even the Google Earth view isn't an exact match, for various reasons.  So your best-guess approximation of the colors of Salamanca will no doubt be good enough; it's the tone and contrast that should concern you most.  Take it slowly, spray lightly and build up the colors gradually, and you'll do fine  :-)

Bruce Weigle

Thank you for your time Bruce, your advice has influenced my decision greatly.  I will finish the boards off with cotton.

I have given thought to paints, selecting tan with terracotta mix, darkening as needed for highlights, as most of the stone work ranges from the tan earthy tone to red limestone.

Foliage is my next perpetration action, looking at woodland scenically clump foliage range and pva gluing that to areas of wood.  Given it doesn't have a lot of woodland and it will dry maintaining a reasonably flat texture figures could be placed on it well.  Testing this on fell left a telltale ring of glue stain on the felt around the forest clump.  Do you find the same on cotton or does it hide it well enough, pva that is.  (Paint can help correct I suspect.)

This has been a lot of fun and I thank you for the time you have spent saving me a world of experimentation.

So it looks like I have more work to get on with.....

Step Three: Apply Felt Covering

I seem to be spending more time at Spotlight than any self respecting male should.  Having said that, its a model builders wonderland.  I had no problem finding the felt I was after but I was unable to find the Double Knitted cotton, settling for Broadcloth which ended up working just fine.

Acrylic Felt "Sand" 4 metres

Spotlight Product Info

I also picked up some spray on Contact Adhesive to glue it to the boards.

Once home, I laid some old towels down as the spray will go every where.  With wife's help we rolled up the felt once cut to approx 1.2m length to account for contours.  Then sprayed a section of the board then a segment about the same of the felt being careful not to get any glue on the face up side of the felt.

Then it was a matter of working it down over the terrain.  Here is all three boards with felt covering.

Step Cost = $42.95 ($29.96 for Felt,  $12.99 for Contact Adhesive)

Total Cost = $205.45

Time Taken ~2 Hours (7 Hours Total)

Step Two: Shape terrain layers

Now armed with a hot wire cutter I was able to make short work of this step, that is I was progressing well but far from quickly.

When cutting the layers you must give careful consideration to the scale your working with, you need to keep the grade of the slope at a level that figures can stand on and mark up.  This is why so many hills you see on the wargames tables are steps, its difficult to get this right.  To help I kept a couple of figures handy to test out on each slope.

Once done I placed the layers on the base boards with pins (OMG get lots of these you will need them, total life saves on your back!!!).

Done.

What I Learnt - Well I basically balls this up entirely.   Two points of cross over on the boards is not to much of a problem, but I later change it anyway.  It does mean that I am limited to alternative layouts.  So if you side by side the design, initial terrain layout and the final boards if looks like 3 different boards.

Also due to the two high points on the board being 50mm each above the base so two foam layers high, I did not build up enough around them, this made applying the felt and cloth more difficult than it needed to be.

Additional costs were only some pins and electricity.

Step Cost = $0

Total Cost = $162.5

Time taken ~4 hours. (5 Hours Total)

Step One: Cut base boards and transfer the design

Now I had a design I thought would work.  Time to go shopping.

First I needed to get the Foam for that I would use as the base and contour materials.

I found a place near my work that sold Extruded Polystyrene foam.  At the time of purchase cost $27.50 per sheet (2400mm x 600mm).  So with three sheets I would have enough to cover my board area twice, base and 1 contour.

+$82.50

They kindly cut it in as close to half as could be guessed as it wasn't going to fit in my car at 2.4m length.

Once home I went about cutting the boards to length.  After hacking away with a hacksaw, Stanley knife and serrated blade I gave up on that notion.  The edge was too rough to keep straight edged also I would not be able to get the hills and contours worked right with a steak knife, it would be a mess.

So several weeks later I invested in a Hot Wire Cutter.  Wanting the knife model and not the wire however no one I could find had the knife in AU.  Woodland Scenic's Hot Wire Cutter from Hobbyrama in Stafford.

+$80

No I was cooking.  Boards cut in no time with a straighter edge and I was away.  Do look up using and caring for Hot Wire cutters on YouTube before you start your work, YouTube is your friend.

Design was then drawn on the three boards now cut 1m long and kept at the 60cm wide (native board width)

Step Cost = $162.50

Total Cost = $162.50

Time Taken ~1 Hour (once I used the wire cutter.)

Battlefield Salamanca

As a first project I have decided to build the terrain for the Battle of Salamanca.

After browsing the web for hours and finding little that I could comfortably use to design the terrain I ended up with a mix of online maps, Google maps and a fantastic book by Donald Featherstone (rest his soul) "Campaigning with the Duke of Wellington & Fetherstone"

Given the materials I decided to use, the plan was to attempt as close a "feel" of the terrain rather than the precise topography, also I didn't have the exact map and all the ones I could find seems to have good contour but poor forest marked up or vice verse.

What I learnt - Find a map you like the looks of and build a table that will wargame well over a terrain table that is precise to the battle.  Once I decided on the factors I wanted this field to portray it was easy enough to tweak my design even on the fly.

What I should have done - When planning a board, establish the layers of terrain that you are wanting to build, say three layers base, 1st (middle) and 2nd (top).  Depending on the scale, you should build up the layers.  This will assist greatly when applying the felt and cloth covers as the gradient will not be to steep.

I also found this blog that was fantastic in providing me some on the ground images.
http://walkingportugalandspain.blogspot.com.au/search/label/10%20-%20Salamanca

Also this link has a panorama from the Greater Arapilies.
http://www.peninsularwar.org/pan_salamanca.htm