1:2400 scratchbuild: Barbaros Hayreddin

My latest project has been inspired by two excellent posts on TMP:

1. An alternate history of the Ottoman and Greek naval build up in the years leading up to WW1 by Leadhead PhD: The War thet Never Was - The Greek-Ottoman War of 1914
2. The inspiring (to the point of being intimidating!) scratchbuilding of some 1:2400 pre-drednoughts by Austerlitz06 on TMP.

I wanted to try my hand at a little 1:2400 scratch building and have become increasingly interested in the naval actions of the Balkan Wars leading up to WW1.

As well as the 'what if' scenario around a wider Ottoman-Greek naval conflict, the plan is to build the necessary ships for some naval actions from the First Balkan War. Such as the Battle of Elli (16 December 1912) - an Ottoman defeat in the mouth of the Dardanelles - and the Battle of Lemnos (18 January 1913 - the Ottoman Empire's last ditch effort to regain supremacy in the Aegean by breaking the Greek blockade of the Dardanelles.

OOB for the Battle of Elli (with thanks to the Age of Steam and Coal)

OOB for the Battle of Lemnos (with thanks to the Age of Steel and Coal and Steel)

A quick trip to the model train store for a selection of PVC sheet, and I was in business. My first attempt was the Ottoman pre-dead, the Barbaros Hayreddin - a Brandenberg Class battleship of the Impreial German Navy (1890) sold to the Ottoman Empire in 1910.

My first attempt at 1:2400 scratchbuilding is not in the league off Austerlitz06's work, but I'm pleased with how it's shaping up.

Now, there is nothing like a photo of a miniature to show up its short comings!

The tube used for the funnels is too big and the wire for the main gun barrels is similarly a little too thick. This comes from wanting to finish the first one with available materials rather than holding out for the right stock. That said, I'm quite happy of the look of the masts - made from the 'teeth' of a fine hair comb.

The yards for each mast are next, then lifeboats and the secondary guns in the casements.

Perhaps I'm quietly declaring my bias by building the Ottoman Barbaros Hayreddin first! The Torgut Reis next!

Adobe buildings and some naval gaming from the Tin Shed

At last the Easter long weekend has come and a chap can spend more time in his tin shed!

Having the opportunity now to use larger war gaming tables brings with it the need to increase my terrain holdings. The first project was to construct some more Adobe dwellings (in 15mm) to bulk out my villages for ITLSU.

A few simple cork buildings and the corner towers for a Ottoman fort for use in Gallipoli (in particular Sedd el Bahr castle for V-Beach landings) and Middle East scenarios.

I've been using Woodland Scenics plaster cloth over the cork to give a better textured finish. Here you see the plaster laid over the roofs with the walls to follow.

With the new set-up in the shed, I've been keen to do a little naval gaming and in a moment of creativity decided to create a backdrop on canvas which I can use to improve the feel of the table. I was rather pleased with what was achieved with three acrylic colours and absolutely no pre-planning - I just mixed a few blues and greys on the fly and slapped it on. Now the base cloth looks rubbish - so that is next!

A set-up atmospheric shot of some Panzerschiffe 1:2400 ships taking advantage of the new backdrop.

Battle off Ulsan
A favourite encounter of mine (because it's the only Russo-Japanese War naval scenario I have the ships for!) is the engagement off Ulsan, Korea, in The Sea Of Japan, on 14 August 1904, 0500 Hrs.

I have played this scenario with a number of rule sets (see earlier posts), but this time I return to Coaling Stations, a set of quick play pre-dreadnaught rules by Twylite Games I keep coming back to. I really like the card mechanism for giving orders - it tends to add a little 'fog of war' to solo naval gaming.

Here's a shot of the opening salvo!

Through the light mist that persisted to midday (in this scenario) Admiral Kamimura (right) spots Admiral Iessen's Vladivostok Squadron at a distance of 3.2 nautical miles and opens fire with his 8-inch guns scoring a hit
on the Gromoboi.

I've been working on improving the way I store gaming aids on the table. I've recently transferred all my markers into old tobacco tins as I feel they give a nice feel to the table. In this case, the Capstan Old Navy Cut tobacco tin seems quite appropriate (even if it hales from 30 years after the RJ War)!

20,000 camels - quenching the thirst of the EEF

By early 1916, the Egyptian Expeditionary Force was using nearly 20,000 camels in its transport lines. Camels were organised in companies of about 2,000 led by Egyptian drivers.

Well with horn bucket, Palestine

The water needs of troops on the front line was often supplied by camel convoys with each camel carting two small 12.5 gallon tanks known as fanatis.

Filling fanatis near Jaffa, 1918

I could not resist having a well and camel train (of sorts) to populate a corner of the battlefield. As warmers, I think we often politely ignore the presence of the transport required to get troops into the firing line and supply them when they are there.

Camels with 'well sets'

So, in recognition of all this necessary 'graft' going on behind the lines, here is a scratch build of a couple of hardy engineers pumping up the brackish water from a desert well 'somewhere in Palestine' into the fanatics - ready for carting off to the line.

A05802. Probably PALESTINE, C. 1917. WATER PUMPS USED BY 1ST FIELD SQUADRON ENGINEERS

The two Royal Engineers are Eureka British in Sinai gun crew (yes, I use them for everything!) and the camel are Irregular Miniatures Egyptian Camel Corps (FZ88) with their riders lopped off.

Assembling the well - I'm a slow bricklayer!

Engineer at the well building up a sweat on the water pump

The fanatis display their balsa construction - should have used card!

Its enough to make a chap thirsty. Thanks for looking.

Mayan Temple for Pulp adventures - complete!

It's amazing the motivation posting work in progress pictures on forums give me when completing projects. A few days after deciding to make a Mayan-style temple for Pulp Alley adventures to come, I have managed to completed it (although some final painting will be completed/details will be added in time).

I'm quite pleased with the result and am grateful for the useful advice I've received on TMP and Pulp Alley Forums.
The painting was largely inspired by this thread on painting stonework on TMP.
Details to come include:

• crafting a sacrificial alter to sit on the summit of the temple
• some more shading on the stairs
• a little dry brushing to knock back the colours used to highlight different tones among the stones
• possibly one final wash to help define the shadows a little more
• adding some moss/lichen to increase the 'lost ruin in the jungle' look

The next project is some trees for the jungle setting.

Mayan temple pt 2

After some great advice on  TMP and Pulp Alley forum about possible approaches to texturing the
surface of the Mayan-style temple, I have settled on building up a clockwork texture using thin card 'stone slabs' glued on and then covered with tissue paper brushed in diluted PVA glue.

I think some of my efforts to lay the tissue paper over the 'slabs' of cardboard are a little sub standard, but in general I'm liking the texture. Of course, the immediate benefits of this approach is that it is cheap and I can get moving on it strait away.

The question will be whether to undercoat and dry-brush, or to use some sort of texture over the tissue paper. The advantage of another layer is it will make the surface more durable, but I may end up losing some of the effect I've created.

Another pice of advice I received was to seal/reinforce the edges of the corrugated cardboard with thin strips of card glued on. It's a little too late for the edges of the bottom two levels, but I will try this on the steps and possibly the upper level.

Some other products mentioned by fellow wargamers that I will be looking at for future projects such as this will be:

• Mod Podge
• Durham's Water Putty
• Miniwax Wood Hardner
• Fleck stone

Scratch built Mayan temple - of sorts!

My pulp adventures need more locations - I fancy a steamy jungle ruin.

The aim here is to produce a cheap, useful bit of terrain without it spending months on the craft table like all my other projects do.

I am loosely basing this (very loosely) on the Tikal Temple II in Northern Guatemala.

Ok, I confess I was originally planning on the standard Mayan temple with the staircase on each face but I could see the job bogging down if I had to make four staircases! So a quick web search found the temple at Tikal, and Bob's your uncle!

So, the basic structure (sans stairs) has been constructed our of heavy corrugated cardboard. I'm pondering how to manage the summit shrine - partly because I've not allowed enough space - but in the mean time am wanting to get the main exterior finish sorted.

Here's how it looks at the moment:

28mm miniature to give a sense of scale.

I've contemplated covering it with tissue paper soaked in PVA glue to give it a uniform, rough finish, then dry brush and add a bit of vegetation. However, it would be good to get a bit of a stonework feel to the surface. The question is how?

The role of this bit of terrain is just to be a serviceable bit of pulp terrain - so it does not need a refined finish. The other criteria, is to continue with the 'no cost' strategy!

I'll post more pictures as it progresses.

The polar night approaches at Gruhuken

Not content with on Pulp project on the go, I've started work on the buildings for a Arctic adventure based loosely on the book Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. As the clouds of war are gathering over Europe, a small British expedition leaves for a small island in the Arctic Circle to establish a weather station to map sub-polar weather systems. Ahead, their first experience of overwintering and the months of darkness of the Polar night. Paver writes a jolly good ghost story, the pulp adventure to come will explore in other directions… the harsh polar environment, polar bears, rogue trappers and U-boats, perhaps?

The building is a balsa construction with a corrugated card roof and polystyrene 'skin' to provide the texture of the timber planking. The minis are Bob Murch's excellent Courageous Mountaineers!

Architectural details

In a quiet day at the 'office', I happened across a number of interesting website form the 'miniatures' fraternity (eg. doll's house makers etc.) and I thought they offered some interesting ideas. I'm sure much of this has already been done by the wargaming fraternity but it's always worth looking at what others are up to!

In reality, it's just a good way of keeping links for my own use, but hopefully others may find it useful too!

Making model windowns

http://miniatures.about.com/od/dollshousesandshops/ss/Make-Dollhouse-Windows-Or-Miniature-Windows-For-Your-Model-Buildings.htm

 

Craft wood aging solution

http://miniatures.about.com/od/miniaturebasics/f/vinegarwood.htm

 

Palm trees

http://miniatures.about.com/od/miniatureprojects/ss/modelpalmtrees.htm

 

Bullrushes

http://miniatures.about.com/od/miniatureprojects/ss/cattails.htm

Flint finsish (buildings)

http://miniatures.about.com/od/finishingmaterials/ss/Scale-Miniature-Pebble-Dash-And-Flint-Finishes-For-Dollhouses-And-Models.htm

Shingles

http://miniatures.about.com/od/materialsforminiatures/ht/woodshingle.htm

"The illusion of moss/lichen on shingles can be created by washing the lower areas (or shaded areas if you are using trees) with a light wash of sap green acrylic or watercolor. Actual patches of lichen can be applied by dabbing small amounts of bright green, tan, and orange chalk on in tiny irregular patches. The chalk can be fixed in place with an artist's fixative, or by a light coating of matte varnish."

And let's not forget the wallpaper:
http://www.jennifersprintables.com/printables1.html

Middle Eastern village in cork

In the words of 6mmPhil at LAF:

I swear this is some form of hypnotic control developed by Matakishi, however to what ends I couldn't say, but there's many gamers who've disappeared under piles of cork buildings never to be seen again. It starts with just a couple of small buildings, works it's way up to a town scape and then before you know it you've bought enough cork tiles to cover a football pitch and your home is packed with buildings of every type and there's not enough room to move.  

The only cure, partial as it is, means encouraging other folk to start modelling with cork too, so welcome to the sinister cult club.

Oh yes, I can attest to the  appeal of creating cork buildings - I've spent every 'spare' moment (for me, they are rare) thinking or doing something related to my current cork building project and have more than once, started planning for other projects to follow!

The current project is a Middle Eastern village which will see use in my Pulp Alley adventures to come. During the project, I have realised the range of uses (other than the multitude of Pulp opportunities) that they may have: colonial; modern skirmishes – giving me a great excuse to purchase some Eureka Miniatures 'modern range including the excellent Afghans and Somalis; and, possible Sci-Fi uses.

The basic shells of the buildings appeared quite quickly. The great challenges have been learning how to add sufficient detail to make them interesting and to paint them appropriately. I went down the path of using paint only rather than using a textured finish under the paint. 

Learning on the job has lead to too many coats of paint going on. :( They started a red earth colour, then morphed to a rich, sandy yellow, then to antique white (was looking better by now but lacking depth), then a raw umber wash (to pick up the texture again) and finally with a dry brush of antique white with a hint of Vallejo dark sand.

In future, I'll just paint with antique white, wash with raw umber then highlight with the antique white tinted with some dark sand. It seems to work OK.

I experimented with a bit of faded colour on the two story building (in the style used by Matakishi) and a small domed building (trying to capture a faded orange-red paint job). I think with some follow-up to mute the colour a little more the two story building it will be OK. I'm not happy with the orange-red dry brush on the central building - it's likely to go back to the standard white at some stage.

Anyway, some pictures (not the best, sorry, only had my phone on hand):

The village has a main administration building in the foreground, its Mosque in the rear right, and the market in the centre and top left. Of course, the whole thing is modular so can take many shapes.

The compound for the main administration building. I will eventually create a wall section with double gates to close it off completely giving it the opportunity of being used as a stylised Afghan compound as detailed by Matakishi

I'm planning on using the red washed building as your typical Den of Iniquity where all sorts of favours and troubles can be found! As I mention above, I'm thinking of going back to the white wash look.

The main market area will soon have many canopies on the buildings and some central under cover stalls as well.

I've recently stumbled across this British Pathé film of life in an Egyptian village (1940-49) which will be used for further inspiration. The first stand out feature is the amount of palms and plans in the village - have a look! 

Another challenge I have to overcome is whether I base the buildings (which would assist with fixing the canopies to the market buildings), or whether to leave them as they are and devise a way to make the canopies self supporting (eg. diagonal struts to the side of the building). One problem with moving to bases is it makes the use of the modular wall sections a little more difficult as they will need to sit up on the base and this will leave a gap underneath between building bases.

I'll post again when I've make the next step.

Any comments and ideas most welcome!

Adobe buildings using cork

So, I've been agonising about the possible price of buying the buildings I need for my Pulp Alley venture having no 28mm terrain to speak of. I found an interesting Desert Village paper terrain kit at RPG Now by Papermodels which provided the inspiration (and plans) for a test run with balsa - wanting something a little more durable than paper terrain. I found the stock I was using way to light and lacked the substantial feel I had hoped for. My eye drifted over the pile of 7mm cork tiles I'd recently snapped up at the local hardware (being hard to find at times) and it came to me in a flash what a great building material it would be.

I quickly cut out and assembled the shell of a simple building and saw this was the way to go. Now, fellow wargamers, I thoughts I was pretty clever for about 30 minutes thinking I'd come up with something new. A notion that about 10 minutes searching the web completely disabused! I trawled over forums finding all sorts of interesting work using cork tiles but all roads led to Matakishi's Tea House.

So, 36 hours later, I fond myself well under way. The simple building style for desert villages makes for quick results. I'm even getting to the stage of splaying the first coats of paint on a few. Here's some initial pics – much is held together with pins (glue still dying) and the canopies are just slapped on. Once they are completed and weathered they'll look much better. A couple are awaiting a dome as well.

I've decided to draw some inspiration from Matakishi's Afghan buildings as well. I'm starting to realise that these will open up a world of gaming - Pulp, colonial, modern. Hmm. I'll keep on working on getting more of a market town feel to it all then populate it with some of Eureka's excellent Middle Eastern civilians.

A vexing Vauban venture pt 1

After many months with ruler and compass, I have finally taken the first step towards building a section of Vauban fortress to grace the corner of the occasional 6mm WSS battlefield. Not only does the complexity of these works make for a design challenge, the well-documented short comings of many models weighs on my mind – for instance see this TMP thread.

I was very interested to see the approach being taken by The Kingdom of Wittenberg in their excellent Fortress Fever posts. Particularly good to see such efforts pit into the Glacis which would seem to overcome must of the criticism of other models.

I took to the shed today and had a first attempt at cutting a bastion from a nice piece of cedar I have been holding onto for years. The initial plan is to construct a modular Vauban fortification mostly for the fun of it at present but also with the impending publication of Vauban Wars ruleset.

I have begun with a bastion to see if I can overcome some of the modelling issues I will face with managing the issues associated with getting the wall height to look right in conjunction with ditch and glacis. Here's the results of the first day's efforts with some bases of 6mm Baccus figures and buildings thrown in to give a sense of scale.

 My first impressions is the wall is too tall but I'm working on the bedding this down into the terrain considerably.

You can see the proposed height for the bottom of the ditch roughly marked on the outer edge of the bastion in the photograph below.

Using cedar for the construction has proved quite a success at least at this initial stage. It is so easily worked with hand tools for the initial cutting into shape and the parapet was then formed freehand with a router. It also has the advantage of being quite strong, yet light. The only struggle I'm having is the ex-joiner inside me keep thinking how nice this would look well sanded up and oiled, but I know I should give it a faux masonry skin!

Ploughland

With the impending addition of 'ploughland' to the DBA terrain options for arable landscapes, there have been some excellent pieces of terrain being created. Some inspirational ploughland terrain created by Timurilank which can been seen at his Eighteenth Century Sojourn blog - have a look!

In the same spirit I will provide some before and after (when they're done) shots. Currently I'm using these pieces cut from a larger terrain mat I was working on a couple of years ago.