With a broad sweep of the eye - 2mm wargaming

A casual review of my blog posts over the past few years will easily identify me as a wargamer who starts many projects, but finish few. I've learned over the years to accept who I am, rather than fight it! So, without apology, I introduce my new wargaming fascination - 2mm!

I recall years ago standing in Eureka Miniatures and being handed a Irregular Miniatures 2mm Tercio. At the time I was a dedicated 15mm gamer and thought, 'no... Never!' Too small, too blocky, no details ... never say 'never'!

RBG 10 Tercio, painted by James Chester from http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/

Now, after reading many TMP threads (3mm or rice, painting 2mm, who makes them etc.) on small scales miniatures in the past few weeks, lets get some stuff out of the way:

• Yes, they are really small but you can paint them without an electron microscope;
• Yes, I agree that 2mm is a way to field armies for large engagements without having paint for months (possibly years at my pace!);
• No, I don't want to play with counters (although defend the right of those who wish to!);
• No, I may not as well be painting grains of rice ... yadda, yadda.

What has drawn me to this scale is threefold:

1.  I'm attracted to the idea of recreating the look of those classic, grand scale battle scenes we see in contemporary accounts - I think the first case of this was seeing the image below of the Battle of Naseby.

Preparation for the Battle of Naseby, fought on the 14th June 1645
published in The History and Antiquities of Naseby by John Mastin, 1792

2.  I want to experiment with making terrain for this scale – it brings together elements of cartography (which I enjoy) with my interest in modelling terrain for wargaming. I'm inspired by people' using the 'terrain cloth' style and think this is the way to go for 2mm.

From https://www.flickr.com/photos/36331979@N00/ - obviously not for 2mm, but you get the idea.

There are some great resources and eye candy on the web (not always for 2mm, but relevant) at locations such as (to name but a few):

• The excellent SteelonSand Blog which I just keep going back to for a number of projects - in this case the 2mm web resources and a series of 2mm projects including Colonial and ECW;
• Depot de la Guerre - handcrafted terrain for miniature wargames;
• Tiny Tin Troops - including a great resource for Irregular's 2mm terrain;
• Nik's wargame wiki - 2mm terrain and his Franco-Prussian War 2mm
• Fighting Fantasist - some nice Thirty Years War 2mm; and
• (2018 update) a great article on painting 2mm by Sydney Roundwood.

3.  They are relatively cheap – great for those times where your wargaming budget is a bit light on!

So, as you can see, many have gone before me, and much air has been expended on debating the merits of this extremity of small scale wargaming.

Now for my own humble offering. Well, it's early days ...

My first 2mm project will focus on a brigade level scenario for the First Battle of Bull Run.

I am currently working on the Confederate forces - the Irregular Miniatures Confederate Army Pack provide for 15 brigades of infantry, so that should come close to providing what I need.

Some links for OOB's online (and I'm sure there are many more):

• First Bull Run: 
• National Parks Service: Union OOB and Confederate OOB;
• Civil War: Union OOB and Confederate OOB;
• Then there's Wikipedia: Union OOB and Confederate OOB.

The plan is to, where possible, customise each stand to reflect the individual brigades and hopefully add some 'colour' by representing some of the state militia uniforms present. There will be some poetic license taken, for instance I'll have all of the 1st Louisiana Battalion in the Tiger Rifles uniform - I can't resist!

Learning to paint 2mm is a new and interesting challenge. I have based my initial attempts on the method used by SteelonSand. Once I get a method sorted I'll post it here.

For now, my ham-fisted first steps - I can see this scale will take a while to get used to:

Here's the Irregular Army pack mounted, with undercoat and dry brushing of
basic uniform colour underway

Confederates (from the rear) in a light grey with some different hats/pants picked out. 

Tiger Rifles with main colours blocked in

My initial experience suggests the importance of using some crisp, vibrant colours rather than the muted tones we are often seek on larger scale figures. The importance of painting the face is not lost on me - that really gives the blocks some charter. I've read elsewhere that most of the Irregular horse and musket infantry are holding their guns at the port - initially I was thinking this was a bed roll across their chest - an opportunity for a bit of detail there.

As for those hard core types talking about painting the lace on the Zouave's jackets and the drums, I'm not there yet! Maybe a I need a stronger magnifying glass!

'What rules will I use?', I hear you ask. The jury is still out. I'm considering Polemos OTC/COE but I already have a 6mm ACW project on the back burner for that ruleset (yes, another long term project).  Although, I have been considering using Polemos with a reduced base size. I've been looking at some of the free rules discussed, but nothing jumps out at me yet. I have also been considering DBACW - but I need a rest from DBx. Yep, no idea yet. Any suggestions welcome!

Pulp Alley character cards

'We are nostalgic for the old and the analog'

Despite the many and various joys of the digital age for this aged researcher, one cannot help but feel nostalgic for the intensely tactile experience of searching the card file catalogue in a library. The feel, the smell, the frustration of the missing card!

As my first Pulp Alley leagues are nearly off the painting table, my mind has turned to charter cards and league rosters! While searching for images that could be used for the card, I happened across this groovy Catalogue Card Generator created by John Blyberg.

With very little effort, some 'atmospheric' charter cards can be pieced together (the photo is added later by me). These are two of the League Leaders for my upcoming Pulp Alley adventure – 'On to Port Said!'

Way too late for Christmas, but ...

Happy New Year bloggers,

I know this is sensationally late for Christmas but just happened across this video of The Royal Guardsmen performing their Snoopy/Red Baron songs on a new blog I'm following (The Woolshed Wargamer) and couldn't help posting - not high culture, but oh the nostalgia!

I recall having the single with:

A1: Snoopy Vs The Red Baron

A2: The Return Of The Red Baron

B1: Airplane Song (My Airplane)

B2: Snoopy's Christmas

Just back from summer hols - will extract the digit and get some wargaming posts going soon.

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.