Wednesday 15 March 2017

Airfix ACW Wargaming (Terrain Pt2)

Again, like the first post on  Terrain for the project, the aim is for quick, cheap, easy and durable stuff.
Trees.
13 "Toytown" trees as approved by Noddy and Bigears. As and when, I´ll replace or add to them..(??...no, on second thoughts..I´ll definately replace them) with those  Merit/New-way style trees. I´ve got a couple which came with one of those "bag -o- crappy Knights" sets but not enough for a decent amount of rough and ready foliage.

Basic, quick, easy, cheap and durable. They certainly aint going to win prizes but  I liked the lack of fuss and bother of the "Toytown" appearance. 

Green sponge for the foliage, some bits of bamboo from an old basket  for the trunks and plasterboard for the bases.


Bases for the trees cut out of the plasterboard using a circle cutter. Added advantage, the drill bit automatically makes the holes for the trunks as it cuts out the discs.
I cut a  bevel (slight slope) around the bases which were then painted with cheap wall paint. Trunks added, painted Brown. Clumps of sponge (roughly shaped with scissors) are then shoved onto the bamboo rod , taken off,  a drop of PVA added  the end of the rod and the hole in the sponge and re-attached.
To get around the single colour of the sponge, I dipped my fingers into some watered down darker green  and brown paint and randomly pinched the sponge.




House on the hill

House in the woods
Stone walls.

Way back I had loads of wall sections, the type that were used in toy farm sets and the like but they´ve Long gone to  landfill heaven. So, rather than go playing the part of Archeologist and digging up  the local  rubbish tip, I made some.
High density foam, stonework marked out with a pen, black base , Grey drybrush..the odd Stone or two picked out with different hues of Brown.

Normally I would have made more effort to lessen the contrast between the joints and the Stones but I like the Cartoon effect of the the black Joints.
Test set up with the fences, trees, road and river sections, houses, hills, walls etc. Two Merit/New-way style decidious  trees and 1/2 a dozen firs added.
The green base is on of those astroturf style matts for Offices, the ones with the felt like surface and bobbles on the back. The surface is good because the roads etc have slightly rough undersides and stick to the felt...found this out by accident not by design.
2m x 1m. It´s not quite wide enough, everything Ends up massed in the middle,  so I´ll have to buy another. Still, it only cost a tenner.


Back drops, ploughed fields and some hay fields in preperation along with some more road bits.

So, that´s about it. All that´s left is, in the words of  Sri  Sumbhajee Angria;

.

11 comments:

  1. What a creative and wonderful job, what a great career for sponges! Excellent and impressive Paul...

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  2. Those scratchbuilt stone walls look better than the Italeri walls I painted!

    Have you seen this trick for building trees? They look great, seem pretty durable, and not too complicated to make, if a little messy.

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    1. Thanks for that :-) Those trees look excellent! He´s also got a link on the tutorial on making hedgerows from scourers...but he adds more to his than I did and they look a lot more realistic.

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  3. I love the trees Paul, but those wall look amazing!

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  4. I suspect if you simply flocked the trees with Scenic Effects material they will look fine.
    Mike Bunkermeister Creek

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  5. Hi Paul - that "astroturf style mat for offices" looks a bargain. Can you say where you got it and what its product name is so I can look into getting one or two aswell? Many thanks.

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    1. Unfortunately I´ve thrown the Label away but I will be buying another roll, the one I´ve got is too small for a complete "battlefield" so when I get it (in the next couple of days) I can add the Name here later. My wife got another roll at half the Price (€4.99)Same size but the "grass" is a bit fluffy and a lighter green so the two sides don´t fit together. It´s called artificial grass and is made by Multimat BV.
      http://en.multimat.nl/grass-carpets.html

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  6. You know what? I'm really liking this old school approach to terrain. By going for the style across the whole board it's really coming together, and reminding me of my earliest games of warhammer, nicking scenery off my little sister's toy farm!

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    1. Thanks Alan.
      I could (and I am basically capable of doing so to a lesser degree..I think) make the Terrain more realistic, but I´m predominentaly more of a bod painter than a wargamer or Terrain builder though I´ve had the aim, for a Long time, of actually getting a wargame of some sort going. Problem of being more a painter than a wargamer, the armies expand with every new set that appears and I never finish a Project. The Airfix ACW range is never going to get any bigger and it has virtually all the elements needed for a "wargame"* so it lent itsself perfectly (IMHO) to a short term Project.
      I also plundered my sisters toys for wargaming accesories. The Merit trees, the Stone walls that clipped together.farm animals (for 54mm)..happy days :-)

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    2. * Wargame ? Thinking about it, it´s an Odd Name really, not only due to the conatations (which probably give "wargamers" a bad Name) but is a single game using painted (or unpainted) bods actually constitute a "war" or a Battle ?
      OED defination of War;
      "A state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a Country"
      A bit indefinate IMHO as it doesn´t allude to any time span...."a Sate of conflict.." could be over a short period and involve one deciding battle (Anglo-Zanzibar War 1896) or a series of battles (Napoleonic among others)

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