Trouble At T’Mill - a wargaming blog

Yesterday was back to Wednesday terrain sessions, now I'm back off vacation.


Some issues with the Salute game - apparently Andy picked the WIP up to bring it and a lot of the bits fell off, so he didn't bring it :( We'll be switching to hot glue next week, and seeing if that holds better.

We did get the Dead's Army church renovated, and some work done on both the cricket field and the graveyard: specifically Myk modded some Ratio station fencing by attaching pins to it so we can stick it in the foam terrain tile, and we undercoated the graveyard 'sabot' base and trimmed it, as well as sorting out what's going where.

Today I managed to find the white AP spray and undercoated the fences white (rather than green). I also worked out a force list for the first episode of the club's Kings of War/Vanguard campaign, which may mean I have to rebase my Shieldwolf shield maidens on 20mm bases (and paint at least a few more).

Myk and Carl were round for a scenery Wednesday, so we had a meeting of minds to debate what to do about the warped graveyard board... Having resigned ourselves to the fact that no amount of applied PVA, paint and/or brute force was gong to fix the warp, we debated either embedding it in one of the foam tiles or essentially building it a foam core 'sabot' base that we could use filler to hide the last bits of warp.

Et voilà, as they say in French. We went with the latter approach, and a big piece of 5mm A0 foam core - technically it's about 6mm narrower than the boards, but this won't be an issue.

We also rather brutally removed one wall, to address my objection that village churchyards in England really don't generally have separate cemeteries, and the spare bits of wall will get reused to extend the churchyard.

Next time, we'll filler the edges where they need it, cut some more foam for the rest of the churchyard and landscape it. Usefully, this being foam core, we can pin it to the underlying blue foam terrain tiles.

In addition, I added some climbing roses to Godfrey's cottage. Flowerpots to follow :D

Although not a lot to show for it, since today's hobby activity consisted of a couple of coats of paint on the Sarissa shed and a trip to Trains4U for some (small scale) flowers and vegetables from one of the model railway ranges. Godfrey's cottage will have tomatoes, strawberries, cabbages, some climbing roses and a few pot plants. Also pondering whether to rebuild the graveyard...

Also pondering the next bits of kit to pick up for the workbench. The plan is to move the 3D printer out from the shelf over my head here (I'm in what used to be my office in our music room, as I've locked up in the office/studio/workshop for the night) onto the long counter in the workshop, and use the rest of that counter for what could best be described as 'maker tools' for scenery builds, since I'm starting to figure that that's probably where a lot of my talent lies aside from writing.

Things that would be nice to have on there, if First Direct finally cough up my PPI claim:

• the 3D printer with a dual reel/head kit so I can print with dissolvable supports or in two colours - mine's the single reel version, and the upgrade is not cheap
• a resin 3D printer such as the AnyCubic Photon (for figures etc)
• a Proxxon hot wire table and the better fence from Shifting Lands (if you want to see the amazing things you can do with this and XPS foam, check out Black Magic Craft on YouTube)
• a spray booth - this presupposes I can find my bloomin' airbrush.
• a MDF laser cutter. Low on the list, as Trev from the Rift has one I can feed files to.
• a die cutter - been thinking about one of these as an alternative to the laser cutter for things like tile strips etc, and also because anything that saves ME having to try and make straight cuts, even with a steel rule, is a win :D
• and (given some of the items on the list generate stuff one shouldn't breathe in) some air extraction 

Another scenery build night. Andy's on duty on his day (erm, and night) job, so there was just me, Rob and Andrew, making another inroad into the TTS Venice buildings. Almost done now, I think - mostly down to a lot of door and window frames, shutters and fine detail.

Speaking of which:

I picked up a pack of Staedtler fine line pens, which work really well for prettying up engraved details. Not least because the laser does leave a very slight dip where it draws the line, and it's enough to catch the tip of the pen if you accidentally try and stray outside. I can do colouring in, me :D

Nice simple little piece - grey undercoat, and I've actually slapped on some Woodland Scenics Concrete paint (designed, I think for colouring plaster or coating plaster bandage contours) and then wiped it around and off with a tissue. Static grass from the Omaha leftovers pot. I may add some tufts and a bit more distress.

Tomorrow I think will be a workshop tidying day :D

This evening didn't go as planned, but I did manage to:

a) Book the club Xmas dinner

b) finally hang the D&D campaign world map (thanks to Pippa of the many sewing machines for hemming the edges so I could)

Mostly the rest of the prep work (filler, paint) and clearing enough level bench space for a test pour on the smallest board.  Re-grassing comes after the water's done - I'll mask it off.

From experience with the Omaha marsh boards, multiple shallow layers is the way, and I'm very glad the workshop is both heated and well-insulated (so it holds the heat when I turn the heating off). I have a suspicion I may need more than the one bottle of Woodland Scenics Realistic Water I have left, and I'm expecting these to take a week or more in total with drying time.

I wasn't sure I was going to finish it, but hey, I appear to be on a roll.... I have now talked myself into running two different scenarios tomorrow at Steel Lard, I think :D

Several stones from the gravel outside.

A bit of blue foam Tetris...

A foam board lid, and some filler. Several more stages, a weekend off for Omaha, and who knows what else later.... The stones are held in with a combination of Loctite Power Grab (which I can't get over here and have almost run out of) and filler.

We get to here! Usual WWS static grass in layers, some Javis moorland scatter in front of the opening, some Noch and Woodland Scenics stuff... Initially held down with PVA (for the scatter and dandelions) and superglue (for the tufts) and then given a heavy spray of WWS layering spray to hold it.

It's a bit shaggy but I'm not sure that's a bad thing.  I may round the corners off the tile. If you see this or the white horse at Steel Lard, have a peek at just how long the static grass layers are (I'll have a small tester piece with me as well).

So, in a nutshell, it's a cut out from a Google Image search of the Uffington Hill horse stuck down on a 'chalk' painted area of the hill (with Citadel Wraith Bone spray), and used as a mask so grass won't stick to the hillside.

Putting some finishing touches to the chunks of pink foam that Andy cut for me on Saturday and Sunday, and I started work on yesterday.

Yes, it's a hill with a white horse :D

Usual approach, although in the absence of any 3mm hardboard the hill is stuck down on 3mm foam board to hopefully keep it from getting scuffed at the corners.

Grasswork is the usual. If you've missed out on this, there is a video (yes, you actually get to hear me talk) on a previous post here.

The end result. Note this fits Andy and my standard hill geometry - in fact the right hand end is one small extra hill and a spare from the Omaha Beach build.

One aside - the layering spray in the pump bottle does tend to gunk up with dried glue if you're not careful, so you really do need to do what they suggest and spray warm soapy water through the nozzle straight after you're done (just unscrew the lid, dip the business end in a cup of warm water and washing up liquid and squirt a lot). I didn't last time I did this, so I had to buy a couple of cheap spray bottles off Amazon to decant the otherwise perfectly good layering glue into.

Anyway, here's the process:

• WarWorld Scenics's 2mm summer grass, on a layer of Hobbycraft PVA, using their static grass applicator;
• WarWorld's layering spray, while the previous layer of grass is still wet;
• More static grass, this time WWS Autumm 4mm, with the applicator;
• More layering spray, again while still wet;
• More static grass - WWS 6mm dead
• More layering spray
• a light dusting of WWS 2mm field straw in a few places
• peel off the mask, pat self on back :D
• various grass tufts, and Noch flowers.
• A couple of rocks out of the garden.

...but no photos, as I've locked up the workshop and gone indoors, and it's bloomin' cold out :D Besides, there's a finite limit as to how excited you're going to get over two big bits of pink insulation foam and filler painted Sandtex Bitter Chocolate and left to dry. Look. It's a brown lump, ok?

Not much done tonight - just cut a top for the barrow and liberally spread some filler about. Leaving that to set for now, will probably apply some more later :D

Also blogged on my RPG blog which I'm going to try and do a bit more now I'm getting my campaign(s) going.

Saturday we're running Bloody Omaha at the studio for a few folks who've missed out on playing it - there will be photos. Sunday I'm hoping to get a good hard stint on the Dux Brit compendium in.

Anne's out at the dog track, so I've started in on two projects, in the absence of AndyM (so no work on our Salute game).

That's the Warbases hut done, barring a slight haircut and maybe a touch of glue, for today's hobby streak. (Interesting question: does writing a battle report count separately from fighting the battle? :D)

It appears you can get two roofs that size (buildings about 3' x '5') out of one cheap Morrisons flannel (£1), and some spray cans and a tube of UHU/Bostik general purpose glue. I'm quite happy with that. I will be interested to try a similar approach but spraying teddybear fur dark brown and then desert yellow. Except I'm all but out of PVA spray :D

Decided it needed some timbers, as it looked a bit bare without. Raided the collection of odd leftover bit of MDF sprue and coffee stirrers... (The end timbers are attached to the roof, in case you're wondering.)

I'm actually in the middle of doing the thatched roof for this building, but waiting for paint to dry, so thought I'd do the catchup post. Would have blogged this yesterday, but got waylaid by a blonde and a box of Hotel Chocolat, yer honour :D

Also, a fun toy arrived from Amazon, of which more later...

Done for work for the day, caught up on yesterday's battle report, and Anne's not home yet.

Time to dig another MDF kit out of the drawer :D

And here it is... The walls are in three pieces, an inner wall, a timber fret and some infill pieces. I figured I'd try an experiment, using Plasticote stone texture spray followed by a cream spray on the infill bits....

Stage 1.... At which point I realised that not all the pieces on that sprue were the infill bits... Oops.

Fortunately, the stuff takes forever to dry, so I could pop the bits out and wipe the texture off with a tissue.

My one very minor gripe. And I do appreciate it's a deliberate choice on Blotz' part, Most pieces are cut right round except for a couple of small points where they aren't cut at all. This is fine on big, flat pieces, but on narrow bits you absolutely have to cut through that point on both sides, because the wood Blotz use seems to be prone to delaminate into layers if you apply stress in the wrong direction.  The online instructions do warn you about cutting pieces out. And they really do mean it.

And there we have the basic box plus timber fret all glued together, with a 1-2-3 block holding it together while the wood glue goes off.

Simple roof - two triangles and two roof plates, like everyone else ever.

Some decent teddy bear fur for the thatch, complete with online instructions which actually look as if they'll produce a good result.

and the end pieces for the eaves, which I haven't attached yet. So far so good - any problems have been my own fault :D Goes together well, so far. Watch this space for the next bit.

Not much, but enough to hide a few brush marks and make it look better :D

Some Woodland Scenics flowers, some grass tufts of unknown origin, some leftover static grass from the Omaha boards and some Hobbycraft PVA...

Et voila. Some grass, some dandelions. Sorted.

....scenery night.

Andrew and AndyM dropped by tonight, so while Andrew painted stonework and shutters, Andy and I set to work on the grape-box bridge.

Bridge ramp design - using Apple Pages as my decent CAD package doesn't run on the studio MacBook. The black line is the 5mm foam board decking, the green (bounded by the yellow) marks the side plates, and the lower blue triangle the supports...

...yielding a pair of templates like so.

And here's the finished result.

Also note the detailing on the sides (card cutouts), and the guttering on the deck (a side effect of the way the box is made :D)