Making Marshes part 2

Almost there now they have been painted and flocked. All that is needed now is a coat of varnish over the water areas and loads of rushes to complete that swampy look.

Show case

Here is a conversion of a Germanic Chieftain into a standard bearer for my up and coming Germanic hordes. Blacktree Miniatures have a great range of Ancient German figures but no standard bearers, so I thought I'd make one with 'Greenstuff'.This one is a dark God from the darkest, deepest blood soaked groves of the Teutoburg forest, carried to strike fear into all who see it. This conversion was also helped by the rise in prices of Foundry miniatures who are now charging £10 for four standard bearers, the figures are great but come on! Saying this, I did manage to grab a packet of them from the Milton Keynes Games day for a bargain price so all is well in the end.
This picture is a close up of a Centurion from the Pannonian Legions of Secundus. Having the camera in hand I just took a few random photos for the blog. The French Grenadiers below are from the same shoot. I enjoyed researching my French army...so much to research! The result of painting Napoleonic's is always rewarding though, as they do look splendid when finished. All the uniforms of this era are instantly recognizable and are icons in their own right, hence they look fantastic in a war gaming cabinet.

Cataphracts ride for Alanicus

Finally after being snowed under for months the Cataphracts are finished and can be added to the forces of Alanicus. These new arrivals will give his Eastern forces a bit of heavy back up on their road to Rome.

Roman Civil War!

This game hosted by the Blackwolf Wargames club of Hitchen, was the main reason I returned to the event on the second day. It was nice to see someone elses take on the Civil wars of the first and second Centurys. A nice set up indeed.
I even managed to grab some great bargains while trolling around the second hand stalls and came away with some really cheap Roman Artillery.

A large fantasy game using the War hammer rules and Games workshop figures.
This photo was taken from a ' The face of battle' game, hosted by the Aylesbury War games club. These figures are from Bolt Action Miniatures and are really rather good. I have some of their Germans and have been holding off from the American forces until I've completed my German Platoon. If I learnt one thing from this games day, it is that for me the II world war has really captured my gaming interest again.

Pegasus Bridge

I was rather intrigued by these large scale battalion games and the detail of command structure. This game caught my eye as it was recreating the attack on Pegasus bridge, by the local Ox's and bucks regiment. Keeping history alive in miniature, good to see.

Campaign at Milton Keynes

This weekend I was delighted to hear about the return of Campaign to my local Milton Keynes shopping centre. Armed with my trusty camera and an eye for a bargain I set off to do battle in MK.
This large Second world war game was created using the popular 'Flames of war' figures and rules. Having dabbled in the II world war ranges myself, I was interested in the paint schemes and vehicles used. Personally, I prefer a larger scale figure to these to really get detail in the painting, but the detail achieved in these tiny miniatures was really breath taking and really turned my head.

Infighting breaks out between Alanican units (Campaign 96)

The month of Augusta started well for Alanicus, who celebrated a vast wine yield. moral was high and his troops seemed to sense a victory in the air. It was in this month that the Army of Anotolia was brought up to full strength and mobilized into action for his cause.

With such high numbers of new troops in the East, the province of Arabia soon sent envoys to seek peace and join the growing Alanican Empire. Alanicus paid their top officials anyway to cement the peace and guarantee their loyalty in the coming months. However, all these new factors came into play in a very unexpected and unwelcome way for Alanicus, who was still in Egypt.
The large bodies of newly raised troops in the provinces mixed with the vast quantities of fresh wine, led to an out break of fighting between members of the 6th Farrata and the new Auxiliary units garrisoned in the area. The fighting had started after a friendly wrestling match had turned nasty, when a legionary had been mocked for losing. By the time Alanicus received word of the infighting, hundreds of Auxiliaries and legionaries were unfit for duty due to the brawling and there were reports of forty deaths.
Alanicus was not happy! From Egypt, he sent orders to the Army of Anotolia to prepare for action at once. "Busy soldiers are less likely to hack each other to pieces" announced Alanicus as he studied his charts of Syria. With this much pent up aggression floating around his units, Alanicus knew the time had come to let them lose on the enemy. Alanicus set the army of Anatolia into motion across the deserts of Syria to re-enforce him in Egypt. With Tullician forces arriving daily in Aegyptus, Alanicus prayed to the Gods that it would make good time and reach him before the main attack started.

Making Marshland

Armed with my new found 'mud' effects, I set out to make all things muddy. Here are the two marsh bases I started last week with added grit and gravel to give detail and texture. As the clay dried it warped the base slightly and so I had to bend it back into shape a little, this cracked the clay of course, but nothing a little PVA won't take care off. Heavy tape stuck length ways to the underside of bases can help reduce this kind of warping.

Again, you can see I've added twigs and bits that will paint up nicely when finished and add a sense of scale to the finished model.

This will be mostly covered in flock and the grit will be painted as exposed areas of earth and sand. Different grades of grit were used to vary the effect of the earth. When I had finished flocking the gravel, I gave it another wash of PVA glue to really lock it into place and stop the usual shower of gravel every time i picked it up.

Not all roads lead to Rome!

Well here we are a last, after returning from a short trip to Gaul, I managed to finish my roads. Using better earth and sand colours, I repainted the entire lot and with various levels of dry brushing, managed to bring out all the new texture. After it was repainted I flocked areas with different grass colours to add detail and add to the effect of an over grown trade route. A good tip; I used PVA glue to model cart and waggon tracks in the road, when they were dry I painted them a dark brown. This colour was then given a wash of watered down PVA glue, which drys looking shiny and wet. Thus wet muddy tracks were produced. The PVA works better on this subject matter than a light brushing of Varnish and gives a much better 'mud' effect.

There are lots of different grades of flocks available on the market now and this heavier grade was used to indicate undergrowth around the fallen tree.

Roman Road Works

I've decided to try and blitz all my terrain problems this week as I had a few days of work. Next up on the production line were my Roads I had bought from War games Terrain. They are nice pieces and most of the 'heavy' work has already been done. I just thought they needed a little extra something to pull them up with the rest of my collection.
Above can be seen the original and on top, my fresh start with sand and grit extras. Already, even without paint I think there is an improvement. I plan to add all kinds of road side extras, like branches and planks of wood (fallen from carts). My friend gave me the idea of adding a Roman Mile stone to the roadside, a must!

Also muddy tracks and ruts will be added using PVA glue like with the river ford earlier on the Blog. My main worry is sourcing enough brown paint to cover them all, there's a lot. I think there will be a lot of watering down involved.

A Gift from the Gods!

My endless praying to the household gods paid off this week, with the release of another Stephen Dando-Collins book. These books are written so well and contain such descriptive writing that they can keep me enthused for months after finishing them. A matter of real importance to a painter/gamer and model maker. The new book is called 'Blood of the Caesars'.

This one though has deviated away from famous Legions and has concentrated on the story of Germanicus. I'm a little disappointed about that, but Stephen hasn't let me down yet. Germanicus's campaigns in Germany will more than make up for it I'm sure. Joy!

Thinking of making a marsh?

Now that my rivers have been brought up to speed I can start thinking about making some marshes for the battle board. I decided to make my marshes big to cover a large area on the field, this is so troops will be forced to trudge through them rather than skirt around the edges.
I used my old favourite, Daz air drying clay to make the shallow contours of the swamp. Again this is all being made up as I go along, so I'm not sure what the end results will be. Well, something is better than nothing so watch this space for the results.
Here are the two marshes in their early stages.

River Sections

This week I have been spending time working on my river sections for the Campaign. I plan to start on some marshes soon, these will be the last things i need to do to complete my terrain for the game. I can't wait to dive in and get going.

I created this muddy ford by using loads of PVA glue and mixing it with flock, then adding hundreds of tiny hoof and foot prints with the end of a brush. I later gave the mud a very light brushing with a gloss varnish to give it a wet appearance.These river sections were originally from War games Terrain, but as always I like to add my own little touches to things and so added rushes and reed beds. Also the colours were more stone than mud and earth, so that was another thing it changed along with adding grit, gravel and various flocks. Above are two fords, one muddy, the other stony. The shallow river bed was made by painting tiny stones and rocks on the river, then covering with gloss varnish.By adding small amounts of flock to the rivers edge and then varnishing, water plants/weeds were created.

The Eastern Promise

I've finally got round to starting those Armenian Cataphracts from Alanicus's army of Anatolia and I couldn't resist the odd conversion or two. The figures I decided to use were from Old Glory's Sassanid Persian range , their conical helmets seemed very Armenian to me

I used 'green stuff' from Games workshop to make half of them cloaks. These will be painted a light yellow/brown with reddish borders and highly decorated. The good thing about painting up Cataphract units is that you can use them for loads of different eras, these will also fit into my Seleucid army.
TIP; By marking on the anvil the spot for the best results, the whole process became a lot easier and took half the time. A simple tip I know but it really helped to cut down the preparation time.

Tullus watches and waits (Campaign 95)

With the two Armies in Gaul face to face, Tullus gives the order to dig in. With the Senator Plaudicus in one ear and young Fulvius in the other, crying out to attack at once, Tullus leans towards caution. An uneasy peace settles along the frontier in Gaul as both armies watch each other for signs of movement.
Tullus knows with Alanicus moving further west, Secundus's forces will be stretched and divided. He therefore decides that time will be his best Allie against Secundus in Gaul.
To add further pressure to Secundus, Tullus starts to build a port in Aquatania in preparation for an invasion of Britannia.


Above, Tullus ignores the whining of Plaudicus to advance on Rome.

Lines are drawn in Gaul (Campaign 94)

The mighty Dewolfus patrols the border defences of Lugdunensis. With Tullus marching his Army of Gaul into Aquitania, a frontier was created with that of the forces of the Secundian Army of the Rhine.

Tullus's newly acquired Army of Gaul, now sits along the Aquitanian border waiting for the order to attack. Dewolfus is no fool however and requested that he not be moved from Lugdunensis for just such an emergency.
The young, charismatic M.Plinius Fulvius, commander of the Army of Gaul is yet untested in battle and yearns to test his metal against Dewolfus and earn a place in the Histories. The wise old veteran Dewolfus has heard these rumours and hopes to goad Fulvius into "doing something foolish"

The wolf waits.