Boer War Memorial in Bedford

I visited a Wargames show today in Bedford and although the show was very small, it did give me a chance to finally get some photos of this memorial to the Boer War.

I've always meant to snap this gent in all his glory, but always found myself whizzing by in the car.

I love all the detail on his equipment 

 

Making Rabbit Warren's 28mm

while I had my crafting head on I decided to knock up a couple of Rabbit Warren's for my ECW games. Rabbit Warren's often crop up in civil war battles to the frustration of the cavalry.

These were easily made by raiding my son's Daz bag and spreading the half dead clay over a MDF base. It's important to wet the MDF before applying the clay to maintain a strong bond. I then poked divots in the clay to act as Rabbit holes, this was done with a simple clay tool.

Once these bases are laid across a section of the battlefield, they will cause confusion and disorder to advancing troops. I imagine infantry would be taken down to half move, but cavalry could roll for a casualty on passing over the ground. Heavy horse trotting along knee to knee are bound to find a hole or two.

I also finally got to use some resin tree stumps I bought years ago. These turned out to be too big for my figure bases but seem at home on this weathered common.

Roots were made from snipped off plastic tree branches.

 It's a bit like a 17th Century mine field.

Progress so far, painted and flocked. It's looking a lot more natural now. I've added some brambles at the last minute, these need to be flocked.

I really enjoyed working with the rubberised coconut hair and it gave me the idea for other bases. Here is a area of brambles. This should look good once flocked up and it's another classic piece of the English countryside to march over. This will be classed as difficult terrain.

I left enough room in the centre to put my 60x60mm bases in. I imagine this could be used as a barrier against cavalry if troops managed to get inside. Looking at you Dragoons!

UPDATE: right, all done now. I thought the holes were getting a bit lost in the flock, so added some watered down mud around the entrances. This seemed to work a treat and the treacherous ground became more apparent. It's still wet and shiny at the moment but should dull down when dry.

The Bramble patch was treated the same way as the hedges, sprayed brown and flocked. To make the shape of the Bramble bushes, I rolled the coconut fibres in my palms to crush them down a bit. This made them cigar shaped and quite low to the ground in 28mm.

Fine grit was sprinkled on to add a bit of detail.

Lastly, I sprinkled on some mixed herbs and leafs to finish the realistic look. This was then coated with sealant to fix it all down.

Making Hedgerows in 28mm

The next step on this hedgerow adventure is to flock the structures. I had the idea of flocking different bushes in varying colours to give the effect of a real old hedgerow.

For this I went to eBay and ordered a few different shades of green from Luke APS. I also treated myself to his sealant for basing, hopefully this will make the end result bullet proof. 

On some of the flocks, I used my fingers to work the material into the fibres, just to make sure everything was stuck good and proper.

I used a yellow flock to create patches of Elderflowers. This just adds some contrast to all that green.

I tried to keep my old Bonsai tree it's natural colour as it looks old and dead. It actually died back in 1998 and I have kept it just for an occasion like this.

I also used a lighter tone of green to sprinkle on some bushes to give a highlight.

Well, we're almost done, just the basing to do now with the mud etc. This project is a lot of fun and the results are nice and quick, worth the burnt figures with the glue gun!

 

Empress Dragoon Horseholder.

Planning a unit of ECW Dragoons is a very expensive endeavour, especially now with the price creep over the last few years. The cheapest horse holder set I found was that of Empress Miniatures. I was delighted today to find out the Empress figures match the 'larger' 28mm ranges of Renegade, Redoubt, Bicorne and Bloody Miniatures.

Below can be seen a Dragoon from Bicorne, Empress Miniatures and the new range of Bloody Miniatures.

I'm really pleased about this as they have some great looking Oxford Royalists that I know now will match my other figures.

 

Making 28mm Hedgerows.

I started off by spraying the strips of terrain with a dark brown colour. After this, patches of green were applied and lastly a light brown was sprayed from above.

I didn't want to go too crazy with the green, but gave some areas a slight hint.

The xenithral highlight hopefully will give the bushes a bit more form, especially on the tree trunks.