Sunday 10 March 2019

Not quite everything...


The figures are ready; the roads are ready; the river's ready; the bridge is ready; the trees are ready; the fields are ready; the hills are ready; the village is ready - everything is ready … except for the table!  

I just haven't managed to clear an area for the table - even a relatively small 6 x 4 table.  And I don't want to set up a temporary table for 3 or 4 hours then pack it away again.  I want to leave a wargame in place for days at a time as the situation develops.  Many years ago, I used to have an 8 x 5 table - but that was before accumulating 40+ years of "stuff" (and that's not counting all the things we've discarded over the years).

Anyway, here's a couple of set-up photos to give you an idea of what the Plattzdorf terrain eventually will look like...


I know rivers/streams aren't blue.  I may paint them greenishy brown - or brownishy green.  But I'd have to watch they didn't look just like a road.  If I gloss varnished them, that would differentiate them from roads.

Perhaps the table mat is a little too "frantic"?  I'm more used to the old school plain green cloth.

The base of the trees in the photo is rectangular, but it was just grabbed off a shelf to put something there.  All the finished tree bases are "landscaped".  And, although I said all the figures are ready, there are still a few bases edges to be painted.


For the Plattzdorf game, I'm considering using this dilapidated old wooden bridge, rather than the stone one in good condition.  This would allow me to have a slight chance (roll a 1 on a D6 ?) of the bridge collapsing every time artillery went over it.  As I'll be playing solo, I need occasional unexpected things happening to add a bit of friction.


The hills are 1" thick polystyrene.  It looks as though I've sprayed them with a can of camouflage paint (not easy to get!), but that was an attempt to blend them in with the table mat which - as mentioned above - I'm not 100% happy with.  If I go back to an old fashioned green cloth, the hills will go back to plain green again.  

I should mention that - like 10% of men - I'm red/green colour deficient.  So my perception of greens, browns and reds may be different to yours.  That's a handy excuse for anything I've painted in strange colours.

So, all I need is a determined effort to get rid of some furniture - and what seems like a hundred wargaming stuff boxes of all shapes and sizes - then I can make the table in a few hours.  Till then...



2 comments:

  1. I was curious about spray painting for painting MDF model buildings so I discussed this with the young chap in Games Workshop. I bought a can of black and a can of "Death Guard Green". The latter is very similar to olive or drab green and my first attempt was very satisfactory, very quick to apply and very even. I would attach a photo but I don't know how to do that.

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    1. Pierre - by coincidence, I too went into our local Games Workshop to get a spray can. But I was advised their spray paint would melt polystyrene, which my hills are made of. It was suggested that I could paint the hills with water based / latex paint, then safely spray on top of that. I decided that, if I had to paint the hills first anyway, I might as well just not bother with the spray.

      As advised in the GW shop, I went to B & Q who made up a tin of green textured masonry paint (good value - £3.00 for a good sized tester pot). Unfortunately, when I used it, I couldn't see or feel any texture! So I don't know if it was made up properly. I thought of mixing in some sand or sawdust, but first I'll try another tester pot to see if it's any different.

      I know how to put a photo in my own blog, but haven't tried putting one in someone else's. As, occasionally, photos and text just mysteriously completely disappear when I'm doing my blog, I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing in my own blog!


      Thanks, Alex

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