Finishing the Sci-Fi buildings and some foam hills

I have finished making all the terrain I currently need for my Star Wars project, which included one final building and a few hills. For the hills, I decided to try using upholstery foam. It is dense enough to support the weight of the models without any sagging. I have used foam for hills before, but that was for my smaller scale 6mm WWII armies (see here).

A completed foam hill with Rebels taking up position.

The upholstery foam I purchased for $30 was much thicker than needed at 100mm (almost 4 inches). So the first step was to slice it in half, bringing the height down to a more suitable 50mm which will work well with the 35mm Star Wars Legion figures. I did this using a sharp kitchen knife. After the hills were cut out, I then shaped them with scissors. In all I made two smaller hills and one larger one.

After shaping all three hills, they were all given an initial coat of watered-down sand-coloured paint. While the paint was still wet I added a darker sand colour around the sides, followed by a purple-brown wash at the base. Doing this while the paint I still wet allows the colours to be blended. The hills were left to dry in a warm spot for around 24 hours. It takes the foam takes a very long time to dry out thoroughly. Once fully dry, I finished them off by dry-brushing them with a light sand colour.

The 100mm upholstery foam, far too high to be used as a hill for the Star Wars Legion miniatures which stand 35mm high.

The foam is cut to size, then sliced in half using a sharp kitchen knife.

Preparing for shaping the hill.

The hills are shaped with scissors.

The hills are painted a sand colour using watered down paint.

The hill sides are painted with a dark sand colour and the bottom the hill a purple-brown colour. Once dry they are dry-brushed with a light sand colour.

The large hill being defended by Empire forces.

The final building for this project is now made and painted. I generally try to finish all the buildings in one go, or at least over a few painting sessions, as this helps with giving the buildings a consistent look. I have found that coming back later to add more buildings often results in slight variations in style or colour choices as I always seem to forget one step or colour that I originally used.

All the buildings have flat roofs, allowing me to swap in different rooftop features using the scatter terrain made from old down-lights, parts off an old lamp, and leftover piping from our house renovations.

The final building is completed.

All the buildings and scatter terrain.

The flat building roofs allow the features to be swapped and provide a different look.

I found a cheap Empire TIE Fighter online. While it is 1/72 scale, smaller than the Star Wars Legion figures, which are closer to 1/48 scale, that does not really matter. I generally prefer to use slightly scaled-down aircraft, as they look better on the tabletop because they do not overwhelm the other miniatures.

A recent purchase of a Star Wars TIE fighter.

And finally, I am starting to get a few more games played. I have been using and modifying scenarios from the One-Hour Wargames book. 

All this terrain modelling and painting has meant I have not been able to write up a battle report this week as I had hoped.

A game underway.

Star Wars project - the end is in sight

I have been continuing to build a few more terrain features for my Star Wars Legion project while also painting up a few additional miniatures I managed to pick up at some recent clearance sales. These sales seemed to have come about due to a change in the game's ownership, with Atomic Mass Games (AMG) taking over from Fantasy Flight Games (FFG). With the change there are rule changes and the discontinuation of some older figures and units. Since I am using Squad Hammer Core rather than the official Legion rules, the changes will not affected my games and so the sales have been a bonus. At this point, I have managed to collect and paint pretty much most of the units I was after plus one or two extra, so the painting of miniatures is beginning to wind down for now and I can focus to finishing off the terrain.

This past week saw another building and some scatter terrain completed. I am still making the buildings from any wood off-cuts I have lying around in the garage, along with old downlight globes and leftover piping from the house renovations.

I cut out some triangles from 12mm MDF board to add to the building's sides and a couple of pieces of 3mm MDF board is used for the roof. Old piping has been added to the top and is removable so it can be used as scatter terrain.

The old piping being used as scatter terrain.

Here I have switched the piping and used an old used down-light on the roof. 

I came across three old unpainted Games Workshop craters I had stashed away, and these have finally been painted up. They will be very useful, either as rough area terrain or as lava pits to represent river-like obstacles in the One-Hour Wargaming (OHW) scenarios that call for rivers.

Some of the painted up craters.

To create the lava pits, I place red-dyed stones in the crater. The stones, which are porous and from a model shop, were soaked in watered-down red paint and then left to dry. This allows me to repurpose the craters as lave pits when I need them.

Red stones are added to repurpose the craters into lava pits.

The three craters as lava pits being used in the OHW scenario - Double Delaying Action where the original scenario has a river.

It seems like it has been a while since I last wrote a battle report, so I might write up one of my Star Wars games using Squad Hammer Core rules for the next post.

A test Sci-Fi building and some speedster markers

The past week has been a busy week with non-wargaming commitments, so I have not been able to sit down and write a blog post until now. However, I did manage to make some progress on the Star Wars project and made a test building and some quick-and-easy markers for my speedster units. The test building is made using old bits of wood and dowel I had lying around, and turned out to be a fun bit of recycling.

My first test building for my Star War Legion project.

Terrain always seems to take up so much space, and due to space constraints, I store most of my terrain in large plastic tubs which I can stack. So the buildings I make need to be robust with no fragile details that could easily break off. This has meant I now mostly build everything from wood with minimal detailing. Where details like windows or doors are needed, I will usually paint them on. I also paint in shadows to highlight a building’s features and to added colour. For this particular building, I used a purple wash to emphasise the angles and add some depth to the windows.

My painting style is loose and I do not worry too much about precision. I do use dry brushing to breakup large blocks of colour and I will often suggest details with just a dash of paint. It is a quick approach that works well for the tabletop, just do not look too closely!

Doors and windows are painted on and a purple wash has been used to emphasise features and shadows.

I also painted up an old downlight, which works well as a standalone piece of machinery used as scatter terrain, or can be placed on top of the building to make it look a bit more interesting.

An old downlighting gets recycled as scatter terrain for the tabletop.

Alternatively, the downlight can be placed on top of the building to make it look more industrial.

I also made some markers for my speedster units as reminders. With the rules I am using, speedster units must make a half move each turn, whether they are activated or not during a turn. The markers are placed to show units have made their mandatory half move.

Speedster units marked to show they have made their mandatory half move.

The markers are made from soft toy filler, I picked up a bag of it from a craft store a while back. It has proven to be really useful stuff for creating smoke effects and marking musket fire. For the speedster markers, I dipped the toy filler into watered-down brown paint to add a sand looking colour. It took a few goes of dipping to achieve the right colour depth, which made the process a bit time consuming due to the drying time between dippings.

Another speedster unit move across the tabletop.

While I have been working on all the painting and modelling, I have been planning and sketching out in my head a small six-game skirmish campaign where I can make use of my recently completed Star Wars Legion figures.

Star Wars makes it to the tabletop

A few weeks ago I had a test Star Wars Legion game with my son using the miniatures from the Star Wars Legion Core Box set. Since then, I've been busy collecting and painting additional miniatures, and it was  time to get all these newly painted miniatures on to the tabletop for a solo game. The rules that come with the Box set use a unit activation system that is not ideal for solo play, and I was looking for something fast and simple. So, I decided to try Squad Hammer Core – An Introductory Miniatures Game by Nordic Weasel Games. I've had the PDF for quite some while but have never got around to playing them. Today was the perfect opportunity.

Stormtroopers guarding the deep-space communication array.

For the terrain, I used what I had on hand, as I have yet to make any building that would be suited to a Star Wars setting. The rocky areas were made from leftover cement, which I spread out, let dry, then broke into pieces and painted with a clear sealer. I added some smaller model rocks from the hobby store for extra detail. The towers were once old downlight fittings from before the LED era which I pulled apart, while the smaller conical structures are painted-up old LED lights.

Local Drebacks are used by the Empire.

An Officer makes his rounds.

Scenario Background

In the scenario, the Rebel Alliance are attempting to disrupt a deep space communications array guarded by Galactic Empire forces. To succeed, the Rebels must access at least two of the three communication towers and have the droid R2-D2 deploy a virus into the tower computer systems. The Rebel forces can enter the battlefield from any table edge at the start of turn one.

Tabletop setup.

Order of battle

Empire:

• 2 x Stormtroopers units
• 1 x Evil Empire Officer and drone (treated as a unit)
• 1 x Heavy Blaster
• 1 x Speeder
• 1 x Dewback Rider

Rebels:

• 1 x Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, C-3PO (treated as a unit)
• 1 x Han Solo and Chewbacca (treated as a unit)
• 1 x Swoop Bike unit
• 1 x Tauntaun Rider unit
• 1 x Fleet Trooper unit
• 1 x Rebel Trooper unit

Game Report

Amid the chaos of the opening turns, as speeders zipped across the battlefield, the Rebels exploited a gap in the Empire’s defenses. Luke, accompanied by R2-D2, advanced quickly and reached the first communications tower and begun the virus upload. In the confusion Rebel swoop bikes roared into action, catching a unit of Stormtroopers off guard and wiping them out. As they sped around for another pass, they found a retreating Dewback rider in their gun sights and eliminated that threat as well.

With their forces reeling, the Empire found themselves on the back-foot. Their heavy blaster unit providing some much-needed resistance, scoring critical hits that brought down the Rebel swoop bikes responsible for much of the early damage. But the situation remained dire. Luke and R2-D2 had already reached the second communications tower and were preparing to complete a second virus upload. In a last-ditch effort, the Imperial officer rushed to stop them but was cut down by covering fire from Han Solo and Chewbacca.

With two communication towers successfully infected with the virus, reaching the third would have been a tough challenge. It was well-defended by a heavy blaster team and a unit of Stormtroopers. Weighing the risks, the Rebels chose to withdraw, claiming a marginal victory.

Here are a few photos from the game.

The Rebels arrive quickly and in the confusion get Luke and the R2-D2 unit to the first communication tower.

Rebel swoop bikes swing around to fire upon some unsuspecting Stromtroopers.

The swoop bikes now successfully engage a Dewback.

Luck runs out for the Rebel swoop bikes as they come unstuck from the Heavy Blaster.

Luke and R2-D2 infect the second communication tower.

I really enjoyed playing the game with the Squad Hammer Core rules. They gave a free flowing type of game that I was looking for. For those familiar with them, I made a few modifications: speeders were given a free half-move action at the start or each player’s turn, and if activated during the turn, they could make an additional half move. This kept them moving around the tabletop in a very cinematic way. All heroes and villains were treated as veterans and were particularly resilient when determining hits taken, though they were not allowed to regroup to remove hits like other units. I have now set up the tabletop for second game using these rules with my modifications. This time Darth Vader will be making an entrance.

Making room and measuring sticks

The English Civil War armies returned to the tabletop this past week, along with some newly made measuring sticks. These were needed because I have been messing around with the movement and weapon ranges, reducing them by a third. 

Newly made measuring sticks for the reduced ranges.

The reason for reducing the movement and weapon ranges is to create more deployment space on my 6x4 foot tabletop for placing camps, supply wagons, or holding reserves behind the battle lines. Previously, when deploying armies, most units were typically placed within 12 inches of their own table edge, with dragoons sometimes pushed out slightly further, up to 18 inches from the edge. This ensured that no unit started the game within musket range of the enemy.

A typical setup before reduction in ranges.

As I was playing around with reducing the ranges, I was reminded of the advice in Featherstone’s Complete Wargaming, which notes that “move distances and weapon ranges must be formulated to suit the size of the wargames table, remembering that too-short move distances slow the game up.”

With the range reduction, army deployment zones are shift forward a fraction, but the battle lines are closer together which allows space to be freed up. So now advanced units (eg. dragoons and artillery) start 2 inches closer to the centre, the first battle line now begins 16 inches from their base edge instead of 12 inches, and the second line is 12 inches from the base edge where previously it was 6 inches from its own tabletop edge. These adjustments free up space at the rear for generals, reserves, and supply wagons.

The photos below illustrate how the lines compress and open room at the back.

Setup with the reduction in ranges.

So far, I have only reduced the ranges for my English Civil War games, and it seems to be working ok. The closer deployment areas mean the armies still can quickly engage the opposition, and the compressed deployment lines now make manoeuvring more challenging, which seems to reflect the period well. I still need to play a few more games, but I plan to try the same approach with my Roman and Carthaginian battles soon to see how they will play.

Returning to the measuring sticks, this time, when making one, I added a 90-degree triangle at one end to make it easier to determine whether units are moving or shooting within their 45-degree arc.

A unit makes a forward movement with the new measuring stick.

Infantry are able to open fire on some approaching cavalry within their arc of fire.

Star Wars Legion project update

Since March, when my son and I each bought a Star Wars Legion Core Set (I chose the standard version based on the original films with Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, while he went for the Clone Wars set) I have been steadily working through my miniatures. 

“How did we get into this mess?”

I quickly painted up the core set, but soon got sucked into the Star Wars universe and began expanding my collection with additional characters and units. Fortunately, I was able to find most of the extra models at discounted prices which for the most part are now painted. So I only have a few more units left to paint, mainly Rebel forces, and that should be it for now (or until I see the next discount). The next stage in this project is to make some terrain, where the focus will be on buildings and rocky landscapes.

All the models completed so far. Only a couple more units to add.

The Rebel forces

Imperial forces.

I have been keeping my painting style pretty straightforward, mainly just blocking in the colours. Sometimes I will add a bit of dry brushing or a highlight to break up areas that look too flat. For example, the C-3PO model looked like a solid gold blob, so I dry brushed it with a touch of silver to bring out the details. All the models get finished with a gloss coat to make their colours pop. I am definitely not doing a grim-dark future or realistic look and am instead aiming for something that feels more like a comic book look.

Rebel Characters.

A closer view of the Imperial miniatures.

“The Emperor is displeased by your apparent lack of terrain progress.”

Most of the terrain will be built using off-cuts from our recent home extension, along with MDF board and whatever useful bits I can find at the local hardware store.

A couple of face-to face games and a remote game

Most of my wargames are played solo, but over the past month I have had the chance to play a couple of face-to-face games with my son and daughter, as well as a remote game. The most recent was a remote session hosted by Jon from the Palouse Wargaming Journal, using his wonderful War of the Roses figures.

A close up of the action courtesy of Jon.

We used a set of rules currently being developed by Jon. This was my second time playing with them. One particularly interesting aspect of the rules are the commander traits, which affect how easily a commander is to change their Ward’s orders to Engage, Defend, or Manoeuvre. In this most recent game, Jon had added a new twist to the commander’s traits by introducing personal objectives for each commander to achieve during the game. It was an engrossing battle, and after a closely fought contest, my Yorkist army managed to snatch victory. Jon has written an excellent game report, which can be found here.

One of the face-to-face games was with my son, using Star Wars Legion figures and rules. We have both picked up a one of the starter boxed sets. As I had managed to get my starter miniatures painted, we played a game using my set. It was our first time playing, so we were both getting to grips with the rules. In the end, the game turned into a bit of a mass brawl, with all units piling in, out of which my son emerged victorious, led by his Darth Vader.

A Star War game underway.

I have added to my forces with a few more kits, which I have yet to build and paint. I also need to start thinking about creating some terrain for the game.

The other face-to-face game was with my daughter, who popped over for the day. We started in the morning with a couple of quick One-Hour Skirmish Wargame battles. Then after lunch spent the afternoon playing Zombicide, a cooperative game where we both took on the roles of survivors in the zombie apocalypse. In the scenario, we had to scavenge for supplies while avoiding being overwhelmed by the undead.

Zombicide - I have painted all the miniatures that come with the game.

Trying a different approach to woods on the tabletop

Having recently completed my French and Indian War mini-campaign and not yet having set up a new campaign, I thought I would post about how in some recent games I have been trying out a different approach to visually representing woods on the tabletop and the house rules I needed to apply.

My usual go-to method has been to use cut-out felt cloth to mark the area of the woods, with a few model trees added for visual effect. However, this often turns into a balancing act between placing enough trees to give the impression of a wooded area which is visually appealing, without adding so many trees that they interfered with unit placement and require constant repositioning of trees as units moved through the terrain.

My usual go-to approach of using felt cloth to show the wooded areas with a few trees added for visual effect.

Trees getting moved around to accommodate units in the woods.

Sometimes, instead of using felt cloth, I will use green wool to define the boundaries of the woods, especially when there are large areas of woodland in a game. However, this can become problematic, as unit bases have a tendency to catch on the wool when they are being moved.

Green wool being used to define the boundaries of a wooded area.

There are times when the rules I am using do not permit units to enter woods (One-Hour Wargames Medieval rules being one such ruleset) and in these cases, I will clump the trees together as I find this to be more visually appealing on the tabletop.

In my medieval games no units can enter woods so I can clump trees together, my preferred way to visually represent wooded areas.

This got me thinking about how I could continue to represent wooded areas as clumps of trees, while using some house rules for units that are allowed to take cover in woods. 

The house rules I started to use treat any unit with a base touching one of the trees in the wood as being in cover. While the clump of trees itself blocks line of sight, so any units positioned behind it are out of view and cannot be targeted. My reasoning is that woods are generally denser toward their centre with understory and ground vegetation. While the edges, where troops typically operate, are more open with less undergrowth, but still suitable for providing cover.

British troops and 6 Pounder in cover at the edges of the wood.

The infantry and 6 pounder are both in cover, but can be observed by the advancing German tank. The Bren Gun carrier remains out of sight.

Where the rules allow certain units, such as light infantry, to move through the woods. These types of units can move through a clump of trees and emerge on the far side, provided they have sufficient movement allowance. If not, then they are unable to pass through. This can create interesting opportunities for ambushes where troops can suddenly appear along the edge of a wood.

German infantry in hiding behind the woods.

German infantry emerge at the edge of the woods and can still claim cover.

Where there is a need for a larger wooded area or forest, this can be represented by multiple clumps of trees, with the spaces between them suggesting paths or areas of lighter vegetation that troops can move through more easily.

A column march through the woods.

So far in my recent games this approach seems to be working out. Giving the visual appeal I am looking for without hindering the games. In my WW2 games I have extended this approach to buildings and towns.

German units take cover in the town.

My search online did not show many alternative options, mostly the results were about how to make more realistic trees. If you know of any other options, feel free to share them in the comments.