Scratch made WW1 wagons and the next wargaming project

I have continued with the WW1 Middle East theme from my last post by making some very simple supply wagons for both the Turkish and British forces. I often end up with spare cavalry figures after painting units, as the HaT 1:72 scale figure boxes usually contain 16 figures while my cavalry units are made up of 12 figures. Rather than leaving the spare figures unused, I decided to put them to use as wagon teams.

The British wagons on the move.

Turkish wagons guarded by cavalry.

The wagons themselves are simple scratch-builds. They made from off-cuts of wood, with balsa-wood shaped to form the canopy. The wheels are made from washers and card glued together. Each wagon is drawn by one of the spare cavalry figures and a horse with the saddle removed. Like much of my WW1 armies, they are very basic models with any detail painted on so they look the part when viewed on the tabletop.

The almost completed wagon. The toothpick axles just have to be trimmed.

The wheels begin as washers glued to card. Once the glue is dry, they are cut out. This approach provides a nice round wheel with a good thickness.

A toothpick acts as the axle.

Any remaining wagon detail is painted on. I will often use a combination of a dark colour and lighter colour when painting details such as the wheel spokes.

Alongside the wagons I also completed a couple of howitzers crewed with some spare Indian figures that were converted and an officer. These will provide the British forces with some more artillery support. Again all the figures and models are HaT 1:72 scale (although the officers may be ESCI - not sure as the come from my spares box).

Indian crewed Howitzers

My next project arrived a couple of weeks ago. A large box with a selection of HaT 1/72 plastic figures for the Anglo-Zulu War. Prior to doing much with these kits, I have been waiting for a couple of second-hand books to arrive. This project was not planned, it was opportunistic, and came about when I saw Hannants.co.uk had a good number of boxes of HaT Zulus boxes available in stock.

The next project arrives.

Some reading.

Possible rules.

More on this project in the coming weeks (and months) as it progresses... 

WW1 Middle East adding landing boats and Royal Marines

While painting the Indian units for my WW1 Middle East games (see the previous post) I decided to continue with the WW1 theme by adding a few landing boats and a unit of Royal Marines. This will give more options and variety when setting up scenarios, as British naval forces supported a number of land operations during the war, eg, the Dardanelles, Mesopotamia, the defence of the Suez Canal, and Red Sea operations supporting the Arab Revolt.

A unit of Royal Marines are landed ashore.

The Royal Marines are HaT 20mm WW1 British Infantry (Early) simply painted in a dark blue. Although this uniform was replaced by khaki fairly early in the war, but I chose to keep the blue help them stand out from the other British units on the tabletop.

The Marines advance.

After they were painted, I decided to have a go at making some simple landing boats. They were cut from 19mm MDF board into basic boat shapes. For their crews, I used spare HaT WW1 cavalry figures that had previously lost their horses to making some supply units. These figures were cut in half at the waist and glued into the boats. After initially painting them grey, I thought they would look better if I added a second crewman to each boat along with a rudder made from a cut down matchstick.

You can see how simple the models are. Along with an additional crewman I did attach a cut down match stick to the stern to represent a rudder.

The models are very simple, but they are robust and quick to make. Rather than modelling detail, I rely on the overall shape and paint to give the impression of landing boat. I use a rather loose painting style and try to give the impression of detail, rather than painting details themselves. Sometimes this approach works, while other times it does not and the models will get undercoated again until I get the look I want. For models that will not get a great deal of use, and are viewed at three feet, I am quite happy with the results.

A closer view of the model boats shows the loose strokes of paint to give the impression of detail.

A wargamer's view from three feet.

I have a small ship made from wood off-cuts to represent the Campbeltown from when I setup a St.Nazaire game which I can re-use to support the amphibious scenarios.

A basic block ship from which troops are ferried ashore.

The next post will either about adding some more supply wagons to the WW1 collection, or a post about my next planned project which has been recently delivered, and was not on my planned list of things to do in 2026.