basing issue resolved....

Hello again.

Im an self confessed basing obsessive and have been musing over my napoleonics for some time. I decided that putting them in 3's, while flexible, is too fiddly and i prefer a more irregular look...

I tried two methods. One was to use the DBA standard 40x20, the other to use 30x20. While I always base shoulder to shoulder I decided to make the second rank thinned out. This allows more frontage, per figure and gives a more irregular look.

Prussians based 24 figs, 6 per 30x20 base



This pic shows how the line looks very think compared to the NB standard.



With 26 figs (4 bases) you get an ok square


and an ok column

With 36 figures you can a really nice column and square which really suits my ragged 1813 prussians and early french I think..




This is 40mm x 20mm which is less flexible when I want to use 24 man battalions. This is because with 3 bases you cant make a decent square as above. It is however perfect for my ottomans who cant form square anyway :)

Making Terrain

As I havnt any metal to paint at the moment, I decided to start experimenting with terrain creation. I expected this to be a fairly grueling process but it ended up being a nice change. As I am new to this I decided to take an ad-hoc approach. I would use methods that allowd me to build things up slowly, making modifications and changes where needed.

The following is a farm I wanted to make. I like the farmland look on wargames tables with the straight lines and features. I considered making the entire game mat in this fashion but ended up doing an add on piece. This was because I ordered too much felt and figured I may as well use it.






This is how I made it.

1 - cut felt to size and draw out features with marker pen
2 - mask of areas with same colour
3 - spray areas with 3M spray glue and sprinkle on flock
4 - cover with newspaper and place book on top
5 - repeat process, adding different coloured flock to different areas (roads were sand with brown wash)

After shaking off the loose flock I found the colours wernt really bold enough at this point. I added more patches of flock and found that it stuck better the second time round. However I still wasnt happy so I purchased some light green and yellow spray paint. I applied this from a height after masking off the areas as before. This looked better but one or two areas were now too light!!! I made a wash from my miniature paints and just this to light areas to dull it down. This worked better than I expected so I made c couple more washes and played around a bit..

Overall Im quite happy with my first attempt. The flock will come off over time but as I found second layers of flock very quick and effective when applied so this doesnt bother me too much. Note the bits of litchen and hedge you see in the picture are loose and will be folded away with the farm at end of play time.

hope you like... Next up the mat itself!