Tag: Scenery

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wargaming

Progress of sorts

So well into first month of scenery season and yep – zero progress….

However my late Romans are moving along nicely and not only have I started rereading some great books but I have added to the book mountain.

Heathers better book – the other one is technically fascinating but hard work. JJ’s trilogy remains my all time Byzantine favourite and of these the first book is brilliant. Hearder’s Italian sprint is just simply an enjoyable read.

I already have some useful material for later Roman armies.

My Byzantine leanings have always caused a problem

However I happened to search for 4/5th century eastern Roman books and lo and behold there was an osprey on provincial forces and specifically units.

The book I found was only available to order……

I took a punt on the western publication instead that came out in 2024.

Initially I was dissatisfied as a quick flick through showed no shield detail discussion in the text or contents.

A second detailed read revealed a more interesting approach in this MAA. The book illustrations are composites of western empire wide discoveries carefully matched to recreate a likely dressed soldier. And the image notes are brief because the whole book is dedicated to the illustrations with its content referenced to the illustrations.

So no generalised text padding – it’s straight in and descriptive. In fact Latin terms are only partially explained with no appendix so you need to get online if they are not tripping off your tongue already.

So I actually like this offering – maybe not for all subjects but it (they) will complement my other books.

2024 publication whose Eastern compliment is due out in August
It’s always good to buy loads of flat pack furniture for the season of scenery challenge…….

Trouble is what do you do with the furniture left over……..

I do hope to get going on my scenery but before embarking on scratch build items I think this small bridge might be in order.

My beloved first small stone bridge by Bellona has long gone to scenery heaven along with its larger sibling. So this EWM item caught my eye when I was shopping for Fauxterre 1930 kit.
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wargaming

Fragment 26/1

Last year I started some posting ideas around bits of things which did not really make a post but when combined with others could justify a post in their own right.

After the first two fragments of 2025 things sorted of dried up a bit. Or rather my focus was on specific miniatures or gaming posts.

I am going to have another try this year and ironically the first driver is the same as last years – magazines. And with further irony the second idea mimics fragment 25/2 – books.

However to kick off 2026 fragments I am going to mention painting challenges. These have kind of taken over my painting activities to the extent that three define my painting year.

First up is “paint what you got”. Now this challenge by Dave Stone works for me because it drives me to dig out what I have either half painted or abandoned. It has proved its worth.

https://thewargamingerratic.home.blog/tag/mid-19th-century-wargames/page/2/#:~:text=The%20Painting%20Portrait%2025a%201848%20Bavarians&text=The%20portrait%20approach%20should%20enable,a%20ball%20topped%20pin%20head.

Second is the Analogue Painting Challenge. I took this on at no14 and so I am on year three.

https://thewargamingerratic.home.blog/tag/fantasy/

This challenge has caused problems in that it got my ideas flowing and instead of reducing the lead mountain I ended up scratch building models during the challenge as the “themes” caught my imagination.

On the positive side I have found a use for those magazine freebies and indulged in my recycled household junk heaps to create spacecraft.

Klim class Intra planetary trader from AHPC15

I also think it propelled me into painting a background for my model displays – retiring the painting pedestal in favour of the painting portrait. In fact I even produced a sci-fi background last year.

Ahpc invariably overruns well into spring so now absorbs about half my painting year!

https://thewargamingerratic.home.blog/2025/04/26/the-painting-portrait-25k-ahpc15-leftovers/

The third challenge is Dave Stones scenery season which runs over the summer. Or in my case summer into autumn. This has proven a godsend as scenery production was nil and an ever increasing list of kits, models or ideas were tying me up in knots.

https://thewargamingerratic.home.blog/category/scenery/

So three challenges which basically cover the whole year of my painting activities.

Maybe in another fragment I will say something about the impact of these challenges on my painting activities themselves.

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Scenery wargaming

Season of Scenery Challenge- part VIII – finale

A long while ago I had the desire to make some adobe buildings for cowboy skirmishes. However despite having the figures (admittedly only primed) and then my “what a tanker” playing partner getting “what a cowboy”, it still did not look good. Fortunately the challenge rolled up and provided the impetus I needed to get this project over the line – along with some more conventional items. Amazing where “cardboard packaging” can take you!

I have an old card table earmarked for skirmish play. The adobe buildings were just how they came out of the product boxes 😆 I then added some extra roofing with card and tissue paper plus pva. The two right hand regular buildings are from warbases basics range
You can’t beat Dixon 28mm cowboys for style
Lots of yellow ochre – the left hand building has received a dry brush. The packaging designer kindly included a base skirt which was decorated with pva and budgie grit.
Dry brush done and doors and windows (cornflake package) painted and dry brushed
Sunrise – the Mexican is at a disadvantage although he aimed first
Pistol high – who will bite the dust?
We may never know 🤠
A real New Mexico example in Santa Fe. For my quick build models I omitted the exposed logs – maybe next time.

So that’s it, 8 weeks of one hot dry summer and I have massively exceeded my expectations. I completed a lot of items and even though I started even more they are at least started and now have real homes rather than their sales boxes (thanks John the Varnish!)

For the analysts….. completions were

First module of my port,

two adobe buildings,

six earthen defences,

one artillery position

one aircraft base

flexible roads recoloured

two hills now also become a green defensible position

repaired damaged cardboard church

new self coloured HO Germanic church

two warbases Wild West buildings

two very old bellona low relief terraced houses

Two straight drainage ditch pieces

Finishing off stuff and even repairs/reworkings proved very satisfying.

The “starters” all happened to be kits and kicked off my challenge.

Blotz models Bronze Age fortress

Italeri French railway station building

Italeri north Italian church

warbases north German church

At least I have the measure of these pieces not least where and how to store them.

I probably have too many churches now……..

Funny that I did not finish the kits that I started the challenge with – given they were my absolute main targets – instead I started raking out cardboard and home building………

wargaming really is hilarious…..

Thanks Dave.

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Scenery wargaming

Season of scenery challenge part VII low relief housing and a ditch

Last year I started painting my Low relief housing. I bought two of these terraces back in the 1970’s and somehow these bellona pieces have not fractured into pieces. They are injection moulded and were the “resin prints” of their time.

One terrace in basic coats sat on my first port module
Low relief was popular railway modelling idea taken up by bellona

So I gave them a go and I must say the sculpture is brilliant. They were fun to paint. You can still buy injection moulded models – amera sell them via eBay in the uk. Alas I haven’t seen any terraced buildings.

Two terraces book ended by my hovels Dutch buildings with EWM latex roadways and then the ditch
Natural morning sunlight catches the detail well

In front of them are some early war miniatures road sections (flexible latex) last year I painted them but didn’t like the finish so they were back in the mix for a dry brush.

Finally there is the ditch. Basically more packaging fell into my eye line and I immediately thought – that’s useful. This is new packaging (not from the mountain!) and made the back end of the challenge displacing some other contenders.

They required no preparation.

Galena students burnt umber is rich and oily giving good coverage on this very dense cardboard
The ochre coating was necessary but not too obvious before the brandy cream which was a semi dry application
Very pleased with the low reliefs and also with the roadway while the ditch was an out of the blue late late entry which has exceeded my expectations

I gave the packaging a coat of burnt umber then one of yellow ochre and then brandy cream! dry brush before an autumn variety of Javis static grass. The ditch water was done with Paynes grey tube acrylic and then a shade of paynes grey with some ivory white added as a top coat.

Final shot which shows the early morning in colour somewhere in Rugia plus Mr Varnishes armour! (you know who you are 😊)

Last entry for the scenery challenge is next up

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Scenery wargaming

Season of scenery challenge part VI bits and bobs

First up is an Aircraft movement base. It was an unfinished piece from last year I think. Anyway it’s now got some scatter and is ready for some land planes – only trouble is I gave away my reconnaissance spitfire I did in AHPC14 https://thewargamingerratic.home.blog/tag/fantasy/and now have just my “scrap heap” rescued spotter float biplane.

Actually the base could pass for a seaweed covered rock……

I need to get some aeroplane production going……

Next up is a complimentary piece for my recent fortifications. It’s an Artillery position fashioned from some corrugated card and unlike my recent port module this one went bananas. But I persevered and it’s finished with some dried tea – the brown granules and greenery.

Javis – shrub mixture added over dried tea leaves.
I richer lighting shows off the simple two coat dry brush of burnt sienna with coffee colour dry brush
A bit bendy
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Scenery wargaming

Season of scenery challenge part IV port facilities

This years scenery season has continued to prove fruitful. I have been finally sorting out some key home builds. One is a harbour the other is a 17th century fortress. The common thread was that they must be modular in some way plus their core material is recycled cardboard.

Some colour tests
Stonework from card
Lots of checking for warping and size matches
The modular harbour gets the green light
The cellular construction means strength and lightness
Still to add some extra options like a sea wall
The first trial module

I wanted a distinctly south European style which meant ochre rather than grey would be the key colour.

I used a pva base for some fine sand dressing. It did not adhere everywhere which prompted a “potted roadway” thought. The compacted earth road has been eroded in places. Some judicious shading and job done.

The card stonewall received some dry brush over ochre base over hand drawn stones.

The holes at the bottom – don’t ask 😂

So far this piece and others made of two pieces glue one on top have defied going bananas – I did use weights for the drying step.

And here is the unit with another scenery piece on the go – it was started in the 2024 season but I changed my mind, and it got parked. It too has had a dose of ochre to help it on its way.

Low relief is not so fashionable these days but it has its place at my games table

There are some other irons in the fire. But this will do for now.

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Scenery wargaming

Season of scenery challenge ptIII – sage advice from John @justneedsvarnish

John@justneedsvarnish over time has kept reminding me that storage cannot be ignored when collecting for wargames. This is even a greater issue when scenery comes into play given it can become a sizeable part of your collection.

So my recent building blitz has a kind of logic.

Building blitz

Over the summer figure painting has dried up just like last year and scenery has come to the fore. This is just as well because the lockdown era seemed to be the time when I fervently collected for my apparent scenery needs but never made any of the kits or used the “recycling”. It was the latter that brought me up short when I looked at my cardboard mountain.

Also I have made some inroads into my figure mountain that led to a right old sort out.

The net result is two scenery drawers created by redistribution of figure boxes/bags/containers.

New homes for scenery – the tall items drawer
New scenery home – the shallow drawer with some washed and bagged figures about to depart. My Italian hilltop town from 2024 scenery challenge (I think) lives in the grey box

I am quite pleased with the result and it will probably lead to a scenery rationalisation at some point now they are all more visible and accessible.

Right now some of my recent builds have simply booked themselves a decent storage spot.

Thanks John.

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Scenery wargaming

Season of Scenery Challenge II – process and creativity

Crikey what’s going on?

Like most wargamers I guess when you stop and reflect upon your hobby, your traits often pop up.

In my case I am more process than creative perhaps more risk averse as well. So that’s the wargaming general who gets his logistics sorted before attacking – and maybe never attacks as a result 😂 queue heap of unpainted figures and of course scenery.

You could of course burrow into all this personality assessment-briggs myers style. Anyway this is a long intro to justify this!

Scenery explosion

So instead of carefully planning my scenery making I just dug out any thing I could find and started building – note, no painting.

Of course one item is self coloured so it’s done! Dating from the days of the USSR and the DDR it shows there is nothing new under the sun – even back then modellers fed up with the painting step were catered for.

Three years ago I made a tower one summer after discovering Dave Stone’s challenge. Last year it prompted me to trawl my bridges and defences pile to excellent effect. Heck I have even managed to game them!

This year the reaction to July’s starting gun has been a frenzy of building – in fact anything I could find. And especially those “I will make this when I have time to do it justice”.

So I have

An italeri church

An italeri railway station

A warbases church

Two warbases cowboy town buildings

A vero (1980’s) 1/87 scale model railway church ready coloured

A blotz starter pack for 20mm Bronze Age fortress.

No idea when some paint will get sploshed on them……

Thanks Dave 😉

Categories
Scenery wargaming

Season of Scenery Challenge

Fortunately John over at “just needs varnish” reminded me that Dave Stone’s challenge started at the beginning of July.

Last year I had a very fruitful time in fact my challenge ran into the end of September! It did not do my figure painting any favours though.

Yet I had so much scenery waiting to be done it proved to be a rich vein.

Well this particular ore vein is still rich.

Loads of possible scenery opportunities accumulating 😆
Always read the instructions!
I nearly chucked away the ridge tile – look carefully
Some nice detail on my first mdf building
Some clever design made construction easy
I found this mdf model easier than the italeri church

So far that is two churches and a railway station finally out of their boxes and just about built.

Painting may be a stumbling block – I get quite hesitant about colours. Cold north or warm south…..

* Could be I have drawn loads of early pacers who then fade away……..

I wonder what else will come from the pit of scenery?

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miniatures painting wargaming

The Painting Portrait 25a 1848 Bavarians

This is my first contribution to this winters “paint what you got” by Dave Stone. Last year I managed to get going by 7th January so it’s even slower progress this year.

Anyway this post also marks the switch to “painting portraits” after the demise of the “painting pedestal” before Christmas – it has a nice new home – just not mine.

The portrait approach should enable me to show scenery as and when it appears.

First up then are 7th line infantry of Bavaria who were sent on behalf of the north German federation to fight in support of the Schleswig Holstein rebels against the Danes.

The 1848 war was a victory for the Danes.

The figures are in fact Newline 20mm Prussian Napoleonic Landwehr. I simply trimmed the hat top and used some liquid green stuff to mask the officers coat long tails.

I must say these figures were a pleasure to paint and I really like the colours I chose in the end. This makes it all the more surprising in that I actually primed these figures back in March 2023!

The building is total battle miniatures bought ready painted – still my favourite piece – it no longer features as the range has changed. I think it was from their 15mm range or old 25mm one now they advertise only 28mm or 15mm.

The trees are mainly S&A Scenics by Lancashire Games. Again some of my favourite off the shelf pieces.

Finally I tend not to do flags straight away so came up with a furled flag option using some black tubing and a ball topped pin head.