1st Newbury at LinCon 2010

I´ll elaborate more about LinCon soon.

Here are the pictures for now.


The whole album.

As a slideshow

Lots of nice shots!

Testing the Terrain Setup

This evening I did a trial run setup of the battlefield for 1st Newbury. The purpose was to establish exactly how much terrain that is left to be done.

The result was uplifting. I got almost all the roads I need and just 40 new small sections of hedge left to do. My basic layout is sound, but needs some finishing touches.

As you can see, the pictures are not very good looking or inspiring. I blame the photo flash and the fact that much is yet to be painted.

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Muskets

Today, I just went ahead and made that goddamn hill that I´ve been worrying about for so long. My vacation was canceled by the volcano ashes by the way.

I drew the hill on the new game mat that arrived from Hotz a week ago. Then I cut out the hill with a knife and trimmed the edges with a pair of scissors. I bought two sheets of foamboard, drew the shape of the hill and cut the foamboard. Then I trimmed the edges of the foamboard to create a gentler slope. Then I glued on the mat and cut the whole hill in two pieces for easier storage and transportation. All that remains to be done is finishing the edges of the hill. I´m still experimenting on how to best do that. Probably glue, sand and green with a hint of brown.

All in all: The hill is not perfect but it does the trick.

Update on Progress for 1st Newbury

OK, work on 1st Newbury is under way. Lots of things going on, here is a few:

Today I got the new felt game mat from Hotz. This will be used for the hill. I will cut it up (a scary venture) and glue it to foamboard or something. The mat was not the color I wanted it and had agreed with Hotz. I will complain about that later, perhaps I can get a discount on my next order (a mat with a smaller hex grid for the 2mm project).

I have finally begun making all the roads that are needed for the scenario. The hard part is all those intersections and crossroads. I had worried about doing them. But 1mm plasticard solved the problem.

Trees... I need four hexes of woods. These are fun to do, and turn out well. The process is: 1) buy grapes and eat them. 2) save and then dry the twigs. 3) cut the twigs into small tree-looking pieces. 4) glue and attach green foliage. 5) base the tree.

Now I´m off to Stockholm for a two day conference. The week after that I´m going on holiday to the Canary Islands. I hope I can put work and this project aside for a while and concentrate on getting a tan and trying out different drinks. Maybe I should bring some 6mm figs with me...just in case I get bored? :-)

Official Start of Project Part Two

No update for a while now. I have lingered for much too long. Not good.

Being one of those persons that need dates and dead lines to get things done, I have contacted the organizers of the gaming convention LinCon (May 13-16) with the intent of setting up the next part of this 6mm project, namely 1st Newbury.

Time flies, but I think I should be able to do all the terrain that is needed in the two months before the convention. So, in my ongoing and doomed-to-fail quest to become more organized, here is a checklist of things to finish:

• Order another game mat from Hotz. I did this today and that settled my dilemma on how to solve the hill issue that I have been struggling with. I will cut up the new mat and glue it to foamboard or something to make the hill I need for 1st Newbury
  
• Find a way how to and then make many, many hedge-lined roads.
• Paint the last remaining units I need. This includes six or seven cavalry units and two units of single hex heavy infantry. My last order from Baccus included limbers for guns so that has to be painted and based as well.
  

There are more things but this is enough for now. Feels good to be on track again! I hope someone out there is following me, feel free to comment, thereby raising my morale :-)

New Goal: The First Battle of Newbury

OK, Edgehill was planned, done and played. Some celebration and a few days of rest later I want to announce the start of the planning for the next goal.

It´s going to be 1st Newbury. Why? This battle is another half mapper, see the picture above. It also has relatively few troops. It´s also a favorite of mine, an exciting and balanced battle. The scenario has free setup which I usually enjoy. The players set up their troops (within limits) how they like and hidden from each other. This makes setup into a game of itself.

To play 1st Newbury I need:

• 10 double hex heavy infantry brigades. (I have 11 so this is already done)
• 2 single hex heavy infantry units. (Easy to do, I have the figs but unpainted.)
• 29 units of cavalry. (I have 20, so 9 left. Not bad at all.)
• Light infantry: 2 dragoons (check), 3 musketeers (check) and 3 large units of musketeers (have 1, need 2 more)
• Artillery: 2 culverins, 4 sakers, 4 falcons. I have ordered some Siege guns from Baccus to paint up as the heavy culverins. The other guns I have already.
  

So what is the challenge? As you can see from the map above, Newbury has quite a lot of terrain. There are several types of terrain that will cause me problems:

• The hill that covers a large part of the battle field. This need to be modeled somehow. I´m thinking about several options at the moment, which I will get back to shortly.
• The many hexes of hedge lined road. I did a long straight section for Edgehill, but this will be much more challenging.
• Woods, villages, houses, Roman burial mounds and a river....

More later on this. Wish me luck!