In good pirate tradition if you are going to build something big like a pier you first need a plan:

Now with that done we can move on to actually doing something.

Step 1: Build the main structure.

Step 2: Add the cross beams

Step 3: Add balsa wood flooring

Step 4: Mark the balsa wood with a pen to represent individual planks. Black pen is best as it highlights the join when dry brushing.

Step 5: With the pen mark the planks with bolt holes.

There you have it ready to add the fiddly bits  like rope on the pylons and water spashing around the footings before painting – this weeks task.

There is enough room on a 6′ X 4′ table to dock 4 decent sized ships.

The crane is from Sarissa’s “Gangs of Rome” terrain.

The steps were made out of the same balsa wood as the pier decking.

The dock is mean to be an extension of the table top for figures to use not to introduce naval warfare. Boats are just additional terrain pieces.

Well I’ll be rogered.

The village houses are now complete and if I get nothing else done we have some great terrain to run our pirate game at Melbourne Little Wars.

The grand unveiling:

Aye we can fly this from the mizzen! Wait for it……….

Dah Dah!!

I will now work on the pier, the church and a few more main buildings. The pier and the ship, however, comes first!

The detritus terrain from Dead Man’s hand we will continue to be used and the jungle growth makes it look suitably Carribean. I still have some cattle pens, a slave market, a fountain for the town square to finish off, and some vegetable gardens from my Afghan terrain to add.

At the end of the day we need this to be paractical to game on as well as looking good so some aethetics have gone by the wayside for playability.

We will have plenty of terrain and lots of variety.

Now I had to finish of the Knights of Dice 13 villlage houses. I decided I wanted them thatched so out came the teddy bear fur again.

You just stick this on with aquadhere. Use the glue liberally.

Then just press on to the fur to stick it on.

Do one side of the roof then let this dry and then do the next side. Sorry no picture of this.

When it is dry trim with a sharp stanley knife. I always use a new blade for this.

You end up with a nice sharpo finish.

Thirteen roofs ready for the next stage.

Now paint the fur liberally with aquadhere. Again sorry no picture. This will go a white creamy colour but don’t worry it dries back to the normal colour. Try to paint in the direction of the fur or else it will stand up and look like you have just patted your dog the wrong way!

When it is dry trim the edges with a good pair of scissors.

This leaves a nice neat finish.

Next paint the barge boards dark brown.

Now you need to paint the doo and trs, windows and trim boards – I chose a chocolate brown. The door and windows were painted an orange brown. You then put on the stucco look with aquadhere and a fine sand. I have left this natural, but if you wanted a Statford-on-Avon look you could paint them white.

Here are the five small houses just requiring the door furniture to be painted (silver bits) and then a light dry brush of brown and white to complete the models.

Another eight more to do and then I will start on the church (Knights of Dice), and some of the major buildings (Sarissa Gangs of Rome).

Having cut out the board and completed the town planning it was time for some road building.

This is probably the most time consuming part of the whole process which began with cutting up old business cards into irregular square and rectangular shapes about 10-15mm in size  to be used for my cobblestone road. These were then laboriously stuck on individually to create a cobblestone effect. The same effect can be used to create shingled house roofs.

Now I know that a Mediteranean or Carribean town would be unlikely to have cobbled roads but I also want to use the same base board for my “Warmington On Sea” games of Sea Lion by just swapping the thatched huts for Knights of Dice “Letters Home”  Village sets (I am using their church in this scenario).

There are less time consuming methods than this but this is cheap and I like the effect. Another idea worth considering is using a thick pencil to draw them on. The indent into the hard polystyrene will create the same effect and allows more creativity with the shapes. I will use this method for the balsa wooden planks on the pier. Drawing the individual boards on the balsa wood and dots for the bolts creates a good effect, but more of this later.

I then painted them with a flat black to provide the “mortar highlight”.

They were then dry brushed a dark grey.

And hightlighted with light grey and brown ochre.

They were then “sealed” with a cabots polyurethane sealer. I find this works well where terrain is going to have high usage. Later I will seal the “flocking” with it as well as this not only seals the basing material but both hardens and stops it from brushing off.

The cliff edges were then painted in Haymes paints  mushroom brown and drybrushed white.

The whole base board was also painted with the same colour to ensure their was no bleed through the basing of any of the black used for the roads.

The base board is now ready for my generic mix of very fine beach sand (living on an island is handy for this) and various coloured and tectured flocking materials.

I paint the surface to be flocked with aquadhere (Step 1) and sprinkle on the colour basing material I want (Step 2), generally in a 6″ square patch at a time. I use several colours of flocking in the 6″ square. I then brush off the excess material and sprinkle heavily with the fine sand (Step 3). This is brushed off to give the final look (Step 4). I find this provides a uniform look that links the various patches of colour and fills any gaps. If there are any gaps showing you patch these and  then move on to the next section and begin the process over until the whole surface is finished.

Step 1:

At this stage if you want any rocks, bushes, twigs for tree truncks etc. you add them. As I need a flat surface to place buildings and other terrain on I want the final surface reasonably flat. If I need these features I will add them at a later date using separate  bases.

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4:

Complete the same process over the entire board. I leave the dark green flocking to put on at the same time as the final cabots sealer.

The penultimate step is to spray vanish the roads with a flat varnish to dull them down.

The final stage is to paint the flocked areas with the cabots polyurethane arnish and the board is finished.

The finished product:

I will now start on  the small village buildings which I had already put together for another project.

Hi All,

I have had these figures on my painting table for about 12 months and decided to extract the digit and finish them. I am reasonably happy with the results given my painting limitations.

Firstly, my Viking Shaman:

The Witch Hunter:

The Footsore Miniatures “Odin” that I will just use as a hero figure:

An assassin figure from “somewhere”:

And finally my Warrior Priest:

I hope to get a chance to use these in one of our regular Wednesday night’s game using “Strongsword” rules.

We are gradually initatiating bucko into our group with the variety of systems that we play. This time our modified version of Dead man’s Hand.

Basically the only differences are that we use coloured pebbles to determine initiative (which require some chnages to the cards) but these are minimal and that we use all of the initiative faction cards as chance cards. You hold five and can replace them at he start of each turn until your deck is used up.

The Protagonists:

Each faction had one of each types.

David’s lawman faction.

The Pinkerton Faction of Andrew

Davo’s banditos

Buckos desparados

The town of “Dry Gulch” 1

The town of “Dry Gulch” 2

The town of “Dry Gulch” 3

The town of “Dry Gulch” 4

The town of “Dry Gulch” 5

The town of “Dry Gulch” 6

The objective was to eliminate the other side, or at least that was what the bad guys were told.

Facing each other off across the table the factions manuevered to try and get an advantage. The bad guys ganged up on the Pinkerton’s while the Earp brothers (lawmen) tried to outflank the “crooks’.

The Pinkerton’s were getting the worst of it when Bucko’s shotgun desparado moved in to finish off one of their wounded giving him both barrels!! In true Bucko style needing an 11 with a twenty sided dice including a +6 on the die when the dust settled the wall of the house was in tatters but the Pinkerton remained!

The desparado leader opened fire at point blank range with his pistol and despite the additional help from his mate the Pinkerton bit the dust.

With a third desparado in action in the house things were looking bleak for the Pinkerton’s as a second detective went down.

The Earp brothers finally had enough with the “hired hands” and moved in to take down one of the “South of the Border” banditos (where is that wall when you need one).

So much for setting up a whole town of terrain as everyone was converging on the blue house. Two of the Earp brothers were in a close fire fight with a bandito whle another Mexican was shooting from his elevated postion in the barn loft. In order to surprise the banditos the two Earps fell asleep as things were turning in the “crooks” favour.

With everyone except the bandito in the barn milling around the house, the initiative was becoming crucial. With the gods of ancient Tenochtitlan influencing the pebble draw the end was nigh as Wyatt also fell asleep.

When the final Earp brother started counting sheep we decided to end the game.

The final result was three Pinkerton’s dead, two desparado’s dead and four Earp brothers who had fallen asleep after “cleaning up” the “OK” the night before.

The game was a decisive win to the good guys because the town of dry Gultch was now in the total control of Bucko and Davo. As a result the Earp’s didn’t have to worry about Tombstone being bothered by these two gangs of thugs!!!

Remember:

“The hand that holds the pen writes the history” (Keira Knightley’s Colette)!!!

Hi Y’all a battle report of the first Union assault at South mountain played on 9 February 2019 from Honorary P.I.G. John G with photos by Chris G – sorry I missed it.

BackgroundAfter the Battle of Second Bull Run in late August 1862, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, decided to invade Maryland, with his army split into five sections while searching for supplies. On 13 September 1862 a copy of Lee’s Special Order No. 191 fell into Union hands when left in an abandoned campsite. It detailed the Confederate plan of action and troop movements in Maryland, including the fact that Lee had divided his army and sent a portion under Jackson to capture the Union depot at Harpers Ferry.

Union Commander in Chief Major General George B. McClellan then knew that Lee’s army was vulnerable. Lee had left detachments to guard Crampton’s Gap and Turner’s Gap through South Mountain, key points in a 50-mile-long ridge that was the continuation of the Blue Mountains into Maryland. If McClellan had broken through these passes he would have found Lee’s army scattered.

McClellan, with uncharacteristic speed, began putting his troops in motion hoping to attack and defeat some of Lee’s isolated forces before they could concentrate. McClellan temporarily organized his army into three wings. Major General Ambrose Burnside led the Right Wing, comprising I Corps (Major General Joseph Hooker) and IX Corps (Major General Jesse L. Reno). The Right Wing assaulted Turner’s Gap and the nearby Fox’s Gap in the north. The Left Wing, commanded by Major General William B. Franklin, of his own VI Corps and Major General Darius N. Couch’s division of IV Corps, was sent to Crampton’s Gap in the south. The Center Wing (II Corps and XII Corps), under Major General Edwin V. Sumner, was held in reserve.

McClellan unfortunately did not ensure his commanders moved promptly and his army was slow to react. Franklin and his VI Corps only set out the following morning at daybreak to drive through Crampton’s Gap and attack McLaws’ rear. In contrast, when Lee learned of McClellan’s intelligence coup he quickly ordered forces to reinforce the passes to block McClellan’s looming advance. While the Union had far more men available, the total troops actually engaged in the three actions that made up the Battle of South Mountain was 28,000 Union to 18,000 Confederate.

Our refight was of the first assaults on Fox’s Gap and Turner’s Gap.

Chris, John & Steve – South Mountain refight 9 February 2019

Fox’s Gap

The opening attack by Reno’s IX Corps on Fox’s Gap was made by Cox’s Kanawha Division. On the Union left, Scammon’s brigade advanced through the Daniel Wise farm against Garland’s North Carolinians from Daniel Hill’s division, defending a stone wall along the ridge.

Fox’s Gap – Garland’s men await the Union storm

The 23^rd Ohio found a sneaky way through the rough terrain, drove away the weak Rebel cavalry and attempted a flank attack on the 5^th North Carolina behind the wall.

Fox’s Gap – 23rd Ohio under fire trying to flank the wall

However climbing the hill proved too much and the plucky Ohioans were thrown back.

Fox’s Gap – 23rd Ohio driven back by the 5th North Carolina

Soon Scammon’s whole brigade retired, with little damage done to Garland despite one last surge uphill by the 30^th Ohio which briefly recoiled the 12th North Carolina off the wall before the attack petered out.

Fox’s Gap – goaded by enemy fire, the 30th Ohio prepare to charge the hill

To Scammon’s right, Crook’s brigade had made more progress, making it onto the heights and inflicting significant losses on Anderson’s small North Carolina brigade until Crook too was thrown back down the hill and sent packing. Both Crook and Anderson were shot off their horses during the fighting. The Rebels rested on their arms awaiting the next Union attack, as it was clear a whole Union corps was slowly moving up towards them through the woods.

Fox’s Gap – the Union Kanawha Division in retreat

Turner’s Gap

Burnside had Hooker send Brigadier General John Gibbon’s Black Hat Brigade up the National Road to attack Colonel Alfred Colquitt’s small Confederate brigade. Early in the fighting McClellan is said to have observed them in the distance driving back the Confederate defenders and asked I Corps commander Hooker who they were. Told they were Gibbon’s westerners McClellan is said to have replied with admiration “They must be made of iron.” and so the name stuck and they became the Iron Brigade.

Turner’s Gap – McClellan watching the start of Gibbon’s brigade’s bold advance

Sadly, Chris ordered John to lead Gibbon’s brigade in our refight, so it was just as well McClellan had ridden off and didn’t see what happened next.

Turner’s Gap – view of Gibbon’s opening attack from the heights

The veteran Iron Brigade barely made it into contact anywhere along the line, inflicted few losses, and in short order were hurled from the field with a very bloody nose. Adding injury to insult, Gibbon fell wounded late in the debacle. That’s what you get Chris for letting John roll dice!

Turner’s Gap – Gibbon’s men sadly regard their fallen commander

Widening the assault, Burnside had Hooker commit the bulk of I Corps to the attack, so to the right of that sorry scene, Brigadier General Nathan Evans’ South Carolina brigade from Hood’s division was defending a fence along the road leading to Turner’s Gap when assaulted by Brigadier General Marsena Patrick’s New York brigade of Hatch’s 1^st Division. Next to them the Alabama Brigade of Brigadier General Robert Rodes, holding a line on the edge of a wood, was attacked by Brigadier General Truman Seymour’s Pennsylvania brigade of Meade’s 3^rd Division.

Turner’s Gap – Evan’s South Carolina brigade awaits attack

Turner’s Gap – Union assault viewed from Seymour’s position

The bold 21^st New York braved the enemy fire and managed to cross the fence and defeat the 22^nd South Carolina in furious fighting.

Turner’s Gap – Patrick’s brigade attacks Evan’s men behind the fence

Evan committed his reserves who threw the 21^st New York back across the fence, while the rest of Evan’s brigade held on grimly until Patrick was wounded and his spent brigade reluctantly retired.

Turner’s Gap – Patrick down as Evan’s Rebels reclaim the fence

Meanwhile, Seymour’s determined Pennsylvanians had withstood withering fire from Rodes and got in among the Alabamians in the woods.

Turner’s Gap – Seymour’s advancing brigade under fire

Turner’s Gap – hot work in the woods

For a time it seemed the Pennsylvanians might drive the Alabamians out of the woods and all the way back up to the heights behind them. Despite their morale being tested, the stalwart Alabamians regrouped and threw Seymour back with loss. Turner’s Gap had been held for now, though fresh columns of Union troops could be glimpsed moving forward.

Turner’s Gap – Seymour’s worn brigade retires as the Rebels retake their ground

Aftermath of the Battle of South Mountain

In the fighting at South Mountain, Union casualties were 2,325 (443 killed, 1,807 wounded, and 75 missing) or 8.3%. Fighting on the defensive, Confederate losses were 2,685 (325 killed, 1,560 wounded, and 800 missing/prisoners) or 14.9%.

As night fell, Lee assessed the situation. Though Turner’s and Fox’s Gaps were still held, Crampton’s Gap had fallen to Franklin’s tardy but overwhelming forces. With his defensive line overstretched, Lee ordered his outnumbered forces to withdraw west next morning to reconcentrate his army.

After his victory McClellan was still in a good position to destroy Lee’s army but reverted to the slow, cautious behaviour which had been the hallmark of his failed Peninsula Campaign. His limited activity on 15 September saw the Union garrison at Harpers Ferry capitulate and gave Lee time to unite his scattered divisions behind Antietam Creek at Sharpsburg.

Despite McClellan’s failure to capitalize on the capture of the gaps, the strategic victory at South Mountain was an important morale booster for the Army of the Potomac after a summer of failure. South Mountain put Lee on the defensive and forced him to make a determined stand at Antietam a few days later on 17 September 1862, in what was the war’s bloodiest day.

Antietam ended Lee’s hopes for staging a prolonged campaign on Northern soil and compelled his army to retreat back to Virginia. The marginal Union victory there also enabled President Abraham Lincoln to use it as a justification for announcing his Emancipation Proclamation.