Generic scenery and wargaming terrain on a budget

Time to finally do som painting

It's been quiet from the 'blog-front' here for a while now, but as already mentioned in an earlier blogpost; 'Even more about protective covering' I had 3D-printed a lot of different scenery items, and had even more in the making at the time of writing, that needed to be painted. Even thou we're still fighting Covid-19, we do not have as many restrictions as earlier like home isolation and quarantine anymore. -So it was time to go to go back to work and catch up, resulting in less time to 3D-print new items, painting them or gaming.  Besides I got into a diversion of military modelling, and spent some time by the lake with my new RC boat. 

But finally I got around to do some painting. So what to paint my newly scenery items like, and where and when should they represent???

Generic approach

Despite I'm quite new to tabletop gaming, there are a lot of different eras, conflicts, scales and games (both historical and sci-fi) I would like to play. I don't have unlimited space at home for all my modelling hobbies, so I can't just go ahead and make scenery items for every game, battle or period I'd like. So I've decided to make and paint scenery items so generic that I can combine and use them for as many different games, settings, eras, scales and conflicts as possible.

Since I've already got 54mm miniatures for gaming in the old west, Sci-fi, and for post WWII conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, it was clear that I had to go for some kind of scenery they all have in common. Besides, the Middle East might be a suitable 'theater' for future wargaming projects as well, since it's the most war thorn region of the world through the whole history. 

I decided to go for a desert-like, sandy, dusty wasteland scenery, as it will be suitable for different eras and conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, as well in the southern parts of the 'Old West' or in a Sci-fi setting on a Mars-like or 'Tatooine' planet.

The painting it self was straight forward; Solid layers of tan color(s), washed with dark brown, and drybryshed with 'Titanium Buff'. All painted with cheap craft acrylics.

By just adding some craters to the rocks make you have a Middle East/African battlefield or a Sci-fi setting

For vegetation I selected plants and trees I don't think would look out of place in a sandy and dry habitat 

This was 3D-printet in black PLA and simply drybrushed with various 'browns', starting dark followed by lighter shades

Adobe style buildings can be found in The MiddleEast, Africa and in southern parts of Northern America

With generic scenery further period and location can be set by adding periodic or geographical items. Here is some detail to set the scene to Middle East or African wargames

I also made some terrain pieces with other bits and pieces I had laying around.

When 3D-printing you sometimes add 'Rafts'to your print to make your model stick better to the printbed. When done printing you separate them and usually throw the raft away. I found some of the rafts from my previous 3D-prints to be so sturdy and of irregular shape that I would try to use them as terrain bases. The greenery is just lichen for Christmas decorations found in craft stores. Thanks to Rick Astley for providing one of those circular bases in the middle. I knew he was never giving me up...

Circular CD-bases again. I think this is one of the Mrs' 'Game of Thrones' seasons...
The rocks are made by cutting blue and pink extruded foam to shape and painted.

This is made by adding pieces from 'The Force' and 'The Corps' playsets to a raft for 3D prints. A CD or any other suitable base will work as well

Even stationary vehicles can act as periodic gaming terrain, and add some cover for your troops. The toy car was to correct scale, but looked a little too pristine  at first...

The 'battle mat' is made by a tan piece of inexpensive cloth simply stippled with different browns and greens acrylics by a coarse sponge. Roads, rivers and lakes are just fabric in a different colors, and are loose to change the scenery for different scenarioes

There are still a lot of interesting and available free 3D-files ready to download and print out there, but in this scale I'll just have to limit myself as I already have challenges with storing it properly. Besides I should have enough scenery and terrain by now to make up interesting games.

Now it's about time to let the (war-) Game(s) begin, so please follow the blog for updates!

New steam locomotive for the Garden Railway

The new locomotive

Finally after all the Covid-restrictions we're, for the time being, allowed to take up normal activities again. Due to the Covid-19 I hadn't been to any Model Railway Exhibitions for about 2 years, either in Norway or abroad. So when there was a small Model Railway Exhibition held in Norway last week I just had to go. It was very nice to meet fellow modellers again. On this exhibition I also found a G-scale Steam locomotive from LGB that I've wanted for a while, but haven't seen in many stores, so I ended up buying it.

Like most LGB-stuff in G-scale it's narrow gauge, and it's made as an even lighter narrow gauge standard as it is a "Feldbahn". A prototypical Feldbahn would be made to 600mm gauge in real life, but LGB has made it go with their 45mm gauge tracks, so the model has a slightly broader gauge than the prototype. The LGB rolling stock in the "Feldbahn-series" is very short and will fit my very small garden railway well.

The model is very well made and looks good, and it runs superbly. I noticed that the cab is open, and you can see all the details in it, except for the crew (!). Usually LGB includes a engine driver in their models, but obviously not here where the cab is so open. On the label on the box there is a picture of the loco with an engine driver, but when I searched the internet for this model I found both models with and without the driver.

The Crew

It seemed obvious what I had to do; I had to add some crew, at least an engine driver. Before I went ahead and ordered one from LGB I wanted to see if I could find any suitable figures to print in our 3D-printer. At Thingiverse I found two I figured they could be used for an engine driver and a fireman; Man With Cap (1:32 scale) and a figure from the German Africa Corps (1:72 scale). I scaled both the figures to about G-scale, and mirrored the Man With Cap in the slicer, so I could have a conductor as well from the same figure. They were printed on "standard" resolution at our Flashforge Finder to save time, and to see if they looked good enough. After some painting with cheap acrylics from the craft shop, I think they did. They are viewed at a distance anyway.

You can still see the layer-lines from the FDM-printer, but I think they turned out surprisingly well keeping in mind that these are printed in standard resolution. So well, that I didn't consider to print them in a higher and more time consuming resolution    

The train

Fitted in the cab of the locomotive I think they look good enough. Instead of only having one engine driver if he was to be included or not originally, I now have an engine driver, a fireman and a conductor.

Exploring new Horizons in military modelling

I've been fascinated by Radio Controlled boats ever since I was a kid, both the fast ones and especially the true scale models. - And in particular military ones. Back then there were no RTR-models (like today), only kits of varying skill levels. I never got around to build a scale boat of my own because it just seemed way to complicated.

Recently I went with my son to hobby store i Oslo called Sami RC, when he was going to buy a petrol powered RC car. I was actually not so interested in those cars, so I went looking in the shelves with boats while he was shopping. And among all those not-'fine scale' racing boats, I saw one RTR scale model boat of a Combat Boat 90 by Pro boat. It needed not more than a battery to be ready for action. So while my son got his car, I finally got my RC boat. A boat which was both a military scale model and a fast one (just like the prototype).

It's planing easily as the prototype

The boat has a high level of details and looks great just out of  the box. Machine guns and flag was included and can be attached. No scale is specified on the box, but by it's size I've calculated it to be about 1:26,6 scale. With about only 55,88 cm it fits nicely into at toolbox with it's controller and is easy to carry along.

Every thing you need for a running session, fits in a toolbox

You also need a battery-charger, but I already had one from my RC Tank and RC Car which I could use. After charging the batteries it was time to try it out. Luckily I live by a lake, and I won't recommend to use models like this in the sea, as the salt will make metal parts corrode. 

At full throttle it looks like its going to fast, but I've calculated it to be close to the prototype though. I've found out that you can set the controller to 75% power, which actually looks better and closer to expected 'scale speed'. A benefit of this is that your batteries will last for a longer running session as well; about 30+ minutes contrary to the 14 minutes if you have 100% and full throttle almost all the time.

It is a fun boat to operate, and I think the only con is that it has no reverse. I also added powerfull magnets inside the hull on both sides, so I can dock to my friends magnetic quay which is built to about the same scale.

It's a nice Scenic quay my friend have made

With magnets in both boat hull, and in the tires along the quayside, it docks easily with a steady hand. 

Another benefit for me is that this model is of the same type of Combat Boat (Stridsbåt 90) that was used by the Norwegian Coastal Artillery, and are now in service with the Norwegian Coastal Rangers. This will serve as inspiration for me if I would like to personalize it through the winter, so my Combat Boat doesn't look like all the other similar Pro Boats. If so updates will follow.

A Norwegian Stridsbåt 90 (Photo: Forsvaret)

This is a summer hobby, and the season seems to be over here in Norway this year. It's very therapeutic just to sit back with a cup of coffee or a cold beer, and just navigate your own boat around.

Fighting Covid-19

Dead simple rules for killing boredom during social-distancing, home isolation or quarantine

There have been a little quite on this blog lately, but that's not the same as I've not been doing anything. I've been busy painting a lot of those 3D-printed items as seen in my previous blog-post, and covering painting is not that exciting (although it takes time). During this time we have also been living under this Covid-19 situation for a year, and I guess we all just want to go back and have a normal day soon. During my own short term quarantine I started to write on these very simple and easy to play rules to kill some time and looking forward to we all can return to our normal lives again.

It is so simple and you don't need more than would fit in a little bag. This is truly a 'Wargame in a bag':

The rules

I've also uploaded the rules here if you want to print them out to have a try on this game.

The Game

As in real life (by now) I let only about half of my men or less to be vaccinated against Covid-19 and benefit from that protection. A "V" was added to the underside of their base.

I 3D-printed "virus-tokens" in two different colors, and let the minority blue color represent a virus-mutation. Any gaming tokens or similar kan substitute for "viruses". Othervise you'll need som dice and a tapemeasure.

The Covid-19 kit was downloaded fro www.Thingeverse.com for free and resized ta make it more suitable for the game

This was the initial game set-up with a unit consisting of 2 regular Covid-19 viruses and 1 mutant virus in each corner. My Army men started on a 'hill' in the center.

It's nice when you can have a zip of your scenery

All the Virus-units, unless 1, moved toward the Army Men very fast. To try to keep initiative the captain ordred his men to follow him into a melee with the closest threat.

He is brave....

Until the next turn.....

The captain was the first casualty, and non of the other troopers made it off the hill before they were surrounded by viruses and taken out one-by-one.....

...-but stupid

The charge failed and the others didn't come of the hill as they were engaged and surrounded

The flamethrower-guy did really put up a fight, but was finally outnumbered and taken out.

The After Action Review

A game took about 30 minutes and 7 turns to complete. Therefore I had time to play several more games, and I think it wasn't before the 4th time I was able to eliminate the viruses. 

Alternatively you can add a couple of figures, but then you should consider to keep them less protected (no fasemasks or vaccine).

These rules are very simple and doesn't cover every aspects that may appear during a game. If any doubts just make your own decision of whats likely and I encourage you to make your own "House-rules". This was also the first game I was able to use my 3D-printed Dicetower (with 4 bafflers). As you can see it's not fully painted, so I'll guess I'll have to go back painting now...

So until next time; Stay safe guys!!