Basic Desert Buildings

I made these for my 20mm WWII games. I've posted the finished product on my other blog but I thought I'd post the construction of them on here.

They're made from 5mm cork sheet that I picked up at a model railway shop (although I did have a few scraps laying around from older projects. For these type of buildings cork has a nice texture.

I like this material because it's easy to work with. It's easy to cut and you can use just about any sort of glue with it. I used tacky PVA. You can sand it down to take away any rough edges and you can chip away little pieces to show the rough brickwork beneath. I did that with some walls that I made a while back (I'd add some pics but I can't find any).

As you can see the building is pretty basic. I used some off cuts to make the door frame and some of the windows have a bit of a pain. The wooden roof support things are just pieces of toothpicks that I cut in half and pushed into the cork. All very easy.

Oh yeah... The Roof! This is a piece of foam core. When it was all constructed I gave it a coat of PVA and sprinkled a touch of sand to give it some texture.

Thin pieces of cork are pretty flexible if they have little bit of length to them. You can see where I made the arched door frame using this flexiness. I just did it one piece at a time. I glued and pinned the fist piece and when it was cured firmly in place I added the second piece and pined it. I came out okay as far as I'm concerned.

 All painted with some cheap white acrylic with a very faint wash of sandiness on the roofs and floors.

P.S. The blue on the inside is from the blue marker that I used to mark out the windows and doors. 

I won't use that pen again.

Quiet but Still Busy

My apologies for those who read this blog. It seems like I've gone a bit quiet of late but that's only because I'm posting a lot more on my 20mm World at War blog.

If you are interested there's a lot of stuff posted there that I haven't posted here. I'm not sure how to cross-post so I'm sort of stuck just updating one blog and leaving the other behind. It's all WWII, so if you're interested in this era you might find things that interest you. If not... You'll probably have zero interest on what I've been doing.

Anyway here's some pics of recent posts, in case I can entice you to have a peek.

Pretty Little Flower Beds

Not much report here (more over at This 20mm World at War) but here's a little bit of terrain I made during the past couple of days. Some little flower beds.

These are just some mdf bases that I chambered the edges on. I added some gule and sand. gave it a bit of paint and then stuck on some of these little grassy tufts with stones and flowers (I bought them from Eureka on my last visit). The came up pretty nice.

The shed is a HO scale railway terrain kit. It looks the part, although I think it was supposed to be some sort of railway control building. Whatever... It looks like a shed to me.

And flower beds really do brighten up a brewed up tank.

My Paint Pallet

For a pallet I use a 120mm base. One of those sort of hollow bases with a lip that you're supposed to fill with basing materials (or you can put water effects in them). I've been using this thing for years and it was getting a bit full - Full to the point that it wasn't flat any more. More like a 120mm base with a hill inside it.

Anyway, last night I decided to clean it. This is the second time I've done this. The last time was about 5 or 6 years ago. So I cut out the obstruction.

This Hill of Paint is about 15mm thick and considering that many of the layers of paint are about the thickness of dried water that amounts up a lot of layers over the years. My guess is the colours visible in the photo below are thicker layers from when I applied the same colour in the same spot during single painting sessions. 

It's somewhat psychedelic, don't you think?

Yet Another Terrain Mat

Greetings reader,
I was on facebook yesterday and saw a nice looking grassy terrain mat and got into a bit of a conversation about it. I then decided to try my hand at making one. I had all the bits and pieces that I needed so I got started.

I used a 2 meter fleece blanket that I picked up from Target for $15. I set up a table in my garage and laid out the blanket and started painting it with various acrylics that I had in the garage. I started with patches of dark green and dark brown. I followed that with an overall covering of medium green and topped that with a lighter green and ocher. I then put on a top coat of a pale yellow (called "Mango" on the tub) to blend it all together.

It took a few hours to do. Each layer/coat took about an hour or so followed by drying time. I then left it hanging overnight to dry completely.

I think it came out okay. I used it today in a game and it looked pretty nice although I am considering giving it a bath in a tub of tea to dye the basic fabric. If I do that it will probably need a final layer of yellow to bring the vibrancy back. I'll see what happens.

All up it cost about $25 - It took up a fair amount of paint but I got several large bottles cheap at an art shop sale (50% off). Some of the paint I already had sitting on the shelf in the garage.

It may not be as good as a pro-gaming mat but to buy a decent mat in Australia will set you back about $120.00. So $25 and a bit of work is a good saving.

Hodges Gets a Gong

It was a cold rainy day at NWA in Croydon but Leith & I played a game of Chain of Command. The game was set up by Leith using his 28mm Pacific Australians and Japanese. I was given a choice of which side to play so I chose the Aussies because was familiar with the British platoon & I figured they wouldn't be much different ( was guessing the Japanese would be very different - and I was right).

So Leith set up the table with some very nice terrain and we rolled for a basic scenario: The Probe... We rolled to see who would be the patient an who the doctor... I mean attacker and defender. I was the defender.

Just to let you know, and for the sake of those without a sense of sarcasm - Any insults I

fling here and there are purely for dramatic and historical purposes. If I was playing the

Japanese I would write this AAR from their point of view and insult the Aussie's accordingly.

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The Patrol Phase:
As you expect, it was quick and simple. I pushed to my left where I thought the terrain was thicker and more beneficial. Leath pushed into the center and further to his left.

My jump off points are in blue  and the JOP on the right is actually on the table edge out of shot.

Support-wise: we rolled 4 points - so I got 2pts and chose 2 barbed wire entanglements. These I placed on my extreme right to drive the Japs in towards the center. The Japs took a grenade launcher/mortar section and an MMG section.

The Japanese Advance:
The Jap's came on. And they kept coming on... Three phases in a row. Fortunately, many 4's were rolled as well as a couple of 5's so the onslaught wasn't as overwhelming as it could have been, but most of them got onto the table before even one Aussie poked his head up.

But finally, my troops started to arrive. I rolled well and brought on two sections, one on the left and one on the right. Both took a tactical stance. The 2" mortar and the platoon sergeant came on in the center. He ordered the mortar to fire HE to no effect. The Jap's, in retaliation almost killed the lone Sgt but he survived with a minor wound and no effect on the Bad Things Happen table.

There's the missing JOP - Right there!

The Jap's started moving forward with their next phase but they were a little slow. However, a MMG moved into a good firing position that was due to give the section on my right a hard time. My last section deployed into the large tin building in the center and took up defensive positions. The blokes on the right moved into the crop area. 2 Section on the left, led by the almost famous Corporal Hodges, crept forward uncertainly.

Then the Jap's opened up. Machine guns, mortars,  rifle sections... everything they had. They killed several of my Aussies and my own shooting was pretty ineffectual. I was getting hits but not causing any damage. 

On the left 2 section under Corporal Hodges moved forward towards one of the huts near the center-left. The other two sections were getting hit hard by Tojo without doing much in return. The mortar tried laying a smoke screen but it was off target. They also fired their last HE which had zero effect.

It was about this time that I remembered that the scenario had a victory objective: Get one section off the enemy's table edge.

So, 2 Section moved to the left by squads (the rifles moved while the Bren team fired). A lucky shot by hit a Jap section leader and knocked him out. In the following phase this section couldn't shoot at Hodges and his men, which was a lucky break because a second attempt to lay smoke went awry again.

However, the other Jap's put on the pressure. The section leader on the right took a wound and my force morale took a hit. The Bren team in the big tin building routed and my force morale took another hit (I should have noted that my starting morale was only 8 compared to Leith's 9), so now my force moral was sitting on 6!

Desperate times. But Hodges was creeping through some thick jungle to the left (for a run move - I rolled 2, 2, and 1 on 3d6. With a -1 to each dice that was a total move of 2" and a point of shock on each team!).

My next command  roll seemed pretty crap with nothing that could get Cpl Hodges & 2 Section moving but... I had two 2's to make a 4  and my platoon commander wasn't yet deployed...

And he got 2 section moving. And that wayward smokescreen came into play and covered their movement...

Look at that Jap section at the top of the pic behind the smoke (they're the ones with a knocked out section leader). They let out a mighty cry and charged...

Through the smoke they came and Cpl Hodges had his men ready. The Aussies took two casualties but they wiped out the Japs to a man!

I rolled six 6's and two 5's.

The command dice for the following Aussie phase were, once again, bloody awful. But all those 4's did allow the Pl Commander to move up and use a command initiative to get 2 section moving again. And so they made it to the table edge and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

No doubt, the plucky Hodgy led his section into the rear of the Jap menace and rained terror on their ranks.

Conclusion:

It was a hard fought game and it looked certain that I was going to lose. My shooting was awful. My troops were hitting but failing to cause any real damage. At the same time Leith's shooting was slowly wiping me out.

And it is true that I remembered that the victory objective and that I had a section well placed to take advantage. I also realised that Leith got too involved with killing my troops and had lost sight of the objective. So that helped.

Having said that, it did come down to the wire. My other two sections were just hanging on by the skin of their teeth. My sergeant was wounded as was one section leader. One more Bad Things roll and the Aussie's were done for.

Thanks to Leith for a great game. Only my third of COC, but I'm getting the hang of the rules now.

Look What I Made.

Yes... I made this. And you're probably asking yourself: "What is that supposed to be?"

Well, good reader, it's my new terrain mat. A new Desert Terrain Mat! 
I made a desert mat a while back and while it's very nice it's not what I really want. I even made some terrain pieces only a few weeks back which are also quite nice. Unfortunately they match the old mat.

How I made it:

1.   I bought a 2 meter piece of a strange, sand coloured faux-suede material. It's very thin but very strong. It cost about $20.

2.   I bought a box of Ty-nee Tips Tea

3.   I laid the material on a table and then mixed up a big pot o' tea (about 2 liters). I strained the tea and kept the leaves separate and let it all cool down.

4.   I sploshed the tea all over the material with a soup ladle and then rubbed the tea leaves into it.

5.   I then gathered it up and laid in on some clothes drying racks out in the sun.

6.   I then threw instant coffee all over it and rubbed it in.

7.   I let it dry.

8.   I shook off all the tea leaves and excess coffee.

9.   And now I have a very portable desert mat for under $25 (material - $20, tea - $2.40 - awful crap coffee that's been in the kitchen for a year or more - $...?, sunlight - Free!). 

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It smells like a Greek coffee shop at the moment, but that will fade with time. I'm pondering whether to fix some minor vegetation to it (little clumpy tufts). I might just make up a mix of grit/kitty litter and little pieces of clump foliage to scatter where and when needed.

We'll see.