Tag: 6mm SYW

A Small Big Bridge

Although I made my riverbank terrain sections some time ago, and have bridges for 15mm and 28mmm, I have only just gotten around to making a bridge to get across it for 6mm games. I do have a couple of pontoon bridges, but nothing fixed and proper, as many a good scenario demands.

So, yesterday I did a quick bit of measuring and quickly started marking out and cutting some card. I was after a useful generic stone bridge that would serve for all my 6mm gaming from the mid-17th century up to the present day (should I ever dabble again with Moderns, or even WW2). I would normally have gone for something a bit narrower, but my recent SYW efforts in this scale have generated figure bases 24mm wide, so I decided the new bridge would have to be wide enough for these.

With about 90-100mm of river to span, I decided on a flat roadbed rather than anything fancy, largely due to my modelling limitations. A few arches would add some visual appeal and, although curves are never easy with a knife and card, it went OK. I could also mask the dodgy cutting with some arch stones made from thick paper.

I made the structure first and then added the road layer (a thin piece of card) after.

 

Everything was black undercoated first and the stone got a couple of shades of grey, plus some light weathering with a pale buff shade. I textured the road with sand and painted it to match my terrain.

The finished bridge:

I may return to this model later to add a removable customs house/arch at one end, which I think would be a nice touch.

Here it is being made use of, by Austria’s finest (not my usual river board but it’ll serve):

 

Now, back to those Heroics & Ros!

6mm Camps and Buildings

A tabletop battlefield can sometimes look better with a bit of relevant clutter on it (especially if kept conveniently out of the way of the action). To that end I’ve been working on some 6mm camp bases that I can use in a number of periods, from Renaissance to the 19th century.

I’m mixing some Baccus metal tents, including their nice command tents, with some simple scratchbuilt ones I made a while ago but am just in the process of re-painting.

Here’s the first batch, Baccus in the background, my own in front. Mine are a bit bigger, but I think they look OK together on the table. They’re just intended to give a sense of the big army camps anyway. To be honest, I think a Baccus miniature would have to remove his over-sized headgear, and possibly even his head, to actually fit inside the smaller tents! 😉

 

And here’s everything finished:

 

I have some ideas for how these camps may play a part in certain types of scenario. I’m thinking of things like the night (or even the morning) before some battles in history, like Blenheim for example, where the scouting out of the enemy’s camp formed part of the attacking general’s battle plan.

There may be some scope to have a the defending player set out his camp as a pre-game indication of his army’s dispositions, from which he will have to deploy on the day of battle. Having 2 styles of tent rows, in addition to the command tent bases, will allow for distinction between infantry and cavalry formations. One to try out sometime, perhaps with the SYW project when it hits the table.

I’ve also managed to paint (well, dry-brush really) a couple of Timecast buildings. Here are a rustic railway station and a generic wooden barn (I think it’s from their WW2 Russian range so I tried to cover the drain pipes with foliage to make it less period-specific!)

White Christmas

I’m not the only blogger to use this title this December – great minds think alike Phil O. 🙂

Naturally this isn’t a festive reference (as I haven’t finished work yet and am therefore not fully in the spirit), it’s about the next batch of SYW Austrians I’ve completed.

These are the first brigade of infantry, which includes a couple of battalions of grenadiers and 3 of musketeers. I do need to paint a brigadier, who’ll be along shortly.

 

I’m building the armies in brigade-sized batches, so that they grow in logical proportions and so that I can keep my interest up by switching between infantry and cavalry, Prussian and Austrian, and add the relevant commanders at the same time.

Next, though, will be some Austrian artillery and elite horse grenadiers for variety.

SYW 6mm: a Re-start

After a long while, this is a project I am finally returning to – with an actual plan this time.

I have a lot of figures (all H&R), quite a number of which are already painted. But.. everything needs a minimum of a re-base and most need painting or at least a bit of touching up. A big project then, and naturally other things will need to go onto the back burner to accommodate this change of direction.

I’ll be using a heavily revised variant of the Realtime Wargames FPW rules, ie. retaining the core 6″ grid to govern unit positioning and movement, and unit bases to denote combat effectiveness. This will allow me to play some big battles with simple mechanisms, but of course I’m adding in the period flavour with specific rules for the SYW (and WAS).

The armies will be Prussian and Austrian, with a few Reichsarmee or allied auxiliaries for the latter, and to add a bit of colour and variety. After lots of thinking, prevarication and discussion with a fellow gamer, I’ve finally decided on the unit sizes and basing, which frees me up to get started. I’ve had many of the figures for over 20 years, and some for over 30. It’ll be good to get them ready for action again – hopefully there’ll be enough done for a small game or two next year. My initial target is to have enough to refight Mollwitz, or at least a SYW version of it.

Here are some of the first sample units, testing out the basing and the general look. Lots more to come!

The first Austrian Cuirassier brigade, regiments Stampach and Kalkreuth:

 

The first infantry battalions for each side, from the Prinz Moritz and Kaiser regiments respectively:

 

I’ll need some rustic German buildings too, for the villages of Bohemia and Silesia, and have plans to scratchbuild some basic cottages to add to commercially available churches, etc.

A Few Extras Painted

I’m happily lacking any hobby deadlines at the moment, so have been dabbling with whatever takes my fancy (ie. whatever is already prep’d and undercoated).

The latest minor additions to several projects include:

Two units of skirmishers for my 15mm Punic Wars armies. Numidians (Corvus) at the back and blurry Carthaginians (Strategia e Tattica) at the front:

A unit of 6mm Grenzers for my Seven Years War Austrians, which I might finally make a proper start on soon. Heroics and Ros figures.

The first 3 Austrian battalions for my 6mm 1859 army, H&R again. Two of these units need flags, which I’ll be making from pin and foil – so I can scrunch them up and not have to paint perfect double-headed eagles, etc! I’ve tried the Baccus ones and, for me, they suffer from being printed – the symbols are a bit pixelated and they’re faded rather than full of colour.

Who knows what I’ll do next, more soon.