French & Indian War fort finished!

    My completed 25mm Acheson Creations French & Indian War fort

I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get this whole thing completed in time for next weekend's convention, but it painted up a lot quicker than I thought it would. The last pieces to do -- the two stockade towers -- were Dullcoated this morning. I ran into a small snag on them yesterday with the interior floor piece which separates the ground floor from the upper fighting level. The square piece fit in just fine beforehand, but after washing in the dishwasher, priming, painting, and clear coating, it must have grown. I ended up having to shave its edges down to get it to fit again, and then repaint those edges.

    The fort is about 2 feet square on the tabletop

Since it was a nice, sunny Sunday, I thought I'd set it up on my kitchen table and photograph the whole thing. I was curious what its dimensions would be. As it turns out, the fort is about 2 feet square. That is plenty big enough for the scenario I have envisioned for it in this weekend's game. I am actually missing 3 pieces that Acheson Creations did not ship, so it will be even marginally larger once those arrive and are painted up, as well.

    Close up of the fort gate and one of the corner artillery emplacements

Speaking of Acheson, I highly recommend their Basic Fort set, which is the nucleus of what you see in the pictures. I added in the two corner artillery emplacements, along with the two stockade towers finished this morning. In addition, I purchased 8 extra wall sections that I converted into "stairs up" sections, as detailed in earlier posts. The basic set comes with four corner sections for those who don't want a tower or artillery emplacement on the corners (or don't want to buy them!). They are not pictured in my set up, here.

    Close up of on of the corner artillery emplacements (um, with no artillery!) and a stockade tower in the background

I won't go into detail how I prepared and painted these, as I've done that in previous posts. Suffice to say, the excellent detail on these resin pieces makes it easy to base coat and dry brush them so that they look very nice.

    A squad of Rogers Rangers sallies forth from the fort's gate while regulars and militia watch the woods

Stay tuned to my blog for pictures and a report from next weekend's "Ohio Frontier Aflame" games at Advance the Colors 2014. If you like a good French & Indian War game, come on out to the convention in Springfield, OH. I will be running it Friday and Saturday at 7 pm, as well as an afternoon game at 2 pm Saturday. There will be 10 spaces per game, so I hope to accommodate most of those who want to play!

 

Silent Auction: The Reporters

I have had these figures done for a couple weeks, now. I'm not sure why I haven't gotten around to posting pictures of them, though. These four figures will be one of my silent auction raffle items I'm doing at Advance the Colors 2014. All the proceeds will go towards my middle school travel club. Although they are not immensely practical figures, they are meant to be nice "eye candy" for GMs to put on their tabletop. Of course, they could be used in skirmish style games as objectives, and so on, too.

    The "Producer" and the "Journalist" -- two 28mm miniatures for my Silent Auction at Advance the Colors 2014

First up, is the "Producer" and the "Journalist." The producer is a Bob Murch figure and one of my favorites of the batch. I like his style -- suit jacket draped over one arm, and gesturing with rolled up plans or script. He looks full of himself as he dramatically describes his grandiose vision to the Victorian-looking reporter. Honestly, I'm not sure where this figure comes from. It may be one from Old Glory's "Famous Newspapermen" pack. He is a much more simple figure without the fancy watch chain of the producer. He'll make a great extra figure hanging around a general on a battlefield, getting the scoop on the great man's thoughts.

    The "Battlefield Artist" hopefully will go to a good home in the Silent Auction

My next favorite is the "Battlefield Artist." This miniature has a decided 19th century look, in my opinion. I really his expression, and with jaunty mustache and rumpled but chic clothes, he looks the part of an artist. I think the watercolor I did on the canvas turned out fairly nice, too. He sits atop a barrel scavenged from somewhere and his palette in his left hand reflects the colors on the painting. Like the others, I think he'll make a nice addition to a tabletop as he quietly records the action on canvas.

    The "Photographer" -- a potentially useful figure for Skirmish scenarios

Finally, the photographer is probably the simplest of all the figures. The black cloth draped over his head and shoulders meant there wasn't as much detail to paint up. His blue suit jacket and gray pants are straight forward attire. I think he'd be a cool figure to use in Pulp or Skirmish games were the actions of the characters need to be "photographed" for victory points. Maybe a dinosaur hunt? Bonus scenario points for posing next to your kill?

Since I run 28mm Pulp games, these figures actually could be useful for me, so I hate to get rid of them. However, they've been sitting in my unpainted lead pile for quite some time, now. If I hadn't chosen them to paint up for my silent auction, they'd still be in that state -- unpainted! So, I don't mind seeing them go. I just hope that whoever has the winning bid is generous with his or her donation to my students' cause!

Board Games at my Place

With Allen and Mike S out for the evening, I offered to host board games at my place. I have a few more things to finish before I can run the climactic scenario of my Pulp games. So, board games were a good substitute since no one had a minis game ready.

First, we played Keith's newest version of Pandemic. It adds in a few new roles, including the Quarantine Specialist that Joel played and my Contingency Specialist. We cured three of the four diseases before the end of the game, but still ran out of the player deck before the fourth was cured. I honestly thought we did fairly well, but Pandemic is always tough. And the more players you have, the tougher it gets. Trying to win with five players is difficult.

Next, we did a blast (literally) from the past and played Nuclear War. Joel was the winner, and I was the big loser being the first taken out. Next was Keith, then Steve, then Ptom, leaving Joel the sole survivor. It was a brutal game, as expected, and was interesting flashback to our gaming days of yore!

The Rest of the Fort Walls Completed

    Some of my newly-painted wall sections set up with my 28mm French Infantry

My Acheson Creations 25mm French & Indian War fort continues to grow towards completion. Earlier this week, I finished off the last of the wall sections, along with the corner pieces and fort gate. All that is left to do are the two corner artillery emplacements and two stockade towers. Then I will have a massive-sized French & Indian War fort. Hopefully, all of this will be completed in time for my Ohio Frontier Aflame scenario at Advance the Colors 2014, Sept. 19-21.

These wall sections were extra that I ordered in addition to the Basic Fort set. At first, I was disappointed they were not identical to the ones in the set (my mistake for not checking the item codes). However, I ended up being happy about it because these were easily converted into "stairs up" sections. I described how I created them in the previous post, so I won't go into that again. I converted six of the eight that I ordered. In the photographs, you can see the two completed wall pieces side by side. You can also see how easy it is to make my based French & Indian War figures "climb" the stairs.

I'm really happy with how this fort is turning out, and think it will be quite the eye-catcher on the tabletop...!

    Close up of the "stairs up" conversions I made to the extra wall sections I ordered, along with a shot of the gate and corner sections