Southeast Asian Temple, Part 5 - The Surface

    One of the small temples assembled

Everything was going together well on the temples, so far. The next stage could be tricky, though. I wanted to coat the surface to make it look more like stone than flat cardboard or wood. So, I decided that first I would spray paint it flat black. Then, after dry, I would paint the surface with white glue. While wet, I would pour sand over the surface to give it a rough, stone-like texture.

    The other, nearly identical small temple assembled - note the beads and wooden bits for details

I was worried that it might look globby (technical term), so I started out with the stupa first. I really like how the sand made the beads that I'd glued on as decorations look like actual stone carvings projecting out from the surface. The hollow oval beads were mostly filled in by the glue and sand and looked like they were carved. It did kind of dull the difference between the two different size and types of beads, though. They look more uniform, now. However, that's not necessarily a bad thing, I guess.

    The Stupa and one of the temples coated with white glue and sand

I am afraid, though, that the sand has obscured the embossed detail on the cardboard box. You can still see a little of it, but I'm not sure if with another coat of black spray paint won't blot it out completely. That said, there is a chance that once I dry brush the stone surface, the raised detail will show up again. To be on the safe side, I did not coat the decorated wall surface of either of the small rectangular temples. I simply coated the roofs, doorways, and upper wall surface of one of the temples. Right now, they look nice, I think.

    The other temple with the area around the doorway, the roof, and the upper portions of the columns coated in white glue and sand

The next stage will be to spray paint them again in flat black. One that is dry, I will go over the entire surface with watered down acrylic black paint. I'm sure the sandpaper surface will be rough on the brushes, but I need to have the black thoroughly coated before I dry brush it. I will dry brush the temples and stupa in two shades of gray.

I was happy with how they looked when they were all assembled, but I have a feeling they'll really pop out when they are painted.

Southest Asian Temple, Part 4 - Construction done, ready for paint

    The round stupa with all construction done - note the beads, paper mache box, and wooden bits

The addiction continues. I should be grading an assignment my students turned in on Thursday, but I'm putting the last bits of construction together. The temples continue to come together wonderfully, though I think I've hit my first snag. The roofs are going to have a hard time fitting once the corner columns are in. I'm thinking I'll have to snip a bit of the roof off at the corners, but we'll see.

    The "secret compartment" for Pulp Explorers to find (held on by friction of the box and foam board)

Anyway, both temples and the stupa are pretty much done with their construction. The stupa is the simplest, though gluing on the decoration took the longest. I even went to Michael's craft store last night to pick up some decorative, flower-like beads to glue around one of the upper levels. A southeast Asian stupa is generally solid -- there are no inner rooms or sanctuaries. They are supposed to contain a Buddhist relic inside. However, since these will be used for Pulp games, I've made mine with a secret compartment. Some Indiana Jones on the tabletop will likely find the vial of the Lost Tears of Buddha hidden within -- or something like that! The construction was straight forward. I glued the top finial to the top of the upside down round box. Then I cut out a circle of foam core that the box will j-u-s-t go around, providing a tight fit, and glued the foam core to the circular plywood base I bought at Hobby Lobby. The most time consuming part was gluing on the beads and decorations on the outside.

    The first small temple with its roof next to it. The spindles atop the columns m-a-y cause problems...

The temples went together nicely, as well. As you can see from the picture, I got the idea to cut out and glue onto the door a black mesh knitting screen. Hopefully, when painted up, this will make the door look like it has recessed panels. The last stage was to glue the four columns to each corner of the building. I had to saw away at some of the decorative moulding to provide a tight fit for one of the temples. And here is where I think I'll have fitting problems. The spindles glued atop the columns probably flare out too much and will bump against the roof. If this happens, like I said, I plan on snipping off the corner of each of the roof's four corners. That should allow it to fit. We'll see...I'm waiting for the tacky glue to dry before I try to fit them on.

    Detail of the first small temple. I like the way the decorative moulding compliments the embossed design on the cardboard box

These actually are looking much better than I had hoped. I can't wait to start the next phase, painting and texturing. I am thinking I'm going to go with a black/gray/white look to the stone. I have been to a number of Southeast Asian temple complexes in three different countries. The red sandstone ones seem to be peculiar to Angkor Wat. Both Bagan in Myanmar and Ayyuthaya in Thailand are a stone covering over brick. Maybe for my next one I'll show some exposed brick. I wanted to keep theses simple, though, for my first attempt. I have plans for the interiors, but we'll wait until I get to that stage to talk about them.

    The second small temple. No molding, but instead a row of "furniture buttons" along the top edge

Feel free to leave a comment, if you like. I hope to start the painting process early this week.

    Close up of the second temple. I really like how the black plastic screen gives the door a more decorative look.

Southeast Asian Temple, Part 3 - Doors & Roofs

   Wooden pegs, beads, square dowels and plastic for the temple doors

I'd forgotten how addictive working on scratch-built terrain can be. I've been working on and off on these for about two hours. As they progress, I keep thinking how cool they are looking, which makes me want to do the next stage, and next stage, and so on! Kind of like a computer game that keeps pulling you in to do one more turn...! Anyway, today's step was to scratch-build the doors and roofs for the two small temples. Meanwhile, I keep gluing on the decoration for the round stupa. 

The doors were fairly easy to build. I started with a very thin piece of styrene plastic. I cut it out into the size and rectangular shape I wanted the door plus columns and lintel to be. I figured it would make it easier to attach to the embossed cardstock surface if I glue it on as one unit. For the columns, I used ridged wooden pegs which look in this scale exactly like fluted columns. I've used them before on scratch-built ruined Greek temples and such. I trimmed the tapered ends off and cut them to size with my hobby saw. The lintel was a simple square dowel cut to size so it rests on the columns. I glued it all together with tacky glue, and then decorated the lintel with tiny beads. The doorway itself looks kind of plain, now. So, I may add some decoration to it, too. Southeast Asian temples were highly detailed and decorated.

    The roofs for the small temples - styrene, craft wood peices, and beads!

The roofs were also very easy to create. In Part 2, I talked about the finial which is the centerpiece of the roof. The roof itself is made from successively smaller black styrene plastic squares glued atop of each other. The finial is glued to the smallest, center one. I then decorated the roof with different sizes of beads. I thought about placing something inside the beads, sticking up out of them, but decided not to. I may still add that later. The last touch will be to glue a square of foam core to the bottom of the roof to fit inside the temple walls and hold it in place.

I am liking how they are looking (as I mentioned before), so far. They are moving along fairly fast, too!The next step will be to attach the temples to their base and glue down the columns to the corners.

Southeast Asian Temple, Part 2 - Assembly

    Craft wood pieces from Hobby Lobby or Michaels make up a lot of the materials for my temples

So, having purchased most of what I need for these first three temples, I began assembling them that same night. The first step was to take the dowel and slice it into columns. I used my craft saw and did my best to cut it straight and level, though I'm sure it wasn't always successful. Each column was 2 inches tall. It was then capped by a wooden wooden spindle. The spindles needed the bottom peg portion sliced off, and then needed in turn capped by a small "furniture button."

I used tacky glue to assemble the pieces, one step at a time. The button went on the spindle first, then those two were glued atop the columns. I used blue tack to temporarily hold the columns in place, first. The larger finials, which would be the central roof stupa, were glued to wooden disks.

    Wooden knob pieces glued onto the paper mache boxes help create some of the decoration

Next, I began decorating the rectangular temples. I used the small furniture buttons to create a ring of projections along the top edge of one of the rectangular temples. There is a bare, unembossed portion of the cardboard box which the lid would normally cover. Although it was simple and easy to blue tack them to the box, it should give it a more intricate and exotic look. For the second rectangular temple, I went back to Hobby Lobby and bought a package of 18 "Artistic Mouldings" made of bass wood (I believe). I chose one of the narrower ones and cut it into 4 pieces that I could glue along the bare portion of the box. I will eventually have to shave the corners down, though, to make the columns fit snugly.

    Wooden trim pieces also make for great decorations

I also began decorating the round stupa. I decided to go with alternating furniture button and wheely-gear-like beads I have leftover from another purchase. While at Hobby Lobby, I picked up a round plywood base for the stupa to go on, too.

    Various beads and wooden pieces are inexpensive and can be combined to create realistic decorations

These purchases added $5.36 to the supply costs. However, I am using only one of 18 mouldings, so I should realistically divided that cost out among several projects! Total so far, $19.67.

Stay tuned...more to come!

Southeast Asian Temple, Part 1 - The materials

    The main frame of the temples come from inexpensive paper mache boxes from craft stores

 

So, the only thing keeping my 28mm Pulp project from seeing the table is...well, a table! More specifically, I need terrain for various European archeologists and Indiana Jones wannabees to explore. Sure, I could put them on a regular gaming table of woods, hills, ordinary buildings and such. But considering how much time I spent painting the figs, I may as well wait until I have a suitable canvas to roll them out onto!

I have American, German, British, and French archeological teams all set to explore the hidden temples of Southeast Asia. So, what will the first terrain pieces I'll build for this project? Well, temples, of course! So, the picture below is one I took in 2003 when I visited Myanmar and the temples at Bagan. This is the look I'm trying to recreate. These Buddhist/Hindu temples should look exotic on the tabletop. I can put them on the plains of Bagan or in the jungles, like Cambodia's famous Angkor Wat, and they shouldn't look out of place.
 

Since Pagan has about 3,000 temples in an area the size of the county I live in, I will need a number of them to make the tabletop look right. So, that means one thing: scratch-building. I stopped by Hobby Lobby, a discount craft store here in the U.S., on the way home from work. I cruised the aisles looking for ideas on how to make a few smaller temples to start off with.

I found the boxes below for a little over $1 each. They are made of very stiff cardboard that I think should hold up to paint and the wear and tear of the tabletop well. The thing that attracted me to them was the design embossed on the surface. It could represent bas relief carvings on the temples and make decorating most of their surface as simple as a good dry brush to bring out the design. I intend to add a decorative molding or something along the top, too. The roofs will be separate to make gaming with them on the table easier. I'll construct those out of styrene or bass wood -- I haven't decided which, yet.

    Another source of materials is the variously-shaped packages of birch wood pieces from craft stores

I intend to add columns at each of the four corners, and a bell-shaped stupa tower to the roof. I perused Hobby Lobby's selection of craft wood pieces. I decided to go with a thick dowel for the column's length, and top it with a couple pieces to represent the decorate bell-shaped capitals. I snagged packages of wooden spindles, finials and "furniture buttons." These should all fit together well enough (I hope) to give the feel of Bagan's temples. I'm not modeling after any one building, but rather just going for the general look. 

I was disappointed I couldn't any decorative bass or balsa wood trim pieces at Hobby Lobby, Jo Ann Fabrics, or the local Hobbyland. I know I've seen them carried in those stores before. I wanted to line the top edge of the temple with one to represent the fancy stone carving on the temples. I haven't given up, though. I have another idea or two how to recreate it without too much time, effort, expense. Speaking of expense, so far I have spent $14.31 in materials for what will be two small rectangular temples and one round stupa. Stay tuned for more updates on this project!

Board games at Allen's

So, it is not miniatures, but four of us got together on our usual Sunday gaming evening for some board games. Our group readily substitutes in a board game evening when no one has anything prepared miniatures-wise for our entertainment. We hadn't been to Allen's for gaming in awhile, so it was nice to show up and relax there. It used to be our "go-to" spot when his children were younger and his wife worked evenings.

We began the evening with a game of Pandemic. I've always loved this cooperative game, and to this day, can still count on one hand the number of times we've won. We still play the "introductory level" version (read = easiest), and still don't win all that often. This time was one of the exceptions, and we b-a-r-e-l-y squeaked out a victory. If it had taken one player's turn longer, we would not have cured the last disease in time. I played the "Scientist" role, and oddly enough, cured no diseases. I kept drawing event cards or a variety and others were better at doubling or tripling up. So, I fed them the cards and they cured the diseases. It worked out, and we won...though I think Joel will insist we step it up to the next difficulty level when we break out this game again...!

In honor of the nostalgic location for our game, we broke out the venerable, old Empire Builder train game as a follow up. Mike S had never played it before, and was interested in giving it a whirl. Joel advised we play the "fast" version, but Allen was having none of that. It had been so long since we'd played it, we'd forgotten how long of a game it actually was. Needless to say, 11:30 pm rolled around and nobody had attained the $250 million victory conditions. We counted up our profits, and they declared me the winner since I had the most by a fairly comfortable margin. My routes between the southeast (New Orleans/Atlanta/Savannah) and the Canadian border were lucrative and seemed to come up often enough to cash in. Throw in my lines to the New York area and I always seemed to have two decent train loads on board.

I really want to get back in the groove of running some miniatures games, myself. The last couple years I've been a slacker and not staged much for the guys. I'm painting a decent amount, and building a lot of terrain, but I don't seem to be running much for the Sunday night guys. Hopefully, the reduced workload at school will allow me to do that soon. Stay tuned, and we'll see...!

Ambush the Caravan!

    

So, in honor of getting his basement gaming area cleaned up again and ready to host, my friend Keith ran an impromptu fantasy miniatures battle scenario this past Sunday. The rules were Song of Blades and Heroes -- one of our favorites. They provide for a quick game. The flow is unpredictable and player decisions have a big impact on the course of the battle.

Keith's scenario has a supply column of dwarves escorting a dissembled artillery piece needed to reduce an orc fortress passing through a narrow valley. For warbands composed of goblins, orcs, and uruk-hai have combined to block its progress. Allen, Mike S and myself were the Orcs, while Keith, Joel, and Steve V were the dwarves. We set up to hit the dwarves from all four sides, but ran into some snags along the way.

Our first problem was that both of the forces on the opposite side of the road from where my uruk-hai set up suffered horrible activation rolls and ended up stalled. Allen's "Hee-Hee" goblins received their nickname from the giggles that their leader received from the pack when he ordered them to advance. The mass of them hung back, only to expose their leader to dwarven crossbows. Mike S's Orcs gave my uruk-hai a head fake, leading the charge on the front of the caravan, only to hang back and lob long-range arrows at the dwarves.

 

My force and Allen's other Orc warband crashed into the dwarves and had some initial success. However, as no second wave hit, the dwarves shifted troop reinforcements over and outmanned us at the point of attack. Allen's Orcs were running back across the hill and my uruk-hai were edging backwards when we finally called it.

Thanks for running the game, Keith...it was fun to return to the basement abode...!

28mm Dark Ages mounted warriors finally finished!

So this unhappy few, this mounted half dozen, have been sitting partially-painted on my desk for a month, now. I was pretty far along with them when I made the decision to do my French & Indian War clifftops that you see in the previous post (Ohio Frontier Aflame at Advance the Colors 2013). The cliffs so consumed my time that these guys ended up just sitting on my desk.

 

However, with ATC 2013 and a successful series of games run there concluded, I was ready to finish them off. I picked up most of these figures from a flea market vendor selling 28mm Foundry incredibly cheap. They were meant to be able to be used as generic mounted warriors for my Dark Age Britain skirmishes. So, I wanted them to be equally usable for mounted Vikings, Britons, Picts, Saxons -- you name it. Two of the figures were not Foundry, and are Alternative Armies figures I've had sitting in my box for years. I knew one day I'd progress beyond just foot figures in my games to include mounted ones. 

 

The real reason they made it to the forefront is I plan to run a skirmish campaign for my Sunday night gaming group. They have all chosen one of six factions -- Saxon, Briton, Pict, Dal Riatan Scot, Danish Viking and Norse Viking. Each faction has a "special ability," and the Briton one is to be able to substitute a percentage of their force as mounted. Thus, no games could be run until I have the mounted figures ready for it...! 

 

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with how these guys turned out. Some I like better than others, of course. All of the shields and the one banner are hand painted (as you can probably tell..!). I particularly like how the horses turned out. I have a page I downloaded from the internet long ago which illustrates different breeds of horses. I decided that since these are in 28mm, I need to do more than paint a generic brown horse, gray one, etc. I think it makes the horses' coloring look much more realistic.

 

Next up are seven 28mm provincial troops for my French & Indian War games. I was inspired by how well my games went at ATC 2013 last weekend. My new format for running big scenarios worked like a dream. The only drawback was that meant I am using up pretty much all my miniatures in an 8 player game. If I have any dreams of increasing the number of players, that means I need more figures. I know, I know. What a horrible dilemma for a miniature wargamer...! So, I dug through my unpainted stuff and cleaned and primed a batch up. I expect I will also be putting in another order with Conquest Miniatures -- who makes the Indians I use. I love their figures to death. They are reasonably priced, gorgeously done, and have very active poses.

 

Also in the planning stages are buildings for my 28mm Pulp games. I want to set my scenarios in southeast Asia, with Indiana Jones wannabees digging through ruins like those at Bagan, Angkor, Borobudur, etc. 

 

Ohio Frontier Aflame at Advance the Colors 2013

A number of years back, I decided it was time to upgrade my presentation of my miniatures games. Well-painted figures are only half the battle, so to speak. To give it the full visual appeal, you need nice terrain, too. I've felt pretty good about my progress from felt to flock to scratch-built terrain pieces. Over the last several years, I regular receive a "thumbs up" from players and bystanders for how my games look. I had never been a "showpiece" game, though. The flagship convention of our historical miniatures group, HMGS Great Lakes, recently provided me with that opportunity. Our convention is held each September at the Heritage Center of Clark County in Springfield, OH. The center is a museum that has a few ballrooms that give us enough space for our games. Each year, the events coordinator selects one game that will make good "eye candy" to place in the lobby, as visitors to the museum come in and out throughout our show. This year, when a' three-day recreation of the Battle of Gettysburg was scratched, I offered to create a sprawling French & Indian War game. A big part of that war was fought in or around our state of Ohio, saw we thought it would be an appropriate showcase for visitors to see our hobby.

The rules that I use are in the final stages of publication. They are a variant of the Ganesha Games "Song of Drums & Shakos" adapted for this period. One problem with the rules set, though, is that the more players a game has, the slower it can move. I typically could take only six players per game, and even with that few, sweated out the down time if players moved or deliberated on their actions slowly. After my last convention game (a Viking raid using a similar rules set from Ganesha), I pondered a way to incorporate more players and yet speed up the game. I finally hit upon an idea. Why not line up four or more linked 1-on-1 matchups to create one game tied together by scenario? In other words, there is one board broken up (in this case by rivers) into 4 quadrants. Players can send reinforcements to neighboring allies, if they desire. Additionally, each side of four players would allocate their troops to the quadrants as they saw fit. Finally, the scenario victory points each player earns from their skirmish are totaled up for the side to determine a winner. What would make this game go much faster than my 6-player scenarios would be that each quadrant would do their turns completely independently of the other. Once your opponent's turn is done, you take yours. Back and forth, with you being constantly involved via the opposed die rolls the system uses.

So, my idea was to recreate four typical types of skirmishes that occurred during the French & Indian War. The sides were divided into a "French allied" side, and a "British allied" one. They included a settler family rushing to an English fort as Indians are on the warpath in the woods around them, a French supply wagon being ambushed by Mohawk Indians, the aftermath of a raid by French courier de bois on a Seneca village, and a clifftop battle between Hurons escorting captives from the raided village being intercepted by Seneca warriors. The last skirmish was inspired by the climactic scene of the movie "The Last of the Mohicans." It also involved me scratch-building the cliffs, which took about 3 weeks of steady work. I was incredibly happy with how the cliffs turned out. They received compliments all convention long, as did my "showpiece" game itself. In fact, the game itself was a hit as well. It filled up all three runnings. All the players said they enjoyed the format and didn't feel the division by quadrant felt artificial or restricting. Those who had played my games previously felt it was a better game done this way. Of course, this means I can keep expanding, if I wish. I can just as easily make this even larger to accommodate 10, 12, or even more players. The one hitch is I had nearly every figure I own on the tabletop, and I'd have to paint (and perhaps even buy...?) more. Darn! A justification to expand my collection...oh horrors! The (not) worst thing a gamer ever hates to encounter...!!!

Here are some pictures and explanation of the game and scenario, "Ohio Frontier Aflame!"

The Interrupted Raid

    An aerial view of the cliffs and Seneca village, along with the woods that covered most of the 12 foot long board

    French Courier de Bois linger too long after raiding a Seneca village

 

    In the woods outside the village, the Seneca hunting party shows up, alerted that their village has been raided and eager for revenge!

Clifftop Rescue

Huron Indians have raided and taken captives from a Seneca village. The captives will be valuable adoptees into the tribe. The Seneca have used secret paths to race to the rescue of their people. The two forces meet on a ridge and battle for the captives..

    Huron raiders take a short cut across the shale cliffs, leading their captives towards their villages to be adopted into the tribe

    Behind the Huron, Seneca braves pursue the Huron kidnappers onto the cliffs...

Another party of Seneca take secret paths to cut off the Huron as they descend the cliffs

 

"Merde! Ambush...!"

French regular and provincial soldiers are escorting a wagon load of supplies to one of their forts. A scout returns breathless, having spotted a Mohawk ambush ahead. Orders ring out in French and eyes nervously scan the trees. Meanwhile, dark forms move through the woods towards the wagon train...
 

An out-of-breath Canadian scout hurries to the French supply wagon, shouting news of a Mohawk ambush he'd spotted

 

"Hurry! To the Fort...!"

Indians are on the warpath and a family of English settlers is desperately fleeing to the local fort with their belongings. They have to run a gauntlet of Fox Indians who have drawn a noose around the fort. The English can spare only so many men to rescue the family -- the walls must stay manned!

    A party of English settlers hurry towards the safety of a fort, hearing the noise of Indians on the warpath in the woods around them

    The gates of the fort open and a file of English soldiers march out to meet and escort in the anxious family

A special thanks to Steve Verdoliva, who provided me with two 6'x4' game mats to string together for my scenario. More than half of the trees I used were also borrowed from him, as well as the river sections that divided the table into quadrants. Keith Finn provided me with the English blockhouse, palisade walls, and log cabin. I intend on purchasing my own French & Indian War stockade soon. So, next time I will have one of my own to put onto the table. Without the help of these two friends from my regular Sunday night gaming group, there is no way I could have staged the game.

    Convention Math: A 12' long table plus 8 gamers having fun = one happy GM!

The three runnings of the game all turned out differently. Friday night's game was an overwhelming French allied victory, while Saturday afternoon saw the British win huge. The rubber match on Saturday evening (which I actually got to play in due to someone who had signed up being a "no-show"), was much closer. Despite the British allies getting handily defeated in the "Interrupted Raid" and "Clifftop Rescue," the Mohawk player racked up so many points in the supply wagon ambush it was a close game. All of the players said they had fun. Many  were eager to purchase the rules, and urged me to let them know when they were available. The best thing of all was that the format was a success. Now I can apply it to other games using the Ganesha Games "Song of Blades" engine.

My first foray as a "showpiece" was a satisfying one. I look forward to building on this to stage ever bigger and grander games...!

Starting Fresh!

So, I've valiantly resisted a blog and held onto designing my own website for more than a decade. However, like Alexander the Great in India, it is finally time to admit defeat. The Sea Monkey web composer I've been using on my Lead Legionaries website has gone wonky, and it becoming more and more work. I have posts disappearing, titles resizing themselves, and other pranks being played upon me by the internet gremlins. It is time to retire my trusty old Bukephalos and use a new, sleeker internet steed. Hopefully, this website will be that conveyance.

Welcome aboard, and if you get time, be sure to visit my old website at: http://home.earthlink.net/~mikedemanagames/index.html