Adventures on the Wargames Table

I recently hosted friends Colin and Bill for a spot of ACW using the Sharp Practice rules. Here's a few pics of a very entertaining game as the Rebs ambush Union wagons. The Union camp. Rebel cavalry attempt to turn a flank! The Rebs moving up Plenty of musketry! Most of the figures and all of the scenery from my own collection. Wagons and tents by Colin.

Good chum Colin very kindly gifted me a prototype kit of one of his more recent pantile releases. Being a prototype there was no resin roof section so I made a simple extra storey from foam core and Wills pantile plasticard for the roof.  The door to the balcony is just balsa scribed with a pen to give a wooden planking effect. Some closed shutters give the impression of windows without the faff of cutting holes and fitting window frames, etc. Buildings like this add some extra height to the battlefield and provide ideal look out points. Thanks mate 🙂

The Charlie Foxtrot pantile kits are very versatile, so here I’ve done a very simple adaptation of the stable converted to make a larger store house or perhaps a small dwelling. As you can see, I’ve blocked off one of the stable doors and replaced the other two-part door with a single piece door from my spares box. A while back I asked Colin to cut some extra doors, shutters and window frames, etc as I knew they’d prove useful. The side door remains as is, but on the back I’ve added a pair of closed shutters. Painting is the same as for all of my pantile models, please see the “How to” tab above.

I’ve been intending to add one of these splendid kits to my collection for some time. Good mate Colin and I were watching the Sharpe series after a busy weekend of gaming when he said he fancied making a kit based on the chapel in the little town of Torrecastro where Sharpe and his men raise the gonfalon of Santiago. He began furiously sketching out plans and designs whilst I supplied tea and biscuits and, if I recall correctly, got on with some ironing! Anyway, here it is. My earlier efforts with a CFM church painted for a friend can can be found here , including the painting recipe. Only slight changes were giving the entire church a coat of textured masonry paint (for better texture) and swapping Foundry Boneyard light for Americana Bleached Sand. For extra interest I’ve added a little “shrine” using a small piece of resin from Hovels. I may add some clump foliage to represent a creeper growing up the stonework. One feature of the kit that Colin was keen to include was being able to...

I’ve had a collection of plastic palm trees for my North African tables for some time now and they looked fine, but after seeing some excellent jungle terrain pieces recently, I decided to try to pimp my palms a little. Here’s the first batch! I began by pulling the palm fronds off the trunks and temporarily sticking them on cocktail sticks (or kebab sticks for the larger trees). Prime them with a dark or mid green spray. I used AP Army Green, I think. Then I gave them a very heavy dry-brush of CdA Army Green, followed by a lighter dry-brush of a VMC green (833 whatever that is). I also dry-brushed a few of the lower fronds with a light brown. I primed the trunks with either a light brown or mid brown spray (AP Skeleton Bone and Leather Brown). The smoother ‘banded’ trunks were painted in a range of light browns whilst the more gnarly trunks were painted darker brown and washed with GW Agrax to bring out the texture, followed by a quick highlight of a light brown. This is a WIP pic of ...

A little more painting for my ACW forces. A pair of pack horses and a handler for the Union army. Two more casualty/shock markers for each side. Can’t have too many! Horses by Redoubt and men by Dixon. Thanks for looking!

We’re very excited here at the table about these new pantile kits! They’ll be perfect for our games of Sharp Practice in Spain and Portugal, and Chain of Command or Bolt Action in Crete, Sicily and Italy, plus Silver Cutlass in the West Indies. First up is Pantile Carthouse 2 . I plan to build mine as a small roadside or waterfront tavern. A few barrels and a simple sign (and perhaps a figure representing a lady of “negotiable virtue”) will complete the look nicely. Charlie Foxtrot have stock of the splendid Debris of War barrels so that’s that sorted. Next is Pantile House 5 . This will be ideal as a more up-market residence. I can picture Captain Horatio Longshaft RN keeping a careful eye on the harbour from the top balcony. More about him when Silver Cutlass weighs anchor! Here is Pantile House 7 . Another splendid residence. I particularly like the bricked up “folly” doorway. A couple of these, maybe leaving out a storey on one, will be ideal for giving a little town in Italy a mor...

I trimmed these articles from Wargames Illustrated back in May (ish) 2000 and over the years I’ve often been tempted to put Gary Chalk’s brilliant tutorial in to practice. A tidy up of storage facilities here at the table now gives me the opportunity to begin what I expect will be quite a lengthy project! The first step will be make some generic coastline tiles, to which end I’ve sketched some ideas for Colin at Charlie Foxtrot Models to work his magic upon. My technical drawing skills are limited so I hope he can make some sense of my scrawl 😂 A mixture of some resin pieces plus scratch building in balsa and coffee stirrers should give plenty of terrain to represent a little quayside or harbour. Having some sort of coastline, harbour, etc will add an interesting extra dimension to our games of Chain of Command, Sharp Practice, Bolt Action, etc. A bit of common sense should see us through any rule adaptations to bring ships in to our games. Indeed, I’m already drawing up some simple i...

I hope to be running some intro games for potential new recruits to Sharp Practice soon and I thought these would help avoid any confusion as to which card represents which leader. Designed and manufactured by top chum Colin of Charlie Foxtrot Models.   All of my Leaders are based on 2p coins, so the 4mm magnet will hold them quite firmly. After my usual basing recipe (Americana Honey Brown, VMC Tan Yellow, VMC Dark Sand and Foundry Boneyard light) I picked out the numbers in thinned black just to help make them clearer.

To complement the set I made for my Union forces (and as a rest from all the Mediterranean goings on) here are some casualty/shock markers for the Confederates. All metal Perry figures.

Sharp Practice, amongst other games, lends itself very well to having Non Player Characters to interact with, or perhaps for the GM to deploy.  So with a farm completed I thought it would be good to paint up some inhabitants.  Here are a gun-toting farming family and a few farm workers. These figures are a mix of Redoubt civilians and farm workers, Dixons ACW civilians, along with some Perry ACW/AWI militia and civilians.

More troops for the Confederacy!  Yes, the infantry now have some mounted support in the form of eight cavalry figures and a leader.  All Perry figures, the leader is metal whilst the troopers are from the excellent plastic boxed set. The painting recipe is basically the same palette as used for my infantry (see links in the Painting tab, above) with Foundry Bay Brown and Chestnut used for the horses.  Socks and other markings were done using Foundry Boneyard. Given the increasing role of cavalry as mounted infantry during this period I felt it was essential that in addition to the cavalry I also have some dismounted chaps.  But then I’ll have to get some horse holders too!  Given that these are primarily for use with Sharp Practice, the eight mounted figures become six on foot plus horse holders. All Perry metal figures. Thanks for looking!

Painting and gaming has been a bit thin on the ground recently, due in the main to illness.  However, I'm on the mend now thank goodness, so I recently decided to do a little photo session with my Napoleonic terrain and figures.  These are mainly aimed at playing Sharp Practice in the Peninsular War, although the buildings will also see service in WW2 for Crete and Italy using both Bolt Action and Chain of Command.  I was looking to create a new banner for the blog and photoshop-whizz Colin was kind enough to do a little bit of magic to replace the 'bookcase & armchair background' with some sky. The majority of the buildings are from the superb Charlie Foxtrot Models pantile range, with extras from Grand Manner and some scratch-builds too.  Scatter terrain and animals are from Hovels, Redoubt, Warbases, Warlord, Debris of War, etc.  My good friend George has picked up some Last Valley horsehair style trees for me which I think will suit the terrain very wel...