Legion 2012 Photos

Sunday past saw the fifth year of our local games show Legion and although small it’s both perfectly formed and growing every year. Originally it was just three or four tables squeezed into a tiny room. This year saw the second year at the old Pfizers social club down on the Sandwich Road, with around a dozen games and about half a dozen traders. Sadly it lacked Fenris Games because Ian isn’t very well so collectively we all proclaim “Get Well Soon!”.  I did take quite a few more photos than those here, but have only posted the least blurry.

Poster Boy

Every now and again you stumble across an image which is screaming out to be used in a gaming context, so imagine my hearty whooping when I tripped over the one above which, with the addition of a little text makes an excellent recruitment poster, either for WWI or the ever wonderful VBCW. To use simply save the image above and for 28mm use print it out at around 10% size for a suitably high resolution version to plaster your model building walls with, or even print them out larger and wallpaper your favourite room in the house with them.

Khartoum Time

If, like me, you’ve an interest in colonial wargaming you’ve likely visited Major General Tremorden Rederring’s Colonial-era wargaming page and come away with your jaw on the floor.  The site is packed with gems and even though it hasn’t been updated since 2006 it remains a treasure trove of all things colonial and has become one of the web’s primary influences on the colonial period gamer. Ironically there have been actual wars which have a smaller influence.

It certainly influenced me to build a small version of a walled city like Khartoum, although so long as you don’t add period sensitive props like satellite dishes or Coca-cola signs it’s geographically good from Casablanca to the North West frontier plus it’s suitable for periods from Ancient through Modern all the way to Futuristic. In 6mm it’s also a lot simpler than you might think, and with some consideration prior to building can be used in a modular way.

The key to the walls is to make them in sections, the towers should be seperate except on the gatehouse, as above, which will always have it’s own local towers. I’ve left enough room on to the sides of either staircase for a wall section to fit at right angles, should I want to create a smaller hill fort. The walkway on the wall is large enough to take Irregular Miniatures colonial figures which are cast with bases, and are what I use for this.

Here’s a tower, it’s made from four pieces of foamboard, four pieces of plastic rod, plasticard for the wooden roof and textured paint. Like the reall things there’s few windows but these are cut large so when a wall section is set against it they become doors. They can also be used separately for hill stations and the like.

The gatehouse, a wall section and a tower in a straight layout. The walls are simplicity themselves, quickly made from five pieces of foamboard finished with textured paint. Russian tank in Iraqi colours supplied by the boy slug.

The same tower laid out with two wall sections at right angles. I made eight wall sections in total all to the same dimensions, if I wanted fancier layouts I’d make some half the length. Although foamboard is light the textured paint adds weight to them so they’d freestanding, and I’ve yet to have one fall over.

Breaching the walls is typically one of your major aims when there’s a walled city in the game so I’ve made one breached section too.

Onto the buildings within the walls, starting with the bought. This is a Mainly Military mosque with the world’s most expensive palm trees from EMA. It’s a sweet model but as it comes with a tiled courtyard I do wish it came in two parts to make painting a little easier. EMA is a great supplier with a massive and highly useful range, however they’re not cheap.

Mainly Military dwellings in resin, simple but good castings. I like the broken shutter, someone will be along in a minute to blame it on the Yanks.

A quite posh residence from Mainly Military. This one has some pretty damage to the plastering so I painted white to enhance it. In studying North African architecture I did notice how only the buildings belonging to the richer citizens ever seem to be painted.

Two metal dwellings from Irregular Miniatures, the wood on the roof is painted on what is effectively a flat surface. Metal buildings used to be the gold standard for gaming but I’ve gone right off them as the flash left over from casting is troublesome and time-consuming to remove.

Onto the home made. This is the bazaar with each shop having it’s own unique wares. All the smaller buildings are plasticard, plastic rod and textured paint. The canopy was done with paper and white glue. See the one to the right? That’s my cousin’s and if you ever need a rug he’s the man to see, tell him I sent you.

A large dwelling with the added luxury of a canopy and a collection of fine rugs (from my cousin of course). Thought this might do as a Governors Residence or perhaps a local potentate.

Of course you don’t always have a Governor nor a potentate so I made the feature removable which makes it much more mundane to look at.

Various smaller single storey buildings which are nothing special aside from having been built with the idea of utility so…

…they can be arranged like this and become two storey buildings. This means I don’t need so many to have variety.

Here’s a couple of blurred photographs just to confirm the simplicity behind the walls and towers. Here’s the sandwich which forms the walls. I didn’t texture the ends so they might fit more tightly against the towers.

This is the inside of a tower, before texturing I slightly rounded the corners with a few scalpel cuts, you can see the plastic rods to which the plasticard roof is glued to. The extra patch of plasticard is were I’ve cut a gap for a trap door in the roof and then added the door itself. Very, very simple stuff to do.

At the end of the day everything in this post, and the extra wall sections all fit into these two cigar boxes, especially as I based my wall section length and tower height on the dimensions of them. The total cost of the scratchbuilt elements was around £30, with materials to spare, while the bought elements cost more. Why not build one yourself?