Lesson's Learned - Terrain Building

In attempting to spackle the 15mm buildings, in the future, I will not mount the buildings to their base first. Getting the spackle where it needs to go around the base is a real pain. I am having great difficulty with the roof line and around the windows. So far, two and a half sides done on one of the two buildings on the base.

Progress on La Hacienda Bonita & new miniatures.

OK, I gave the Spanish farm a name. I have started the process of spackling the evil thing. 15mm is small when it comes to trying to spackle the wooden model. I did not have this much trouble with the stand along model that I did for an East Front building. That same building mounted with walls and base is just a pain to work on. I have completed 2 sides of the two story building. I am leaning heavily on Rich's tutorial that he has posted on the TFL blog and on the Charlie Foxtrot instructions. They are both great. Not sure how exposed brickwork will work in 15mm.

The plastering portion of this exercise is not pretty. So no pictures on that. But I did receive my eBay purchases yesterday. I was really worried when I got the box.

As you can see, the postman must have sat on the box. But the miniatures inside were well packaged. I only had one issue. The mounted General came off his horse and the horse suffered some paint chipping. Fortunately, I did not buy that bunch for the mounted officer. I just wanted the infantry from that pack.

I now have two good groups of voltigeurs for my Napoleonics. Some need to have their pants repainted.

Here is the second batch from the same box that were unscathed.

I am not to sure about the officer in the second picture. Why is wearing a different hat than the others? I know the Brit officers had that kind of hat. I wonder if they used a different hats. The officers from AB all wore the same hats at their troops. Anyway, very excited to get these in. I should be able to get them based in short order. I will now have a full company of Chasseurs, a group and a half of Carabiniers (Plus an officer, an NCO and two drummers) and two groups of Voltigeurs. Not too bad. I also have cavalry and artillery support for the French. Once I have some terrain, I am ready for a campaign.

Work In Progress

I started making a country estate for a Napoleonic Peninsular Campaign. I really had no idea of what I was doing but I had some buildings to work with. I have the Impudent Mortal starter village. I grabbed two of the buildings and some old motherboard material and started work.

You can see my start here. I used some foam board for the walls to finish off the compound. I also used it to create a portico on the two story building. Eventually that will get a tile roof over it.

Today I worked a little more on it and added some lintels to the windows and started to frame out the doors that you will be able to see. I also added a small horse shed to the corner. Then I did the tedious task of making coping stones for the tops of the walls. I was greatly inspired by the TooFatLardies blog with the Amazing work Rich is doing in 28mm. I am not going to round corners in mine as the stones are so small as it is.

Next steps are to plaster the whole thing and put some sand on the bases. Lets see if I can get away with this tonight.

2017 Resolutions and Plans.... Lets see how long these last.

I started to go through my projects to figure out what I wanted to spend time on. I decided to narrow my focus to two rule sets and three periods. The rules will be Chain of Command and Sharp Practice. The periods will be Early War WWII East Front, Napoleonics Peninsular Campaign and AWI Southern Theater. This means I need to sort out what is needed for each. That is where this comes in.

I am experimenting with tables so this may not work out as I think It will.

Early War WWII Eastern Front

Miniatures: I have base forces for the Russians, the Germans and the Italians. Where I am missing items is in the support lists.

Germans: I still need to finish out my Engineer groups. Once those are done, my forces will be complete.

Italians: Same as the Germans, I am lacking Engineers. I have my engineers primed and ready to paint.

Russians: I have about half of the engineers that I need. I just recently bought a pack to flesh out the others that I need.

So I need to invest about 2 hours of painting to complete out my miniatures for the Eastern Front. Not too bad.

Terrain: This is the tough one. I do have quite a bit of terrain in various states. But they need to be sorted out.

Have/Want	Rivers	Roads	Trees	Hills	Rural Buildings	Town Buildings	Urban Buildings
HAVE	I have invested in JR Miniatures Rivers. 6mm Rivers - Several straight sections and a fork. 15mm I have about six feet of river sections. 28mm I have a couple of pieces including a fork.	Dirt Roads - I have about six feet of dirt roads including a crossroad. Cobblestone Roads - I have three different sets of cobblestone roads. One that is a hard resin that looks great. I have the battlefront set which looks too big for 15mm miniatures. And I have a cloth set that is actually pretty nice.	Trees - You can never have enough.	I am using a ground cloth for terrain and I will just put stuff under the cloth to make hills.	I have about seven thatched roof cottages and barns to use.	I have a small train station with coaling bins and a warehouse. I also have two buildings to use in my town areas.	Painted, I have very slim pickings. I have a lovely warehouse from Foundations of War, two matt board buildings from GameCraft Miniatures and about five JR miniatures urban ruins.
WANT	I would like to add a few more straight pieces of 6mm river as well as a ford.	I have several more feet of dirt roads that need to be finished. I need to settle on a single style of cobblestone road and expand it.	I have bought a bunch of chinese trees from Aliexpress and am awaiting their delivery.	Nothing needed.	Ordered a Iron Clad miniatures windmill.	I ordered a second Impudent Mortal Village. I need to make more EF Town building with it. I have only finished one from the first set.	I have three more matt board buildings from Gamecraft to finish. I also have the Impudent Mortal ruin kit which needs to be done.

AWI Southern Theater

Miniatures: I have the base forces that I want ready and painted up for both the crown and rebel forces. What I am missing are a few troops to round out each of the forces.

I would like a couple of groups of Lee's legion cavalry and infantry.That and I need to paint up at least two more groups of Continental Infantry.

For the Crown, I need to paint a commander for my British Legion Cavalry and paint my British Legion Infantry.

In all, I have probably three or four hours of painting to get this done.

Terrain: I actually have most of the terrain that I need. I definitely need to finish painting what I have. I have enough houses and out buildings. Only a fraction of which are painted. I could use a larger plantation house but that can wait. And you can never have enough trees.

Peninsular Campaign

Miniatures: Here I have fallen victim to my earlier megalomaniac impulses. For the British, I wanted to do an entire battalion in 15mm. So i have a complete Light company. But I have no regulars. I have bought some online to correct that. They just need basing. The British lack any Cavalry or artillery. That is something that I want to correct this year.

The French are in no better shape. I also wanted a Legere Battalion. So I have a full company of Chasseurs with no Voltigeurs. I have a single group of Carabiniers at this point. I have purchased some painted figures off of ebay to sort this out. The French have a large cavalry (guard Chasseurs) contingent and a cannon with crew. So once my ebay purchases arrive, I should be set.

Terrain: I have no buildings at all for the peninsular campaign. One of the things that I plan of doing is using the Impudent Mortal town set to make a few buildings for this. This will test my modeling abilities.

There is the plan for the year. This will last right up until I have an ooh shiny moment. But it is nice to think I have a plan.