House on Horseshoe Bend

I have received the model back from the printer. It is looking pretty good. I made the windows and doors of the house separate from the frame. The porch and porch roof & railins are separate items as well. I also had the chimneys printed separately and the foundation columns. Once he brought them to me today, I realized that I was lacking steps up to the porch. I spent a few minutes working on that and sent him a new file. the plan is to attempt to assemble the building on a base. I have sent a set of steps to a friend to print as well.

The roof will be scratch built. I have ordered several sheets of shingles from Warbases. Somewhere I have a a sheet of their 15mm shingles that I will need to find. The new building will be taller and wider than the exising building that I have. Since I have no pictures so far of what is printed, I took a screen shot from Thingiverse of a partially assembled structure.

I am working on the base blocks currently. I am attaching brick paper to them and then will glue them to the base. This is slow going.

In the mean time, an order from TRE Games just game in. I received three packs of Snake Rail Fencing and a windmill. All useable for What a Cowboy and the fences for AWI Sharp Practice. Honestly, these seem to be a complicated model. They are very small pieces of wood and the instructions are the same as if I were to attempt to build these at actual size. The windmill looks relatively easier. What I like is that TRE Games put some painters tape on the back of each sprue to prevent the pieces from falling out in transit. For such small pieces, this is great.

The next best part is the smell of the cut wood that comes with opening each pack. I really like that. I do think I will need additional sections of fencing. TRE Games was very good with communicating and sent updates from ordering on Sunday to delivery today. I am looking forward to trying some more of their products.

Mountain Lard Prep

While working on completing preparations for Mountain Lard, I have finished with fitting the miniatures to their sabot bases. I have decided to lay out the table and run a practice game with what I have. I still want to replace the plantation house with a larger one. Hopefully, I will pick up the replacement building this week.

Here is the table layout so far.

I think I will add a few more trees to the overall layout. In addition, I was not happy with the snalke rail fencing that I have. I have several sets. The first is from Terry Haney that are rather nicely based. These are great but only have enough to barely surround the farm itself. The fecing that is extending past the end of the house is some that I had made. It does not fit in with the other fencing that I have. I just placed an order from Tre miniatures for some of the fencing that they have for salw. I like the look of it in the pictures on the site but will see what I end up with.

I had purchased some additional milita figures on eBay and they arrived this week. I am not sure what I will do with these. They look far more uniform than the others that I have. I may use them for long service militia. Or just a regular unit. Will have to see.

House on Horseshoe Bend

As I close in on finishing the miniatures for the Battle at the House on Horsehoe bend, I am dissatisfied with the plantation house that I have. It is an old model from Old Glory Miniatures from their Americana line that is now discontinued. It is a great model. Well built and very robust. But, it is too small to represent one of the grandest houses of the North Carolina back country. As such, I am looking at how to build one. The house itself should be simple as it is basically a large rectangle. There are two chimneys, one on either side centered on the house. On the front and back there is a porch that extends the entire width of the property. There are five smaller windows on the front and back of the upstairs. The front of the house has four windows and a central door. The back has two windows and two doors. One door is centered with a semi-circular window above the door and another door to its right that blends in with the rest of the wall. The two windows are to the left. The house is raised on some brick supports and there are steps up to the front and back porch. There is a low railing across the front and back porch.

My thought is to make a model of this in tinkercad. I am going to divide this into multiple parts. The first one will be the main building. Then the brick supports that the building rests on. Next will be the chimneys followed by the porch roof, porch base and railing. Or so is my thought. The base building and the planking is done. I have made the front door and attached it. The windows are next. There will be 3 different designs. The first level all have the same look. The second floor also has the same design. On the two ends, there is an even narrower window that is for the attic. All are similar in design so that once I get the first floor windows done, I should be able to knock out the others based off of it.

I will shingle the roof once it is printed. The reason being that I am unable to figure out how to model shingles in tinkercad. And I am likely too lazy to learn.

This is what I have so far.

I have decided to separate out the base building from the doors and windows. I have also eliminated the roof as this will be added later.

The Mountain Lard Scramble

With a goal in mind, I managed a few hours of work to get miniatures rebased for Mountain Lard. The rebasing efort went fairly well. The bases and sabots were flocked.

Once that was all dry and set, I began to work on the bases to get them to fit back in the Sabot bases. This required a good bit of trimming. In some cases, i had to cut away part of the base itself to make them fit back into the sabot. The process was rather time consuming.

Once fitted back to the sabot, most of the figures held in rather well. I am just over half way through with the rebasing effort. I am pleased with the look. The new basing has recuced the width of my troops considerably from the original penny basing. I would say the frontage is about half of the original. I have round leader sabots for the leaders giving a number on the back to identify which leader is which. Given this, here is Colonel Philip Alston's Regiment of Militia.

Actually this is larger than force as he only have a three groups of militia. I have a three more groups to finish off. Then I have to figure out basing for a "skirmish" group. I am not sure how I will handle that yet. I also am looking at what figure to use for Colonel David Fanning. I think I will just pick on of the Provincial officers that I have so he will be in a suitable red coat. And just because one can never have too many militia, I just bought another group of 12 militia off of eBay. These probably won't be ready for the game. But I am getting closer to being ready for April.

Mountain Lard - Sharp Practice Game

Coming up in April, there is an event in North Carolina called Mountain Lard. I am going to be able to go. I would like to play some games while I am there but I thought I might run a game of Sharp Practice. I am looking at running the Battle of Horseshoe Bend that also happened in that state in 1781. The battle is a rather small one that occured on a house on a small hill amidst some fields. Over the weekend, I have been working on my Militia troops to rebase them. I have them all rebased now with texture on the small bases and they just need some flock. The movement trays is the tricky part. The figures still need to fit in the movement trays. I primed the trays black and then painted the tops. I need to add some sand and flock to the tops of the movement trays still. I figure just a couple of hours of work is left to get these ready for the game. After that, I need some kind of markerson the bases to signify which troop types are which to help the players. That and review what other things I need. (Unloaded, Shock and the like. I really don't have enough casualty figures. I have a few but never enough.

Once all of the figures are sorted out, I am going to cull through my terrain collection to attempt to sort out if I have what I need. I think I do. Most of the battle is over open fields. The house in the center of the table is the focal point of the battle where the defenders are hiding.

I am thinking about making some filler spots for when losses are raking on the movement trays. I had printed a bunch of tricorn hats from the Henry Turner miniatures that I bought. Gluing these to a stand and dropping it in the empty spots when a casualty is taken. This is the lowest priority on my list at the moment. This should be a fun event.

What A Cowboy - Project Wargaming Buildings & Warbases

I had a couple of buildings printed for me that I bought from Project Wargaming. One is the two story Saloon. It has a fully detailed interior with both floors playable. It is really nicely built with an external staircase on the outside. The supports were not as difficult to remove as I thought they would be. The front overhand and boardwalk also printed well and I was able to get the supports off without too much trouble.

The second building is the corner store. That has an angled overhang and boardwalk that the supports have been driving me crazy. The building comes with a printed base that the overhand and boardwalk are part of. It also includes options where these are separate. I am still removing the supports from within it. Hopefully, I can complete that job later this week.

I have also bought some small store buildings. These are really nice as they are basically one building with three different false fronts and multiple roof and awning options. I have printed one in the past. I would like to print a few more. Once I figure out how to keep flat items from curling up on my printer.

I also dropped an order for a few Warbases buildings that I am waiting to show up. I picked up items with two purposes in mind. To have a trading post type of settlement and then more buildings for the main town. These buildings will have a different look from the 3d printed ones that I have. I am not sure yet about using them together. Will have to see after they come in. I am looking at what I can do to base these buildings. I think the 3d printed ones would definitely need it as they will be much more fragile than the Warbases buildings.

I still have a cantina from Sarissa Precision that I need to complete as well. The Sarissa buildings seem finer with their details than Warbases. Having the variety is a good thing though. I am also thinking about some Game Craft Minis buildings and some Tre Games buildings.

Much still to do.

What A Cowboy - A School House

I have had absolutely no time to paint over this past weekend. No progress was made on the existing miniatures either. But, I did have a late night at work monitoring things and had time on my hands. I began to work on a School House for my town. I managed to make a mock up of the school house based on the one from some pictures that I found and the excelent paper model from Eric Hotz's Whitewash City. Here is what the model looks like in TinkerCad. It is just small enough in 1/100th to fit on my build plate!

I have the files sliced and ready to go. I am not sure about the roof. I was trying to figure out what to do with it. I did not put in a stove pipe into the roof. I probably should go back and do that. The roof on the Whitewash City model was a planked roof. Many of the buildings that I saw pictures of had a shingle roof. I have some left over shingle sheets from either Sarissa or Warbases that I may use for this. That could provide a nice look to the building. I made the planking effects go deeper this time into the building to try and have them show up in the scale. So far I am happy with what io have done.

One shange is that I did not include a boardwalk section in front of the building. The one I did for the small office did not work out that well. It lifted up during curing and was so thin that it broke in half while pulling it up off of the curing plate. I will need to create something for that but it will be so thin, I am looking more towards scratch building the boardwalk rather than printing one.

Anyway, it has been fun to work on. I will throw it up for free on the PayHip site once I have a chance to print it myself or get someone to.

Weekend Update

Sharp Practice - AWI

Saturday was rather productive. I made some progress on my AWI miniatures. The British Legion had some bases finished off for their first group. I went as simple as possible given the small size of the bases and trays.

I have the other group to do as well.but still it is good to have at least one completed. The infantry has one group that is at about 60% painted. Another that is 10% painted and an additional four big men and a standard bearer that are just primed.

I was able to get a few minutes to work on the bases of my provincials. One group is rebased but needs finishing. I still have plenty more to rebase and even more to paint.

The British Legion Cavalry didn't get touched. I have 8 cavalry that are six cavalrymen, a bugler and an officer. Then I have more command figures. At some point, some will have to be used as troopers. To save myself some painting, I will likely only paint 1 bugler. I also have horse holders and horses to account for a dismounted group.

Lastly for the AWI, I have all seven of my Militia groups on the new basing. I have a single group of militia skirmishers remaining. I am happy with how these are looking in formation.

What A Cowboy

For WAC, I painted up the Peter Pig Sheriff figure. I really enjoyed painting this. I am not a great painter, but it was fun painting him up. I still need to base these miniatures.

I also managed to get most of a store done for the Mexican town. I think I will change the windows. But it is close to done. I should have enough terrain now for a game on the Mexican village. I have number of buildings still in my want list at My Miniature Factory still but I have enough to start.

I also started work on a train station. I had no idea what I was going to do with the building. I decided to start with painting the brick and stonework on the building. THen I will drybrush over this. I want to wood to be painted and have the building look well maintained. I just don't know what to do with it yet. I need to google some pictures.

Painting Update

Over the weekend, I managed to get two sets of Peter Pig Character packs primed. I started to paint them on Monday night. The hats, pants and duster are done with one of them. They are fun to paint up. I should be able to finish up at least one pack this week.

I have been eyeing some terrain to purchase for WAC. At the moment, I am sold on some Warbases 15mm Cactus Creek buildings. In working our the area surrounding the town, I am trying to figure out buildings that can be part of the town and in the outskirts as well to get the most bang for my buck. But I just found a new to me company - Tre Games. They are US based which is helpful for me as postage will be less. There are a number of buildings that are of interest. Some will be of use for ACW or AWI as well. I am particularly interested in the windmill and the mill building. The mill would be fantastic for AWI games.

Using the Knuckleduster book Cowtown Creator as a guide, I am looking at making a "trading Post" and a "Hog Ranch" for the outskirts area. A Trading post would be a single business structure with some outbuildings that would offer trade opportunity for outlaws, homesteaders, Indians and others living outside of civilization. The Hog Ranch is an illicit pleasure district that would spring up outside of a town. There would be saloons and several small cabins with some outbuildings. I focused on these buildings for my pending Warbases order. Turner Miniatures just released a new set of miniatures for British Legion Cavalry. That has gone into my cart at MyMiniFactory. I need to get back to painting up my British Legion. Maybe I will do so this week. There are just two groups of Infantry that need wrapping up. Also I have cavalry that are next on the list. I paint so slowly but hopefully I can find some time to get a bunch done. I need to get a game on the table.

I started painting the bases to my British Legion last night and finished up the painting on one of the Peter Pig Character figures. It needs a little help with the basing but it is mostly there in mounted, foot and deceased form. The room was dark and I ended up using the flash. The picture is better but still bad.

I also started work on the base of one of the Turner Miniature horse casualties for the British Legion. I need to pick up the pace with the British Legion. I pushed it to the side too much lately and need to wrap this up. I have at least one more group of cavalry to do. I have five mounted troopers and three mounted officer figures. I will use at least one of the officers as another trooper. I also have a pair of standard bearers and something like 3 buglers.

Somewhere along the way, I managed to delete all of the files on the thumb drive I was using to 3D print with. Not sure what happened there. I also had some trouble with my vehicle. The radiator cracked and it was overheating. Too much money later and I have a working vehicle again. Ugh. I need more miniature time to recover from that.

Weekend Work - Mostly What A Cowboy

With the storm rolling in and all of the conflicting events that I had canceled, I did manage to get quite a bit of painting time in. I was able to glue and prime some Peter Pig Character figures for What a Cowboy. I really like the character packs. They come with a mounted, foot and dead version of the characters. The aim is to field at least four gangs of up to five figures each with a mounted, foot and dead version. I would eventually like to get some plains indians as well to complete my Battle of Adobe Walls scenario.

The first thing I finished was a World of Pratheron small adobe house. I painted the roof and the base building separately and apparently forgot how I was painting them. I may have to redo the roof as it does not match the base of the house. I really don't want to redo the roof. Will see if I get around to this.

Then I was able to work on the bank building from the same vendor. It is a really nice building that was designed for 28mm figures. I shrunk it down to 1/100th scale and had it printed. It came out great. Some of the details are a little less distinct in the print. Painting the walls, doors and floors under the overhangs was painful. I was wanting the building to come our closer to the bottom portion of the small house above but instead more of the base color came through than I thought would. I think I am happy with it as it is and will not tinker with it too much further. The interior of the buildings are just painted black. All 3 levels can be opened and they fit together with small pins glued to the bottom portion.

To the right of the bank building are two of my design. I don't know how to apply textures to 3d Prints yet so the canvas tops of the two buildings are a bit plain. I attempted to give them a wash of Army Painter Soft Tone but that beaded up and looked very strange. I ended up repainting it once that dried. The false front tent is going to get some signage for a Cafe or a Diner. Something along those lines. The print came out well. The wooden planks on the front and the lower wooden portion are visible but not as distinct as they were in Tinkercad. I may just use a fine point sharpie and draw in some lines holding down the tarps. I haven't decided yet how to finish these.

In the background you can see the Bear, Bison and wolf that I had painted earlier. I messed with the bases some. Still not overly thrilled with them but they are done enough for the time being. These are also visible in the picture of the campsite along with the single Longhorn that I have painted. The woodpile and tents are nice. For somereason, the one bedroll that is not fur is shiny. I didn't use any gloss paint on it so I don't know what happened. Hopefully I can get a can of matt varnish soon and fix it. I need it to protect the buildings I have painted anyway. The tents came out OK. The models had plenty of texture for the soft tone wash. I have a campfire to paint but didn't feel like painting it. I have several camp fires for my Sharp Practice armies but the basing is better suited for the AWI than the desert. I will have to get around to it at some point.

One interesting piece so scatter terrain that I had printed up was a hand water pump and bucket. This is a neat little item. It printed well in 1/100th even though the print was designed for 28mm models. This will be great for any yard in a town or farmstead.

Lastly, I have a house under construction. I actually have 3 different ones that I have had printed out for me. I like the model but I don't like how the first one came out. I also have three piles of cut lumber that I can place as scatter nearby. I painted it in Army Painter Pale Sand and then washed it with Soft Tone. It just doesn't look right. I have looked but I have not found anyone with a painting guide for fresh cut lumber. Any suggestions? You can see where the soft tone just beaded up on the model. I guess that the texture on the model is not workable with it.